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.

Bloody iPhone!
There's nothing wrong with being a dung beetle. They are gorgeous!

Don't worry Ariel you are amongst friends here! Some one I know set fire to his next door neighbours roof with one of those lantern things....and don't get me started on all the plastic stuff we wade through on the beach, not least the tiny fragments which have been in the sea so long they have been ground down to the size of grains of sand, and then get mistakenly eaten by little critters...

Grimma could your tiny flowers have been storksbills? There's a sea storksbill thats magenta and very low growing as I recall, and sea pearlwort is a tiny 5 petalled white flower.

I found one of the wire frames from a chinese lantern inside my horse's haylage. Could have been very nasty. I also found a balloon and card from a balloon race in my haylage.

I am such a killjoy at any event where balloons are released or lanterns are set alight. At school I bang on relentlessly about balloon releases being tantamount to mass littering - but now school claims they use biodegradeable balloons Oh yeh, over what period?

Dung Beetles are, however, fabulous.

Ah, the myth of biodegradeable plastic. Why can't people understand that it can't just be erased from existence, and the smaller the particles, the more long term damage it does? Take a balloon/bag which remains in one piece. Seal eats bag. Chokes. Dead seal. End of. Take lots and lots and lots and lots of tiny, broken down plastic particles with all their chemical nasties in including oestrogen mimicking chemicals, and attracting surrounding pollutants like a magnet. Plankton eats plastic. Bait fish eat plankton. Larger fish eat baitfish. Human eats all the accumulated plastic in the foodchain. Nice. Or alternatively, seal eats larger fish. Orca eats seal. Suddenly you have one rather polluted orca, its fertility and resistance to disease seriously impaired. I know of course plastic is only part of the problem but quite why people think it's ok to scatter it merrily through the environment I have no idea.

Sorry, I know I am preaching to the fully converted here

Round here a bunch of hippys creative types do an annual lantern parade where they have a weekend workshop making giant creations, light them and parade them through town and then float them off down the river. Every bloody year. Then I find some of the wire frame remains on the beach and have to drag them to a bin I've got to say though the plastic bag ban here in Wales has made a huge difference, the bushes opposite our local Tesco used to be festooned with bags and now it's clear and I have a cupboard filled with bags for life as I'm always forgetting the buggers

My nature spot for the day is Yellow Flag Irises, there is a stand of them down by the river and every year they are my favourite thing. Oh and some very hot whippets

But those stupid activities spoil our fun (not to mention the seal's etc ... the term 'killjoy' is accurate if applied to the idiots.). I'd rather see a turtle or a seal than a stupid bit of plastic or a lantern.

Next time the matter arises, whoever wades in first come and round up support from us!

I will be there Even if you are in the Shetlands!

I wish England would follow Wales's example re the plastic bags. One problem is there isn't an equivalent tier of government but that's a whole other thread :).

Lost, you should drag the lantern remains, perhaps adorned with a dead guillemot or two, to wherever the idiots are having their next hippielanternfest and force them to acknowledge the problem.

chix - no, it wasn't either of those. I can't find any good plant ID sites online - the ones I've found so far are too technical for me.

Lost - oh, lovely, I was thinking the wild irises should be out soon. There's lots of wild waterlily leaves emerging from the depths of canals and ponds too.

I will be there too, re the lanterns and litter. My friends house burnt to the ground when one of them caught in the thatch. They just got out but lost everything.

My particular hate is packaging and especially those very strong plastic meshes that hold fourpacks together. Please please cut them up before you dispose of them!

There was a photo in the paper this morning of a hedgehog with its head stuck in a discarded tin. Apparently it has been rescued and is recovering but it just breaks your heart. The fact that it was tinned carrots is a whole other topic .

at your friend's thatch Barbarian I simply cannot understand why chinese lanterns are not just banned outright.

Do keep up Exit! That photo was linked here only yesterday evening!

My particular hatred at the moment is fucking anglers and their discarded hooks and lines. Fishing net and line is virtually indestructible.

And I thought that was funny Ariel (dung beetle ). We are thronging with swallows here its fabulous, mayflies hanging about - there woud be more if it wasn't for hungry swallows

How about May bugs? Anyone seen one of those? They are pretty much the size of a flying car.

Sorry

Tis too hot to concentrate.

I daren't go near water at the moment with mad spaniel so I am missing all the duckings and goslings

May bug here last night Ariel, rushed for camera but it maybugged off.
(Oh yes to fishing line.)

Bit peeved that nobody fainted with awe at my peregrine chicks.

My particular hatred at the moment is fucking anglers

well don't do it then.

(. Sorry. I've been trying to stop myself saying that all day]

Grimma

Wow peregrine chicks? Actually that is pretty cool, where did you get to see those?

I was going Peregrine chicks!! And was making my way up through lantern and balloon rage to comment on them. Wow just wow.

Wild water lilies like Grimma said, saw those for the first time a few days ago in the Dee. Lots of a particular weed with bright pink flowers. Tall it is, and very jolly.

Off wild camping this weekend so am revving up to spot something awesome.

! Grimma
Peregrine chicks on Derby Cathedral

Nature on Culture gives you double spot points barbarian.

Thank you, thank you (bows), and while I am about it, thanks so much for sorting out proper winter weather for the UK. I have thought of you now and then, these last three winters, as I toiled through the snow drifts.

it was nothing. Amazing what a letter to the editor of The Times can achieve isn't it.

Peregrine chicks you say? On a cathedral? I concur, double pointage!

Arf arf at fucking anglers! Badoom tush!

Today on MN here - I think unanimous opposition to balloon launches so far!

Good I'm glad other people are concerned.

What else can we campaign about? I know - captive dolphin facilities! All these people thinking that swimming with an apex predator in a swimming pool is great for their children.