UKH

Seen tonnes of stuff and got some good photos.  The male tawny owls have been cleared away from the nest sites by the females, mocking blackbirds often give their presence away.  Broods of Grey Wagtail, Canada Geese and Mute Swans.  Roe Deer galore, and fawns have been spotted.  Whitethroats, Blackcaps, Chiffchaff, Willow and Sedge Warblers.  GS Woodpeckers, Treecreepers and Nuthatch.

On the downside, a cat mawled a young Robin out of the nest next to our kitchen window, so I'm sat here on anti-cat duty.

Great view of a Kestrel.  I've watched these birds a lot where I walk my dog and reckon worms are a big part of their diet (and buzzards, eating worms that is, not ketsrels eating buzzards).  I once watched a Kestrel perched in a tree and it would spot a worm 30 feet away and pounce on it.

First brood of blackbird and song thrush got raided but don't know if it was a cat.

White tailed eagles showing 'interest' in lambing. Sandpiper and others on eggs.

http://www.colinmoody.com/Site/Blank.html

Saw a sparrowhawk perched on the garden fence yesterday, which was a first.  Lovely bird.  When it eventually flew off, there followed a lot of squawking from nearby blackbirds.

T.

Great photo.

Less grand, but while out walking in a rather beautiful area close to home I've only properly discovered since the Peak has been out of bounds I've seen a lot of little black and white solitary burrowing bees in a little pasture in a clearing in the woods.  Ashy mining bees, as it turns out.  I'd never heard of them and as far as I know I'd never even seen one before though they're quite common.

Beautiful little creatures, and apparently very tolerant of big lumbering mammals sticking camera lenses right in their faces.  Here's one just emerging from her burrow.

Great eagle photo's.

I've really enjoyed my local patch, and getting into the detail.  Even found a slab of fossilised ripple marks in a stream bed.

This mute swan had 7 cygnets tooked under her wings.  And after I took this photo, saw a heron catch a bream which it could hardly swallow it was so big.

Went for a little walk and tea-time picnic on the Lancs moors on the hot day last week; lots of skylarks, wheatears, curlews and lapwings to be heard and seen; unfortunately also lots of gulls and motorbikes (maybe should have walked a bit further but wife still not fully covid recovered).

Best unexpected bit was really good views of a male stonechat that was perching on fence posts by the wall and letting us get pretty close (<10m) before flitting along to the next post.

The classic shot, beautiful bird.  Whimbrel have been spotted flying through near me, always worth a double check at this time of year.

Just had a cracking view of a yellowhammer that I have been stalking for a few weeks. Thought they had moved on as didn’t see or hear them for well over a week but no, usual position. They are unusual in Radnorshire.

We have had plenty of nest raids recently, the blackbirds have been had by cat and magpie, on their third nest now. Our blue tits in the camera nest box with 8 chicks suddenly became 4. We switched on to find a woodpecker’s head doing an impression of the Shining stealing chick #4. A few hasty alterations to the box have seemingly repelled the sabre beaked invader.

Been intrigued by the house sparrows' behaviour recently.

There's a thriving colony in the hedge right outside the patio doors and I 've hung two feeders from an apple tree so that one feeder is approx 2 m from the hedge and the second at 4m, same height.

The sparrows will empty the first feeder but not go the extra 2 m to the second feeder even if I leave the first one empty for a week.But as soon as I remove the 2m feeder from the tree they are all over the 4 m one, emptying it within a couple of days. Odd little fellows.

You weren't at Lead mines clough were you, saw one there a couple of weeks back, which was also unexpected? 🙂

Thanks for posting and nice pics. I was surprised by a Tawny the other week on't moors. 

Saw a pair of tawnys last night, sat on fence posts next to each other.
I also saw a badger trying to catch a rabbit, which I’ve not seen happen before & was rather amusing as brock wasn’t as nippy as he needed to be! 

I've a pair of kestrels nesting under the gable end of my roof outside my office window, I could lean out and touch them! 5 or 6 chicks (hard to tell at the moment as they are gray fluffy lumps with beady eyes), last year they raised 6. Mice seem to be the dish of the day. Got some blue-tits, wagtails, woodpeckers, swifts and all the usual stuff nesting in various barns and trees in the garden as usual.

Ah you guys seem just the sort that could answer this. Does anyone know if there are golden eagles in Wiltshire? I was riding my motorbike just south of Devizes when I noted something to my right. I saw a huge eagle right beside me. I was doing 40 or 50mph and this bird was effortlessly gliding along keeping up with me for the few seconds I saw it. It veered away as the field ended. What a great sight though. 

Good shot of the owl. Always good to spot them resting up during the day. Best sighting recently was the first fox cub of the year in the back garden a few nights ago.

Dave

Did it have a white tail? 

No it looked all one colour... golden brown. And the size of it.. wow. I've seen the occasional eagle near Bath but not around here, and not so big.

A buzzard, I would guess.  I've never seen an eagle near Bath and nor would I expect to, but there are lots of buzzards in the area; same for Wiltshire.

Red kites are slowly moving westwards too, saw one on the way to Frome a little while back, but the bird you've described is a buzzard.

T.

Not my photo I'm afraid but our view of it was as good as that.

In reply to Mark Collins: nope this was about 200m along the path north of the summit of the Belmont-Rivington road behind Winter Hill.

Very, very unlikely to be an eagle; most likely buzzard as has been said.

And in somewhere like Wiltshire, any sighting would be treated as a buzzard unless there was a definitive sighting (usually means photo evidence or by someone "known" to be reliable by the birding/twitcher community).

Check the local birding/twitcher websites; anything unusual like that would be reported on there.

The white tailed eagles released on the Isle of Wight have been wandering a long way -

https://www.islandecho.co.uk/white-tailed-eagles-continue-to-venture-far-an...

so it is possible what you saw was a white tailed eagle. I don't know the ages of those released so they might not have a white tail, as this doesn't develop until they are adults.

It is always difficult judging size of a single flying bird, even more so if you were otherwise engaged but WTEs do not give the impression of being a bird bird, they look(and are) huge.

This video guide from the BTO might help - https://www.bto.org/develop-your-skills/bird-identification/videos/identify...

Dave

 Can I add Harpur porpoises in the mersey estuary over the last few weekends, around otterspool prom area, for the locals.

My apologies, maybe you did see one of the 4 juvenile white-tailed eagles released from IoW (which I didn't know about). As juveniles their tail feathers will be brown rather than the distinctive white.

They've been making some quite spectacular journeys to learn the countryside - see http://www.roydennis.org/ including over Wiltshire. Because they're gps tagged, their flights (incl altitude) are monitored. That website gives some detail, probably enough if you can remember exactly which day and where your sighting was, for you to be able to establish whether it was likely to be one of those 4 or not.

Edit: seems I can't give my previous (too quick off the mark) post a dislike 😁

Any chance of some video, especially when they leave the nest and start terrorising your cats 😁

Could be a Golden Eagle that's escaped from captivity, which I've heard of happening every so often, but as I understand it there are no longer any wild ones living in England. 

One turned up in Holmfirth a couple of weeks ago. According to its tracker it had flown 110 miles that day.

Was once in a RIB going from Rum to Canna, going full throttle, and a Sea Eagle easily kept up with us. Was few hundred metres up in the sky, but it appeared effortless.

As an aside, my mate skippering the RIB did it for a job and on his last ever outing, with his children in the boat, a pod of Killer Whales came up 

to the boat (off Rum) and circled about, swimming under the boat, then swam off.  That would have been some sight 

Was once watching a badger set from a sort of tree hide (basically a high up swing). Watched a few then climbed down the tree and waited. Three badger cubs came towards me and end up millemetres away, making barking and whimpering noises. Shooed them off but they came back. Amazing really, cute as anything.

Think I remember your kestrel posts the other year?  I get an odd sense of satisfaction,  connection  even, when I see the same animals, or relatives, continuing their lives. I see a buzzard with a missing feather, a house sparrow with white wing feathers, regularly doing their stuff

That’s cool, great the Mersey is cleaning up. Once saw porpoises 6 feet off Clachtoll rocks. My son casually spotted them. A mate was climbing at Neist on Sky and a Basking Shark came that close it filled the field of view of his cheap camera. He reckons he cud have jumped onto it!

Roe Buck earlier this week.  The grasses are more in focus than the deer, which I quite like.

Taken by my nephew near his house in Blaenau Ffestiniog. Seems to be a very good year for snakes.

Ace !

This week I saw an otter, gray wagtails and white-throated dippers in the river near my flat, and deer, foxes, rabbits and a willow warbler on the hill nearby.

All in the middle of Edinburgh.

Not sure if it is a good year in terms of breeding numbers but the dry warm weather certainly means we're more likely to come across snakes basking and also being more active than usual.

There's one of those static caravan/lodge parks in Troutbeck in the Lakes. One of the lodges is called something like "Badger lodge" because badgers come onto the decking virtually every evening for food (if you leave some out). Basically you sit behind the glass patio doors and the badgers are a couple of feet away on the other side (although the funniest bit was the mouse that cleared up any bits they left behind).

This lodge is rented out. If you've never seen live badgers (just dead ones by the road 😞), this is a great way to get an almost guaranteed close up view.

We had the unusual experience of it raining ducklings at the foot of Needle Buttress at the Dewerstone yesterday. They were on their way down to the Plym; mum flew off the top and her brood of a dozen followed her. They bounced and somersaulted their way down 30m of granite without any apparent harm and 3 of them landed in the rope bag! They regrouped and headed off down the hill to be reunited with mum at the river. Utterly charming and something I'll never see again I suspect. 

Reckon you’ve seen a rare one there, nice one. I helped escort a brood of mallard through Leigh town centre to the canal, stopping traffic etc. 

We have a fox that scans our compost pile every morning, walking across our patio and looking into our kitchen cool as you like. Sometimes he also stops by in the evening, so when we heard some animal shuffling just outside a couple of months ago we expected a fox, but were instead greeted by a curious badger. We also had deer and wild boar in the garden, the latter are not fun if you value your veggie plot...

CB

And whereas all the others will most likely scarper if you poke your head out of the door (or if you approach them), the wild boar might just tell you to FO 🐖 😁

Recently we came across a sounder (?) of wild boar on a very narrow path across a scree slope in the Erzgebirge foothills who decided it was their footpath, not ours.

After facing off for a few seconds we moved uphill for a couple of meters between some trees, and waited until the arrogant pigs walked past in single file....

Bastards,

CB

I was once stared down by a ram on a footpath in the (Welsh) borders. He was huge, fearless and clearly had no shortage of testosterone! Retreated ignominiously and had to make a detour of a mile.

Have been threatened by a big ram on the slopes of Dreish (or was it Mayar).  He was pawing the ground and posturing, thankfully it was all bluff as I didn’t fancy trying to outrun him.

Recent wildlife, I encountered a family of otter on the coast near my house a couple of weeks back.

I saw something today as close as I could ever imagine- was running in some forest with my son when I saw a very young red deer fawn hiding in the ditch.  Maybe 80cms away from my foot.  Beautiful 🙂🙂

Brilliant, a run you will remember forever

There’s a female tawny owl that hangs out in the tree outside our house at around dusk, I often see it when I put the chickens to bed.

I think unfortunately that she’s lost her mate as a few weeks back I could hear her and a male calling to each other then meeting up, now she calls but there is no response, a bit sad really.

This afternoon/evening was at Back Forest (another male stonechat but much further away). Then went up to the bouldering just below the Roaches trig point. Sitting down putting my rockshoes on when this owl silently floats past less than 20ft away and quarters low across the moorland. Beautiful.

I'm guessing short-eared owl rather than tawny because of where it was and the flight behaviour and it still being light but because I only saw it in flight I'm not sure - if I remember correctly the "ear" tufts would be flat in flight. Now looking at pictures not sure I can eliminate long-eared. Oh well, doesn't matter, was still beautiful.

It must have seen I was there so presumably it couldn't give two hoots about my presence.

Nothing spectacular, just Mrs Blackbird doing her stuff:

Well I´ve uploaded some photos of last years brood to my gallery!

Short Eared owls can appear quite big, with big gazey yellow eyes.  Seen loads, not much now, but mainly in winter.  'Quatering across the moorland' = short eared in my view.

I had a definitive short-eared sighting a couple of years ago not that far from there; from the road that goes along the top of the ridge about a mile east of the Roaches (other side of the A53).

As well as quartering about with that distinctive "long wing" flapping (can't think how better to describe it), and flying parallel to the car, it very obligingly sat on a post for a bit so we could see the ear-tufts.

Thanks - you are very privileged to have such entertainment laid on for you.

...and yesterday evening's surprise sighting, just started driving back from Stanage (usual Ring Ouzels at popular end), on the road between Stanage and Bamford and sitting on top of the wall is a Snipe!!!

Stopped the car right by it (10-15ft away) but couldn't get decent phone photos (sunset light in wrong direction).

It wasn't fazed at all by me in the (bright red) car with window down.

The silhouette photo would have been really great with a good camera.  Forget how many times I've lost a heartbeat when one has flown out from underneath my feet !!

I do sometimes get tempted for a gopro when out riding for those times without a good camera or the time to deploy it. Last night cycling came round a corner on the road just as a red kite was diving in from the other direction to grab some roadkill. Absolute superb turn and power away from it.

Once saw a Golden Eagle do the same with a squirrel in Colorado.

You or the kite? 😁 They are just awesome and it's great to see them so much (my best "driving along the M40" count a few years ago was over 50) - when I was a teenager and properly into bird-watching, a trip to mid-Wales was considered a success if you got a remote view of one.

In reply to mick:

Previous time I got a good view of a snipe was a few years ago when one landed about 20ft in front of me on the small patch of short grass in front of Manchester Cathedral as I was walking past. Its excuse was that it had just been chased down-river by a peregrine and on the ground was safer. Peregrine retired to a roof-top to resume chase when the snipe took off up-river again. I didn't see the final outcome.

I only worked out what the peregrine was chasing when the snipe landed (and then of course it was obvious), the possibility of a snipe in the built up center of a large city hadn't previously occurred to me.