Seen today

[Manotea]

Stood underneath a conker tree full of parakeets (50?) eating the blossom buds. So no conkers this year.

[LindaG]

And no candles either. Sad.

[Bledlow]

Was struggling to keep up with the brisk Reading CTC ride last night (maybe my cold was dragging me down - same pace as 2 weeks ago, when I was fine), so said my goodbyes & ploughed a lonely but shorter & gentler furrow to the pub.

One advantage of cycling alone at night is the wildlife one catches in the lights. The fox was no big deal. The three fallow deer hinds were better, especially as they stood on the verge looking at me until I was very close indeed, presumably not quite sure what the quiet thing behind the approaching bright light was. But the other beastie - well, I was puzzled. It looked damned like a polecat, but I wasn't aware they'd spread this far. I remember when the nearest were along the Welsh border. Just in case, I looked up the distribution, & was surprised to find that there are quite a few of 'em in Berkshire & Oxfordshire nowadays. So it probably was may well have been a polecat. 

[Wowbagger]

I've just checked the Southend RSPB website. No-one reported seeing a swallow at all in March. The "Latest sightings" and "Migration reports" pages have been in operation since 2003 and this is the first year since then that no swallow reports have been made in March.

The only summer visitors reported so far are a Sandwich Tern on 10th March and a black redstart on 15th March.

They have now.
http://www.southendrspb.co.uk/sightings.htm refers.

Wednesday 3rd April

Laindon 16:35
Swallow dead in West Mayne road. Web Author.

[Pingu]

I saw a hooded crow today.
No, really. It was wearing a grey tabard and everyfink.

Or at least some sort of NE hybrid.

I saw one during the week in Torry.

[Deano]

First skylark of the year, when I was riding down to Northallerton on Thursday.

[Riggers]

Lovely little Blackcap flitting through the bamboo outside my window at work. Nice.

[clarion]

Goldcrests on the windowsill outside the kitchen at work.  Very distracting when I was trying to chair a difficult meeting, but they are oh so beautiful!  The male had an orange mohican.

[LindaG]

Goldcrests on the windowsill outside the kitchen at work.  Very distracting when I was trying to chair a difficult meeting, but they are oh so beautiful!  The male had an orange mohican.

Oh you lucky thing!

[clarion]

Yes.  I thought so.

EDIT: Butterfly thinks they may have been Firecrests.  She may be right.

[Riggers]

Ooh, forgot. Saw a Brimstone on Sunday in Purley. Probably tucked up out the wet today.

[RJ]

Yes.  I thought so.

EDIT: Butterfly thinks they may have been Firecrests.  She may be right.

Firecrests are really bright and black-and-white-stripy-faced. Goldcrests's eyes (and mohicans) stand out  becasue the rest of the head is quite plain.  Firecrests are also pretty scarce in GB&I ...

[Wowbagger]

Goldcrest



Firecrest

The chief difference is the white eyestripe, apparently.

I don't think I've ever seen a firecrest.

A few years ago, shortly after I bought my digital SLR camera, I was wandering around Priory Park looking for stuff to photograph. I could hear a very high-pitched commotion going on in a holly bush so crept up to see what it was.

It was two male goldcrests fighting. It all ended when one shot out of the bush and disappeared. The other followed, stopped on a branch about 4' from me, erected his crest for about a second, and was gone. I was far too slow to get a photograph.



There's one I took of a very miserable-looking goldcrest from April 2005.

[Riggers]

Grim no more:

[Wowbagger]

Riggerers, you disappoint me! Where's the pipe?

[Riggers]

Reserved for a special occasion.

[Wowbagger]

I just took Morphy for his bedtime constitutional.

On the way home I saw a fox go through this gate

http://goo.gl/maps/w1z01

which was also our chosen route.

Once round the far side of the church, I caught a brief glimpse of a pair of foxes cavorting in the planet-slaying floodlights that the C of E likes to use for night-time illumination of the church, just in case God can't find his way home on a Friday night. Almost immediately after the foxes disappeared, a badger entered the church yard by this gate.

http://goo.gl/maps/N5wgE

Morphy and I stood stock still, quite close to the church buildings, and meles meles, being unaware of our existence, bumbled towards us and didn't notice us until he was about four feet form Morphy's nose. The badger stopped and just looked at us for about 5 seconds. Morphy, interested, stood and wagged. Then the badger decided that we weren't really the sort of company he was after, turned away and disappeared somewhere off to our left.

Morphy's reaction was interesting. I'm pretty sure that, had it been a fox that close, he would have gone ballistic. I'm convinced that foxes deliberately wind dogs up. Badgers are far less provocative.

For my part, it's the closest I've been to a badger since one knocked me off my bike.

[Dibdib]

Bizarrely, a DEER wandering inquisitively around Piper's Way in Swindon (having a good nose around Intel's offices).

Despite his lack of concern at the traffic, he was somewhat reluctant to be approached by a fat brightly-dressed cyclist and I was able to shepherd him softly to the back of Intel's car park and back through the hole in the fence he'd come from.

[PaulR]

Flying over SE23 (near catford) this morning, a buzzard.  Sparrowhawks and kestrels are usual, peregrines occasionally, but never seen a buzzard round here before.

[clarion]

I almost headbutted one of the gold/firecrests earlier.  I was walking round the outside of the building, and one tried to sit tight on a branch which crossed the path at my forehead level.  It must have been about five inches away when it took off at high speed away.

I spent some time staking out the kitchen window, but they didn't make themselves apparent (even before I'd gone round & disturbed them).

[Wowbagger]

A swallow! 1.05pm, Gravel Road, Nayland.

[slowfen]

Also swallow x2 near Ely, as well as an insomniac bat 

[Bledlow]

Two swallows! A few miles apart, SW of Reading, between 3 & 4 pm.
A muntjac casually strolling across the road near Hamstead Marshall (SW of Newbury).
Numerous cock pheasants, including one which couldn't decide how to get off the road.

Also -
Roadkill: badger, frog & nestling (blackbird?).
Carcass of a calf, in a field. Mostly eaten. Hide left on the head & feet. Perhaps born in the worst of the March weather & didn't survive. Cows & larger (well, they lived & grew) calves in the field.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A heron. A buzzard. Signs of two separate (widely separated) badgerauks spadgerorcs Accipiter nisus. And, most surprising of all, a bumble bee.

[Pingu]

We saw loadsa herons on the Port Navigation yesterday. Also a wooderypeckery drumming & getting a reply. And a sparrowhawk.

Just remembered: a pair of goosanders in Aberdeen harbour during the week.