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.

Not wildlife as such, I know but, I visited my DS at the weekend and had a BBQ with his new mates, Loki the 6 week old raven, Percy the baby Peruvian Striped Owl and Twoo the baby tawny owl. DS has a very cool job.

Hooded wings is where the bird makes like a vulture and sort of wraps half unfurled wings around their meal.

Use less ful info that my cool son taught me-that is called 'mantling' and it is probably where the word mantelpiece came from (see, told you it was useless)

Very cool, Hell !

Does anyone know anything about horse chestnuts? We have some in our village whose leaves are crisping already. This shouldn't happen until August should it? Is there some horse chestnut disease doing the rounds?

Unless my annual nightmare of autumn arriving without us actually having had a summer is coming true this year

My pear trees have crisping leaf edges. Could it just be sun scorching? Or is it turning colour all the way through?

"Sun scorching?" "Sun scorching"? "Sun scorching"?

Oh. Well it is a very hot day in the SE. That might have confused me.

Leaf blotch or leaf miner Ariel?

Loved the hooded wings fact hell, and your red legged partridge soundtrack Grimma. It unnerved the dog something awful when I just played it

Bee swarm update. Mr Bee Man arrived yesterday evening and 'neath the swarm laid a white sheet on top of which he placed a wicker basket which contained bee phemerone soaked fabric (and a tiny Bee Barry White). We were told that overnight the bees would all move into the basket and then in the early hours Mr Bee Man would return and whisk them away to a happy bee place. And sure enough on arising this morning the basket, sheet and swarm had all gorn. What a lovely ending. They are all busy and productive and happy now.

Awwww a teeny weeny walrus of luuuuuurve for the bees

How cool about mantling, Hell, love it

Next door have obtained a canary and I keep cocking my ear to it in a ' blackcap ? Mistle thrush ?' way. Grrrrr.

horse chestnut tree under threat

In the last 24 hours, 2 avocets, 2 frogs, 2 (nice quiet) red legged partridges and heard a cuckoo!

A cuckoo in flight, several jays, a green woodpecker, a heron in flight and one fishing, a hen harrier, orange tip flutterbys, a kingfisher, a pike and some perch.

Wow!!!

Hellhath, I think you win the prize for the day at least! That's quite a collection of spots.

Sorry if I sounded teasy, Northey - I was feeling persecuted because the entire country had hot and sunny weather and I didn't. It was cool and cloudy. But the sun cam out about an hour ago -better late than feckin never eh?

I have seen nothing out of the ordinary today. Oh, some sandwich terns scratching away noisily.

It was a walk just at the right time of day, the visitors have gone home and the only people on the Fen are serious walkers and wildlife spotters. I heard several different types of warblers and I saw/heard the curlew plus a variety of geese and ducks. There are drawbacks to living in the rural fens but there are bonuses too.

I am full of useless facts about birds of prey as I spent far too many hours with DS sitting in countless bird hides to not absorb some of the facts he hits me with.

Buszard, pheasant and llama

Do I win?

Last time I was in a hide it was at the same time as some people who were engaged in lens oneupmanship and who looked scornfully at my camera and binoculars. They scowled at me when I dropped the lid off my lunch box and then got terribly excited about a "grey heron at ten o clock".

I left them to it.

....but not before writing "pigeon" and "seagull" in the logbook out of sheer bloody mindedness

I find people in hides helpful - if you go in and they're all pointed one way just ask what they're looking at and chances are they'll not only tell you but let you have a look through their lined-up scope.

Hell surely has a living-next-door-to-famous-nature-reserve handicap but even with that she surely wins today.

The noisiest partridge in Britain has just been doing his stuff. Beginning to wish he'd go and roost next door but one the other way, the bastard charming neighbour there probably would shoot it (he shot a hedgehog that got into his gundog's run once )

Slalom. I'll see you your llama, and raise you 3 alpacas.

Saggy

Llama, 3 alpacas and I'll raise you 4 emus

Well I'll raise you a field of free range Rhea, and see what you've got...

I don't think farm animals, even unusual ones, really count you know

If they're wild and you're in the Andes, you need to declare furrin.

Are rheas farm animals? They live at the animal sanctuary down the road.