Seen today

[Basil]

A song thrush giving it large from a couple of small trees next to our house. It's been here for two or three days, is surprisingly loud and has an astonishingly large and varied repertoire.

Me to Mrs B.  "Do you hear all those birds? That's just one bird!"

[pcolbeck]

Yesterday, at 6.50pm.

I was cycling along Rebels Lane and I had my attention attracted by blackbirds' alarm calls. I stopped and had a look round and the cause of their angst was to be seen in the branches of a good-sized oak tree. A little owl. It's years since I've seen one. It was very close to the point at which I heard a nightingale and a song thrush, and saw a slow worm, last spring/summer.

I have only ever seen one in the wild, It was a juvenile and was sat in the middle of a very minor and little used country road I was cycling along. I picked it up and put it on a hedge. It was fine, they are quite calm and not aggressive. I was talking to the guy running a raptor and owl display at Dolby Forest last week where they had a little owl. He had only seen one once in the wild too. Apparently they are reasonably common but tend to hide in hedges and the like as they can be prey for larger birds so you just don't see them.

[Wowbagger]

I didn’t realise that little owls were introduced to this country from mainland Europe during the 19th century. It seems they are in decline throughout Europe. According to the RSPB, there are 5700 breeding pairs and it is of ‘least concern” but when I reported this sighting to the local RSPB recorder, he marked it in red.

[Flite]

We have little owls round and about. Always difficult to spot as they tend to sit on the drystone walls and they are the same colour and about the same size as the stones. Wonderful grumpy expressions, and when hunting for earthworms they stomp across the ground in a very determined manne
It's probably one of the few owls/raptors that the gamekeepers don't "control".

[PaulR]

k by PaulRide, on Flickr
It was early in the morning so my cry of "WTAF" may have been audible for miles around

[andrew_s]

I see this :

It was early in the morning so my cry of "WTAF" may have been audible for miles around

It's common when images are hosted on google. You've probably got to set the image as public or something.

[PaulR]

Aha, thanks Andrew - I've tweaked it to a link to flickr.

[ElyDave]

We have little owls round and about. Always difficult to spot as they tend to sit on the drystone walls and they are the same colour and about the same size as the stones. Wonderful grumpy expressions, and when hunting for earthworms they stomp across the ground in a very determined manne
It's probably one of the few owls/raptors that the gamekeepers don't "control".

Have had one in the garden, once. Sat on the swing set briefly, and was gone by the time could get a camera.

Yesterday, whilst out for a run spotted something moving in the young wheat shoots, stopped to take a closer look and from the form of it I think a weasel

[rafletcher]

A hare running across the back field, and, more unusually, as I was rearranging the clematis on the arch, I heard scratching from the top of the (very) adjacent fence. Expecting either a squirrel of a pigeon, I was most surprised to see the jackdaw we’ve spotted a couple of times recently elsewhere in the field. Oh, and a couple of circling buzzards, but then they’re becoming almost as plentiful as the red kites.

[Mrs Pingu]

I put out some sheep's wool we received as packaging a few weeks ago and today I was gratified to see this tit actually using it.
IMG_9874_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Basil]

Our dog has had a hair cut and I've filled a bird feeder with fur.  It was quite popular last year.

[Sergeant Pluck]

I didn’t realise that little owls were introduced to this country from mainland Europe during the 19th century. It seems they are in decline throughout Europe. According to the RSPB, there are 5700 breeding pairs and it is of ‘least concern” but when I reported this sighting to the local RSPB recorder, he marked it in red.

Quite a few little owls in the local park. I see one almost every time I go there. You do have to look carefully though:



The tree is a black walnut.

Probably the oldest Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) remaining in the UK, thought to have been planted in the early 18th century.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Black_Walnut_Tree_Of_Marble_Hill_Park,_London._(4621674542).jpg

[nicknack]

Bats flitting about outside our window at this very minute. First we've seen this year.

[Mrs Pingu]

I was just looking for bats under the street light earlier. Didn't see any though.

[slowfen]

Swallow 

Thought was house martin, then saw red/brown throat, and flew off as got camera ready

[Wowbagger]

I forgot to report my observations on Tuesday, both of significance. In the morning, the first ducklings of the year on the park lake, and in the afternoon, a pair of swallows behind Barling church.

[Sergeant Pluck]

I’ve been looking and failing to see the above-mentioned little owls in Marble Hill Park over the last week or two. Sadly, it transpires that the little owls’ nest in that black walnut was raided by squirrels a few weeks ago and the birds have abandoned the nest 

There are numerous little owl nest boxes elsewhere in the park, but I have yet to see them being used. Hopefully they have found somewhere suitable and, even more hopefully, they might return to the walnut tree next year.

Bloody squirrels.

[Mrs Pingu]

Aw.

[Mrs Pingu]

In the garden this morning I was stood between 2 shrubs which turn out to be skimmia and the noise was electric, they were both covered in honey bees.
I have never heard quite such a sound but it brought such a smile to my face.
 

[rafletcher]

We plant a lot of Pulmonaria as ground cover, and it’s early to flower, and the bees, and bee-fly’s, absolutely love it.

[Pingu]

In the garden this morning I was stood between 2 shrubs which turn out to be skimmia and the noise was electric, they were both covered in honey bees.
I have never heard quite such a sound but it brought such a smile to my face.
 

IMG_9987_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[Pingu]

First swallow of the year. Just the one...

[rafletcher]

We saw swallows too today, and on my ride I saw a good sized rabbit, 2 hen pheasants, and what I think was a grouse - it was down in a roadside ditch, and I only saw it when it scuttled away a bit, a dun brown job.

[Flite]

The Sand Martins are back!
And a solitary woodcock

[JonBuoy]

On yesterday's ride I spotted what I am pretty sure was a stoat.

On today's ride, in a totally different location, I think I spotted another one.

The only time that I can remember spotting a live one before was in the middle of a BHPC race at Hillingdon.  It hopped(?) across the track as I was trying to concentrate on the racing line down through the swervy bits.