Author Topic: Seen today (Read 1012775 times)

Wowbagger · « **Reply #5275 on:** 06 January, 2019, 02:22:14 pm »

Quite a lot of carp activity in the park lake today. That's the second time in the past week we have seen more than a dozen of them cruising around just below the surface like a flotilla of nuclear submarines. I don't remember seeing them so active on cold winter's days as they have been recently. They are up to about 30lb in weight, or possibly rather more. That is around the maximum weight that the anglers are reporting having caught. People were still fishing, but I haven't see one caught for quite a few months.

And the pike in the pikey pool. During the summer it is a lot harder to see what's going on in the pool because the water is not clear enough. IN teh cold weather the water clears very well and only then can I take stock of what's going on. There were two pike a year ago. I haven't see two for quite a few months, and I suspect the smaller one has either died, been caught, or possibly been eaten by the larger. I thought they were too close in size for that to happen though.

I could see it very clearly today on the far side of the pool, so I walked around to try to get a closer look. The pike had other ideas and it shot away with a significant swirl in the water.

Steph · « **Reply #5276 on:** 06 January, 2019, 05:39:57 pm »

I will hopefully pop into Crawley tomorrow as there is a ferruginous duck on Tilgate Silt Pond.

T42 · « **Reply #5277 on:** 10 January, 2019, 08:41:34 am »

Yesterday, a buzzard in winter plumage chumming around with one still in the usual brownish habit.

PaulR · « **Reply #5278 on:** 23 January, 2019, 03:23:42 pm »

A pair of mergansers flying up the Thame towards Aylesbury this morning. Plus a flock of about 30 skylarks flushed out of a rough field by a dog.

David Martin · « **Reply #5279 on:** 10 February, 2019, 07:54:05 pm »

I have made a small hide from a camouflage toilet tent and a bit of camo netting. Took it down to the bay today and it seemed to work very well. https://youtu.be/3OEduFS0iuw for a few clips. Mostly redshank and gulls but I did get a nice clip of a snipe (at 1.24)

fuaran · « **Reply #5280 on:** 10 February, 2019, 10:19:59 pm »

A white-headed chaffinch. Unfortunately it disappeared before I could get a photo. Seems leucistic chaffinches are not unknown.

David Martin · « **Reply #5281 on:** 17 February, 2019, 07:49:22 pm »

First time out to Morton Lochs. Saw a couple of things I can't identify readily so here they are for the experts. Sorry the video is a bit on the dark side - shooting against the light. And apologies for the unedited video.

This I think may be a Water Rail https://youtu.be/LwBnpqeSf7g

And these are some sort of diver. https://youtu.be/d0lHehGl_sM

Pingu · « **Reply #5282 on:** 17 February, 2019, 07:56:16 pm »

First one's a little grebe.

The second one looks like a duck of some sort, going by the bill.

fuaran · « **Reply #5283 on:** 17 February, 2019, 08:17:21 pm »

Quote from: Pingu on 17 February, 2019, 07:56:16 pm

The second one looks like a duck of some sort, going by the bill.

Yes, looks like a goldeneye.

David Martin · « **Reply #5284 on:** 17 February, 2019, 08:53:40 pm »

Thanks. Against the light it was quite hard to tell. First time I've seen a little grebe.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #5285 on:** 28 February, 2019, 10:36:19 am »

A red kite low over the church yard. Not rare down south but rare here. Some arrived in the Wolds from the reintroduction population at Harewood and are gradually multiplying.

David Martin · « **Reply #5286 on:** 02 March, 2019, 10:59:02 pm »

Have 2.5 mins of a pottering redshank. https://youtu.be/VroghQG44PA

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #5287 on:** 03 March, 2019, 04:33:11 pm »

Muntjac deer, next to the road. Thought it was a huge hare at first.

menthel · « **Reply #5288 on:** 03 March, 2019, 08:34:09 pm »

A skylark singing in the Surrey Hills. Seemed far too bloody early.

mattc · « **Reply #5289 on:** 04 March, 2019, 02:54:07 pm »

Quote from: pcolbeck on 28 February, 2019, 10:36:19 am

A red kite low over the church yard. Not rare down south but rare here. Some arrived in the Wolds from the reintroduction population at Harewood and are gradually multiplying.

I did not know about a Yorkshire release program!

A quick google leads me to this - which you should use to report yours, I think

http://www.yorkshireredkites.net/misc/sightings-map

Soon they will have taken over Eng+Wales (except for the Elan Valley, which they seem to be forsaking ... )

Basil · « **Reply #5290 on:** 04 March, 2019, 03:07:32 pm »

Quote from: mattc on 04 March, 2019, 02:54:07 pm

Soon they will have taken over Eng+Wales (except for the Elan Valley, which they seem to be forsaking ... )

Trouble is, they can be over successful. They are extremely common here, but that seems to be at the expense of the buzzards, which I now see less and less of.

Basil · « **Reply #5291 on:** 04 March, 2019, 03:11:36 pm »

A wren, nest building. I've been watching it today collecting bits of dead fern from our garden and flying in through a broken window in the stable. I'm trying to resist the urge to go in to look at how it's going.

pcolbeck · « **Reply #5292 on:** 06 March, 2019, 10:56:53 am »

We see quite a few different birds out of our kitchen window. We have had a Long Eared owl, a Tawny Owl, A Sparrow Hawk and the usual Robins, Blackbirds etc nut this was a first:

Red-Legged Partridge looking somewhat bedraggled.

Crappy camera-phone through the windows pictures but at least I got them, usually by the time I go and grab a camera the bird i question has gone.

rafletcher · « **Reply #5293 on:** 06 March, 2019, 11:01:38 am »

Quote from: Basil on 04 March, 2019, 03:07:32 pm

Quote from: mattc on 04 March, 2019, 02:54:07 pm

Soon they will have taken over Eng+Wales (except for the Elan Valley, which they seem to be forsaking ... )

Trouble is, they can be over successful. They are extremely common here, but that seems to be at the expense of the buzzards, which I now see less and less of.

Contrary to that experience, although we've seen a huge increase in red kites in the last 20 years (we're near Aston Clinton, about 15 miles from the introduction point near Stokenchurch, the other side of the Chilterns) we've also in the last couple of years seen buzzards, which we hadn't before. I keep looking out for the peregrines, they have nested on a tower in Aylesbury in the past, and the occasional sparrowhawk, although they don't favour our small garden.

PaulR · « **Reply #5294 on:** 06 March, 2019, 10:38:39 pm »

Having moved into red kite country about 18 months ago (first at Shirburn, just north of Watlington and now at Cuddington just west of Aylesbury) I can confirm that the buzzards are thriving alongside the kites. Ravens are also doing well, and I've had visits from sparrowhawks (seen here in our bird bath). I've not yet seen peregrines around here, but they're around where I work in lovely blessed Uxbridge.

PaulR · « **Reply #5295 on:** 30 March, 2019, 03:54:58 pm »

...and today, in addition to the usual cormorants, ravens, kites, buzzards etc I met a snipe, a peregrine and several chiffchaffs on my morning walk. As I arrived home, four buzzards were circling overhead and I watched a sparrowhawk dive (or stoop, peregrine-style) from great height and at stupendous speed, towards a leylandii that had a pigeon in it.

Tim Hall · « **Reply #5296 on:** 30 March, 2019, 08:20:13 pm »

I'm in Sydney, NSW at the moment. Last night we took a trip to the Blue Mountains to find glow worms, which we did. They live in a sandstone gully, about 20 minutes walk in from a camp ground. It was a magical experience, thousands of tiny lights glowing away, a few feet from us. On the walk back my niece says "ooh, there's a snake", mostly because there was one, wriggling across the path. At first she thought it was an Eastern Brown Snake but then changed her mind and pronounced it a Red Bellied Black Snake. I bravely hid behind her.

Earlier in the week, we went down the Paramatta (?) River in a RIB towards Sydney in the evening. A big flock of what I assumed were birds flew over head. No, they were bats. Huge bats, like out of a Hammer Horror, with wingspan of about a metre. Google suggests they were either Grey Faced or Black Flying Foxes.

rafletcher · « **Reply #5297 on:** 30 March, 2019, 08:48:22 pm »

Just south of Aylesbury, in the space of a minute, a buzzard, a kite and a pair of either swallows or house martins, too high and fast for me to identify precisely, but I suspect swallows.

Basil · « **Reply #5298 on:** 31 March, 2019, 03:50:19 pm »

Our first ever Ring Ouzel. Never even heard of it before. Took me ages to identify it, but checking it's unusual call on the internet confirmed it.

andrew_s · « **Reply #5299 on:** 31 March, 2019, 05:55:44 pm »

Quote from: PaulR on 30 March, 2019, 03:54:58 pm

...and today, in addition to the usual cormorants, ravens, kites, buzzards etc I met a snipe, a peregrine and several chiffchaffs on my morning walk. As I arrived home, four buzzards were circling overhead and I watched a sparrowhawk dive (or stoop, peregrine-style) from great height and at stupendous speed, towards a leylandii that had a pigeon in it.

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