Nature Notes

[ErrolTheDragon]

There's a gardening thread which may overlap with this one but I thought people might like to share nature sightings as the season changes. What we see if we can get out for a walk, plants coming into leaf and bloom, creatures in the garden, birds flying overhead - whatever.

Yesterday along the canal: busy wrens, 3 butterflies (tortoiseshell I think). Lots of Lords and Ladies arrow-shaped leaves. A little bank of primroses, lots of celandines and some wood anemones. Yellow iris leaves starting to shoot up in the edge of the canal.

I’m no bat expert, but I too would be a little concerned about a bat being that out in the open during daylight hours @ErrolTheDragon. I hope it’s ok!

I agree that it’s a bit quiet on the garden bird front. I guess a lot of the juveniles have fledged, which makes the parents more mobile. Having said that, this is the time of year my garden often gets visited by large flocks of tits. It’s mainly long tailed tits, but juvenile blue tits and great tits also like to tag along.

My theory is that those juvenile tits feel a bit lost after they’re thrown out of the nest by their parents. At this time of the year, long tailed tits seem to tolerate pretty much any small bird joining their flock, so it makes sense for other juvenile tits to do so. They get shown the best sites to feed and where to take shelter. In return the long tailed tits get a bit of protection from being in a larger flock. It’s a win-win.

I checked at dusk, and it had gone. My guess is that it had probably come out from its roost early because it had been very overcast and dull.

Got out for a walk this afternoon at the reservoir. Seen loads of butterflies there was common blue, small skipper, ringlet and small white. Also seen dragonflies and heard loads of grasshoppers. Loads of sheep, goats and a rabbit

The heather is starting to come out here! Such a beautiful sight ☺️

On my walk today, I scared a jackdaw who promptly flew off and landed on a wild goat that was standing nearby. I thought it was a bit odd that the goat didn’t flinch at all when the bird landed, or when the bird was hopping around on its back. Instead it was standing perfectly still while the jackdaw made its way to the goat’s head, where the bird proceeded to check the horns and the goat’s long neck hairs for insects. It’s the kind of thing you see on nature documentaries set in the African savanna, but I’ve never noticed jackdaws doing this!

That's a nice observation! Jackdaws and goats seem like a well matched couple of characters somehow.

I didn't go out today, but so many butterflies on the buddleia - tortoiseshell, red admiral, peacock, comma, small and large whites. Lots of bees too.

Does anyone know anything about deer behaviour? Yesterday we went to a nice garden, which has an adjoining deer park (I think fallow deer though I've not seen them close up).
We heard a noise, which initially sounded like a lot of corvids cawing, and then saw lots of deer running, streaming down a hill, and could hear deeper 'barking'. However, some of the deer were standing and feeding, it didn't look as though they were being chased, and there was no sign of a dog or people nearby.
Presumably the higher pitched sounds were the fawns (we could see there were lots of young) and the 'barking' was the adults. I've never heard deer being noisy before - except of course stags bellowing during rutting. Perhaps this was essentially the same as the high and low baa-ing of sheep and lambs when they're finding each other?

Today's spot was on the canal - some orange balsam. I gather this is an American import, and while not as big and aggressively successful as Himalayan, may be a problem in some areas. This looked like just one plant.

Just back from a week's camping in Cornwall. We did a few coastal walks and saw some gull colonies and hunting kestrels, some enormous bees, lots of bats at dusk and randomly two small weasels fighting in the campsite, making such a racket with their squealing.

Does anyone know what this caterpillar is?

It looks pretty big - could it be an elephant hawk moth?

It looks like it's on a willowherb, which I think is one of their food plants. I had one on my buddleia a couple of years ago

Today DD and I took the old dog for a walk by the local river. Ambling along, I spotted something on a rock that was such bright blue it looked unnatural - but then it turned to show its burnt orange front before it flew. That's the third time I've seen a kingfisher on that river this year, having never spotted one before there in 25 years.

I've found out what the bees which were thronging around a nest box a few weeks ago were. They're tree bumblebees, which have only been present in the U.K. for 20 years. We were a bit worried because after much activity they seemed to have disappeared but apparently that's normal, it's a lot of males who weren't allowed in but were hopeful of mating.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus_hypnorum

I had these in my birdbox last year. Very interesting to watch

I went for a kayak on the River Torridge at high tide today and saw rafts of terns waiting for the tide to change and Brent geese hanging out at their high tide roosts. I also spotted a heron, it was so peaceful

How lovely. I haven't had any opportunity to mess about in boats for too long.

Today's walk .... it's starting to be berry season. The orange of yew, bright tangerine of rowans, brilliant red of woody nightshade and guelder rose, and a few sun-warmed ripe blackberries. The hawthorn isn't quite there yet but starting to show a bit of colour.

I've noticed the berries too. Brambles are ripening, and there are lots of rose hips on the wild roses.

Found this little guy on the road yesterday

We saw one similar the other day. I wonder with caterpillars and slugs what makes them set out across such alien terrain.

Well it was moving at some speed

Today's sign of the advancing season was fallen unripe hazelnuts, the long grass in the meadows pale gold and some mushrooms appearing (well... they looked like field mushrooms but I wouldn't ever be sure)

Any tips on how I can deal with slugs. Once night falls I can't go out to my bin as the garden is literally covered in them all up the path. Last night I counted 40 of them and my garden is an average terrace house garden so not huge

Well... on this thread I guess the correct answer is to do what you can to make your garden friendly to birds and beasts which eat slugs and snails.
If you look in the Gardening topic you'll find lots of threads with advice on this, it's an excellent board.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening

No advice on slugs, once the dew falls they will be everywhere.

More signs of approaching autumn spotted yesterday. My boys spent a happy half an hour picking and eating blackberries. I'm also starting to see shades of red in the hedges.

There's a slug and snail thread here with several ideas.

Can you do anything to ‘protect’ plants from slugs/snails? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/4327492-Can-you-do-anything-to-protect-plants-from-slugs-snails

Thanks. Very interesting reading