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Birding / nature / photography ~ Older Asexuals for light walking and hiking nature adventures ~


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I saw robins, other "little brown birds", mallard ducks, Canada geese, and signs of beaver work (from gnawing down trees), on my walk this morning. This was outdoors at a local park, not my usual indoor walk. :P 

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Saw my first swallow of the year flying over the lake today. :)  

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On 5/3/2015 at 2:14 PM, Earthling said:

I'm over 50 - my hobbies are birding and photography. If you want to go for a light early morning nature adventure in the Sacramento area drop me an e :0)

Yesterday I saw 2 Bald Eagles and a Great-tailed Grackle which is most unusual because we don't have those here ! :)

I am bird watcher in NC and I volunteer as a wildlife rehabber.

Edited by medtechnc
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14 hours ago, medtechnc said:

I am bird watcher in NC and I volunteer as a wildlife rehabber.

Could you kindly expand on that a little medtechnic? Does it mean you're involved with re-establishing species thst might be in danger? ( Here in the UK for example, red kytes have been re-established very successfully, and  there are now some beaver colonies too)

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Purple Red Panda

My housemate and myself have seen red kites soaring around in the sky lately. Not a bird I ever thought I'd be able to see whilst standing in the back garden.

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10 minutes ago, Purple Red Panda said:

My housemate and myself have seen red kites soaring around in the sky lately. Not a bird I ever thought I'd be able to see whilst standing in the back garden.

Where my son used to live in West Wales, they were as common as gulls are in my part of the UK. Flying low over the roof tops. I think they are wonderful birds, and much misunderstood. 

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Purple Red Panda
9 minutes ago, Tunhope said:

Where my son used to live in West Wales, they were as common as gulls are in my part of the UK. Flying low over the roof tops. I think they are wonderful birds, and much misunderstood. 

They are lovely and it's great that their numbers have increased over the years, when I was young there were only a few pairs in Wales and that was it. Thanks to re-introduction they are now a lot more common, I have seen them in Leicestershire and Rutland a few times before but never from my house.

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So, the big wildlife stories going on in my city are a recent bear sighting and a huge rat snake found in a local park. 

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Not so much a nature sighting as a nature smelling - skunk in the neighborhood. :P 

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Where we've been doing work in the garden is proving popular with birds, magpies, pigeons, robins, blackbirds, others that I can't identify 

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I was glancing out of the window today and a pair of goldfinches flew into the garden.  They are such a gorgeous little bird.  One landed on a plant in a pot near the window.  It was tearing bits off the leaves, and then flew off with its mate, its beak full of leaf.   They must have a nest nearby as moments later they were back and did the same thing again, one bird collecting the bits of leaf and one watching.  I believe the plant is the silver leaf cineraria but it survived outside in the winter and is still very silver.   The RHS says it has no value to wildlife, but I have seen otherwise today.  Why the little goldfinches wanted it to line their nest, I don't know, but birds will use leaves that have properties that act against mites.  Maybe they wanted silver to add to their gold.

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We are have a wet, rainy day.  Appropriately, I had a pair of ducks visit my yard, and I watched them waddle across the grass while grazing.  The female duck was clearly in charge, setting their pace and leading the way, while her partner (the drake?) just hung back and followed her wherever she chose to go.  They were Mallard ducks, and likely came up from the creek that flows through the lower part of my yard.  It won't be long before their ducklings hatch.  I remember watching a ducks' nest evolve as a little kid, in the same backyard, with my friend and neighbor Dwight.  Amazingly, he still lives in the home where he grew up as well, right alongside the creek. 

 

In other news, I learned from my neighbor that a game warden shot and killed a cougar in my backyard last winter.  Wildlife follows the waterways, but I think it is a bit unusual to have something as large as a cougar deep into an urban setting, although, I just learned there are urban foxes in Britain and we do have wild raccoons here.

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Whilst sat on a bus passing through the Studland Peninsula I saw a small herd of Roe deer 

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We saw a couple of buzzards whilst cycling yesterday 

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3 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

We saw a couple of buzzards whilst cycling yesterday 

Were they cycling singly, or riding tandem?:P

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I saw a young fox today - it appeared from an alleyway leading to a busy road.  Two cyclists were riding by and it turned back.  N.B. The fox cub was not on a bike. :P

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Yesterday we had five species of butterfly in the garden in thirty minutes, Comma, Peacock, Brimstone, Small White and Orange tip. 

 

Something furry, possibly a squirrel, has dug a scrape in the lawn. 

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I had three lovely visitors to the bird bath today.  A wren, a goldfinch and a blackcap.

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Ahab had his white whale; I have a white hawk! I've seen it three different times now but never close enough for a good picture (one time didn't have a camera).

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Saw a normal one today ... shortly after this it was attacked by a tiny black bird and flew the other way!

 

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20 hours ago, robnrdbrd said:

white hawk

That's really cool! :D 

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Today, I watched a Blue Heron in the river.  I suppose it was fishing.  First, it landed on a log overhanging the swift stream.   Next, it flew about 20 feet and landed in the river, standing on his tall legs, next to some rapids.  Perhaps this bird was watching for fish swimming upstream?  I watched it for about 5 minutes through binoculars, hoping for a fish catch, but nothing happened.  I went straight to Google afterwards to confirm my sighting was, indeed, a Great Blue Heron, but without a crest on its head.  They are enormous  birds.  This one wasn't too blue -colored more grey, but it had the right markings. 

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Myssterry

I can confirm that the great tits are nesting in the rooster ornament in the garden.  The blue tits have selected the bijou nesting box in the apple trees.

 

I won't be able to sit down that end of the garden much now as the parent birds are afraid to enter the nest "cavity" while I am there.  I went over by the pond and they made their way though the shrubs and dived into the ornament.  Will have to check how long the chicks take to grow.  I am assuming they have hatched as both parents were returning to the nest site at once.

 

Pic of the nest area in spoiler.  Great tits seem to like unusual residences.

 

Spoiler

 

rooster.png

 

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On 4/18/2021 at 8:51 AM, Skycaptain said:

We saw a couple of buzzards whilst cycling yesterday 

There's a pair round here, even though the fields they hunt are mostly covered by new houses - there's a 'Country Park' in the middle of it. It's fascinating to watch them ride the thermals. The other day I heard a skylark - they've survived all the disturbance and upheaval and must have found somewhere to build their nest this year ❤️ 

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Myssterry
12 hours ago, robnrdbrd said:

They heard me before I could get a good 'shot' off! :) 

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Lovely. :)

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5 hours ago, Mysterry said:

For some reason, even though that ends in .jpg it doesn't show up as an image for me, just a link.

Here's the pic (which I got by right-clicking on the image from opening the link, and choosing "copy image address", which I pasted in here):

20210506-104256.jpg

(and wouldn't it be funny if this didn't show as a pic)

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