Seen today

[Rig of Jarkness]

Yesterday my dreich ride to work was briefly cheered by the yellow of a grey wagtail.  And my equally dreich ride home was accompanied for several seconds by a female sparrowhawk skimming along at pedal height beside me.  So it wasn't all bad.

[clarion]

Not seen today at all, so I'm a fraud.

But on Saturday, in Stratford, I was distracted by something falling on the ground from an arch beside a building.

I thought it might have been pigeon droppings, but there was a lot of it coming down, so I looked closer.  It wasn't from under the roof bit, but from behind.  I then saw it was moss.

OK, I thought, someone's cleaning the rooftiles the other side.  No ladder apparent, so I thought I'd have a look.

It wasn't a person; it was a thrush-sized bird (couldn't see clearly as it was silhouetted and flew off fairly sharpish).  It was hopping along the roof picking up the blobs of moss and, rather than flying off with them for nestbuilding as I would have expected, dropping them over the edge of the gutter.

It's possible the bird was planning to come back later & pick them up off the ground, but there was more than might be needed for a nest. 

I wonder if there was something in the moss that the bird was eating, or collecting for its young...

[Pingu]

Blackbirds do that and so do magpies. I'm there are plenty others which do too.

[clarion]

May well have been a blackbird.  What was it doing?

[Adrian]

May well have been a blackbird.  What was it doing?

looking for something that lives under the moss?

[Wowbagger]

Well, if there was that much moss it must have had a leaf mould base I reckon, and that will have wrigglies living in it, I expect.

[Pingu]

Blackbirds seem to be hardwired to go nosing about underneath things. They throw the bark off our so-called flower beds & toss leaves about on the lawn. I guess they're looking for tasty noms rather than trying to recreate the "child's bedroom" look in nature.

[Snakehips]

First saw this creature a couple of months ago and posted a pic earlier in this thread. This pic taken close up in sunlight shows the bird more clearly.  It lives with Tufted Duck and Red Crested Pochard in Bushy Park , Hampton Court.

[Tail End Charlie]

Sitting in my back garden after mowing the lawn this morning two buzzards circled overhead. Didn't realise I looked that knackered. Never seen them so close to home before.

[Bledlow]

Blackbirds seem to be hardwired to go nosing about underneath things. They throw the bark off our so-called flower beds & toss leaves about on the lawn. I guess they're looking for tasty noms rather than trying to recreate the "child's bedroom" look in nature.

They are, they are - but they're pretty good at picking the right things to nose about under, i.e. things likely to have a population of nice tasty invertebrates squirming beneath 'em. Your bark provides an excellent habitat for blackbird food. They see it as a snack bar.

What they really like is a flowerbed dressed with nice fresh compost or other worm food. Do that, & they'll be rummaging merrily in no time at all - & finding plenty of yummy (to a blackbird) things. I have to protect any seedlings I put in compost-enriched soil, or the little feathered buggers'll root 'em up in their hunt for what lives underneath.

[Pingu]

Third dead badger by the road in a fortnight 

(click to show/hide)

[Pingu]

Bird skellingtons (outside a café):

[Adrian]

A cormorant flying along parallel to the shore and just inches above the almost flat calm surface. They must gauge their height by reference to the waves because the sea was so calm that a small boat's wake was clearly visible on the surface and the bird rose up a couple of feet to cross it before dropping back down again.

[Jurek]

A cormorant flying along parallel to the shore and just inches above the almost flat calm surface. They must gauge their hight by reference to the waves because the sea was so calm that a small boat's wake was clearly visible on the surface and the bird rose up a couple of feet to cross it before dropping back down again.

Sounds  - the way you've described it.

[Rig of Jarkness]

Three more species added to the 'birds seen from the house' list today - buzzard, goldcrest, goldfinch.  That takes the list to 27 since 1st Jan.   

[Adrian]

Two deer going up the embankment  and into the woods between Balcombe and Three Bridges, which I was able watch easily because we were crawling along. The driver then apologised for our slow running and explained it was to avoid hitting the deer because "We don't want to hit the deer and the can damage the train".

[Snakehips]

On the Long Water at Hampton Court Palace I saw two pairs of Wigeon.
I stopped to look at an interesting creature* on a nearby pond , parked my bike against a tree , walked cautiously round the tree and was confronted by the back end of a Parakeet sticking out of a shoulder height hole in the tree trunk.

* which I now believe to be a Gadwall (and its mate)

[Rig of Jarkness]

On a gloriously sunny and almost warm ride home today, (on my new bike  ), 2 roe deer and several thousand pink footed geese.  (Or perhaps bean goose ?  I've no idea, I'll assume pink foot).

[RJ]

On a gloriously sunny and almost warm ride home today, (on my new bike  ), 2 roe deer and several thousand pink footed geese.  (Or perhaps bean goose ?  I've no idea, I'll assume pink foot).

Pinks, (OK, almost) absolutely certainly, in those numbers, in Scotland.

[Rig of Jarkness]

On a gloriously sunny and almost warm ride home today, (on my new bike  ), 2 roe deer and several thousand pink footed geese.  (Or perhaps bean goose ?  I've no idea, I'll assume pink foot).

Pinks, (OK, almost) absolutely certainly, in those numbers, in Scotland.

The SOC Gallery recently had a few shots of a mixed flock of pinkfoot and bean - even with the two species in the same shot and the bird guide in front of me I still can't tell the difference...The SOC - photo viewer

[border-rider]

Donner, Blitzen & friends having lunch.

[mattc]

Wild Boar in Britain

I've never seen one but it seems possible.

They're quite numerous in the Forest of Dean now; some of the verges in the Forest have been rotavated by them.  They've crossed the Wye and are heading this way !

(For those not reading the Audax board) many of us were rather sad to spot a piglet on the verge in the Forest of Dean on Saturday. Dead but quite fresh looking. Almost more orange than brown to my eyes, and about the size of a very fat jack russell.

[Riggers]

Wasp! Just now.

[hellymedic]

Wasp! Just now.

David has reported many wasps in his observatory.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

A ginormous bee.