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Recent wildlife sightings (Read 648645 times)

SamT

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#2375 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
January 23, 2023, 09:49:31 pm
Totally amazing 5 minutes spent watching a huge pergrine stuff its guts with a pigeon today in the grounds of the Losehill Hall YHA.  We were literally only 30 yards away and had the binocs  to hand too so had a super view of the gore.   

Took some photos on the phone, but they're shit.  They make it look like we were a 100 yards away.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/49YyKj96uqweVbmN8

Will Hunt

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#2376 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 25, 2023, 03:35:36 pm
This is a first. A Red Kite flying above our house in suburban Bingley!

SamT

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#2377 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 25, 2023, 04:59:36 pm
Had some beauties in the last couple of weeks.

Long Eared owl (I assume, rather than short) quartering over ringinglow.  Really lovely prolonged view with the bins.

Same with a Barn Owl near Moscar, beautifully lit in the evening sun.

Buzzards seem to be really regular over Endcliffe, Bingham, Greystones of late, which seems really suburban for what I normally associate with wide open fields.

Stonechat on Hadrians wall at easter was nice too.

And heard my first chiff chaff of the year last week in Horseshoe.  (Once you clock their call, you can't escape it!). 

SA Chris

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#2378 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 25, 2023, 05:06:51 pm
Probably been arouind for ages down there, but first skylarks here. Spring had sprung. before snow yesterday & today....

SamT

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#2379 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 08:35:34 am
Skylarks! the acid techno djs of the moors.

Was listening a couple of weeks ago, and they're like a Roland 303 on speed.

Seemingly impossible to locate from their call and can't decide if they're some sort of ventriloquist act, or some sort of multiple DJ troupe, seamlessly blending one acid trance number into the next at a different location.

SA Chris

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#2380 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 08:45:35 am
How to spot a skylark - look up at sound, then look higher. No higher than that. Think is that dot really a bird?

A decent prescription helps.

Great description btw.

SamT

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#2381 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 08:48:36 am
Duh... makes perfect sense.

Never thought that at anyone one time, there is probably one doing its aerial display high above. 

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#2382 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 08:53:16 am
This is a first. A Red Kite flying above our house in suburban Bingley!

That's a coincidence, yesterday I saw one above Ilkley.  I've seen a lot of them above Arthington / Huby / North Rigton (i.e. Almscliff area), but I think Ilkley is the furthest I've seen one from the release centre in Harewood. Nice to see their range increasing.

SA Chris

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#2383 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 08:55:38 am
Maybe just spreading their wings a bit. Not that far as the crow / kite flies.

nai

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#2384 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 03:10:09 pm
This is a first. A Red Kite flying above our house in suburban Bingley!

That's a coincidence, yesterday I saw one above Ilkley.  I've seen a lot of them above Arthington / Huby / North Rigton (i.e. Almscliff area), but I think Ilkley is the furthest I've seen one from the release centre in Harewood. Nice to see their range increasing.

That's surprising. Was at Ben Rhydding sports club a few months back and there were a few of them, at least four patroling the fields and hedgerows either side of the club and more along the road as you went further back towards Otley.  Locals didn't seem fussed, got the feeling it was common to see them.

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#2385 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 03:27:30 pm
Had a nice sighting of a peregrine recently. Went to Jodrell bank with the family and whilst admiring the dish, a peregrine appeared and started mooching about occasionally harassing the crows that were flying in and out of the supporting structure. A nice bonus to an already good day out.

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#2386 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 04:55:08 pm
Two weeks ago saw a red kite on the drive from Sheffield to RHS, then a goshawk when bouldering. See buzzards regularly above the Blackstock road tip. I also now have a fox family resident in the garden hedge, daddy regularly sunbathes in the afternoon on the lawn!

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#2387 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 07:55:29 pm
Oooh nice foxes!

Been making the drive between south and north wales a lot recently and so many kites and buzzards on that drive! On one occasion one swooped down across the road in front of me (had to slow down to not hit the thing) to get something on the verge! Waddage stuff!

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#2388 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 26, 2023, 08:15:11 pm
This is a first. A Red Kite flying above our house in suburban Bingley!

That's a coincidence, yesterday I saw one above Ilkley.  I've seen a lot of them above Arthington / Huby / North Rigton (i.e. Almscliff area), but I think Ilkley is the furthest I've seen one from the release centre in Harewood. Nice to see their range increasing.

That's surprising. Was at Ben Rhydding sports club a few months back and there were a few of them, at least four patroling the fields and hedgerows either side of the club and more along the road as you went further back towards Otley.  Locals didn't seem fussed, got the feeling it was common to see them.

Was going to say similar, it's a very regular occurrence to see them out and about along Wharfedale, such that it's quite surprising the RSPB estimate there are only c. 4,400 breeding pairs in the UK.

One of my mates used to live in Pannal, and his next door neighbour would feed them in their garden. Added some spice to a BBQ to see a dozen of them diving down for the food!

Red Kites are a pretty amazing success story in terms of conservation and restoration of the population. I remember going to a feeding station in Wales as a very small child and learning how critically endangered they were, so it's very cool to see so many of them now.

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#2389 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 28, 2023, 04:22:13 pm
A few recent wildlife highlights!

Anglesey during half term saw porpoises at Bull Bay and the dog got bitten by an adder which I didn't see - gutted (he's fine now btw). Really close range views of 30+ Gannets and assorted other birds hitting a shoal of mackerel close to the shore at Moelfre but the undoubted highlight was an Otter in the Menai Straits at Plas Newydd!!

Also had a great walk at Rhoscolyn with plentiful Choughs and the first Swallows of the year but just after bumping in Franco (who says Hi!) there was a sudden fall of Wheatear! Boss!

More locally, the very urban park I live next to has produced a Sedge Warbler, Common Sandpiper and Tree Pipit in the last week or so but probably most incredibly, this morning a Merlin flew into the trees above me, startling everything including me and a birder I was walking with before exiting as swiftly as it arrived!

Hopeing to add Whitethroat, Winchat and Swifts to the year list soon!

andy popp

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#2390 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
April 28, 2023, 06:01:53 pm
Nice!

I had a prolonged, close-up view of a Black Cormorant fishing when I went swimming this morning.

SamT

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#2391 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 03, 2023, 02:18:58 pm

Was just coming on here to say "First Swallow" at Abney but FN has beat me too it.

Also, what I'm going to guess was a Weasel.  Orange skinny squirrel like thing, that I only fleetingly saw before it nipped into a hole in a dry stone wall and didn't come out again.  Didn't see any of its front/belly, only the orangey fur back.

Up near the gliding club near Abney.  (amazingly quite place for a stroll on a sunny bank holiday day -  :2thumbsup:)

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#2392 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 03, 2023, 02:40:14 pm
Heard a Cuckoo this morning. No Swifts yet tho.

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#2393 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 03, 2023, 05:30:10 pm
Heard a Cuckoo this morning. No Swifts yet tho.

We've had swifts since 30 April,

But we may be a bit further south than you.

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#2394 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 03, 2023, 10:34:48 pm
Currently on holiday in Cornwall.  Swift's aplenty & cuckoos in the heathland. Also picked up a few waiters etc....

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#2395 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 04, 2023, 10:53:34 pm
I'm not much of a list maker or tick lister, but I did have a written down list of birds that have landed on me.

Yesterday I was sitting with my wife in the spot where long tailed tits and gold crests have landed on me in the past. A couple of long tailed tits came to within a foot of us, but didn't land on us. My wife went back in to the house and a few minutes later a goldfinch landed on my shoulder briefly - a new one for me.

I can't find the written down list.

getting birds to land on me mostly involves sitting against hedges and not moving for long periods of time

Johnny Brown

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#2396 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 05, 2023, 08:28:07 am
You might enjoy this Lagers.

Quote
A Thicket in Lleyn by RS Thomas

I was no tree walking.
I was still. They ignored me,
the birds, the migrants
on their way south. They re-leafed
the trees, budding them
with their notes. They filtered through
the boughs like sunlight,
looked at me from three feet
off, their eyes blackberry bright.,
not seeing me, not detaching me
from the withies, where I was
caged and they free.

They would have perched
on me, had I nourishment
in my fissures. As it was
they netted me in their shadows,
brushed me with sound, feathering the arrows
of their own bows, and were gone,
leaving me to reflect on the answer
to a question I had not asked.
'A repetition in time of the eternal
I AM.' Say it. Don't be shy.
Escape from your mortal cage
in thought. Your migrations will never
be over. Between two truths
there is only the mind to fly with.
Navigate by such stars as are not
leaves falling from life's
deciduous tree, but spray from the fountain
of the imagination, endlessly
replenishing itself out of its own waters.

Falling Down

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#2397 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 05, 2023, 07:19:35 pm
I was up in Northumberland with GME last weekend. Plenty of swallows around the river Aln and heard a cuckoo call at Back Bowden.

SA Chris

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#2398 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 09, 2023, 09:56:50 am
Just done 3 days of WHW, heard cuckoos every day, favourite sightings were fluffball ducklings though, both flocks / herds / gaggles less than a week old. Pleasant lack of midge spotting, only 1 tick in the party.

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#2399 Re: Recent wildlife sightings
May 09, 2023, 11:03:54 am
Had a great view of a cuckoo at Burbage North the other night while out checking on the ouzels. Clearest I've had – tracked it with the binos.

 

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