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John's mammals 2007 (5 Viewers)
- Thread starter Farnboro John
- Start date
JWN Andrewes
Poor Judge of Pasta.
How about a running total John. I make it 15 (?). Keep up the good work! See you round.
James
James
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Good thinking James, I'll summarise about once a month and keep going with individual accounts of sightings new or otherwise. P after a species means I got a photograph though quality is NOT guaranteed!
To date from 1 Jan 2007:
Rabbit P
Grey Squirrel P
Roe Deer
Bank Vole
Red Fox
Yellow-necked Mouse P
Brown Hare P
Wild Boar P
Muntjac P
Mountain Hare P
Feral Goat P
Common Seal
House Mouse
Orca P
Grey Seal
Sika Deer P
A pair of foxes were courting on Aldershot playing fields by the A325 last night on my way back from the pub, showing well right by the road.
John
To date from 1 Jan 2007:
Rabbit P
Grey Squirrel P
Roe Deer
Bank Vole
Red Fox
Yellow-necked Mouse P
Brown Hare P
Wild Boar P
Muntjac P
Mountain Hare P
Feral Goat P
Common Seal
House Mouse
Orca P
Grey Seal
Sika Deer P
A pair of foxes were courting on Aldershot playing fields by the A325 last night on my way back from the pub, showing well right by the road.
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Hadn't really thought about it. How long do they have to be unmanaged before we consider them wild, and is there any management action such as active control of numbers? The goats on the mainland have been around for a very long time indeed.
St Kilda is a hell of a place to have to get to as well, so the incentive to count them is not high! (Not a very scientific attitude I know.)
Maybe Otters this weekend but I haven't fully decided.
John
St Kilda is a hell of a place to have to get to as well, so the incentive to count them is not high! (Not a very scientific attitude I know.)
Maybe Otters this weekend but I haven't fully decided.
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Well I did decide, and had a very long day sat on my backside on a hard bench in the Meare Heath hide on the Somerset Levels for no Otters. The sightings log had four separate sightings for the day before!!!!!
52 species of birds including my first February Sand Martin, plus a chorus of orgiastic Common Frogs getting it on just in front of the hide, were topped off by the spectacular Starling roost last thing in the evening before an easy drive back.
A return match will be planned....
John
52 species of birds including my first February Sand Martin, plus a chorus of orgiastic Common Frogs getting it on just in front of the hide, were topped off by the spectacular Starling roost last thing in the evening before an easy drive back.
A return match will be planned....
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Turned back into a twitcher this weekend but still managed a mammal. Leaving for South Wales at 0300 Saturday morning I found five Fallow Deer in the middle of the road to Bramshill. This is a pretty good record locally, our Fallows are scarce and very shy and retiring. 17 for the year.
John
John
here's the link for the mammal listers table on Surfbirds. Go on, put yourself on!
http://www.surfbirds.com/cgi-bin/surfbirds/display.cgi?list=list118&lowVal=0&highVal=49
As John said, although I'm at the top I know there are others who have seen more - Richard Webb for one! And I've come across one or two others who claim to have 'cleared up' - even including the bats!! Maybe we should start a UK50 Club for mammal listers!
It's hard knowing what to count. I think Homo sapiens should be counted, but don't as I'd probably be shot down (invitations...). I don't count feral spp or domestications - except wild boar.
Trying for Orkney vole this yr and Scottish wildcat (anyone fancy a week on the Ardnamurchan??). Black rat is a bugger - a charter to the Shiants cost £500 from Lewis - and there's nothing there so you have to stay in a tent! I'm intrigued to know they're around Hyde Park. Anyone any further info? I still reckon there might be a few left on Lundy, too - anyway this is another one I need.
Bats seem to be a bit of a barrier to potential mammal listers. My advice is to join a local bat group and get to know them gradually. Mouse-eared I believe is only known from a single record since 1991 so you can forget that. Grey long-eared is extremely difficult (I still need it) and Nathusius's pipistrelle is diffilcut away from Northern Ireland (but increasing as more people become aware of it).
I spent ages trying to get yellow-necked mouse and was even prepared to drive 100 miles to Hampshire for a trapped one once! In the end I found that they were making the noises I could hear in my loft all along :-O
http://www.surfbirds.com/cgi-bin/surfbirds/display.cgi?list=list118&lowVal=0&highVal=49
As John said, although I'm at the top I know there are others who have seen more - Richard Webb for one! And I've come across one or two others who claim to have 'cleared up' - even including the bats!! Maybe we should start a UK50 Club for mammal listers!
It's hard knowing what to count. I think Homo sapiens should be counted, but don't as I'd probably be shot down (invitations...). I don't count feral spp or domestications - except wild boar.
Trying for Orkney vole this yr and Scottish wildcat (anyone fancy a week on the Ardnamurchan??). Black rat is a bugger - a charter to the Shiants cost £500 from Lewis - and there's nothing there so you have to stay in a tent! I'm intrigued to know they're around Hyde Park. Anyone any further info? I still reckon there might be a few left on Lundy, too - anyway this is another one I need.
Bats seem to be a bit of a barrier to potential mammal listers. My advice is to join a local bat group and get to know them gradually. Mouse-eared I believe is only known from a single record since 1991 so you can forget that. Grey long-eared is extremely difficult (I still need it) and Nathusius's pipistrelle is diffilcut away from Northern Ireland (but increasing as more people become aware of it).
I spent ages trying to get yellow-necked mouse and was even prepared to drive 100 miles to Hampshire for a trapped one once! In the end I found that they were making the noises I could hear in my loft all along :-O
Farnboro John said:
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Got my first Badgers of the year (live anyway) on Thursday night: two adults, one of them a huge boar Badger, at a local sett. I'm afraid I'm not prepared to announce locations but local birders can pm me if they like.
Saturday again turned back into a twitcher and had a superb day (morning really) in Cornwall, knocking off Gyr, Dusky, the incredible White-billed Diver, Spot Sand and the Eastern Lesserthroat in quick succession and getting home before 6pm. A planned early night prior to the half-marathon on Sunday went a bit awry when my brother rang me to ask if I was interested in photographing a Brown Rat, as his girlfriend had caught one in a cupboard in her kitchen.
I popped round with a toolbox (long pliers to get the rat out of the trap without getting bitten) and camera. The juvenile rat had got itself caught by the hind leg in a neck-break trap, so I suppose it had been lucky really. A couple of record shots and I was ready to dice with death, but the plucky little horror had had enough and wrenched its foot free, dived off the pub-style garden table and legged it off through the crocuses. Despite the trap's grip on its foot it seemd pretty mobile and probably won't be greatly inconvenienced. Hopefully it won't be back! 19 for the year, 11 photographed.
John
Saturday again turned back into a twitcher and had a superb day (morning really) in Cornwall, knocking off Gyr, Dusky, the incredible White-billed Diver, Spot Sand and the Eastern Lesserthroat in quick succession and getting home before 6pm. A planned early night prior to the half-marathon on Sunday went a bit awry when my brother rang me to ask if I was interested in photographing a Brown Rat, as his girlfriend had caught one in a cupboard in her kitchen.
I popped round with a toolbox (long pliers to get the rat out of the trap without getting bitten) and camera. The juvenile rat had got itself caught by the hind leg in a neck-break trap, so I suppose it had been lucky really. A couple of record shots and I was ready to dice with death, but the plucky little horror had had enough and wrenched its foot free, dived off the pub-style garden table and legged it off through the crocuses. Despite the trap's grip on its foot it seemd pretty mobile and probably won't be greatly inconvenienced. Hopefully it won't be back! 19 for the year, 11 photographed.
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Jhanlon said:
All very true, but I agree with something Richard Webb once remarked, to the effect that what we really need is a Polecat stakeout!
£500 to get to the Shiants - kinnell, I didn't think it was likely to cost that amount. Why so much, they're only just off the main island? Back to Hyde Park then!
If people don't want to start off by committing themselves to a local bat group then most of them run evening walks that are advertised in the local press, or the MTUK website has a whole lot of events covering a wide range of species throughout the year.
Has anyone been to Weeting recently or been seeing Stoats (or Weasels) regularly elsewhere? I expect to fall over them during the year but photography can be a problem.
John
Trapped 7 polecats during my uni project in Wales so guess I was lucky...
£500 is for a boat charter. There's an artist heading over this yr willing to split costs but that doesn't help much!
Have seen weasel this yr on way to Yorks Pacific diver, but no regular haunts.
And very jealous of your Cornish haul John! I may have gone down the 1st weekend but ended up at the GWW gull instead. Now i doubt if I'll make it. Never mind.
£500 is for a boat charter. There's an artist heading over this yr willing to split costs but that doesn't help much!
Have seen weasel this yr on way to Yorks Pacific diver, but no regular haunts.
And very jealous of your Cornish haul John! I may have gone down the 1st weekend but ended up at the GWW gull instead. Now i doubt if I'll make it. Never mind.
Pete Mella
Getting there...
I wouldn't even pretend to tell apart all the bats and shrews I've seen, I'm bad enough at warblers, but at least they're kind enough to come out during daylight!
My mammal-spotting record is very weak, I've never even seen a Badger except for roadkill.
My mammal-spotting record is very weak, I've never even seen a Badger except for roadkill.
James Lowther
Well-known member
Jhanlon said:
better keep quiet about that otherwise the men in black will be round to see you..
i believe that portland has a colony of wall lizards - have you seen those?
James
I've kept a step ahead of the MIB - but now those guys at Torchwood are following me ;-)
have seen the Portland wall lizards, yes. Also midwife toads in Beds, lots of marsh frogs and even found a colony of edible frogs a few yrs back. Seen lots of red-eared terrapins too but they can't breed here apparently so I guess they count as simple 'escapes'.
have seen the Portland wall lizards, yes. Also midwife toads in Beds, lots of marsh frogs and even found a colony of edible frogs a few yrs back. Seen lots of red-eared terrapins too but they can't breed here apparently so I guess they count as simple 'escapes'.
James Lowther said:better keep quiet about that otherwise the men in black will be round to see you..
i believe that portland has a colony of wall lizards - have you seen those?
James
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Jhanlon said:
Just had a quick count and my reps/amphibs come to 17 as well, 9 reptiles and 8 amphibians. Did the Green Lizards last year (there are Wall Lizards there as well and in breeding dress they look spectacular) and can recommend them as excellent value. Never had Midwife Toad, Alpine Newt or Green Tree Frog, sadly: and still need Aesculapian Snake and Leatherback Turtle which I gather is now considered a British reptile as it comes here on purpose to feed on jellyfish.
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Jhanlon said:
Got the gull as well! 7 Polecats.... I dunno. Any suggestions on where or even how? I read the latest VWT survey newsletter with interest, obviously there is no need to go quite as far as West Wales.
How many can you get on the boat, how long would one need to stay? I remember one comment from someone who had done it to the effect that the Black Rats were running over their tent in the night - nice!
John
not sure how many really. I can't believe there can't be easier ones to get, that's why I was curious about the Hyde Pk sighting (and there must still be some on Lundy).
As for polecats, I contributed towards a nationwide study conducted by the UK polecat population expert Johnny Birks (of the VWT). I used mink traps baited with dead chicks set mainly near hedgerows on agricultural land near Bangor, N Wales. I averaged one animal per week's trapping (112 trap nights). The farmers who owned the land generally had no idea there were polecats there despite often farming the land most of their lives.
still really want wildcat :stuck:
As for polecats, I contributed towards a nationwide study conducted by the UK polecat population expert Johnny Birks (of the VWT). I used mink traps baited with dead chicks set mainly near hedgerows on agricultural land near Bangor, N Wales. I averaged one animal per week's trapping (112 trap nights). The farmers who owned the land generally had no idea there were polecats there despite often farming the land most of their lives.
still really want wildcat :stuck:
Farnboro John said:
James Lowther
Well-known member
Do you guys have any tips for seeing the wall lizards in portland (times of year, exact locations etc.)??
PM me if it's sensitive
cheers,
James
PM me if it's sensitive
cheers,
James
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