July Wildlife Top Trumps Drag Your Wellies from the Swamp

[barbarianoftheuniverse]

I declare one common newt. Who's going to bring out the basking sharks?

Dp, auto correct almost as swear inducing as fox

Sorry to hear about your poor hens Violet. I think once the foxes have been successful they'll keep coming back for another try so your DP is probably right.

I wonder where the swarm went Grimma? We saw one in a hedge on holiday last year and it stayed there the whole week.

Golden Eagles :o 2 of them, out on a hike, walking down the road after taking photos of a white foxglove when this bloody great bird burst out of the hedge and flew onto a telegraph pole with another. They'd been eating rabbit. Absolutely huge birds but magnificently beautiful had eaten a pregnant bunny though

Golden eagles - awesome ! Only seen one once - on Mull.

We saw two wolves by the side of the road a couple of weeks ago. They were really big! Not seen them in the wild before.

Disclaimer - I live in Canada so we have some pretty interesting wildlife

Eagles, wolves !! The July thread is suddenly starting to take off! What amazing things to see.

Chix - yeah, but if those magnificent beasts present themselves, there's not much skill in spotting them - I still think your collection of insects is the best yet!

Haha yeah that's very true!

Exceedingly envious of the golden eagle, not so sure I want to spot wolves, enough problems with old Reynard.

hang on, sorry, there's rl debate over wether they were eagles/buzzards/owls pub debate sorry, insects and wolves are amazing though.

Very excited - saw a hedgehog in my Dad's garden this evening - but how sad is it that I am excited about seeing a hedgehog. Used to be commonplace - you don't even see the fecker squashed on the road anymore

My esteemed dp days They are eaten by badgers, along with ground nesting birds. We have no hedgehogs, no gardens within half a mile (so no slug pellets)

Says

I just saw a spider entrap a large bumblebee in my conservatory, just a few feet away. It was a swift and terrifyingly efficient procedure, although the spider now looks slightly intimidated by the enormous lunch it has in store.

I have read about the threat to hedgehogs from badgers, but we have no badgers that I know of.

I didn't realise that, we have loads of badgers and no hedgehogs at all, perhaps that's no coincidence.

Saw the most beautiful little lizard in my garden today. I have a v nice potting bench with a shelf above it with small potted plants on it. As I stood potting up a container on the bench the lizard appeared from between the flower pots on the shelf and sat basking about 18 inches in front of my nose. It stayed for about 10 minutes, while I quietly carried on with what I was doing.

I've seen quite a lot of squashed hedgehogs round here recently - I was wondering if there was some season when they're more likely to be on the roads, either searching for a mate or youngsters dispersing. ( I've only once seen one in our garden, but that could be because when the last dachshund was a pup DH blocked up all low-level holes to prevent escape).

Don't think its a badgery area.

Lizards! Basking!

That all smacks of sunshine and warm stones.

It was sunny here on Sunday! Ok well, mostly cloudy but a bit sunny and not wet . Back to normal this morning. Splish splosh.

Saw a six spot burnet moth on the window at work, 'twas very pretty. Said I, to colleagues " oh look a six spot burnet moth!". I got a row of faces looking like
at me...... sigh

Selks - ah, we appreciate it though.

Yesterday we saw....compound eyes and antennae.

DH went aloft to deal with - as he thought - another invasion of mice. But finding a heap of little poops in one place (right under the apex of the roof) rather than scattered around, at my suggestion he brought them down to examine under the microscope. Definitely the output of insectivores so it looks like the soffit bats are coming a bit further in.

Yesterday, a lot of shelducks and shelducklings. Also oystercatchers, redshanks, cormorants, swans - the usual estuary gang.

I love shelducks and the haunting sound that waders always seem to make. Been a bit short of decent bird spots here lately.

Sounds like your bats are making themselves at home Grimma. Still they are probably the least obnoxious mammal to have living in your house!

Saw another fab dragonfly today - a male broad bodied chaser, bright blue and v big. It sat nicely on a twig while I took a photo before zooming off. Then took DCs pond dipping in the nearby pond and found several huge dinosaour like dragonfly nymphs and a tiny newt. Fantastic watching the dragonflies ruthlessly hunting and eating the midge larvae in the bucket. Nature in the raw. Had to quickly rescue the newt and pop it back in the pond.

Dragonfly nymphs are amazing - the top predator of the pond I guess. We first found one when dipping in an Exmoor stream, it was on a totally different scale to everything else we'd found, a water dragon indeed!

Sun glorious sun :-) ladies bedstraw in profusion and butterflies, ringlet I think, they were fluttering about.