May Top Trumps....wildlife geeks step this way and get your spots in here!

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

I'll start - I'm hoping that someone will do better than an infernal wood pigeon and obnoxious noisy herring gull. Before the morning is up, hopefully.

And remember, cast ne'er a clout til May be out.

I see sparrows and blackbirds every day so they became boring, it's the willow warblers and bramblings I want to be seeing.

Although the swifts are back, I've seen a few but there are more each day.

Ariel, I suppose that's why we have the handicap.

I live in quite a rural area so for me kestrels, swans, ducks, and smaller perching birds are ten a penny. I also come across pheasants, grouse and quail from now until the end of the season. Deer, badgers and small carnivores are occasional spots but I'm not out on the road early enough to see them often.
I rarely see sea birds though except when we visit my MIL.

MrsPnut, yes I've spotted some swifts too. Great to see them back, and the swallows. Haven't seen any house martins - we used to have a local colony but had none last year

The handicap is very arbitrarily applied!

South west coast selks

anyone after a tame robin- the key is to put mealworms, out at regular intervals.Gradually get closer and then hold out your hand with mealworms on it. We now have two tame ones , one is very tame and will sit on your hand to feet rather than just dashing on briefly.

I'm incredibly excited that I have a nest of blackbirds in my honeysuckle in back garden. Everytime I see the mummy and daddy bird go to the nest with a worm I grin. In my front garden I have woodland overlooking and I put a box up 4 years ago, every year we've had blue tits when do the blackbirds and blue tits fledge?

I've just spotted a tiny tiny little mouse eating the scraps under my bird feeder (or should that be squirrel feeder ) so cute

Also the Great Spotted Woodpecker has started to come onto the bird feeder so I'm hoping I will be able to get a good photo of it soon

Extremely jealous of the tame robins too but DD is too young to be able to sit quiet or still

My Fil ( or something like that - I'm not married ) has been pitying up nestboxes for years. All ignored, he now has great tit chicks in a plant pot holder under a plant pot. :)

Will I be drummed off the thread if I admit to being squeamish about holding mealworms? On the other hand, I do want to have a pet robin.

I came here to say, 'swifts today, scything over the reservoir, we've not had any of those yet have we' and blow me down, two previous spots today. Remarkable synchronicity!

MamaMia, your fledglings may appear anytime soon, our baby blackbirds have been around for a while now.

I'd love to see a swift - we don't seem to get them here. Am hoping to see sand martins tomorrow though.

Saw loads of dull looking noisy little birds all in one bush today, then realised they were baby great tits and frantic parents were rushing to and fro feeding them all.
Also MamaM had a mother blackbird feeding her giant fully fledged babies in the garden. They seemed to go very quickly from being bald little scraps to big feathered birds. I think these ones are the second brood too, so she'll probably have a 3rd lot this spring. So you shouldn't have long to wait.

our swallows are home!

All we need now is the stable bees.

Well I had a pretty good day today

Apart from a few things which would qualify enormously for the handicap, I saw a pomarine skua harassing a gull, trying to force it into the water. The gull got away - phew. I also saw a dear little puffin.

I saw an odd thing on Friday - I cam home fom work and found a magpie viciously attacking another one on the lawn - the victim looked like a young one: not a little baby but smaller than the attacker. It had lost clumps of feathers from the top & back of its head and it looked like its eye was damaged.

The odd thing was there was a female blackbird there too and twice it darted in and pecked at the attacker from behind, and then jumped away and did that dragging the wing decoy thing that some birds do to draw a predator away from thir own nest. The attacking magpie wasn't fooled though, and I started to go out to see if I could drive it away, but as soon as they saw me, all three birds flew off. Sadly, it sounded as if the attack started again in someone else's garden, but I couldn't see where they were.

Strange.

So, so, so jealous of your puffin Ariel

Our red-legged partridges are back. Saw them wandering around the cul-de-sac a couple of evenings ago, and yesterday evening I couldn't see where they were roosting (so possibly on my roof) but could hear their distinctive rhythmic churr-ch-ch-churring.

How lovely, grimma! I want churr-churning partridges on my roof.

Woke this morning to screaming swallows. And a dawn-warmed cat on the window sill, watching with regretful interest (why are those tempting flickering things out of paw's reach? Why?* )

Can someone please explain the handicap to me please?

Well may you ask, sag, well may you ask.

I think it's when someone's spot on the face of it seems amazing, but when you delve deeper it turns out they have an unfair advantage e.g. bottlenose dolphins breaching but the spotter turns out to live in New Quay West Wales, or ptarmigan, but the spotter turns out to live in a mountain hut in Cairngorm. Or basking sharks when the spotter turns out to live in West Cornwall .

There are no actual figures or mathematical formulae applied to my knowledge.

There are also things like extra points awarded for poetry of description. Just without any actual points.

There aren't any real points anyway, cos points mean prizes.....

This morning, a sleek starling busily drilled a succession of leatherjackets out of my lawn and popped them into the beaks of its four youngsters - good work!

We walked a section of the canal we'd not done before - highlight a pair of swans with eight little cygnets at the small fluffball stage. Also several sets of ducklings from tiny to half grown, and a couple of solitary lapwings pewitting as they flew.

I'm quite excited about this spot although I think it's a grass snake which isn't exactly rare! It was hissing at my dog so it wasn't very easy to get a picture. Another pic including it's head