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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

John's Mammals 2016 (1 Viewer)

Just flooded? I do believe you're getting soft! Could we not conjure up some intimate and embarrassing disease for them as well? At least?

I've seen some of the poor people in the Lakes who've been flooded out four times in as many weeks, and if some of these Tayside landowners are as stupid as they seem (I gather some have even been chopping down riparian woodland to discourage Beavers from settling on those stretches: puts me in mind of the Asterix pirate captain sinking his own ship to stop Asterix and Obelix doing so) then they are going to get flooded out repeatedly.

Where they really need Beavers, of course, is further up towards the headwaters and in the Dee, where the nitwit grouse-shooting barbarians have denuded all the hills of tree cover so that vast amounts of water shoot off them to flood areas lower down. Perhaps conservation organisations should be advising those already flooded out that what they need is Beaver ponds upstream, on the main rivers and on all the tributaries. There's too much pussy-footing about not rocking boats in British conservation these days. Go for the throat, that's my advice.

John
 
A very confiding young common seal at Fen Drayton yesterday.

Photos to follow over the weekend.

Mark
 

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Just catching up...

House Mouse in the Bats enclosure at London Zoo on Friday.

Four dead Badgers along the A47 between Norwich and Swaffham last Saturday morning. (My Badgers book for Bloomsbury out in June!)

Muntjac showing well at Santon Downham Norfolk that day

Off to Japan Friday...
 
Just been for a stroll up a local wooded hillside, pretty thin birdwise (it was essentially a recce, looking for best spots to search for Wood Warblers when they arrive in a few weeks), but I did encounter a Brown Hare which surprised me somewhat. I've seen countless hares over the years but this was my first in woodland (mostly a mix of Beech & Oak, with some Holly understory, with Birch higher up). Anyone else accustomed to seeing hares in woods?

Cheers

James
 

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I can think of three or four woods near me where it is not unusual to see Hares. They mostly stick to the rides but can be quite far in from the edge of the wood. In each case they are quite common in the surrounding fields.
Tim
 
I can think of three or four woods near me where it is not unusual to see Hares. They mostly stick to the rides but can be quite far in from the edge of the wood. In each case they are quite common in the surrounding fields.
Tim

I'm not at all surprised, as we used to see them regularly moving around in the Little Brickhill woods where the Lady Ams were: not a million miles from where you are. They did mostly seem to be moving through rather than living in the woods.

John
 
Home yesterday from Sierra de la Culebra. We managed to see a small party of three Wolves fairly briefly and very distantly (although in the panic and hi-adrenaline few minutes, I only definitely saw two).

We were informed that there were just five individuals in the pack in this area and that another individual was killed last year. WTF!

We concentrated our efforts at the Pista de Linarejos viewpoint. There have also been fairly recent reports from the Villanueva viewpoint. Both of these viewpoints (detailed in Mike’s report) are still in use, although tree growth at Villanueva, means that you are probably better to use a slightly different place from the road, rather than down the track detailed. There is a small obvious car park where people were gathering, just before (not after) the block of forest detailed in Mike’s report. Having said that Pista de Linarejos still seems the most popular place to view.

Hope others manage to connect. Really enjoyed the experience (apart from the cold). Phil
 
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I haven't said much lately. I've been flat out on all sorts of projects as well as being invited to take an interest in work. A quick summary of Sunday which may possibly be of interest to people wondering what to do this weekend:

Clare, Steve and I ventured down to Dorset where we understood the Blandford Forum Otters to be showing well from time to time. Despite one very rude local who apparently had got somewhat pumped by a visitor with a camera but also two chocolate Labradors that dived into the river while everyone else was watching the Otters - he greeted us with "**** off" and all we'd done was say Good Morning - we settled down to wait and after only about half an hour, during which time Ben joined us, spotted the female and two kits coming upstream.

We then had them for an hour and a half....! Absolutely entrancing. Photos in due course. Words fail me to describe the spectacle, they were completely oblivious to the audience - plenty of locals around, quite a lot with dogs but all of those were properly controlled and not a problem. Eventually they scampered up the tunnel that leads up the side of the weir and went off up river.

So we went off to Portesham and the wintering Pallas's Warbler. It was along a back lane that raises those "who on earth found this" thoughts: it was as showy as any Pallas's I've ever encountered - far better than our local one at Moor Green a few winters back - and although it was typically manic it was in the open almost all the time and eminently photographable. Inside an hour, job done.

So back onto our original plan and down to Arne RSPB, the Sika and Water Vole reserve that has birds on it. The voles are viewed around the dragonfly pools down near Shipstal Point. They weren't showing well but with persistence we got views and even had some mildly interesting behaviour with one climbing part way up a gorse bush to feed on the yellow flowers. While we were still contending photographically with the Water Voles, a couple came along and mentioned they'd just had a herd of Sika Deer move through the woods close to them and they'd had nice views "especially of the white stag". WHAT? I've been hoping to get pictures of that for more than a couple of years!

So off we went, although chasing deer in woodland after the fact isn't always a good use of time.... in this case we were lucky in that the deer were in the woodland edge and the open field beyond, including the white stag. Hurrah!

So we had a clean sweep, everything we tilted at showed. A rare and special day. Pictures in due course, I have a lot of Photoshopping to do before I can get them up just because you can take a lot of pictures in an hour and a half of continuous Otter viewing!

John
 
Some pix from Sunday:

Otters X 5

John
 

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Otters again
Pallas's Warbler
Water Vole

John
 

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Water Vole
Sika Deer

John
 

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Very nice I have only ever connected with white hinds.

I have been away so not much locally a trip report in due course.

Mark
 
Top otter, top stag.

Just back from japan. birds more than mammals, but Japanese sable, luxuriously coated red foxes, (hokkaido) red squirrel, sika, largha & harbour seals.

Oh, and my new book (A Summer of British Wildlife) is out. With thanks to thread members including our leader...
 
Glad to be of assistance, James!

Funny sort of day today. Mammal-wise it was all about Roe Deer, with a bunch at the Willow Tit site in the morning (sorry, non-disclosure on that) and then a minimum of 13 animals in a fairly small bit of countryside South of the village of Martin, where Steve and I were looking for Grey Partridges and Corn Buntings reported on Hampshire Going Birding yesterday.

We stopped first up a dead-end road off a crossroads where although I could hear a very distant Yellowhammer, no other farmland birds were on show at all. However, the kronk of a Raven made us look up, and we saw first one, then two, which flew towards each other and then began displaying together. Jolly Good! Then they were joined by two more, and we joked that this must be the secret breeding colony that Hampshire Going Birding is trying to suppress by removing all mention of Ravens in Hampshire from its on-line reports (Honestly - despite the fact you can't go anywhere in the county, from the New Forest in the South West to Martin in the North West to Farnborough in the North East to Portsmouth in the South East without hearing that same dull kronk!)

Then we took the opposite road at the crossroads, drove up to Tidpit Down - we only found the sign for it on arrival - hopped out to look at a finch flock that turned out to be mostly Linnets but with some Yellowhammers mixed in, and looking up in response to that kronk sound, found about twenty Ravens wheeling and tumbling above us: complemented by the numbers sculling the air above the fields and for that matter the ones surrounding a dead sheep in one of those fields.

So we walked over the top of Tidpit Down to conduct a detailed search for Grey Partridges and Corn Buntings. We found neither, but we did find some pig fields, and we also found - I kid you not - over 150 Ravens sitting up in trees, sitting down on the grass, perching on pigs and pig-sties, floating about and soaring up to display with their mates and/or friends.

If we didn't see over two hundred Ravens I'd be astonished. And somehow I don't think it was the Hampshire Raven Convention, with the rest of the county denuded.... and even if it was, they can't have been at the massive Hampshire Raven breeding cliffs (no cliffs)! But what I'd really like to know is, what on earth do those pilchards at Hampshire Going Birding think they are playing at with this nonsensical suppression?

John
 
Great pictures John! Just love the otters!

So far this year in Bulgaria I have seen Golden Jackal and Red squirrel.

Chris
 
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