Author Topic: Seen today (Read 1016772 times)

Pingu · « **Reply #775 on:** 18 September, 2009, 11:10:09 pm »

3 red kites

Pingu · « **Reply #776 on:** 19 September, 2009, 05:17:41 pm »

And another today

rogerzilla · « **Reply #777 on:** 20 September, 2009, 07:55:34 pm »

A field of alpacas next to the A346 between Ogbourne St George and Ogbourne Maizey. They are for sale, according to a large sign.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #778 on:** 20 September, 2009, 09:08:10 pm »

Quote from: rogerzilla on 20 September, 2009, 07:55:34 pm

A field of alpacas next to the A346 between Ogbourne St George and Ogbourne Maizey. They are for sale, according to a large sign.

Don't tell Mrs. Wow...

Seen in the early hours of this a.m. whilst dog-walking - a badger and a fox in fairly quick succession crossing this road.

rogerzilla · « **Reply #779 on:** 20 September, 2009, 09:14:44 pm »

According to a colleague who keeps alpacas, the males get aggressive when they haven't been "relieved" for a while, and he sometimes spends winter evenings out in the field, wearing rubber gloves, er...there isn't really any way to skate around this...

(click to show/hide)

RJ · « **Reply #780 on:** 20 September, 2009, 09:20:10 pm »

Some late(ish) swallows in Holyrood Park.

SandyV · « **Reply #781 on:** 21 September, 2009, 02:17:38 am »

These are the kookaburras who visited the other day. Thanks for the photo tips.

vorsprung · « **Reply #782 on:** 21 September, 2009, 09:41:27 am »

On last weeks trip to the pub I saw a badger on the way there, it was barely dark.
Usually I see them at 3am

nicknack · « **Reply #783 on:** 21 September, 2009, 11:47:33 am »

Did you buy it a drink when it got there?

Chris S · « **Reply #784 on:** 21 September, 2009, 07:12:25 pm »

Last week, the Swallows were all lined up gossiping on the telephone wires¹. Now they are all gone

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¹ No, I don't mean on the telephone

Pingu · « **Reply #785 on:** 21 September, 2009, 10:46:44 pm »

We saw some swallows yesterday. They're probably like the annoying twats who you hear getting called at airports. 'Just a couple more flies, they won't go wivout us'.

Bledlow · « **Reply #786 on:** 24 September, 2009, 08:19:37 am »

A finch fight! Goldfinch, chaffinch & greenfinch squabbling over the feeder, with a blue tit popping in & out while they distracted each other.

There's a dunnock on it now. No, chaffinch. No, that's gone now. Every time I look, it's changed.

border-rider · « **Reply #787 on:** 24 September, 2009, 10:00:17 pm »

The sweetest thing

I was trundling up the lower reaches of the Gospel Pass on a very quiet road. I passed a farm with a woman and a dog watching a gnarled Welsh farmer-type carrying a box to his car. He'd not seen me, and didn't see me seeing him lifting out a tiny puppy and giving it a surreptitious kiss

clarion · « **Reply #788 on:** 24 September, 2009, 10:59:14 pm »

This morning, i saw a fox in Sandy Lane, Mitcham, with plenty of people around.

TimO · « **Reply #789 on:** 24 September, 2009, 11:10:49 pm »

Quote from: clarion on 24 September, 2009, 10:59:14 pm

This morning, i saw a fox in Sandy Lane, Mitcham, with plenty of people around.

I've also seen urban foxes quite blithely wandering about where there are a substantial number of people around. Many seem to have learnt to be quite casual about humans in towns.

Having said that, I seem to get quite a varied responses to me and my bicycle from foxes that I've met on my commute. Some seem quite surprised and leg it at speed, whilst others are unperturbed and just watch me cycle past.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #790 on:** 25 September, 2009, 12:31:30 am »

Almost certainly the same badger tonight, in the same place as we saw it a few days ago. This time we were much closer to it - 20 or 30 feet away as it scampered across the road. It then stood in a garden and watched us for quite some time, and we watched it. The dog was very well behaved - I just spoke quietly to him and stroked him as he and the badger eyed each other up from, again, a distance of about 30'. Then the badger turned and disappeared into the shadows. All of this took place in a very urban environment, in Hill Road, just behind Prittlewell church. I wished I'd had my phone on me because I'd have got a pretty decent photograph.

Pingu · « **Reply #791 on:** 25 September, 2009, 01:12:57 pm »

Skeins of geese honking their way south.

clarion · « **Reply #792 on:** 25 September, 2009, 01:14:41 pm »

Honking? I thought it was downhill that direction

border-rider · « **Reply #793 on:** 26 September, 2009, 06:42:33 pm »

This fine fellow of a vole. I've been trying to catch him in the house for days - part of Big Cat's captive breeding programme.

You can see the cat bite marks on his back from when he was brought in. He was feisty though.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #794 on:** 27 September, 2009, 10:39:56 am »

Quote from: wowbagger on 25 September, 2009, 12:31:30 am

Almost certainly the same badger tonight, in the same place as we saw it a few days ago. This time we were much closer to it - 20 or 30 feet away as it scampered across the road. It then stood in a garden and watched us for quite some time, and we watched it. The dog was very well behaved - I just spoke quietly to him and stroked him as he and the badger eyed each other up from, again, a distance of about 30'. Then the badger turned and disappeared into the shadows. All of this took place in a very urban environment, in Hill Road, just behind Prittlewell church. I wished I'd had my phone on me because I'd have got a pretty decent photograph.

Last night there were two! They trotted along the road in front of me for a while and then disappeared into the same garden. Their movement turned the outside light on and the last I saw of them was on the back lawn of the house about to disappear through a line of conifers.

border-rider · « **Reply #795 on:** 27 September, 2009, 10:52:34 am »

They're fairly bold. The big males tend to stomp down their usual routes truculently, and won't get out of the way. I've had to stop for them on the bike in West Berks, and once or twice, on quiet roads, in the car too

We had one resident in the garden for a while at our last house. He was unconcerned by us watching him rootle as long as we didn't try to approach too closely.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #796 on:** 27 September, 2009, 10:58:09 am »

I was knocked off my bike by one on the Solstice Warty a couple of miles out from Glastonbury!

border-rider · « **Reply #797 on:** 27 September, 2009, 11:03:32 am »

Several people have been taken out by them on audaxs - as you can imagine, whizzing along rural lanes at night in summer you see quite a few*

Some of the injures have been quite nasty, and not just to the badger**

*On my first Denmead 600 in 2001 I was heading out to do the last 200 at about 1 am, and on a little lane in the middle of nowhere I encountered a family of cubs, rolling and playing

**It's usually the case that everyone asks how the badger faired. This tends to irritate a rider who may have spent a night in hospital and had their bike trashed.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #798 on:** 27 September, 2009, 02:25:41 pm »

An acquaintance of my brother's came off badly in a bike-badger interface. The same brother hit a badger with his car and the repair cost quite a bit. The badger was a write-off.

In my case I was on the Thorn doing my usual 10 or so mph so the bike was fine and I was only slightly grazed. The badger made a fair bit of noise as it ran off into the reeds & sedges beside the road.

Salvatore · « **Reply #799 on:** 27 September, 2009, 05:04:40 pm »

Loads of these:

Then I saw these three. They didn't hang around very long.

Author Topic: Seen today (Read 1016772 times)

Chris S

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