ED Nature Watch

[ianr]

23 minutes ago, malumbu said:

Got loads of frogspawn.  Don't have that much success as can't keep it in the pond as the newts eat it. 

Any chance of  fobbing them off with tapioca pudding?

[malumbu]

I hear they are nice in your wellies, free frogspawn to anyone who know the literary  reference

[Sue]

8 hours ago, malumbu said:

Got loads of frogspawn.  Don't have that much success as can't keep it in the pond as the newts eat it.  I took the first clump out yesterday and put it in a bucket with netting on top.  The loads more appeared.,...

Last year I kept it like this and then transferred to some large plant saucers when they were near to walking onto land.  Had to top up the water, provide shade as they will have cooked in the sunshine, and fed with boiled cabbage, kale or other green stuff. I got a few froglets.  two or three years ago I picked up some spawn from someone in SE22 who had a whole nursery, numerous ponds, in their back garden.

Never seen any baby newts or spawn, maybe have ten or more, but I know they go roaming.

I have a very small garden with a "pond" in an old Belfast sink and a couple of other small water containers used by birds and sometimes frogs.

I have had frogspawn,  but it usually gets eaten by something (no idea what. Cats?)  though I have had tadpoles and froglets in the past.

I had never seen any newts until a couple of years ago when I opened the door of my tiny shed and found a pile of eggs just inside and a newt hastily scarpering out of a hole at the back of the shed.

The eggs  must have only just been laid. Had I not seen the newt, I would have had no idea what they were. It seems a strange place to lay them.

Sadly they didn't come to anything, they just sort of dried up.

Malumbu, I would like some of your frogspawn if you have any to spare?  Or if anybody else has any?

Edited March 11 by Sue

[Sue]

I have a wood pigeon picking up sticks in my garden, presumably for a nest.

Unfortunately the nest cannot be coming on very fast, as s/he keeps dropping the sticks 🙄🤣

[sunbob]

In my childhood home I remember wood pigeons attempting to make a nest on the TV ariel each year! 

[Sue]

1 hour ago, sunbob said:

In my childhood home I remember wood pigeons attempting to make a nest on the TV ariel each year! 

That must have done wonders for the TV reception!

I once watched a pair of birds, can't remember what they were, don't think they were pigeons, dismantling an old nest twig by twig and rebuilding it a few trees down 🤣

I suppose it was a handy source of sticks, but it seemed rather pointless given there was a nest already there. Maybe it was in poor condition or something?

Edited March 25 by Sue

[vladi]

Yesterday I watched a pair of crows in a sycamore tree at the end of our garden  and they were pecking at the branches. After some time I noticed they were removing the bark. They were taking the bark off in strips. When one of them got a length of about six inches he/she would fly off and return later.  Short pieces would be discarded until a decent length was stripped off. 
I raised the topic with ChatGPT and it confirmed that crows prefer pliable strips of bark for use in building their nests. They seemingly are quite particular about the flexibility of the strips and use these to intertwine with twigs and grass stems to make their nests.  

[malumbu]

Hope wood pigeons are better nest builders than their rat cousins.  We had a feral pigeon nest on a window ledge in a central London office; just a pile of sticks.  

I've left some hair out in a feeder I got from the hairdressers for the birds as nest material.  Last year I got wool from the horniman sheep that all went.  

[Sue]

7 minutes ago, malumbu said:

Hope wood pigeons are better nest builders than their rat cousins.  We had a feral pigeon nest on a window ledge in a central London office; just a pile of sticks.  

I've left some hair out in a feeder I got from the hairdressers for the birds as nest material.  Last year I got wool from the horniman sheep that all went.  

Great ideas!

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

This is rather twee, but quite a good idea:

 

https://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk/woolie-the-sheep-with-bird-nesting-wool.html

[Sue]

6 hours ago, Peckhamgatecrasher said:

This is rather twee, but quite a good idea:

 

https://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk/woolie-the-sheep-with-bird-nesting-wool.html

Shaun the Sheep would be even better! 😂 

[RubyGraeme]

On 18/05/2024 at 16:19, BrandNewGuy said:

Here's my updated list of the dates when swifts were first spotted in ED:
2011 – May 9
2012 – May 1
2013 – May 17
2014 – May 8
2015 – May 9
2016 – May 4
2017 – May 6
2018 – May 7
2019 – May 8
2020 – May 6
2021 – May 9
2022 – May 9
2023 – May 4
2024 – May 7
That 2013 date is rather an anomaly. I checked the weather records for that period and we had a very cold early May with northerly winds for several weeks, so the swifts didn't risk flying north from Europe to be faced with a lack of food, namely flies, moths etc.

I'm sure I just heard a few swifts just now, I'm sitting outside and heard them high above me but couldn't see them. Is this a record? Has anyone else heard them? 

[malumbu]

Hope not, as need to put swift box back up.  Sadly I was away and one of my tadpoles nurseries died, presumably from stagnant water.  I have others and will take more care.

[Nigello]

Lots of hoverflies (that look like drone honeybees) about today. Also, tiny (< .5cm) bees/wasps 

[ianr]

4 hours ago, RubyGraeme said:

I'm sure I just heard a few swifts just now, I'm sitting outside and heard them high above me but couldn't see them.

Do you have any binoculars?  My first ever sighting of swifts was when I was lying in the park, trying out some 10x25s.  Nothing at all  within plain sight, but when I was playing around with the focus -- presumably for clouds or planes -- suddenly there they were.   I've still never heard any in real life though.  The sample I heard on the BBC website sounded fairly high frequency and not very loud, so I suppose I might miss some; but then there have been precious few reports I've seen here of any being heard.  The only one I remember is Jenny1's last year. 

Edited yesterday at 14:50 by ianr

[RubyGraeme]

Have heard them twice this afternoon. Have binoculars at the ready.....are there any other birds that make similar calls? It's a very distinctive sound. Stand by! 

[Sue]

2 hours ago, ianr said:

Do you have any binoculars?  My first ever sighting of swifts was when I was lying in the park, trying out some 10x25s.  Nothing at all  within plain sight, but when I was playing around with the focus -- presumably for clouds or planes -- suddenly there they were.   I've still never heard any in real life though.  The sample I heard on the BBC website sounded fairly high frequency and not very loud, so I suppose I might miss some; but then there have been precious few reports I've seen here of any being heard.  The only one I remember is Jenny1's last year. 

I have heard them round here in past years.

It is quite a distinctive sound.

[joseph holly]

Just seen them! Moved into Barry Rd 33 years ago and remember watching dozens of them in the sky as we sat in the back garden the first evening. Look out for them every year. Lifts your spirits when they arrive. 

[Sue]

Not sure if this is exactly nature, but does anyone else have Holboellia in their garden?

It's an absolute thug of an evergreen climber, and it seems to grow at about a metre a minute in all directions,  but it redeems itself at this time of year when it's flowering.

The scent is absolutely wonderful, even with just a few flowers presently out, and I can even smell it inside the house.

Apologies to anyone whose garden mine  has wandered into, but do take a moment to appreciate the scent before you cut it back!

ETA: I have a zillion things to do, but I'm sitting in the garden watching the insects. 

One very small hovering thing with apparently no brain (or whatever passes for a brain in insects) just flew to my Libertia, attempted to do something with a load of unopened buds, failed, moved to a just beginning to open bud, failed, and then flew off,  completely ignoring all the open flowers on the same plant.

Maybe it's a reincarnation of someone like Trump.

Edited 10 hours ago by Sue