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.

One red squirrel? That's an interesting release programme. One red squirrel? If that wasn't so tragic it would be funny.

I love to see newts, I am forever hopeful that we will have some in our pathetic excuse for a pond.

It's shaping up to be another beautiful day, looking forward to taking Muttley out later.

I bet they started off with two, but lost one and are now pretending that they meant to only release one squirrel :)

Goodness. Perhaps they're hoping it will be like Jurassic Park and start spontaneously reproducing. Nature finds a way, and all that.

Hello mummylin - we were talking the other day about how newts must be worth extra points! And as for the cats and the foxes, well a cat could see almost anything off. Has anyone seen ?

I have had a Thoroughly Good Day. I went for a walk in the very strong wind and saw and heard some choughs shouting above my head and then saw them tumbling around in the gale! "Chee-ough! Chee-ough!" they were yelling. I also saw all manner of gorgeous heathy clifftop flowers like sea pinks and cornflowers, and then further inland lots and lots of foxgloves, birdsfoot trefoil and vetch. I haven't seen vetch for years.

AND THEN, I went in the sea swimming and a gorgeous little seal came up and played with me. I wanted to take her home

And I also saw some little baby shags peeping over the edge of their ledge, while the parent bird made cross noises. It didn't shit on my head, thank goodness.

Think baby weight may have trumped us all...

Not much tonight, a hobby almost took our heads off as we sat by the hide. Saw three harriers then spotted a fallow deer, a highland cow and an egret all sharing the same bit of scrape

And my son has a new bird in his room

Hellhas...not much? Sounds like an impressive days spotting to me and Ariel too.

I saw three swifts today. So amazing, scything around over a river. We have lived here for 11 years and I've never seen them before so assumed they didn't travel this far west. Just perfect and a real sight of summer.

Also discovered the most perfect wren's nest in the rafters of the shed, about 5 feet away from where the blackbirds hatched a couple of weeks ago. The nest is a little ball of moss wrapped in old fern fronds and had 3 little sleepy yellow beaked faces peeping out.

So much cow parsley in the lane now you can smell it through the open bedroom windows.

The swifts are screaming around the house tonight, we've just commented on how this is the first night we've really heard them this year. The noise is so loud sometimes but i miss it when they go.

Baby wrens? How lovely. I had to free mummy wren from or shed the other night as she'd managed to fly in but couldn't find her way out again.

Two dippers on the river, and the wild flowers are amazing. Forget me nots like blue smoke blowing down the hillsides.

will have to google now to hear what a swift sounds like...it was too windy earlier to hear the ones we saw.

also must profess to being disappinted that I failed to find bastard balm today (DH told me it grew on the reserve we visited) and was so looking forward to posting it here. Oh well.

need help to identify this insect i saw yesterday - no pics but it was like a tiny black and yellow baby dragonfly.looked like it was trying to fly - all loverly it was lacy wings and little black anntenae (sp?)
was about 2 inches long

Bats are out in force round us tonight. Swooping very close to the house tonight so there must be lots of insects attracted to the warm walls.

have insect book at the ready out2lunch as have been looking up the Beautiful Demoiselle we saw earlier...but, dragonflies don't have antenna so couldn't have been one of them or a damselfly. The only thing I can see that is dragonfly shape but has antennae is an ant lion but they are not supposed to live in Britain. Are you on the south coast?

Are Beautiful Demoiselle the bright blue ones? We watched a huge Emporer Dragonfly casually munching on an insect tonight. No idea what the black and yellow one could be though.

sorry sorry just watched end of eurovision
yes we are south coast
will google ant lion

no not antlion
i could draw it as i had a really close look
it had two little black anntenae type things at its back end too - very clumsy on table surface but eventually managed to fly off

DS says "longhorned beetle?"

just googled lhbeetle - no not that hell

it had wings lacy ones more dragonflyish but tiny

it reminded me a bit of one of those fly fishing things

He says "wasp minicking hoverfly"

have googled and no it was not waspy at all apart from colouring it had a tiny straight body like a small dragonfly

just remembered it had mosquito type legs too

Rowan flowering on our lane, there's a magenta coloured vetch as well. Bracken is unfurling at a fair rate of knots.

We had a nightingale singing its little heart out last night at about 11.30. dh and I just sat in the garden and listened got quite emotional I did -

saw more of my weird insects today in a different location so can't be that rare