Wildlife Corner

[PanBiker]

The UK government announces that it is going to put in place an enquiry to look at the use of lead ammunition for sport shooting and expects an answer in 2 years.
This is classic kicking the can down the road. The facts are known already, lead is a poison, that's why it was taken out of fuel and new water pipes. Bird shot is a very efficient way of seeding poison into the environment, end of story.

Like you say, kicking the can. Split lead shot used to be the norm for anglers since Isaac Newton's time I reckon. It must be 30 years since it was banned and replaced by an inert lead substitute for all anglers. To all intents and purposes it does the same job and comes in the same size/weight combinations as its lead predecessor. In fact apart from it being a little harder in consistency and slightly lighter in colour you cant tell the difference. Why can they just do the same for game ammunition?

[Stanley]

Quite Ian......

[Gloria]

Swallows arrived today in the lovely warm sunshine, April 7th last year and that was a week earlier than the year before. And on it goes, earlier and earlier, wonder when they will decide to stay over winter? Lovely sight.

[Stanley]

Lovely News Gloria, quite cheered me up!

[Gloria]

Got the odd butterfly fluttering about.

[Stanley]

I had a bee in the back yard, does that count?

[Gloria]

Everything counts Stanley.

[Stanley]

I heard Ravens referred to as 'The biggest perching bird in the UK'. Never thought of them like that before. Evidently they are thriving and extending their range.

[Gloria]

We have got otters in the river Lostock which runs about half a mile from us, how cool is that?

[Cathy]

Very cool Gloria, lucky you

[Stanley]

Lovely Gloria. I have only ever seen sea otters up on the West Coast , never a river otter.

[Gloria]

I’ve never seen an otter Stanley.

[Wendyf]

I've seen sea otters around Ardnamurchan but never in a river.

[Tizer]

In an isolated spot on the west coast of Shetland we stood on a pebbly beach watching a seal floating just off shore and watching us. As we stood there an otter walked past us as if we didn't exist and strolled down the beach and into the sea.

[Stanley]

I think that's where I saw mine Wendy but it was a long time ago.
I'd have loved to see one 'stroll past me' Peter!

[Cathy]

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To Sth Australians this bird is known as the Shrike or Piping Shrike. It is our state bird emblem and is on our state flag.
The Piping Shrike is not a real bird, but ask most Sth Australians to name our State bird and they would answer ‘It’s a Shrike’. The bird symbol on our State Flag is a stylised image of the White-backed Magpie, so the image we know as the Piping Shrike, is an interpretation of the White-backed Magpie.
It’s actually a Butcherbird (my pic is a Pied Butcherbird), they get their name from their habit of impaling captured prey on a thorn, tree fork or crevice, which then becomes their ‘larder’.
Butcherbirds are songbirds closely related to the ‘Australian’ Magpie.
Anyway... Beautiful, very striking and pretty aren’t they, this one graced my garden today.

[Stanley]

Are they the ones with the lovely bubbling piping song Cathy?

[Cathy]

I would say no Stanley, but then I don’t know how to describe birdsong. Best you it up on YouTube. The videos I have looked at are too long to send.

[Stanley]

[Whyperion]

Wondered if it was a separate thread somewhere for bird watching.

anyway today out of mums window, three magpies , one sort of chasing one other around the tree branches and down onto the bin store rooftop, then back again - either two males (or females) squabbling over territory, or squabbling over the third, possibly female (though they all looked the same to me), a Crow comes down between the two magpies and flaps them away , then rises back up to its perch atop the chimney pots of the flats opposite.

Yesterday not dissimilar, off for a walk - to the post office - via a footpath adjacent to mums local river, two male Mallards on the edge of the footpath up a small grass embankment, fighting like ali khan etc, bills into nipping the others wing, a definate female further up under a hedge apparently disinterested. Around to the post office , in and out the co-op and back down the main high street pavement on the other side of the river, looked across the river and the ducks were still fighting - with another chap taking a video on his phone of them.

Strangely in both instances there was no significant noise being made by the birds

[PanBiker]

Wondered if it was a separate thread somewhere for bird watching.

We already have a separate thread for Bird Watching here:

Bird Watching Sub Forum

[Tizer]

Spot the pole dancing squirrel...photo taken by my sister-in-law in her garden - I think she's been training it!

[Cathy]

One clever Squirrel, love the tail.

[Stanley]

There were lots of squirrels round Martha's house in Northfield and I used to love sitting on the porch watching them. There was one that used to hide nuts under the wheel arches of the parked cars. I don't think that was a good hiding place. They are so inventive and there are videos on Youtube about them.

[Cathy]

That guy went to a lot of trouble to attract the squirrels, the video was fun.