To feel incredibly privileged?

[rogersmellyonthetelly]

On Sunday as I drive to the stables, a roe deer was in the field right at the side of the road, she bounded away as I passed but she was so beautiful. Today I woke up to a cuckoo in the tree outside my window. I'm now walking my dog in the fields behind my house and have just seen a hare. Briefly but wow.

I saw a womble on the Common this morning.

TheReturnoftheSmartArse I think it might have been my son

I was ridiculously excited last week when we were out,I was in the passenger seat and saw a kestrel swoop down on a mouse,then rise up and fly along side us for a minute. It wasn't even two feet away.It was so close that I could have touched it,and you could see clearly the dead mouse it was carrying. I may be easily pleased though,but it was wonderful to see it up close like that,and while hunting too.

My mum also used to feed the foxes that lived under the shed at the back of her garden! They became quite tame.

Female sparrow hawks will make light work of pigeons...

I went right off Magpies when I witnessed one taking a young blackbird in front of it's mother....
I know that's nature...but it was awful to see.
Was quite chuffed when the local crows eventually harassed a pair of dominant magpies from their tree. Served them right, I thought!

Hares are just fabulously giant and crazy fast. When I used to go ponyriding as a teenager, hares were often in the fields I rode through, so me and pony would chase them - it's IMPOSSIBLE even when said pony caught on to the idea and would turn when they did without me asking. Horses take a good bit longer to turn than hares, though... Brilliant fun :) (we never got closer than about 30ft from them, btw)

I agree being on horseback helps with spotting wildlife. I've seen an adder and a grass snake (both within arm's reach, had I been on the ground at the time) while riding - the grass snake I actually had to stop the horse so the snake didn't get trodden on while it crossed our path. Also used to see red deer in a park, and roe deer in fields. Stoats and weasels I've seen a few times, but usually from the car - same with foxes and badgers. Buzzards and kestrels are ten a penny, but sparrowhawks and owls still have me going "oooo".

This is a fab thread - makes me realise why I love living in the country! I had goldfinches on my washing line yesterday, they're so pretty. Still jealous of my mum though - she gets great spotted woodpeckers on her bird feeders

I like rooks and crows as well - they look at you like they're thinking, it's amazing.

It is truly amazing how fast hares can change direction, isn't it? One of our dogs will chase them - she hasn't a hope of catching one but she can't help herself :)

We have quite a lot of birds nesting nearby, I was so sad yesterday to find a fledgling starling drowned in a plant pot that had filled with rain water. As Sausages said, that's nature, but it still made me sad. (Thank god the pg hormones aren't too strong yet, I'd have been blubbing for a week.)

Last summer we set the alarm to awaken us just before dawn and drove to a nearby nature reserve. We walked and then sat in a hide and saw amazing things-

black Cormorants roosting in a tree in the lake middle. Then they slowly awoke as the sun rose and upon stretching out their wings, looked just like a Japanese painting as they sat on the branches, silhouetted in the dawn mist.

Albino slugs crawling across the path

Baby Barn Owls twitting for their parents as they flew back and forth in the last moments of the dawn

Great clouds of bats returning to their base-a converted 2WW pill box. They swirled around our heads as we sat on a fence watching them and their squeaks seemed to be inside our heads.

The rumps of deer as they skittered back into the bracken and the occasional tardy youngster standing on the path, staring at us.

Kingfishers darting back and forth and the rustle of Reed Warblers as they clambered up and down the reeds.

Then we collected the morning papers and went back home to be in bed by half past seven for a few hours lie in on a Saturday morning that already seemed busier than any city centre yet we were the only humans about in that reserve.

My bedroom window looks out to the sea. Imagine my delight to see a sea otter hunting in the rock pools one evening! At least, this is what we've concluded it must have been. Definitely not a seal because it was running around on legs, and not a large rat because...it was just too ottery! There was a bit of competition with the local seagulls - no idea what they were hunting.

I see hawks, large and small, the odd snake, ghekos, there was a humming bird on my rosemary last week, and of course rabbits- lot's of them running around and the odd one in my dog's mouth. Last year I saw a kingfisher while on holiday. Oh, and tarantulas. Huge ones which are called arana pollo, or spider chicken, just because of their size. There is a puma round our way too, haven't seen it myself-only on CCTV- it comes down from the mountain in the night for water. See horses most days, with their cowboys.

Never seen a Womble out in the open

Ooh, forgot - last year we saw llamas and I have seen a sloth, but that wasn't local

I watched the cormorants flying in tonight and saw hobbys while out walking the dog, when I take him for his evening walk at the right time we are often snuck up on by a barn owl. If I venture out on a long walk into the depths of the fen we see tawny and long eared owls. The cuckoos can be heard most days now and the garden is full of reed buntings, goldfinches, greenfinches, long tailed tits, blue tits, robins and wrens. This morning a heron flew over on it's way down to the fen.

I am extremely lucky to live where I do.

Gosh, you lot are lucky!!!!!

We see a lot of deer up here.
Yesterday I saw a stag accross the road munching on grass, in the early hours you can see herds of them, mainly in the winter but May is winter this year, and there's still loads of snow on the hills.
We sometimes see seals in the loch, and there's otters and pine martens, though haven't seen them for a while.
I used to put out bread and jam for the pine marten and it used to come on to the window ledge when I was living at my last home. I don't anymore because I'm afraid It'll attack the cats.
One thing I've not yet seen is a sea eagle. They've not long been introduced in an area about 7 miles away.
There's fuck all to do in this remote part of the Highlands but we do have an abundance of wildlife.

in my last house, i felt incredibly priviledged; there were dozens of bird species in the garden, including a huge family of pheasants who were extremely tame, a hare who bounded about on the lawn, a colony of bats who were extraordinary to watch when they came out of their roost at dusk and my favourite was a hawk who used the fields around to hunt everyday.

I'm desperate to have the birds in my new garden, but though i'm still in the middle of the countryside, i now have lots of neighbours and they all have cats!

taken this afternoon in the garden

Vic, the almost tame, and almost bald fox

starling babies being fed by their parent

Oh yea, hellhath, I'd forgotten about the herons. I keep seeing them recently - I love how much they look like pterodactyls when they're flying.

Oh, and bats, yes, they're fabulous. My house and the neighbour's curve round to make a sort of mini courtyard which much be some sort of insect heaven a few feet up - we get bats circling most evenings in the summer. They're a bugger to see though, they're so fast. And swifts, swallows, and house martins too. I love swifts, their screaming noise is just wonderful - makes me think of summer every time I hear them.

Adora - I have the strange feeling you might not live in the UK?! Hummingbirds in the garden, how fantastic :)

We're in the Chilterns so there are lots of Red Kites. They're absolutely massive. Also lots of deer which go right through a couple of gardens and across the lane at the top of the village every evening at dusk.

I saw micro pigs in the garden centre yesterday.