Wildlife October 2009

[mark smyth]

Cranes now breed again in England in the Norfolk Broads

[Armin]

Mark,
wunderful, good news - it is reported that the number of cranes is increasing
while contrary the numbers of storks is still decreasing (loss of habitats, wet meadows ect.)

[Lesley Cox]

Gerd you'd be very welcome in New Zealand and Australia for your winter months. We can do better than acorns for your sustenance too.

[Lesley Cox]

Wish I could show you a picture. Last night on TV we saw a Melbourne woman who has a crocodile as a pet. She was taking it for its daily walk along the street, in a well constructed harness, so no problems with it getting away. The croc looked to be about a metre long. Then she picked it up to cuddle it and had it nuzzling her ear. A terrible risk, I should think but apparently it is very well behaved with regard to human flesh.

[Gerdk]

Gerd you'd be very welcome in New Zealand and Australia for your winter months. We can do better than acorns for your sustenance too.

Lesley,
That's very kind. Thank you for this offer. Unfortunately I'm not able to fly as cheap as the cranes do! 

Gerd

[Rodger Whitlock]

Wildlife report chez me:

A few days ago I looked out my kitchen window to behold a deer munching on vegetation - either elephant garlic or peony leaves. I'd been expecting this to happen sooner or later. With the advent of leash laws, dogs no longer run free, and the deer population has exploded, moving into built up areas. If the neighbors were watching, they must have thought I was a mad man as I burst outside yelling at Ms. Deer. She left in a big hurry.

I'd seen a small pile of droppings in the lawn a couple of weeks earlier and had my suspicions. I was uncertain if it was deer or rabbit (former pets dumped at the nearby university and left to breed like...well, like rabbits, and also infiltrating nearby residential areas) but it was clearly some kind of plant-munching organism.

Hopefully, visits from Bambi won't become a regular thing, but if they do, I may have to ask for recipes for venison.


I put up my 3 hummingbird feeders last week after noticing one of the flying hamburgers looking for one of them. One of the feeders is positioned so I can watch it as I work at this computer. Why "flying hamburger"? A well-fed specimen of Anna's hummingbird is a moderately rotund beast for a bird that weighs no more than a dustbunny from under the bed. And it tickles my sense of the incongruous.

I enjoy hummingbirds: they're very feisty little birds. In the spring when the males are squabbling over the females, you get to watch amazing fights in the air, punctuated with their click-click-click-CLICK!!! calls of anger. They're very territorial, so I've had to position the three feeders where the birds can't see two at one time. Otherwise, the dominant male gets worn to a frazzle chasing off interlopers.

[Lesley Cox]

What an exciting life you're leading Rodger.

[Rodger Whitlock]

What an exciting life you're leading Rodger.

Is that a note of sarcasm hovering in the air, perchance?

Sometimes my life reminds me of the canonical description of life in a Victorian country rectory: real excitement was discovering that another strawberry had ripened during the night.

[Lesley Cox]

Yes, that's what I meant. Ironic rather than sarcastic.

[annew]

Wow! Just googled for an image of Anna's hummingbird. What a gorgeous little creature!

[mark smyth]

Roger do you get Mexican long-nosed bats coming to your hummer feeders? Maybe they dont get as far north as you?

[Calvin Becker]

Happened across this tree frog in the garden today. I don't know its name and can't find my frog book at the moment...

[Lori S.]

Roger do you get Mexican long-nosed bats coming to your hummer feeders? Maybe they dont get as far north as you?

According to Peterson, they (Leptonycteris nivalis) only make it into the U.S. in SE Arizona and the Big Bend area, Texas.

[cohan]

Happened across this tree frog in the garden today. I don't know its name and can't find my frog book at the moment...

nice shot--he seems very pale for all the greenery!

[Hristo]

Rodger, Lesley thanks for that little exchange, the image of Victorian society intently watching for the ripening of strawberries gave me something of a giggle. Was tis an Oscar Wilde quote Rodger, or simply one he would wish to have had attributed to him?