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.

Swans are old hat around here. Manningtree has its own colony. They are beautiful, but a bit of a pest. they congregate along side the road, next to the water, and have a tendency to walk out in front of cars and nap in the middle of the road. We also have resident black swans. Now they ARE gorgeous!

Yes saggy but t'other stoat was a dead one so you've probably got Live Mammal of the Day.

Cool!

I'm on a hunt at he moment for American Signal Crayfish. I can't wait to actually see taste one!

On the Broads trip I mentioned earlier, a pair of black swans turned up right next to where we were moored and began 'dancing' - each imitating the other in almost perfect synchronicity. Beautiful indeed. Culminating in, ahem, a 'David Attenborough' moment. Very educational for DD.

Today was the most beautiful day and I had 20 mins to stop and eat my sarnies on a gorgeous beach while a gannet lazily flapped round the bay and skylarks burbled on the cliff behind me. No sharks or otters but couldn't have been lovelier.

Then I had to go back to work but the rest of the day was so much better.

Yesterday was really hot and I saw a yellow bumblebee, an orange one and a honey bee. Lots of hoverflies too.

at black swans.

We have a canal and a river running in parallel so there are loads of swans around here.
Every spring they gather in the fields along the edge of the river and as the crops grow they move along to the next field until they run out of places to go then they disappear until next year.

There's always loads of swans in town on the Brayford as well.
We also have lots of stoats or weasels around here, it's very difficult to tell the difference because they usually move so quickly.

Looks like our humming birds are arriving back again (I'm in the BC Rockies) after having the sense to overwinter in Mexico. I saw the first one today :) Hope the weather improves for the poor little blighters soon!

I love this thread, have nothing to add because I live in the city and just about know what a pigeon looks like but I love reading this so I'm marking my place hope no one minds :)

Lots of....ahem... MUSTELIDS then

I remember that one from March.

Daen - even cities have wildlife. You might have to look a bit harder, but every park and even wasteland may have something. Extra points for urban spots

What a lovely thread

I'm on the outskirts of a city in nearly-northern Europe. Today in my garden I've seen:
Red squirrel
Fox (there's a den in my neighbour's garden with 3 cubs, aww! Dog fox is very bold and mostly diurnal]
Green woodpecker
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
Black redstart

Apparently there are also racoons here, but I haven't seen one

Did you see on the Shard programme last night about that little fox which made its way up to the 40-somethingth floor and was rescued? For some reason I nearly burst into tears at that. Something to do with the bewilderment of animals as we slowly creep insiduously over the earth and they have to try and adapt to their changed world

No I didn't see that - our satellite's gone on the blink since the trees suddenly got all their leaves this week It would have upset me too. I saw a programme about wolves in the US recently and the hunters' attitude made me weep.

Daen- peregrine falcons in our local city, living on the pigeons!

Daen- I am on peregrine falcon watch in our local city very soon. I bet you have them too- they'd love your pigeons.

Sorry! Mumsnet vanished just as I posted. Didn't mean to go on. (Spectacular birds though!)

Do you know, I am 90% certain I just saw a fawn from my train window. In a field, in the long grass near a solitary tree, I saw two little ears, a slender muzzle on an elegant neck, and a hint of tiny straw-coloured body down on the ground. It was the ears, really. A very distinctive outline.

So far today my bird feeding station has attracted
Blue tits
Great tits
Coal tits
Long tailed tits
Robins
Dunnocks
Wood pigeons
Jackdaw
Magpie
And 5 squirrels!

And DH found a huge hedgehog rooting around in our recycling last night

I miss Jackdaws. We have Hooded Crows here, so handsome, but not as cute as Jackdaws.

The fox ran across next door's garden earlier. My dog went nuts and the cat is refusing to go outside again!

Peregrine Falcons in our city too, living in the Cathedral Tower. I wonder if I live near barbarian?

Just swans in the field for me again, a pair of blackbirds in the school drive. Mrs blackbird was chasing Mr Blackbird. I think he'd been out on the beers last night and had woken her up when he staggered in with the dawn chorus.

Where are you people who don't have Canada Geese? We have bloomin hundreds of em (apart from the one that BastardDog caught during the April thread).

Hummingbirds!!!!

I think we need to ask that people give an idea of their location in their hover again as my mind is boggling at some of these sightings.

And regarding weasels and stoats

A weasel is weaselly recognised and a stoat is stoatally different

Hmm, my dog has just mauled a dying collared dove in the garden. I think that counts as a spot, but it might not be in the spirit of things.

I think he had just witnessed a cat attacking the dove, from his Neighbourhood Watch Command and Control Point by the living room window. There was lots of squeaky over-excited barking, so I let him out and he investigated with extreme prejudice.

In his defence, it was just a speedier end for the poor beastie, though I don't imagine that compassion was his motivation.