nature notes

Thats great news, looking forward to frog updates.
We are overrun with marsh frogs around this area, but we do have a healthy British frog population in the lake. that was one of the childhood joys watching the progress of tadpoles into froglets and being amazed at how much a tadpole could eat.
Hope your new pullets are taking notes
 
Oh dear, this is worrying. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/12/garden-bird-feeders-help-spread-disease-among-wild-birds
Is it better to feed the birds and risk infection, or just leave them to their own devices?
We have those screw-on plates fixed under the feeders which are good for catching waste seed and keeping the ground clean underneath, though this is largely to discourage rats. I do clear the waste from the plates fairly regularly but don't totally disinfect everything very often.
 
Ours get cleaned once a month thoroughly. Like you ours are all hanging feeders, and mess underneath is minimal. This type of report seems to surface every so often. I would have thought it is better to feed them especially during the winter months and just observe basic hygiene.
For the Osprey fans, the 1st Osprey touched down at Rutland at 12 20ish, they are pretty sure it is Maya as bird went straight to Manton bay nest Excellent timing as it is day one of World Osprey week.
 
That's great to hear. I must get out and clean my feeders.
Also good news from the ospreys. Any owl fans living in Norfolk might like to know about this too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-43373447
 
Went and saw it yesterday at Snettisham, went to Thornham first where it had last been seen, then sighs of relief when it was relocated. Stunning bird, and luckily it was behind a fence so no photographers could get ever closer and spook her. Only my second sighting of one on UK soil.The last being a very distant one in the port of Felixstowe. Had two Sand Martin around garden on Saturday
 
Having followed the link I understand why HG wants to see one!

I am in Normandy at the moment and have seen what I presume are large egrets (certainly bigger than those I have seen before).

I also heard the bird feeding thing this morning. I do have mixed views, but where I am staying has feeders in front of the kitchen window. It attracts quite normal small birds, dunnocks, chaffinch, robins, greenfinches and more of this size/type, but it is a privilege to sit and see them about 2 foot away, behaving very normally, observing the pecking order and the way the breeds interact, without the need for binoculors and a big fuss.

We have our own giant centipede in Portugal. One night we were woken by noises in the night...in the house....in the bedroom....quite terrified....turned out to be said many legged thing caught in a plastic bag on the floor.....must get out more!
 
If they were Grey Heron sized with orange /yellow bills they are indeed Great Egrets. Smaller ones with yellow feet and black bills are Little Egrets. Slightly smaller than Little Egrets are Cattle Egrets which also have orange/yellow bills.
I knew someone who had a giant centipede as a pet, I can imagine the noise they make, very creepy. I have dislike of Scorpions, I just don't like the look of them, I think it's the way they scuttle around and turn
 
Little Egrets are becoming quite common round here, in North Hampshire. We can rely on seeing a resident pair on a water meadow next to the River Test here in Whitchurch. Beautiful birds.
I think the hedgehogs have emerged, judging by the characteristic smell coming from under the summer house, where they bred last year, which is driving the dog mad! I've started feeding them and it's disappearing every night, but of course it could be rats, that's the problem with feeding hedgehogs. Last year there was often hedgehog poo on the plate (disgusting manners but reassuring) but that hasn't happened yet this year.
 
Anyone cleaning bird feeders or bird tables please make sure you wear gloves and wash your hands carefully afterwards. About 10 years ago I contracted Campylobacter - a "food poisoning" type illness. It was very uncomfortable and although I did not suffer from D & V it was quite debilitating and you have to take the correct antibiotic to get rid of it. I'm totally convinced that it was from handling the bird feeders with bare hands and I probably rubbed my nose or something absent mindedly before washing my hands. It's a virulent bacterium , it only needs a couple of cells to start it off - and you can't starve it out, the correct specific antibiotic is the only answer.
 
Bird problems - probably not only in France, I'm afraid.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/catastrophe-as-frances-bird-population-collapses-due-to-pesticides
 
It's very much area dependent Marigold. In the vineyards to the North of us they use pesticides in a massive way and as a result there is almost no wildlife. They still use set-aside methods on the fields down here, so I think things are pretty much unchanged. In our search for property we avoided any areas with vineyards- this was because a friend of ours said the chemicals used were dangerous. Recently a study of 'house dust' in vine producing areas revealed traces of pesticides that were banned from use 6 years earlier! One village Mayor said it was so bad she was unable to open her windows during the growing season.
 
We have rediscovered our very own snake, living amongst some stones on the boundary. In the sun it lies about on the road, basking. Last year it was in a wall. Its a ladder snake, very handy if, as OH says, you need to play snakes and ladders, as its all in one!

We have something small, field mouse or vole of some sort, which scuttles from one side of the path to the other. We also have a large resident toad (bit surprising, given how hot it gets here, but its survived at least one summer) and for the first time a clutch of small frogs. Its been so wet and its so fertile, that currently there is plenty of undergrowth for them to scuttle in. Shortly this will die off in the heat and/or be strimmed.

But, todays puzzle is:

Our neighbour had/has 2 caged canaries or similar. For a few weeks I have been hearing some muffled wolf whistling but close to our house, not the neighbours. Do you think this is a)an escaped canary or b)something mimicking it? I should say that the caged birds lived outside in the summer, and did wolf whistle, but they aren't there at the mo.
 
They haven't got a Mynah bird hidden away have they, as they often get taught to do things like that.
OH says Marsh Warblers are fantastic mimics and have a wonderful repertoire which they pick up on their wintering grounds, but she did say she has never heard one make a human noise yet..
 
Do you remember the BT Trimphone if the 60s? It was one of the first to "warble" rather than ring. My mother was always rushing in from the garden to answer it because a number of the local wild birds could imitate the sound.
 
Oh I remember the the Trimphone, there was a Starling that used to sit on the telephone wire outside and imitate it and mum would rush in to answer it
 
The farm down the hill has a telephone bell in the yard, which I can clearly hear. It sounds exactly like my landline, a late 1990s model, only in the distance. I was driven nuts one day because my phone kept ringing, but by the time I went to answer it, it had stopped. Then I realised - it wasn't the phone. It was a starling, imitating the farmyard phone! He had quite a repertoire, running through the songs of all the other birds around, as well as the phone!
 
Ah, we do have starlings here, the speckledless variety, which having looked it up for its proper name I see is actually called the spotless starling. I wonder if that is the answer to my conundrum. Thanks all!
 
I've been noticing lately how some birds do the head nodding thing when they walk and some don't.
Nodding - Chickens, pigeons, starlings, some small birds as well - tits I think, when they walk which isn't very often
Leaning forward into a smooth run - Pheasants, blackbirds,
Swaggering (no apparent visual stabilization at all, at least not when walking) - Crows, ducks ...

Little things ..... !
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top