A random thread for the wildlife stuff - you know the drill

[Pingu]

Great

[Wowbagger]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/21/orca-rams-yacht-off-shetland-first-such-incident-northern-waters

You're goin' to need...

That's really interesting that the Portuguese population of orcas seems to have been telling the Orcadian orcas what to do.

[Mr Larrington]

Schloß Von Brandenburg has a new fence in its back garden.  Complete with a new hole.  In it.  Said hole being the work of hangry badgers.

I may have laughed, just a little.

[Bledlow]

Badgers are good at that. 

[Auntie Helen]

Saw an adder and a marmot today.

I then discovered that adder/viper is Kreuzotter in German. I thought a Kreuzotter was a sweet whiskers mammal that eats fish and lives in streams. No, that’s a Fischotter.

Very cool to see a Kreuzotter and a Murmeltier though.

[Rod Marton]

Saw an adder and a marmot today.

I then discovered that adder/viper is Kreuzotter in German. I thought a Kreuzotter was a sweet whiskers mammal that eats fish and lives in streams. No, that’s a Fischotter.

Very cool to see a Kreuzotter and a Murmeltier though.

Always thought it was Natter. But a quick Google has shown me that Kreuzotter is a synonym. Every day is a school day.

Indeed it is very cool to see both in a day. Though I've seen both individually, never together, and I would have thought their preferred habitats were rather different.

[Auntie Helen]

This was up a mountain - 1280 metres for the marmot, the viper was at under 1000 metres. Lush forests with streams for the viper, open grassland for the marmot.

Pics or it didn't happen:

[rafletcher]

Last week the (20 acre?) field behind our cottage was finally cut. It usually goes for silage but this year the yield for that was so good it was left for hay. Every day since the cat has brought in 1 or 2 mice.

[Wowbagger]

I think I have a homing slug.

Starting at some point during July, whenever I emptied the rain gauge after a wet day, there was a slug in there. Never before, in many years of emptying the rain gauge, has a slug ever been in there. But since the July wet spell, it has. I'm pretty sure it's the same one - greyish and medium-sized, as slugs go - and it was there again this morning. Each time it's been in there, I shake the rain gauge's inner cylinder quite hard, and the slug flies ten or fifteen feet across the garden.

Perhaps I should start regular checks throughout the day to see when it turns up again. I can't think of a way of fitting a miniature tracker to a slug...

[Cudzoziemiec]

Killer cats!

Once a nation of cat-lovers, attacks on other animals and recovery in local fauna is reshaping attitudes toward felines

Tess McClure
Tess McClure in Auckland
@tessairini
Fri 18 Aug 2023 21.00 BST
Out in the bush beyond his house, John McConnell walks with his gun, looking for the glint of eyes in the darkness.

McConnell, 67, lives outside Auckland and spends much of his time planting native trees on this block of land, trying to restore parts of it to their original state to draw back the chorus of native birds. At night, he heads out to hunt the predators that threaten them: possums, rats, and these days, any un-collared feline unlucky enough to end up in his sights.

“I shoot them,” says McConnell. “Seriously. If it’s a cat and I know whose it is, I’ll leave it. But if it’s a stray cat – it’s a gonner,” he says. “Even if it’s domestic and it’s out at night, I’m getting to the point where I’d shoot those as well, because they shouldn’t be out.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/19/bird-killing-machines-new-zealand-cools-on-cats-to-protect-native-wildlife

[Cudzoziemiec]

I read some time ago that (in the UK, but presumably it would be the same worldwide) well fed pet cats kill more wildlife than ferals, because they're in better hunting condition.

[Jaded]

[Mrs Pingu]

I read some time ago that cats are most likely taking the weak ones that may not survive anyway.

[Wowbagger]

I read this morning that hoopoes have bred in Leicestershire.

[Kim]

Encountered a pheasant on today's ride.  Regular readers will recall that my preferred bicycle is hors de combat, so I was on the Red Baron, which is notable for its ability to reach R17 without any significant effort if it's even vaguely downhill, which in this case it was, and its low tolerance for surface imperfections and (in as much as I've tested it) head-on impacts with mentally deficient wildlife.  As such, I delivered a torrent of harsh language.  True to form, the pheasant reacted in the stupidest way possible, which meant that instead of the usual running from side to side, it decided to sit in the middle of the road until belatedly deciding that a vertical takeoff was in order.

As I remarked to barakta earlier, pheasants don't have a lot of thrust...

[Wowbagger]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/they-kill-their-own-parents-children-and-neighbours-now-life-is-even-worse-for-the-vicious-alpine-marmot-aoe

I never realised what nasty sods they were...

[Wowbagger]

I have just read that a sparrowhawk has just been released after spending four days roosting in the rafters of Chelmsford Hobbycraft.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Chicago: 1,000 birds die in one night after smashing into conference hall windows
This isn't just a problem in Chicago. In 2014, research suggested anywhere between 365 million and 988 million birds die in window strikes every year across the US.



Do not place your pot plants on the window sill for starters.  Oh, and I bet cats get a lot of the blame, unjustly.

[Wowbagger]

26-year-old red kite put down.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/red-kite-bird-llanybydder-carmarthenshire-wales-b2427289.html

[rafletcher]

We have a “bug hotel”. It had some closed cells - until the bluetits found it and pecked them all open.

[Basil]

Friday and all weekend a bee has been buzzing around our living room.  A very noisy buzz it was, too, which eventually became quite irritating.
No amount of guidance towards open windows with wafting newspapers would encourage it out.
Well, this morning as I sat with the remnants of the week-end papers with my coffee, it dawned on me that the incessant droning had ceased.
Good, it's found it's way out at last.  Then,
Oh there it is. Trussed up and hanging from the top of the window frame. A spider's packed lunch.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Britain’s ‘loneliest sheep’ rescued after two years at foot of cliff

The sheep, called Fiona and wearing a huge fleece, had been stranded at the foot of cliffs on the Cromarty Firth for at least two years, with an animal welfare charity having deemed rescue attempts “incredibly complex”.

The rescue mission was organised by Cammy Wilson, a sheep shearer from Ayrshire and a presenter on the BBC’s Landward programme, after seeing media coverage of Fiona’s plight.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Went to a bonfire and fireworks last night (with samosas and mulled cider) and discovered that foxes are really not bothered by humongous gert fires.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-67326713.amp

Britain's loneliest sheep in hiding after rehoming row



Must admit I know nothing about what’s best for a lonely sheep. Instaram?

[Pingu]

Ewetube?