Just a teaser

Just one photo from my up-coming report on a short trip to the Agadir area of Morocco.

Don't forget to click the photo for the full effect and watch this space!

Northern Bald Ibis Geronticus eremita

Canon Powershot SX50 HS

100 for TL0894

The first Wood Mouse for some time on our fat ball feeder late this evening. Nice to see them back. A distant photo taken with flash and drastically lightened.

100 Wood Mouse Apodemus sylvaticus

Canon Powershot SX50

Springtails and things

Managed a quick poke about in the garden this lunchtime and got good enough photos of this minibeast to successfully key it out to a very common species of springtail.

97 Tomocerus minor

A couple of common garden weeds:

98 Water Avens Geum rivale
99 Wavy Bittercress Cardamine flexuosa

Two more moths

Two moths in the trap last night as the mild weather continues.

95 Dark Chestnut Conistra ligula
96 Mottled Umber Erannis defoliaria

94 species

Good day today. Would have liked to have made 100 by the end of the weekend and if fungi and mosses weren't so tricky to ID I might have done. Enjoying the snails more than I expected.

Three possible A. schalleriana at the moth trap in the evening will have to be confirmed but could be a garden tick.

Quite pleased with the micro-moth larva. Took a few teasel heads and this was in the second one I checked (and the only occupied one of the batch as it turned out). To distinguish the larva from E. marginana it is necessary to check for a comb in between the anal prolegs. Absent in this case, confirming the ID. E. gentianaeana also occupies the head alone , whereas there can be multiple occupants in the case of marginana.

82 Hemlock Conium maculatum
83 Lesser Redpoll Carduelis cabaret
84 Treecreeper Certhia familiaris
85 Goldcrest Regulus regulus
86 Wild Privet Ligustrum vulgare
87 White-lipped Snail Cepaea hortensis
88 Lesser Burdock Arctium minus
89 Teasel Dipsacus fullonum
90 Two-toothed Door Snail Clausilia bidentata
91 Girdled Snail Hygromia cinctella
92 Common Duckweed Lemna minor
93 Acleris schalleriana TBC
94 Endothenia gentianaeana

First moths and more additions

A mild run of weather so having requisitioned the electrics back from the Christmas lights I ran the actinic last night. Just one species, but there were two of them.

70 The Chestnut Conistra vaccinii

A few more birds kept the 1k list ticking up nicely and got lucky with a distinctive beetle under a log in the garden.

71 Stock Dove Columba oenas
72 Song Thrush Turdus philomelos
73 Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla
74 Bullfinch Pyrrhula pyrrhula
75 Compost Worm Eisenia veneta
76 Moorhen Gallinula chloropus
77 Rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus
78 Kestrel Falco tinnunculus
79 'Traveller's Joy' Clematis vitalba

80 Calathus melanocephalus

And at the moth trap this evening:
81 Common Earwig Forficula auricularia

Bank Vole at last

Bank Vole is a daily visitor to our garden feeders. That is until I started the 1000 species challenge this year. Then they magically disappeared. I could tell they were still feeding there though and this morning one was sat there again for me to see.

I'll repost this short clip of one feeding in the same place just over 2 years ago. Wonder how many generations they have been through in that time!

69 Bank Vole Myodes glareolus

More arthropod bothering

Another brief stroll around the garden with a headtorch and a camera and we're another 8 species up.

61 Common Rough Woodlouse Porcellio scaber
62 Common Shiny Woodlouse Oniscus asellus
63 Budapest Slug Tandonia budapestensis
64 Walnut Orb-Weaver Spider Nuctenea umbratica
65 Amaurobius similis (a spider)
66 Missing Sector Spider Zygiella x-notata
67 Deroceras panormitanum (another slug)
68 Lob Worm Lumbricus terrestris

Common Rough Woodlouse Porcellio scaber

Common Shiny Woodlouse Oniscus asellus

Amaurobius similis

Walnut Orb-Weaver Spider Nuctenea umbratica

Deroceras panormitanum

Canon Powershot SX50

Greater Plantain

Another bit of common garden macro-flora identified this morning:

60 Greater Plantain Plantago major

Yellow Slug

A quick search in the late evening netted another arthropod. This is another common garden slug with distinctive steely-blue tentacles.

59 Limacus flavus

Canon Powershot SX50

Fool's Watercress

My plant ID is at best pants but it will have to get better this year.

This plant is growing in the stream running through the sheep field to Berry Leas and looked distinctive enough but I was stumped. Thanks to Steve and James on Birdforum I now know it. Lesser water-parsnip is apparently very similar but this does appear to be Fool's Watercress, aka:
58 Procumbent Marshwort Apium nodiflorum

Canon Powershot SX50

TL0894

Going to hear a lot about my home square this year as I take part in this:
http://1000for1ksq.blogspot.co.uk/

I'm going to have to pay a lot more attention to plants and fungi than I have done in the past if I'm going to get anywhere near the target but it should be educational.

Here's the square:

Added two more mammals this morning from the NW corner of the square:
56 Grey Squirrel Sciurus carolinensis
57 Red Fox Vulpes vulpes

Out and about

A short walk around bits of TL0894 today got off to a good start with a small flock of Mandarin flying past - by no means a bird I'd expect to see every year.

37 Mandarin Aix galericulata
38 Jay Garrulus glandarius
39 Skylark Alauda arvensis
40 Redwing Turdus iliacus
41 Fieldfare Turdus pilaris
42 Green Woodpecker Pica viridis
43 Great Tit Parus major
44 Mute Swan Cygnus olor
45 Dog Rose Rosa canina
46 Common Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna

Fieldfare Turdus pilaris and Starling Sturnus vulgaris

(Canon Powershot SX50)

Back at home:
47 Wren Troglodytes toglodytes
48 Long-tailed Tit Aegithalos caudatus
49 Garden Snail Helix aspersa
50 Garlic Snail Oxychilus alliarius

And an evening stroll searching unsuccessfully for mammals:
51 Pheasant Phasianus colchicus
52 Snipe Gallinago gallinago
53 Teal Anas crecca
54 Mallard Anas platyrhynchos
55 Greylag Anser anser

1000 species starts here

A search of the bedroom first thing this morning revealed a very wild specimen of Homo sapiens as the first of the 1000 species plus a daddy long-legs spider and some stuff I could see blearily out of the window.

1 Human Homo sapiens
2 Collared Dove Streptopelia decaocto
3 Carrion Crow Corvus corone
4 Pholcus phalangioides 'Daddy longlegs spider'
5 Starling Sternus vulgaris
6 Magpie Pica pica
7 Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs
8 Woodpigeon Columba palumbus
9 House Sparrow Passer domsesticus
10 Ivy Hedera helix
11 Blackbird Turdus merula
12 Lesser celandine Ranunculus ficaria
13 Red Kite Milvus milvus
14 Pendunculate Oak Quercus robour
15 European Ash Fraxinus excelsior
16 Common Hazel Corylus avellana
17 Jackdaw Corvus monedula
18 English Elm Ulmus procera
19 Mistle Thrush Turdus viscivorus
20 Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba
21 Feral Pigeon Columba liva
22 Greenfinch Carduelis chloris
23 Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus
24 Blue Tit Cyanistes caeruleus
25 Dunnock Prunella modularis
26 Coal Tit Periparus ater
27 Goldfinch Carduelis carduelis
28 Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo
29 Yellow Corydalis Corydalis lutea
30 Rook Corvus frugilegus
31 Stinging Nettle Urtica dioica
32 Common Gull Larus canus
33 Lapwing Vanellus vanellus
34 Robin Erithacus rubecula
35 Elder Sambucus nigra
36 Groundsel Senecio vulgaris

First days with the SX50

Why the SX50? Well I had a great time with my SX10 before it gave up the ghost and I wasn't happy with the SX30 as a replacement so that got sent back. The DSLR has been fine but the lens has developed some play and will have to be sent for repair. I miss the zoom range and excellent macro of the SX10 so thought I'd try out the latest Canon bridge which has been getting good write ups.

Not really had chance to do much with it yet and the weather has been largely against us but here are a few snaps. The 50x optical zoom certainly makes quite a difference but so far I feel there is a quite a lot of noise in the shots. These were all taken in JPEG mode and I think the default sharpening is quite aggressive. I'll be trying some RAW tests tomorrow with luck.

The Dunnock was taken in very dull difficult conditions and the Pied Wagtail is a fairly heavy crop of a rather distant bird.

Collared Doves Streptopelia decaocto

Dunnock Prunella modularis

Jackdaw Corvus monedula

Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba yarrellii

 

Winter Moth

One way or another I didn't get much mothing done in 2012. Hopefully things will be different in 2013, especially I plan to get involved in this pan-species challenge and moths will be a big part of the total. Anyway this little fella is one of the few moths active as an adult during the winter months and one was on the kitchen window last night.

Winter Moth Operophtera brumata

Canon Powershot A640

Alpine Slamander

Somehow forgot to post these photos and video from our trip to the Alps in the summer. One of the highlights of the year for me was finding several of these in steep woodland near Trummelbach in the Berner Oberland region of Switzerland.

Alpine Salamander Salamandra atra

The sad side of Waxwing invasions

If you aren't keen on pictures of dead birds avoid scrolling to the bottom of this article. The bird is in very good condition but is one of the victims of a building designed without a thought to the effect it might have on our wildlife.

For the past three years one of the workers at Stuart House in Peterborough has been trying to get something done about the high number of casualties resulting from birds flying into the vast walls of glass created by the building's windows. The catalogue over the years has included Great Spotted Woodpecker, Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Whitethroat and several Woodcocks as well as many of the more familiar city birds.

Things have come to a head this week with the arrival of a party of Waxwings. The problem is that the building forms a crescent around a small grove of trees including a small rowan the birds have been feeding on. The mirrored windows reflect the trees making it look like a good escape route with the result that 10 birds have been found dead at the foot of the walls in the space of just a few days. The maximum flock size was 43 so this is a seriously high rate of attrition.

In the end I suggested knocking the remaining berries from the tree and sweeping up all the food. Better that the birds are forced to move on and find another source that might be less of a threat. This seems to have had the desired effect and the birds have not been seen since.

Waxwings are somewhat vulnerable in years like this when their usual food supply in largely rural Scandinavia fails and they are forced to migrate further to the berry-laden carparks of urban Britain. The large flock at Werrington recently sustained a few losses to passing traffic as they used puddles to drink. A common problem perhaps made worse by the levels of alcohol they can consume while eating the overripe berries making them temporarily less capable of avoiding hazards. In fact a fox had taken to hanging around the Stuart House site perhaps recognising the opportunity to pounce on an inebriated Waxwing or two.

The need to drink can pose yet another problem in cold weather as the salt used to treat icy roads can concentrate in puddles at dangerous levels leading to some suspected deaths from poisoning.

So while it is great to see these exotic visitors when they do come here we need to recognise the dangers they face while trying to survive the winter. I wonder how many will make it back to Siberia to breed next year.

In Peterborough we are trying to persuade the owners of the building responsible for the death of so many Waxwings and others birds to consider methods of making the windows more obvious to passing birds. Let's hope they will see sense. 

The photo is below:

Waxwing - one of the many victims of Stuart House.

Sunny Waxwings

More Waxwing action in Werrington today in beautiful sunshine. Counted 101 birds in the flock.

Wax On

Wax on...

Wax off...

Another big flock of up to 70 in Werrington.