Seen today

[Jaded]

Double turtle!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

A robin, hovering like a hummingbird.

[David Martin]

Fort Fuzzy haz Bats again

Cool, what sort?

[fuzzy]

I have no idea, I just see them flitting about the garden at dusk. Great to watch though.

[noisycrank]

BCT has a list of the ones you find in the UK I think they last added one in 2010

http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/uk_bats.html

In the higher latitudes I frequent life is a bit simpler with fewer species, although there is the added complication of soprano pipistrelles.
You can buy cheap and cheerful bat detectors which let you listen to their calls for literally pocket money prices. As with anything else if you want something decent it costs a bit more and for the enthusiast or professional..

If you get the chance an organized event with a local ranger is usually interesting and they may run it in conjunction with some moth trapping which is also usually good value.

[David Martin]

You'll find soprano pips all over, though they are the most common in Caledonia (especially in my freezer)

There is a company who are developing DNA tests on droppings who are looking for samples to test their methods with. PM if interested. (Not affiliated, just been chatting to them, a spin out from Imperial).

To identify species there are a number of tricks, getting full spectrum sound recordings is the best field method short of catching them (for which you need a license). DNA analysis is the definitive gold standard.

[David Martin]

Some from the garden this morning. I recognise the female sparrow but am unsure of the rest. Maybe a teenage robin?
Dunnock?

DSC_9461 (2) by David Martin, on Flickr

DSC_9472 (2) by David Martin, on Flickr

DSC_9474 (2) by David Martin, on Flickr

DSC_9485 (2) by David Martin, on Flickr

DSC_9486 by David Martin, on Flickr

[citoyen]

I've seen the local raptors from my office window three times today, but on each occasion, by the time I've got outside with the camera, they've flown away. I'm starting to thing I'm hallucinating. Or maybe someone is gaslighting me by projecting film of the birds onto my office window. Curses!

I'm still not entirely sure what they are, but I'm sticking with Marsh Harriers until I can confirm otherwise.

On my way down to Deal yesterday evening, I also saw a Red Kite over a field near Eastry - that one is a definite identification due to the shape of the tail and the white markings on the wings.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Dunnock

I think the top and bottom photos are of dunnocks, with their thin, dark insect eating beaks. Sparrows have seed crushing beaks. I rarely see sparrows here in SW London - dunnocks seem to have taken over. Despite being equipped for insect eating, the ones here seem to be content to eat sunflower seeds and spend less time poking about for ground insects.

I’m not sure about the others. The juvenile robins that I have seen tend to be more reddish and often have the beginnings of an orange bib.

[Basil]

Surely wrong time of year for an adolescent robin?  Anything hatched last year is now adult. 

[Wowbagger]

DM's third picture looks to me like a female house sparrow. The beak is totally different from the other photos. I reckon the others are dunnocks.

[David Martin]

Yup, third is a female spuggie. Didn't think I had so many Dunnock's about.

[pcolbeck]

Yup, third is a female spuggie. Didn't think I had so many Dunnock's about.

No one ever does. They are so brown and inconspicuous you just don't notice them. Dunnocks must be the archetypal LBJ.

[Sergeant Pluck]

Well, yesterday - ashy mining bees and tawny mining bees. The former were in their thousands, all going frantic across a 10m x 10m section of patchy grass in Marble Hill Park near Twickenham. The latter were less numerous but easier to photograph. Apparently these ground nesting bees are on the rise in the UK. Useful pollinators apparently.  The ashy bees were going completely mad, grappling with each other as they went in and out of their holes.

Holes (you may just be able to discern the rear end of an ashy mining bee in one of the holes. Probably not though - they were rather fast moving):



The other half of an ashy mining bee:



Tawny mining bee:



I have to admit that I have never seen these bees before, and I had always thought those holes were made by some kind of ant.

[rafletcher]

The usual several ok kites, plus a dozen swallows - the first of the year, and unusually a couple of dozen crows, perhaps heading for one of the local rookeries to breed?

[rafletcher]

And a bald bluetit. A quick google suggests a mite infestation.

[fuzzy]

Up close and personal with a Muntjack deer this morning. If I had been 1 second further up the road, it would have taken my front wheel out from under me as it ran accross the road

[rafletcher]

A skylark, and 8 leverets, the latter charging about a local field.

Oh, and a bluetit checking out the nestbox in the woods at the end of the garden. 

[David Martin]

Today I saw a common tern, bringing my species count for the last week on Mull and associated islands to 40. There will have been more I didn't identify (the ubiquitous LBJ which is usually a Meadow Pipit). Heard a Goldcrest.

New for me were (in the wild rather than in captivity or on bird feeders) Siskin, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Short eared owl, Peregrine (I think), Gannet, Puffin, Willow Warbler, Arctic Skua and Common Tern. Didn't see any Golden or Sea eagles but did see a few tourist eagles (buteo buteo). Currently processing loads of pictures.

[David Martin]

Crashlanding puffin
Incoming 2 by David Martin, on Flickr

Siskin
Siskin by David Martin, on Flickr

I've no idea what this one is.
DSC_9933 (2) by David Martin, on Flickr

This Curlew landed right next to the car.
Curlew by David Martin, on Flickr

Oystercatcher
Oystercatcher by David Martin, on Flickr

It's not all birds, this vole was living in the garden wall of the cottage.
DSC_0043 (2) by David Martin, on Flickr

And here is a sheepsurfing starling..
Hitchhiker 2 by David Martin, on Flickr

[Pingu]

A pair of geese with four goslings walking along a pavement in central York.

[essexian]

For only the second time in the 28 years I have lived up this way, I decided to cycle up and onto Cannock Chase. My reward? A herd of around 30 deer crossing the road in front of me as I climbed Camp Road.

Lovely to see it was too.

[andyoxon]

A blue tit caught on a dangling cotton thread on the washing line - we held the bird carefully, and managed to completely remove the thread which had been wound tightly around one of it's leg/claws, by cutting with a small swiss army knife pair of scissors.  Took about 10mins, during which it calmed down, and then flew away to the nearest tree after.  My guess was that it was looking for nesting materials, and somehow got caught when trying to extract the thread.

[Mr Larrington]

DSC_0044 by Mr Larrington, on Flickr

Someone or something kindly left this semi-mummified corpse on the parade ground at Fort Larrington over the weekend.

[Pingu]

Terns fishing in the harbour this afternoon.