Outdoorsy Shite Top Trumps: March

[Slubberdegullion]

Flora or Fauna.

Extra points for a photo.

Handicap will apply to those in Forrin. Monthly win will not automatically go to, for example, a Cougar spot. The Cougar will need to be doing something awesome, like fighting a bear or doing sudoku.

In my sons' interminable boring skateboarding videogames you get big bonus points for "combinations," i.e. doing two or more tricks together. The bee/catkin combo is very effective, and should get a bonus.

I'm getting pleasure just by living the bee/catkin combo vicariously.

In fact this whole thread is giving me alsorts of vicarious pleasures. If I really involve myself mentally I might be able to conjure up a confabulated basking shark spot (which would be freaking AWESOME considering I live in the middle of Cheshire).

Yes indeed. It is as cheering as the sparrows' tummies in the son.

That would be 'sun' not 'son'. It's only my dog and not my children that swallows sparrows.

According to wiki Slubber they can be 6-8 meters in length, you reckon we could get one in the canal? I spent a ridiculous amount of time staring out to sea in the hope of getting a game winning porpoise/dolphin spot but nothing, people must have thought I was attempting to look all mysterious and mermaidy when in reality I was looking out thinking 'I'm going to spot something for that goddam outdoors shite thread if I have to stand here all day'.

The bumble bee was outrageously fat and the catkin perfect spring time acid green (tries too hard to boost her points)

Today: salt marsh lambs looking quite yummy chunky. Are there really none in the pennines yet? A flock of swans in a field. A few herons and one small white egret. My first dandelion of the year. And (unless I really wasn't paying attention yesterday) the hawthorn hedges have sprouted leaves overnight. I love the first fresh green of a hawthorn hedge.

Would like to submit blackbirds as today's spot. They may be very downmarket compared to cranes & puffins but they are definitely nest building in our hedge.

A photo would have been nice Lost, then we could all have enjoyed the bee/catkin combo.

More ducks here, but at least they have paired up now so more gang rapes going on. And the curlews of course.

I have a resident wren which I have never mentioned, but read in the paper at the weekend that wrens are now found in only 25% of gardens as opposed to 45% a few years ago.

There is nothing downmarket about blackbirds. Thanks for reminding me - today exiting house at 7:30 to get DD to bus stop, greeted by the glorious liquid sound of blackbirds singing. Set me up for the day

And more on sounds - peewits. I did see them as well as hear them, visually they were of course 'lapwings' dancing in the sky but today most definitely trading under the name 'peewit'

I have a resident wren which I have never mentioned, but read in the paper at the weekend that wrens are now found in only 25% of gardens as opposed to 45% a few years ago.

I wonder if they are really absent or just not spotted? We have one which forages in the patio pots about 1ft away through the glass so hard to miss.

Adds to the wren count. Not sure it lives with us but visits the bird table and likes to get in amongst the never get around to chopping back clematis.

We used to have loads of peewits on t'moors but I have not seen any up this way for about 5 years. Very sad.

My wren lives in the ivy bush. I love her.

Bear, head west - we have lots of lapwings in Lancashire.
I thought their demise in many places was due to changes in farming practices (cutting hay earlier maybe?) but that wouldn't explain them leaving the moors. Sad indeed - they are lovely birds.

Where? Where? I am Lancs/Yorks border.

Well, to start with the obvious, Leighton Moss(RSPB) and Martin Mere(WWT). But today just doing a bit of the Lancs coastal path up to Cockersands Abbey. Bowland fells (I particularly remember seeing some near the river Brock because someone passing asked 'what are those birds with a call like 'peewit'? '.

Seeing as my thrilling (to me) lamb spots are never met with the same excitement as puffins and fat bees, I shall not mention today's little frisky darlings. I did, however, see a buzzard looking rather fine, soaring over the top of forested hillside, all in silhouette against a grey sky.

Eyeing up your lambs no doubt

Buzzards are a fine sight. Haven't seen any this month. As it happens, the place I'm most likely to see them is at Leighton Moss or near Leighton Hall. I suppose they're the Leighton Buzzards.

May I introduce our local blackbird, who has a freak albino feather on his left wing? He's always hanging about the feeders. DS2 has developed a thing for birds and they make him screech in delight.

First primroses here too, but glimpsed from car, not on foot. Does that count?

I'd have thought sightings from cars count so long as you don't run it over (I did cite a failed suicide of a pheasant myself)

Oh My - After everything I said earlier, went up to the stables tonight and there was one, yes one, lapwing flying overhead. So not used to seeing them alone, so despite being convinced on first sighting, had to stare long and hard to ascertain, but it was, it was.

Fantastic. Hopefully flying into yorkshire not away (lancs has enough to spare, honest). Yes, very unusual to see one alone (extra points for that, surely) but there's nothing else that looks like a lapwing in flight

An extremely large rabbit (so large that at first I thought it was a hare), lolloping solemnly along the river bank.

It seemed worth mentioning because of the largeness of its body and also the solemnity of its lollop.

I hope the lollop solemnity wasn't myxomatosis.