Seen today

[clarion]

Two foxes bathing in the Wandle.

[Pingu]

A pair of herons flew over our street this morning.

[cycleman]

buzzards ,2 of ,over slough this morning 

[Pingu]

Come, friendly buzzards!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Come, friendly buzzards, and shit on Slough!
It isn't fit for red kites now,
There isn't kebab to graze a crow.
Swarm over, Bird!

But spare the chimneys of Didcot
The steam they smoked but now do not;
It's not their fault they are not bright,
They've tasted shite.

Come, friendly buzzards and nest in Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The audaxers are coming now;
Their farts exhale.

[pcolbeck]

A scorpion.

[cycleman]

audexers ins slough  . they should have gone LEFT @ T  .

[cycleman]

a jay near saville gardens windsor park yesterday

[Wowbagger]

A tawny owl, I think, a few curlews and four or more squashed toads.

And a Copper Dragon.

[Pingu]

Another death in the garden:


IMG_1747 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[SteveC]

A mink ran out in front of me today carrying a still wriggling stoat!

Mink are lovely to look at, shame they get a bad press. It's not their fault they were all released when the local mink farm was stormed by knobs with bolt cutters.

Quite. And now the water vole is on the verge of extinction as a result of those hungry minks. Oh the irony.

Some good news about mink. Apparently, if otters manage to re-establish themselves somewhere, the mink seem to disappear. It's though the otters are just better predators and the mink just can't compete, not that the otters are actually attacking them.

[Crumbling Nick]

A mink ran out in front of me today carrying a still wriggling stoat!

Mink are lovely to look at, shame they get a bad press. It's not their fault they were all released when the local mink farm was stormed by knobs with bolt cutters.

Quite. And now the water vole is on the verge of extinction as a result of those hungry minks. Oh the irony.

Some good news about mink. Apparently, if otters manage to re-establish themselves somewhere, the mink seem to disappear. It's though the otters are just better predators and the mink just can't compete, not that the otters are actually attacking them.

Sadly, it's not quite as benign as that. Otters displace mink, which  move away from the waterways and easy fishing. That's good news for water voles. However the furriners will happily survive on flesh other than fish (or water voles) e.g. chicken, so the problem hasn't gone away. I don't think anyone has yet researched whether any more of our native species away from the waterways is likely to suffer from mink predation, but it seems unlikely that there will no causalties.
It should be blindingly obvious that the loveliness of mink is the reason they were farmed for their fur. It's a great pity that the animal rights campaigners couldn't see through their fluffy illusions into the real wild world that they were unwittingly wrecking.

[pcolbeck]

Another scorpion. This time in one of the bathrooms. Caught and released into the f ielectribe next door. I have Ben elected the official scorpion rangler for the holiday it seems. Never new they had them in France before this holiday.

[pcolbeck]

Not seen but heard. A wolf howling. All the village dogs went bananas. I didn't know there were wolves this side of the Rhone but it seems their are.

[Pingu]

Rescued a sheep. It had got its head stuck through a fence &  I managed to free it.

[Pingu]

Another death in the garden:

And another:


IMG_1757 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Pingu]

BN: dead cat & a small dead badger 

(click to show/hide)

IMG_1774 by The Pingus, on Flickr

GN: Mrs P saw a live stoat 

[Bledlow]

Another scorpion. This time in one of the bathrooms. Caught and released into the f ielectribe next door. I have Ben elected the official scorpion rangler for the holiday it seems. Never new they had them in France before this holiday.

I first saw a scorpion when I was 14 & on a PGL Adventure Holiday in southern France. One of our lot caught one & imprisoned it in a small box until he'd shown it to everyone.

[pcolbeck]

We saw about 10 in the house over the two weeks we were there. I caught any I saw in a glass and then released them in the field next door. My BiL squished any he saw.

[fuzzy]

I found a couple hiding under rocks in South Africa. I snaffled them up along with various other critters (millipedes, chuffing big and bitey ants, caterpillars etc) and released them in the Meerkat pen.

[Crumbling Nick]

There seem to be a lot of bumblebees around, though observations are mostly in gardens or parkland. I don't think there have ever been less than three species, though the big ones with a white backside seem to be predominant.

Wasps are starting to become a nuisance, which doesn't normally happen until September. It's very difficult to explain to my womenfolk that wasps aren't very agile creatures (I can catch one in cupped hands and throw it on to the ground before it can recover its ability to fly away). Sadly, it's taken me most of half a century to realise that stamping on the poor bugger is an unneccessary killing .

[Peter]

That's progress, Nick!  Do you know the glass and postcard routine?   You can safely and humanely catch and release most mini-beasts using this method: glass over beast, slide postcard under glass, taking care not to trap any legs, feelers and so on.

[Riggers]

Not seen today or, for that matter, for several days now: Housemartins, Swallows, Swifts.

Where have they gone to!!!!!!!!!

[cycleman]

south................,maybe 

[Riggers]

Seems a bit bloody early to me.