[dave]

Are you sure thats not just one of the new "Erinaceinae" flavour of Magnum that someone dropped?

[cofe]

check this shit out, peregrine webcams on derby cathedral:

http://195.224.106.202/peregrine/webcam.htm

http://195.224.106.202/peregrine/webcam2.htm

the bottom link was an extreme close-up when i posted it.

[slackline]

Very cool Cofe.

Saw probably a kestrel up at Agden Rocher on Friday.

Also on SOS my friend disturbed a suicidal squirrel that ran along to the tip of the branch that sticks out from the tree on the route and took a flying leap to the adjacent tree, missed, fell about 12-15 metres landing some 10m away from the crag.  Picked itself up and then scarppered off into the undergrowth.    Was quite surprised it survived the fall, although it may well have curled up and died somewhere quiet after it ran away.

Oh and there was a rather large nest just above the tree on this route.  Definately a birds nest and not the squirrels drey, but didn't look to be currently occupied.

[Falling Down]

Dippers bobbing down Chee Dale yesterday...

[SA Chris]

Was quite surprised it survived the fall, although it may well have curled up and died somewhere quiet after it ran away.

Probably in severe pain, but knew you were watching, so pretended it didn't hurt and ran off.

Loads of birds of prey around on the weeked, I am crap at identifying them. One was vagualy hawkinsh, others were bigger.

[Mark Lloyd]

Heard my first Chiffchaff at the weekend

[Zods Beard]

Oh and there was a rather large nest just above the tree on this route.  Definately a birds nest and not the squirrels drey, but didn't look to be currently occupied.

Excuse my ignorance but is a squirrels 'nest' called a drey then?

[slackline]

Oh and there was a rather large nest just above the tree on this route.  Definately a birds nest and not the squirrels drey, but didn't look to be currently occupied.

Excuse my ignorance but is a squirrels 'nest' called a drey then?

The first victim, here let me google that for you 

[Zods Beard]

Piss off you nerd 

Good new word teaching skills, have some waddage.

[SA Chris]

Excuse my ignorance but is a squirrels 'nest' called a drey then?

I believe they were renamed in honour of Dr Dre himself, who is a keen squirrel watcher, and honorary president of the ASRWAA (American Small Rodent Watchers Association of America). Eminem on the other hand is more interested in larger rodents.

[Jaspersharpe]

Only since he forgot about drey.

[dave]

Dre's been down with any tree-dwelling mammals since back when cube was rollin with lorenzo in a benzo.

[Ru]

check this shit out, peregrine webcams on derby cathedral:

There's one there at the moment, but it's not doing very much. You would have thought that with all this interactive web 2.0 stuff they would have figured out a way to let you prod it with a stick or something from the comfort of your own keyboard.

[Bonjoy]

Get in!! It seems that the ideal combo of a cold winter and a period of warm spring weather has kicked off an exceptional Morel season this year. Normally I don’t find them until the first or second week of April but this year they’re up early. First I found a couple of small ones at a new spot where I’d never looked for them before. Having found these I decided to check my regular patch and found a hefty 16 large Morchella elata, which is by far the most I’ve found here in over six years of checking. Anyone interested in finding some of these should get looking now as they have a very short season. My top tips are to look on sandy limestone/chalk soils (only worth looking where the soil is alkaline), under Ash trees (I’ve heard that Apple and dying Elm is also worth a look). Some Morels also favour the urban environment, worth looking on Golf courses, disturbed/burnt ground and mulched beds. Good luck!
I had a few last night sautéed with a splash of brandy and cream on a Venison steak, with pommes Lyonnais and savoy cabbage. Looking forward to another meal or two from the current crop and hopefully some further finds. Biggest YYFY moment of 2009 for me so far by a long way!













Other than that we saw some nice birdlife whilst up in Northumberland last week including Eider, Shelduck, lots of waders, a young Bewick (might have been a Whooper) swan and best of all an Egret (didn’t have binos to hand so not sure which species) on the salt marshes opposite Lindesfarne.

[Johnny Brown]

Egrets have made an impressive colonisation of Britain in the last ten years. That said the North-east not the first place I'd look, there's two to every heron down in cornwall now.

Can you pm me some Morel site beta?

[dave]

nice one love-egg. Whats the street value of that lot?

[Bonjoy]

I'd be hard pressed to put a price on rocking horse shit and uk morels are harder to come by.
JB the main patch is too much of a close guarded secret but I'll PM you the second location assuming you're only going to photo them (I know you prefer Skittles and Lilt to real food).

[Johnny Brown]

Lilt? Are you insane? I'm a cloudy lemonade man.

[fatneck]

Egrets have made an impressive colonisation of Britain in the last ten years

I saw TWO on the Dee the other day!

[Jim]

and I thought you were just a lime juice type of guy

[Danger]

I saw a fucking Kingfisher,

in the centre(ish) of Sheffield, over the river between Kelham Island Museum and the Fat Cat.

It was awesome, that picture doesn't do it justice, its an amazingly coulourful thing.

[Johnny Brown]

Nice, will have to keep a look at when I'm at work. Used to see them regularly fishing the Don down at Attercliffe.

[Bonjoy]

We used to see 'Kingy' by the bridge on Rutland road on the way to lunch every day. Don't see him so much these days. Must have found better hunting down stream.

[uptown]

A red kite flew over uptowntowers recently, and yesterday I found a dead mouse under the range.

[Andy B]

Whilst up being ill in the middle of the night, on Wednesday, I heard Tawney Owls in our back garden again, for the first time since last summer.

We used to see 'Kingy' by the bridge on Rutland road on the way to lunch every day. Don't see him so much these days. Must have found better hunting down stream.

I have a vision of Ted in waders, with a harpoon.