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John's Mammals 2014 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Farnboro John
- Start date
They don't need local approval - they cull the Wolves too, there is a movement to substantially lower the Wolf population.
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Clare and I acted on information received and joined Roy at Tring to look for a Mink that has shown to a number of people recently. Unfortunately the strong cold wind rendered both water and watching conditions sub-optimal!
We had nice views of a Siberian Chiffchaff and my first Sand Martins for the year, but no sign of our quarry so late morning Clare and I bid farewell to Roy and motored over to Little Brickhill. Even without the Lady Ams that are now consigned to legend, this is nice place to go, with good numbers of both Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer, and a chance of Black Grey Squirrels.
We spent a couple of hours having a proper walk round and found 3 Muntjacs and more than 10 Chinese Water Deer. The Muntjacs spooked away from us but after a while they came back carefully. We stood still and quiet and got a few shots as they ambled past.
From the edge of the woods we surveyed the ploughed fields and found Chinese Water Deer making excellent use of small folds in the ground to bask in the sunshine while remaining invisible to most observers. The nearest ones spooked - not at once, and while we were watching from cover and not moving. I suppose the wind could have shifted and let them scent us. I got my usual shots of CWD running, from the rear quarter.
We didn't find any black squirrels, so I suggested we should finish the day with a trip to Letchworth, where one of the small parks East of the town centre is as near a dead cert as wildlife watching gets. Perhaps we were there at a difficult time of day, because we had to wait some time for a black Grey Squirrel to show - and the one that did, on the ground, in the open, was immediately driven up a tree by a small boy that ran at it. His father did apologise. Heigh ho. We had a couple of normal Grey Squirrels and after a while we relocated the black squirrel feeding on leaf buds in an oak tree, and managed to find a line through the twigs to get pix.
It was 1630 by the time we lost the squirrel in the ivy so we headed home - an easy run without even any problems on the M25.
John
Siberian Chiffchaff
Chinese Water Deer
Muntjac
Grey Squirrel
Black Grey Squirrel
We had nice views of a Siberian Chiffchaff and my first Sand Martins for the year, but no sign of our quarry so late morning Clare and I bid farewell to Roy and motored over to Little Brickhill. Even without the Lady Ams that are now consigned to legend, this is nice place to go, with good numbers of both Muntjac and Chinese Water Deer, and a chance of Black Grey Squirrels.
We spent a couple of hours having a proper walk round and found 3 Muntjacs and more than 10 Chinese Water Deer. The Muntjacs spooked away from us but after a while they came back carefully. We stood still and quiet and got a few shots as they ambled past.
From the edge of the woods we surveyed the ploughed fields and found Chinese Water Deer making excellent use of small folds in the ground to bask in the sunshine while remaining invisible to most observers. The nearest ones spooked - not at once, and while we were watching from cover and not moving. I suppose the wind could have shifted and let them scent us. I got my usual shots of CWD running, from the rear quarter.
We didn't find any black squirrels, so I suggested we should finish the day with a trip to Letchworth, where one of the small parks East of the town centre is as near a dead cert as wildlife watching gets. Perhaps we were there at a difficult time of day, because we had to wait some time for a black Grey Squirrel to show - and the one that did, on the ground, in the open, was immediately driven up a tree by a small boy that ran at it. His father did apologise. Heigh ho. We had a couple of normal Grey Squirrels and after a while we relocated the black squirrel feeding on leaf buds in an oak tree, and managed to find a line through the twigs to get pix.
It was 1630 by the time we lost the squirrel in the ivy so we headed home - an easy run without even any problems on the M25.
John
Siberian Chiffchaff
Chinese Water Deer
Muntjac
Grey Squirrel
Black Grey Squirrel
Attachments
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Royal Aeronautical Society lecture in London yesterday: House Mouse Green Park Underground on the Piccadilly Line Westbound.
John
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
crazyfingers
Well-known member
These would be my 5 favorite non-bird wildlife photos.
1: Porcupine in Maine
2: Mink in Massachusetts
3: Red Fox in Maine
4: two young black bears on a week long canoe trip in Quebec
5: Moose in Maine
1: Porcupine in Maine
2: Mink in Massachusetts
3: Red Fox in Maine
4: two young black bears on a week long canoe trip in Quebec
5: Moose in Maine
Attachments
Mike Richardson
Formerly known as Skink1978
That Porcupine is fantastic.
MarkHows
Mostly Mammals
Time for a rant the hide I visit in the Lee Valley to watch bank voles and common shrews has been removed by the park authorities. There was some crappy note about its wildlife and amenity value has been reduced. - A Lame excuse to not replace the hide, I do understand financial constraints but be honest about the reasons.
But even worse all the vole and shrew corridors created by some of the regulars placing rotting wood in linear routes connecting areas of suitable habitat have been burnt! Do they know how important rotting wood is?
I am extremely annoyed about this and those of you who know me well will know I don't get annoyed easily.
Anyway Rant over, but it did take the edge off what was a rather nice day.
Mark
But even worse all the vole and shrew corridors created by some of the regulars placing rotting wood in linear routes connecting areas of suitable habitat have been burnt! Do they know how important rotting wood is?
I am extremely annoyed about this and those of you who know me well will know I don't get annoyed easily.
Anyway Rant over, but it did take the edge off what was a rather nice day.
Mark
Attachments
Farnboro John
Well-known member
You have hit on the thing that sends me into a blind fury as well: the obsession with stupid bloody tidiness. I bet these people freak if a coaster isn't set square on a table.
LEAVE STUFF WHERE IT IS YOU MORONS!!!!
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
A day in the office and all ranting energy is spent... time to account for my doings on Saturday.
First of all an advance apology: I usually give fairly precise directions to animals because this thread is about sharing, but I respect confidential information so this time I'm not going to. I can say that the action took place in the Forest of Dean, but that's all, and I think you might well guess that anyway!
So, acting on information received, I drove in the early morning over to the Forest, noting a Red Fox listening for small mammals along Cove Brook, various Rabbits and a couple of Roe Deer along the way. On arrival I figured out how the directions and google satellite image related to the ground level view and made my way into the misty woods as quietly as an overweight aging birder toting a tripod and big lens can.
Some of the ground was fairly plodgy but I managed not to get too muddy by the time I arrived at the clearing recommended to me. If I had one beef with the stupendously accurate directions it would have to be that my informant didn't tell me which side of the clearing to follow - had I got it wrong I would have actually trodden on the Wild Boar sow snoozing under the sweep of a conifer branch. As it was I became aware of her when she grunted - I had failed to put a foot down silently.
I froze, and as nothing happened for a few seconds, eased my tripod off my shoulder onto the ground and immediately determined I was overgunned by a considerable margin, even for the stripey piglet that trotted out of the trees next to his dam's tail and muscular rear end. I changed lenses, trading down to a 70-300, and took a few pictures.
At this point another sow of which I had not been aware brushed through the low-hanging foliage a little further on. This was a big, broad, solid, blackish individual with an air of considerable authority. I continued to exude inoffensive pheromones - well, I certainly tried to! After looking me up and down, this second sow marched across the clearing to my side and disappeared into the trees. Hmm. Not sure about this....
Half a minute later a twig cracked a few feet behind me and the sound of sniffing through a pair of the best olfactory detectors in the business let me know I was being checked out pretty closely. I went on looking mostly harmless, and very shortly another broken twig signalled that she was returning whence she came. As the sow recrossed the clearing she paused for another good look at me and I took the opportunity to photograph her. She then disappeared into the woods along with at least a couple of humbugs that had waited for her inside the treeline.
Meantime the nearer family's humbugs had walked out and back a couple of times. Their parent got up and had a look, then returned very quickly to her slumbers in exactly the same spot: just tail and quarters showing.
Eventually however she decided I was just too close (or didn't like my smell, or something) and took her brood, which I think totalled four but I can't be sure, off through the woods as well.
I waited a while to see if they would return, but then gave up and went for a walk in more open woods. Chiffchaffs were singing and abundant Goldcrests were going great guns: Buzzards were mewing and displaying above interspersed with croaks from Ravens on passage across the Forest. Nevertheless I was here on boar business, and when the sun had burned through the mist and begun to heat up the sheltered spots I thought the families I had seen might have returned to their sun-trap clearing.
This time my approach was slower and a good deal quieter. I saw the humbugs first and managed to get back to my original station without upsetting them. Probably as a consequence of that, when the sow realised I was there, she just stood up and walked out into the sunshine to have a look at me.
For my part I knew from the earlier meeting that the camera's clicking wouldn't cause offence and I guessed it might even be reassuring given that the last time she heard it, nothing bad happened, so I didn't stint myself as far as taking pictures was concerned. The humbugs (I do like that term for the youngsters) took their cue from the adult and began to emerge from the treeline and allow me to get pictures of them in good light as well.
The family gave me at least half an hour of sheer delight before deciding to go away downhill. I made my way back along the route by which I had arrived, and part way back to the car heard a twig snap in more thick conifer woodland. I stopped dead, listened and watched, and spotted first one, then two, then a whole mass of humbugs circling together perhaps forty yards along a gap in the woods. I only got a glimpse through thick cover of their mother as she settled down in a sunny patch on the bright side of the gap.
I quite fancied getting pix of this mob, and as the piglets settled down just beyond the sow I thought it might just be possible despite the boar fence I had to negotiate, the twig and dry bracken-strewn ground and general uneven terrain.
I slid over the fence with barely a twang from the wires, parked my big lens and tripod behind the nearest trees and set about creeping up on nine sets of ears and noses - admittedly what little breeze penetrated the trees was blowing from them to me, so not much risk of being scented.
Not only did I have to find space for my clodhopping feet that didn't have twigs or other crackly stuff, but some of the ground was wet, and the sucky sound of a boot coming out of mud would give me away just as badly. I got to about twenty-five yards then had to cross a ditch, get up the far side without a tennis-star grunt and edge along the conifers silently in full view of the boars to gain a clear shot. Rather to my own surprise, I made it. Even more surprisingly, the clattering of the 7D's shutter didn't shift them. One humbug that had been leaning on his mother's flank got up, walked round to sniff her nose and then walked straight over the top of its litter-mates to find a comfortable position in the humbug heap that stretched along to her right.
Best of all I managed to retreat without blowing the whole manoeuvre and ended up back at the car feeling pretty damn smug.
The rest of the day was OK for public consumption: I visited New Fancy View where an Adder was showing nicely and after about three hours so did two Goshawks; lesser beings included some nice Common Crossbills, loadsa Buzzards and a couple of Common Lizards. One of the Goshawks came fairly close and I got some record shots: of course it had to be the one with the manky plumage! I was quite pleased to get pix of an immature, all the ones I got in the New Forest last year were adults, but this one was so deep in moult its a wonder it was airworthy. Shades of Kenny Everett: "..and then all my feathers fell off!"
I ran into one of the Forest photographers at New Fancy View and we had a good chat about boars, snakes and other wildlife. He would have been more than happy for me to tag along as he was having a boaring day but I decided to continue birding and after New Fancy View I spent the afternoon at Symonds Yat. To be honest I should probably have taken up his offer, because apart from one male Peregrine flyby it was pretty quiet, but at least I was able to tear myself away more easily than sometimes, and get home at a fairly sensible hour.
John
First of all an advance apology: I usually give fairly precise directions to animals because this thread is about sharing, but I respect confidential information so this time I'm not going to. I can say that the action took place in the Forest of Dean, but that's all, and I think you might well guess that anyway!
So, acting on information received, I drove in the early morning over to the Forest, noting a Red Fox listening for small mammals along Cove Brook, various Rabbits and a couple of Roe Deer along the way. On arrival I figured out how the directions and google satellite image related to the ground level view and made my way into the misty woods as quietly as an overweight aging birder toting a tripod and big lens can.
Some of the ground was fairly plodgy but I managed not to get too muddy by the time I arrived at the clearing recommended to me. If I had one beef with the stupendously accurate directions it would have to be that my informant didn't tell me which side of the clearing to follow - had I got it wrong I would have actually trodden on the Wild Boar sow snoozing under the sweep of a conifer branch. As it was I became aware of her when she grunted - I had failed to put a foot down silently.
I froze, and as nothing happened for a few seconds, eased my tripod off my shoulder onto the ground and immediately determined I was overgunned by a considerable margin, even for the stripey piglet that trotted out of the trees next to his dam's tail and muscular rear end. I changed lenses, trading down to a 70-300, and took a few pictures.
At this point another sow of which I had not been aware brushed through the low-hanging foliage a little further on. This was a big, broad, solid, blackish individual with an air of considerable authority. I continued to exude inoffensive pheromones - well, I certainly tried to! After looking me up and down, this second sow marched across the clearing to my side and disappeared into the trees. Hmm. Not sure about this....
Half a minute later a twig cracked a few feet behind me and the sound of sniffing through a pair of the best olfactory detectors in the business let me know I was being checked out pretty closely. I went on looking mostly harmless, and very shortly another broken twig signalled that she was returning whence she came. As the sow recrossed the clearing she paused for another good look at me and I took the opportunity to photograph her. She then disappeared into the woods along with at least a couple of humbugs that had waited for her inside the treeline.
Meantime the nearer family's humbugs had walked out and back a couple of times. Their parent got up and had a look, then returned very quickly to her slumbers in exactly the same spot: just tail and quarters showing.
Eventually however she decided I was just too close (or didn't like my smell, or something) and took her brood, which I think totalled four but I can't be sure, off through the woods as well.
I waited a while to see if they would return, but then gave up and went for a walk in more open woods. Chiffchaffs were singing and abundant Goldcrests were going great guns: Buzzards were mewing and displaying above interspersed with croaks from Ravens on passage across the Forest. Nevertheless I was here on boar business, and when the sun had burned through the mist and begun to heat up the sheltered spots I thought the families I had seen might have returned to their sun-trap clearing.
This time my approach was slower and a good deal quieter. I saw the humbugs first and managed to get back to my original station without upsetting them. Probably as a consequence of that, when the sow realised I was there, she just stood up and walked out into the sunshine to have a look at me.
For my part I knew from the earlier meeting that the camera's clicking wouldn't cause offence and I guessed it might even be reassuring given that the last time she heard it, nothing bad happened, so I didn't stint myself as far as taking pictures was concerned. The humbugs (I do like that term for the youngsters) took their cue from the adult and began to emerge from the treeline and allow me to get pictures of them in good light as well.
The family gave me at least half an hour of sheer delight before deciding to go away downhill. I made my way back along the route by which I had arrived, and part way back to the car heard a twig snap in more thick conifer woodland. I stopped dead, listened and watched, and spotted first one, then two, then a whole mass of humbugs circling together perhaps forty yards along a gap in the woods. I only got a glimpse through thick cover of their mother as she settled down in a sunny patch on the bright side of the gap.
I quite fancied getting pix of this mob, and as the piglets settled down just beyond the sow I thought it might just be possible despite the boar fence I had to negotiate, the twig and dry bracken-strewn ground and general uneven terrain.
I slid over the fence with barely a twang from the wires, parked my big lens and tripod behind the nearest trees and set about creeping up on nine sets of ears and noses - admittedly what little breeze penetrated the trees was blowing from them to me, so not much risk of being scented.
Not only did I have to find space for my clodhopping feet that didn't have twigs or other crackly stuff, but some of the ground was wet, and the sucky sound of a boot coming out of mud would give me away just as badly. I got to about twenty-five yards then had to cross a ditch, get up the far side without a tennis-star grunt and edge along the conifers silently in full view of the boars to gain a clear shot. Rather to my own surprise, I made it. Even more surprisingly, the clattering of the 7D's shutter didn't shift them. One humbug that had been leaning on his mother's flank got up, walked round to sniff her nose and then walked straight over the top of its litter-mates to find a comfortable position in the humbug heap that stretched along to her right.
Best of all I managed to retreat without blowing the whole manoeuvre and ended up back at the car feeling pretty damn smug.
The rest of the day was OK for public consumption: I visited New Fancy View where an Adder was showing nicely and after about three hours so did two Goshawks; lesser beings included some nice Common Crossbills, loadsa Buzzards and a couple of Common Lizards. One of the Goshawks came fairly close and I got some record shots: of course it had to be the one with the manky plumage! I was quite pleased to get pix of an immature, all the ones I got in the New Forest last year were adults, but this one was so deep in moult its a wonder it was airworthy. Shades of Kenny Everett: "..and then all my feathers fell off!"
I ran into one of the Forest photographers at New Fancy View and we had a good chat about boars, snakes and other wildlife. He would have been more than happy for me to tag along as he was having a boaring day but I decided to continue birding and after New Fancy View I spent the afternoon at Symonds Yat. To be honest I should probably have taken up his offer, because apart from one male Peregrine flyby it was pretty quiet, but at least I was able to tear myself away more easily than sometimes, and get home at a fairly sensible hour.
John
Last edited:
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Pix 2:
Humbug heap
Adder (milky eye: ready to shed)
Common Lizard
Common Crossbill
Moulting immature Goshawk
John
Humbug heap
Adder (milky eye: ready to shed)
Common Lizard
Common Crossbill
Moulting immature Goshawk
John
Attachments
Farnboro John
Well-known member
I meant to say but forgot: the Forestry Commission is going to absolutely hammer the boar population this year. They are talking about culling of the order of 600 animals.
If there are too many in the Forest of Dean (and even I have to admit that a lot of turf has been ploughed this winter) then catch some family groups and put them in the New Forest - Sherwood Forest - the Brecks - Kielder - anywhere with suitable habitat, and let them control badly trained dogs, badly trained owners, undisciplined yoof, mountain bikers, etc, etc.....
John
If there are too many in the Forest of Dean (and even I have to admit that a lot of turf has been ploughed this winter) then catch some family groups and put them in the New Forest - Sherwood Forest - the Brecks - Kielder - anywhere with suitable habitat, and let them control badly trained dogs, badly trained owners, undisciplined yoof, mountain bikers, etc, etc.....
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Something else I forgot: my habit of retailing stories the same way as I write them got me identified by a fellow BFer at New Fancy View, so Hello!
First time its happened to me with someone I really didn't know: like "slebrity" - only better!
John
First time its happened to me with someone I really didn't know: like "slebrity" - only better!
John
dantheman
Bah humbug
Farnboro John
Well-known member
You're planning on publishing?
Nice one.
No, that would be wholesale, assuming anybody would buy it!
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
I went flying with my brother yesterday evening, just a quick flip round Salisbury Plain, out along the South side and back round the top. I was chiefly photographing airfields and hill forts, but some of you may be interested to see this particular bit of landscape.
We were at about 2500 feet, which gives a lessened perspective, but that steep Northward facing scarp, with the gallops along the ridge and a beech hanger just South of the course, will be a familiar description to many. So where is it?
John
We were at about 2500 feet, which gives a lessened perspective, but that steep Northward facing scarp, with the gallops along the ridge and a beech hanger just South of the course, will be a familiar description to many. So where is it?
John
