A random thread for the wildlife stuff - you know the drill

[Feanor]

Chrome on Win10 here and Wow's images are chuffing enormous!

OK, I'll let someone else figure out where the automagic scaling happens or not, I CBA...

[Mrs Pingu]

They scale fine on my Samsung tablet, either in portrait or landscape orientation.

[rafletcher]

Under our bird feeders today, a male pheasant, two rooks, two squirrels, a couple of wood pigeons, a rock pigeon, a few robins and chaffinches and a single starling. Not all at the same time obvs. And on them, along with the usual dozen goldfinches and sundry blue- and great-tits, a pair of greenfinches which is quite unusual.

[Pingu]

Point of order - pheasants are not wildlife.

[Flite]

Point of order - pheasants are not wildlife.

So true - captive bred birds released into the countryside for people to shoot for fun.
Lead shot in the game meat sold for human consumption - wash your mouth out.
Bird Flu - who cares?
Displacing native wildlife - yeah, more opportunity for "sport".

In better news, a male black grouse saw off a male pheasant in the garden yesterday morning, with encouragement and a round of applause from the blackbirds, robins and assorted others, including me.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Point of order - pheasants are not wildlife.

So true - captive bred birds released into the countryside for people to shoot for fun.
Lead shot in the game meat sold for human consumption - wash your mouth out.
Bird Flu - who cares?
Displacing native wildlife - yeah, more opportunity for "sport".

I'm just reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (yeah, I know it was published 61 years ago, but just for the aged hippie points aka lols) and the effect of pesticides on opportunities for "sportsmen" is one of her big points.

[rafletcher]

Point of order - pheasants are not wildlife.

Well it’s not native certainly, but around here they breed in the wild, although not in great numbers. We usually see a couple of cocks and maybe half a dozen hens each year in the field behind the terrace. The nearest driven shoot I could find is around 8 miles away (at £1400 a gun  ) so unlikely to be escapees.

[Flite]

but around here they breed in the wild

Oh they certainly do that - with far too much success.
Aided by the gamekeepers who put out food and kill predators to increase the numbers of grouse.
But up here there is little interest in shooting pheasants, just red grouse, black grouse, grey partridge, woodcock plus anything with a hooked beak....

I'm just reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring

It's depressing how little we have progressed in the last 60 years, amongst other projects.
Wild Justice have been working for a few years to find out about lead in game sold in the shops
https://wildjustice.org.uk/blog

[Cudzoziemiec]

TBF many of the specific poisons she writes about, like dieldrin, are banned or no longer used. But what might be called the Sheriff John Brown principle of "kill it before it grows old"* and hang the consequences is still there.

*As in "I shot the sheriff"

[Mrs Pingu]

We finally saw the kingfisher at the pond a couple of mins walk from our house, not an urban myth after all.

[Flite]

Managed to track down the hedgehog that has been seen on camera at the feeder most nights. Only 365gm - too small to survive hibernation, so it's gone straight into rehab. Going to get antibiotics and see what it's like in the morning.

[rafletcher]

Unusually, a (male) Chaffinch actually on the feeder, usually they feed on the ground below them.

[Auntie Helen]

A greater spotted woodpecker wandering around next door’s back lawn.

[rafletcher]

Went to collect the 6 pack of crisps from the shed, and thought it a bit light, maybe underfilled. Got it into the kitchen to notice the small hole in one corner. On opening it 5 of the 6 packets also showed evidence of nibbling, and were completely empty, including of the blue salt sachets. Bloody mice! 

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Point of order - pheasants are not wildlife.

Genuinely curious about the point at which something does become native wildlife. 

For example ring-necked parakeets are breeding in significant numbers in SW London and the Home Counties - they are not a native bird but are breeding in the wild.   Then there are the egrets (little, cattle, and great) all of which are expanding their breeding range north into the southern parts of England, but were traditionally though of as non-native.  Then pheasants as introduced game birds - where a wild population is supplemented by breeding programmes of birds released into the wild (which interestingly enough is also the case for the Osprey, Bustard and White-tailed Sea Eagle as once-native birds having attempts to reintroduce them)

I'm guessing a lot of it depends on viewpoint.  I remember working on a project to clear young sycamore trees out of a fragment of ancient woodland near Bracknell, as they were considered an invasive species (introduced to the UK after 1500), but the removal of a landmark specimen of a sycamore tree from Hadrian's Wall was a top 10 news story and a trigger for national mourning.

[Pingu]

Pheasants are more like livestock.

You can add collared doves to your list of recent arrivals.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Pheasants are more like livestock.
.

As, in my locale, are red-legged Partridges, which I find hard to distinguish with the native partridge.

Have never been part of the hunting/fishing/shooting communities and, if my lack of darts is a guide to other forms of projectile, that is probably a good thing, I've always been touched by the irony of the male pheasant, when disturbed, flying in a straight line with a noisy wingbeat emitting loud squawks

[Cudzoziemiec]

Pheasants are more like livestock.
.

As, in my locale, are red-legged Partridges, which I find hard to distinguish with the native partridge.

Have never been part of the hunting/fishing/shooting communities and, if my lack of darts is a guide to other forms of projectile, that is probably a good thing, I've always been touched by the irony of the male pheasant, when disturbed, flying in a straight line with a noisy wingbeat emitting loud squawks

I think the last point is one of the reasons why they're a "game bird".

As to when things become native – I don't know. I don't think we use the term "naturalised" for humans anymore (ie not born a citizen but has become one) but it seems a relevant concept to transfer to egrets etc. The point at which livestock or cultivated plants become wild is tricker. Did that sheep which escaped the field and lived alone for two years become wild? What if a whole flock escaped and bred with no human intervention? The sycamores you mention would, to my mind, seem more "natural", whatever that means (oh, that's what we're trying to define... ) than a plantation of Scots pine, despite the sycamore being an introduction and the pine native.

[spesh]

BBC: Mouse filmed tidying up man's shed every night

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-67902966

[Steph]

Under our bird feeders today, a male pheasant, two rooks, two squirrels, a couple of wood pigeons, a rock pigeon, a few robins and chaffinches and a single starling. Not all at the same time obvs. And on them, along with the usual dozen goldfinches and sundry blue- and great-tits, a pair of greenfinches which is quite unusual.

"Rock pigeon"?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Oldest platypus found in the wild is ‘beyond all our expectations’, say researchers

[Wowbagger]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sY7oPhvz4&ab_channel=SabeelAbbasi

A remarkable video of a wood pigeon walking into a peregrine falcon's nest whilst the peregrine was sitting on eggs. As one bright spark observed, "Delivercoo!"

[The Family Cyclist]

I've just made a dead hedge, no i haven't killed my hedge was clearing the bottom of garden as moving chickens back there and had left a load of willow cuttings I'd previously used for growing beans up. They'd gone dry and brittle. I remembered sering a program I think called my wild garden by an Irish camera man and he built a dead hedge from old sticks etc so constructed one. Hopefully will be good for wildlife as near our wildlife pond and our stream. The chicken fence will stop them getting at it

[Mrs Pingu]

Nice one, this unit approves, etc.

[The Family Cyclist]

Nice one, this unit approves, etc.

Thanks, I may direct the Mrs Family Cyclist to this as obviously the random round posts and metal stakes I had knocking round the garden came in handy