Author Topic: Seen today  (Read 1000098 times)

Re: Seen today
« Reply #200 on: 22 July, 2008, 06:08:17 am »
yesterday evening out with mrs mike we saw a hedgehog, sprinting across the lane in front of us (honestly, no wonder they get squished all the time, they really do need longer legs), then a couple of miles later a guineafowl ran across, then as we got closer to home a roe deer bounded out of the hedge, stopped and looked at us, then did a huge 'sproing' and leapt over the bank on the other side of the road.  We waited for the inevitable herd to follow it over but it seemed to be billy-no-mates (or they were hiding).

on the dun run, I had a rat run out in front of me, stand and stare at me for a second then think better of it and run back to where it'd come from.  Cheeky sod.

Re: Seen today
« Reply #201 on: 22 July, 2008, 12:22:20 pm »
Deer amaze me. That there could be so many of such a large creature living all over the country and yet you rarely see them.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Re: Seen today
« Reply #202 on: 22 July, 2008, 07:34:19 pm »
All over the place: giant flying ants. Glad I'm not cycling through them. Bleurgh.

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Re: Seen today
« Reply #203 on: 22 July, 2008, 07:39:05 pm »
Deer amaze me. That there could be so many of such a large creature living all over the country and yet you rarely see them.

The North Essex / Suffolk / Cambs herd are often seen. A few years ago I was eating my lunch here, facing west, and in the wheatfield down the slope I counted no fewer than 44 fallow deer in the herd.

They must cost the farmers a fortune in damaged crops.
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Re: Seen today
« Reply #204 on: 22 July, 2008, 11:15:48 pm »
At work: 2 peregrines flying round over the cathedral

Mr Larrington

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Re: Seen today
« Reply #205 on: 23 July, 2008, 10:19:25 am »
All over the place: giant flying ants. Glad I'm not cycling through them. Bleurgh.

Yep, here too.  Yesterday seems to have marked the start of the flying ant1 season, and the spiders in the garden are waxing fat.

1 - it has always amused my tiny brane that Germans always pronounce this "aunt".  "Noes! There are aunts in the kitchen!"
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Re: Seen today
« Reply #206 on: 23 July, 2008, 01:28:20 pm »
Hate those flying ants.  Once got damn nigh hospitalised by the things.

There were loads near work, but not flying.  And a few close to NSTN's flat where we pitched Sam's tent (tho they'd gone to bed before we pitched).

I think I rode through a few, but uggghhhh! *shudder*

PS:  I really like ants.  Just very allergic to the bites.
Getting there...

CathH

Re: Seen today
« Reply #207 on: 23 July, 2008, 07:30:08 pm »
Unfortunately, I've had to get brutal with the Nippon powder this year, and I hate having to do that.  I've encouraged them to leave in every way I can think of.  Good side effect is that it's got the wasps to make themselves scarce too.

Re: Seen today
« Reply #208 on: 23 July, 2008, 08:04:16 pm »
The ants are gone. A one day wonder.

border-rider

Re: Seen today
« Reply #209 on: 23 July, 2008, 08:44:08 pm »
All over the place: giant flying ants. Glad I'm not cycling through them. Bleurgh.

Yep, here too.  Yesterday seems to have marked the start of the flying ant1 season, and the spiders in the garden are waxing fat.

1 - it has always amused my tiny brane that Germans always pronounce this "aunt".  "Noes! There are aunts in the kitchen!"

It amuses me that anyone could ever pronounce the two words differently :)

Re: Seen today
« Reply #210 on: 25 July, 2008, 09:19:22 am »
A baby alpaca1 yesterday evening on my way home.  Can't have been more than a few days old.  It looked a bit unsteady on its legs, but already quite shaggy.  Very ahhhh-ish. 

1 Or maybe a llama.

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Re: Seen today
« Reply #211 on: 28 July, 2008, 10:43:45 pm »
After my swim, a lot of small fish scattering as something had a go at them from below. This continued all the way along the beach for as far as I could see. Could well have been mackerel attacking krill. I've never seen that in Southend before.

Just after I arrived home, Mrs. Wow had captured what we think was a Poplar Hawk Moth, inside the house. I tried to get some photos but it was in danger of injuring itself on the inside of the jar so we let it go.
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Re: Seen today
« Reply #212 on: 28 July, 2008, 10:47:07 pm »
Not today, but on Saturday evening MiniQ and I tootled off for a 15 miler on Sigurd the tandem and happened past a llama (the work of a llama-farmer no doubt) and also a big fox crossing the road. The fox, not the llama, just in case you were wondering.

And a dead badger. :sick:


Re: Seen today
« Reply #213 on: 29 July, 2008, 12:32:57 pm »
Last night, very warm and wet as it was, practically everywhere you looked in our garden there was a frog.  I put the garden light on and went out with a torch, to meet and greet.  :)  Said frogs do not mind human company it seems and will happily sit there while you take a good look.  Also played interact-a-species by putting snails on collision courses with frogs - frog shuffles out the way btw.  ;)
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Re: Seen today
« Reply #214 on: 29 July, 2008, 12:46:22 pm »
Yesterday morning, on my commute, a young cow (this year's calf) ruminating in the middle of the road.  gave me a bit of a shock it did, didn't seem to bother him...
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CathH

Re: Seen today
« Reply #215 on: 29 July, 2008, 01:04:17 pm »
This morning, I nearly rode through the biggest slug I've ever seen.  I saw something that looked like a large dog poo in the path ahead and moved to one side, only as I went past did I see that it was a slug.  It must have been about 5" or so long and about the circumference of my bicycle pump, no word of a lie.  It was a monster.

CathH

Re: Seen today
« Reply #216 on: 29 July, 2008, 08:31:40 pm »
This evening, one huge, beautiful, green dragonfly and one small brown owl!  A Little Owl I think.

Re: Seen today
« Reply #217 on: 03 August, 2008, 07:07:42 pm »
Yesterday, out of a train window, a fox.

Sat happily in the sun at the edge of a field watching the trains go past.
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Re: Seen today
« Reply #218 on: 07 August, 2008, 01:22:36 pm »
Rather unusually a fox in the middle of Clapham Common, which I've never seen before.  I quite regularly see foxes on my way home, but normally it's somewhere like Tooting Bec Common, where there is plenty of undergrowth and/or banks that they could be living in.  Clapham Common at that point is just a vast exposed flat landscape, nowhere to hide really.  I guess it must have been digging around in the bins, or had found the remains of someone's barbecue.
Actually, it is rocket science.
 

clarion

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Re: Seen today
« Reply #219 on: 08 August, 2008, 09:37:48 am »
Funnily enough, I sawa fox, too, yesterday.  Not so unusual in london I suppose, but I was sat in the meeting room of a GP surgery.  There is a small patch of grass in a walled area outside, and the fox sauntered past, took shelter from the rain, then, as the sun came out, s/he stretched out in the sunshine.  No concern for the people just the other side of the glass.
Getting there...

Maladict

Re: Seen today
« Reply #220 on: 08 August, 2008, 06:02:31 pm »
Giant two foot spiders crawling across my bedroom curtain.

Oh, wait.  Hallucination.  Though having just woken up at 2.20am I was too confused to realise this and for a few moments thought I was in trouble!

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Re: Seen today
« Reply #221 on: 15 August, 2008, 10:30:05 am »
One large dead rat.
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Re: Seen today
« Reply #222 on: 21 August, 2008, 06:03:08 pm »
Two common carp in the Priory Park lake. I could see only the mouth and eyes of the bigger, which may well hve weighed over 20lb Its mouth was almost 2" in diameter I reckon.

The other was a fully-scaled common, probably about 6lb and it appeared to be in beautiful condition. More than 30 years ago, when I did a lot of fishing, these lakes were renowned for their "wild" carp, the strain which had been in the lakes since they were the Priory's stew-pond from the 12th century onwards. Since the 1980s, modern strains of leather and mirror carp have been introduced and there are not many wildies left.
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Re: Seen today
« Reply #223 on: 24 August, 2008, 09:00:04 pm »
Yesterday, on the Dulsie Dipper - 2 red sqrls. :-*
Today at the Potting Shed - 3 red sqrls anna wooderypeckery. :)
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Re: Seen today
« Reply #224 on: 24 August, 2008, 09:18:49 pm »
Coming home from Mildenhall yesterday, through Thetford Forest - a large Adder crossing the road. He/She made it over without getting squished  :thumbsup:.