Seen today

[Jaded]

A burst frog

[pcolbeck]

Last week was good for wildlife. We were off work so did a fair bit of walking with Tilly.

Monday: Whitby and Sandsend gulls nesting in little caves they had scraped out of the soft cliffs and loads of turnstones on the beach.

Wednesday: Helmsley to Rievaulx and back, hares in the fields and a stoat bouncing towards us as we walked passed a garden in Rievaulx. It clocked us and did a comical double take before about facing and bounding back the way it came. Tilly got very jealous when I petted and talked to pony that stuck its head over a fence to see what we were doing.

Friday: Loop around Hutton le Hole vie Lastingham. An enormous barn owl hunting by day (probably due to not being able to hunt during the storm on Wednesday night through Thursday). A couple of Golden plover as well. We also saw seven hares in one field all playing together and boxing a bit. Luckily we saw them before Tilly did and managed to get her on the lead otherwise she and they would probably have ended up in the next county.

Sunday: For the first time Tilly managed to flush some deer near the village. Four suddenly bolted from the rough grass at the edge of the field we were walking round. They then watched us carefully from about three hundred yards away before disappearing into a thicket.

[rafletcher]

A red kite. Not unusual as we are close to the Chilterns. But this was a juvenile, and he spent 20 minutes doing circuits with the occasional "bump" as he tried to grab the chicken skins and bones we'd thrown into the field at the bottom of the garden. Leftovers from my taking the meat off some thighs for the purposes of cooking. He failed however, and was then mobbed by crows who were happy to land and take the remains.

[pcolbeck]

Red kite for me today too. A very rare site here. There are some breeding near Pocklington but they don't normally get over this side of the hills in-between. I think Tilly ate it's lunch as just after it had soared away she found and scoffed half a rabbit in the middle of the field.

[Pingu]

Two otters viewed from the office this morning

[Wowbagger]

Yesterday: ducks! Mallards, wigeon, teal and gadwall, all at Hanningfield reservoir, the level of which is much nearer where it should be compared to how it was in December.

[Basil]

I see Mallards every day!

 

[Wowbagger]

I see Mallards every day!

 

As in a popular beat combo, mallard?

[Basil]

No.

[hellymedic]

Are they locomotives?

[Basil]

No.
Stop now.

[Kim]

Fictional pathologists, innit.

[Basil]

Fictional pathologists, innit.

Really?

[Wowbagger]

Fictional pathologists, innit.

Really?

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0020063/bio

[pcolbeck]

I see Mallards every day!

 

I don't, the Yorkshire Wolds are amazingly short on above ground water though there is an awful lot of water under the Wolds being that they are composed of a bazillion tons of chalk. Perhaps we have a special troglodyte subspecies of the ubiquitous duck.

[Pingu]

Talking of ducks, I think I saw a scaup yesterday. A first for me.

[cycleman]

a green woodpecker today alone the jubilee river ncn61   

[Wowbagger]

Mrs. Wow and I visited Osterley Park, W. London, today. We saw mallards, shovelers, tufted duck, Egyptian goose, Canada goose, coots, moorhens, great crested grebes, a heron and greater spotted and green woodpecker. Oh, and loads of ring-necked parakeets.



This great crested grebe was sitting on its nest within a few yards of the M4. It was not the peaceful, idyllic scene one might have thought with the sound turned down.

[Pingu]

Waxwings this morning.

[ElyDave]

Now my office has a window, I'm seeing all sorts of garden birds I didn't know were visiting us quite so regularly.

Today, out on the recumbent, a large barn owl, flying along the ditch next to me.

[Wowbagger]

A pair of greater spotted woodpeckers being noisy in a tree.

The roach in the pool below the park lake seem to be getting bigger by the day. There are two small pike in that pool but it's quite a long time since I saw them attack any of the roach. No doubt there are smaller roach that I just don't notice, as now the water is beginning to get warmer it's a little cloudier, not helped by the regular appearance of three mallards, whose activities stir it up.

I have read that a pike is capable of swallowing fish up to one-third of its body weight, and some of the larger roach must now be pretty close to that. I don't think either of the pike is more than 4lb in weight

[Pingu]

Two short eared owls hunting over the golf course near the office this afternoon.

[jamesld8]

Waxwings this morning.

34 Waxwings down near Builth, so pleased to see them and get marvellous views too of them as the whole flock flew down to feed on apples right across road from me

IMG_1373 by jamesld8, on Flickr

[Pingu]

 

[Pingu]

Dolphins in the harbour.