Wildlife January 2013

[Roma]

Mark,  I've just emailed the Grampian squirrel group.  I hope they check emails.  Their website does not seem very active.  Only two news items for this year.  Two people sending in squirrel sightings. 
It's definitely a boy Angie

[Anthony Darby]

Hedgehogs round us have mange. They respond to treatment and a coating of baby oil to soften the skin. The ones I have seen look awful.

[angie]

It's definitely a boy Angie

Roma I won't ask how you know 

Anthony I took this one for you, most of them just scrambled away as I walked past them but this one maybe thought he was photogenic.

Second picture, this is how I feel after the festive season.

Angie 

[Anthony Darby]

Your lizard is Gallotia galloti Angie, which is a large Tenerife wall lizard. The tortoise looks like it might be from Aldabra?

[angie]

Anthony I quite liked the lizards. I don't find them scary at all not like worms or spiders.

Angie 

[Anthony Darby]

We went out to Muriwai Beach today. Black sand so hot Heidi had to be carried through the dunes to the car. Lots of small Portuguese men of war stranded by the tide. I spotted a tiger beetle feasting on them. This beetle was very fast and flew off after the photo was taken. That's a gannet colony in the first pic - spilled over to the mainland from the rocky island. http://www.aucklandnz.com/destinations/muriwai

[Natalia]

What interesting animals and insects! And we have more common Corvus monedula

[RichardW]

ringer friend set up last week and had a busy day, lovely to see the Siskins & Redpolls so close.

[Anthony Darby]

A friend in Howard Beach, New York sent me this pic of a possum that chose a site 3 feet off the ground in a pine tree in the local primary school yard to sleep over night.

[Roma]

A friend sent me this picture for ID.  I'm sure somebody here will recognise it.

[ronm]

Its Alucita hexadactyla, Roma, the Twenty Plume-Moth. ( I have assumed your friend is in the UK? ... There are over 100 related, similar, on Continental Europe !!)

http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=1288

[Roma]

Thank you, Ron.  That was quick.  It was a friend of my friend who took the picture.  She is French but lives here, so I assume it was taken in NE Scotland.

[alant]

Saw a flock of about 20 Snow buntings feeding in field in the Pentland hills today.  I've been walking there for years and have never noticed them before.  Maybe they stood out more in the snow.

[ichristie]

Winter visitors, hello all we have been surrounded by around a feet of snow here for a week the roads are good but the nursery is still in winter mode, I have enjoyed many bird visitors with Bramblings, Siskins, Goldfinches, Gold crests Woodpeckers and this week Long tailed tits usually 4 or 5 at a time so will post some pictures, as usual they always come in when I do not have my camera but caught them today,  cheers Ian the Christie kind

[RichardW]

2 yellowhammers were under the feeders today, first time I've seen them in the garden but not quick enough with the camera.