Wildlife May 2011

[Anthony Darby]

This one eventually sings.

[David Lyttle]

Magpies are fairly smart birds. There is a group (adolescent gang) of them hanging around my place at the moment. They will come right up to the house when they think there is no one about but generally disappear it they see you.  They like to look at themselves in the rear view mirrors of cars too. There was a bit of a scuffle going on between two groups of birds out in the paddock yesterday but they must have resolved the issue whatever it was and were soon were back giving a harrier hawk a hard time. They can be aggressive at times but we dont bother them and they dont bother us. It is a different story for the cat (even though they sport the same colours). I was walking down our drive one accompanied by the cat when she got dive-bombed by a magpie - It was not interested in me but the cat rapidly took cover. A lot of people hate them with a passion (a) because they are australians and (b) they are said to drive away native birds but I dont think they do all that much harm. They favour open country so pastoral farming suits them and provides them with lots of food (insect pests) whereas most of our native birds live in forests.

[Olga Bondareva]

I was going to shoot WB graft started to grow when found this company of two insects.

[ranunculus]

Remarkable image Olga ... many thanks for posting.

[Paddy Tobin]

Olga, I don't recognise the one on the right but I would kill the one on the left on sight - the detested vine weevil.

Great shot. Paddy

[Olga Bondareva]

Paddy, I did that... with the left insect. They eat my pear tree. The left one could be probably Pristiphora abietina. Another undesired guest in the garden.

[angie]

Olga,  Hate those vine weevil, love your photos.

Angie

[Lesley Cox]

Local farmers say magpies attack the eyes and the abdomens of new lambs.

[David Lyttle]

Local farmers say magpies attack the eyes and the abdomens of new lambs.

If that is the case then clearly pastoral farming suits them!

[mark smyth]

Are farmers confusing your magpie with our magpie?

[Stephenb]

Mark: Swifts have arrived over the last week at their northernmost Norwegian breeding (Trondheim) with flocks of up to 50 reported, but I've yet to see one....Only about 10C at the moment, so they probably haven't got down to business yet!

[mark smyth]

Good to hear that. Expect non breeders in a few weeks. These are the birds you will target. They havent arrived in the UK

[fredg]

A few snaps of wildlife from a week in the Scottish borders.

1. Bullfinch, eating dandelion seed at the side of the drive.
2. Bullfinch, returned the next day and eating dandelion seed in the rear grassed area.
3. Sparrows, photo courtesy of MrsG, the chicks fledged 10 minutes after this was taken.
4. Mrs Pheasant, a regular visitor to the garden with her husband.

[TC]

The gales last week were good for birdwatching on the coast.  On the sea front in the teeth of a screaming gale, a Great Skua appeared and started feeding on the carcase of a dead seal.
When I got out the car to have a better look, I could hardly stand up.  In order to take any sort of reasonable picture, I had to set the ISO to 1800 in order to use a high shutter speed.  The loss of quality is obvious but it was that or no picture.

The next day we went further up the coast and saw large groups of Storm Petrels and Leach's Petrels blown in by the westerly gales.  The highlight was a flock of 50 Long Tailed Skuas sitting in the sea waiting to continue their migration to Arctic Norway and Russia.  The day previous there had been a count of 600 birds.  It has been discovered by a local birder that this is one of the main flyways of Skuas going North.  At this point they head inland to the East coast, then across the North Sea presumably to points North.  Seeing these birds made the weather bearable

[Anthony Darby]

Are farmers confusing your magpie with our magpie?

In what way?