Wildlife

I happened to look out of the bedroom window about 4 am a few weeks back, and there must have been about ten bats swooping round the corner of the house. I was horrified! (I don't like bats) (I hope they don't live in our roof space and were just arriving home for the day)

Hopefully, the birds will be back in the winter when food supplies are not so plentiful in the big wide world.

I haven't seen any bats for several years now. They went when the council felled the pine trees at the back of our house. We have plenty of coal and blue tits. Long tailed tits come round regularly but no great tits, I gather they've been decimated by a virus. I haven't seen the robin since the babies fledged last month.
There are song and Mistle thrushes around and chaffinches and gold finches, but they don't come in the garden. Once our grapes are ripe I expect to inundated with every blackbird in Berkshire!

Jingle you've obviously enticed my bats away! Send them back immediately or I'll set Spider-Man on you!

I realised that I hadn't seen any birds in my garden few days ago, but I had stopped putting food out for them because of the rats eating it. I did see a blackbird yesterday and a rather bedraggled robin today so I wonder if they're moulting before they have second broods later in the year? Have lots of bats in the garden; I love watching the way they follow the same path each night.

You'd be welcome to them Galen. (shudder!)

Galen; you haven't got magpies around, have you? I was upset one year to find the farmer was catching them in a Larsen trap, but he pointed out that I would notice a lot more songbirds in my garden when they'd gone, and he was right.

I remember one night in a Giite in France, a bat coming into the bedroom and having to be (very gently) detached from my husbands very hairy chest!
They're lovely little furry mammals!

Oh shite!!!

That did my phobia a lot of good didn't it!

Tegan loads of the horrid things!

No butterflies in my butterfly bushes. No bats, no owls. They say the very cold wet weather followed by the very hot dry weather has been good for strawberries and bad for wildlife. Wildlife that doesn't eat soft fruit.

A few peacock butterflies, tortoishell and fritillaries, loads of great whites, loads of moths as well, more than usual.
Come to think of it, I haven't heard the owls either.

My lavender bushes have been full of bees and butterflies for the last few weeks: never seen anything like it before

Strangely enough. My lavender bushes the same. Plus they have tripled in size. Roses drop petals after two days. Lots of wasps, too. Birds have disappeared as well. Never seen more than three magpies at one time when there used to be more than I could remember in the rhyme. Other birds used to chase them. No buzzards catching rabbits. Not that many rabbits either. No green or greater spotted woodpeckers. No pheasant. No swallows nesting. No deer. I had been feeding birds and deer for years which also attracted badgers. But no badgers for months. As eggs hatched and deer born, adults used to bring juniors to feed. They used to come from trees and hedgerows when I called. I have never had so many foxes come around - in daylight too. I have to keep household rubbish in garage or the bins get raided. It is amazing to watch (from behind the curtains). The local farm dog occasionally drops by and am hoping his visits keep foxes away. Farmer is now cutting his corn and I dread that snakes will appear. Trees falling over with disease. Lots of butterflies and moths - not that many spiders. And no bats. Good subject, Galen. Frightening to notice the changes now that you bring the matter up. Wasn't there a mention in a newspaper a few months ago how mobile phone masts were causing birds to get lost.

This is bird moult season so many of them do tend to lie low while they re-grow their feathers. Saw a robin with no tail feathers yesterday, but it looked fine otherwise.

We have bats, also magpies (a whole young family), and lots of other birds, several kinds of bumble bee, wasps, butterflies, etc.

What I haven't seen here this year is honey bees. However, I do know that our nearest beekeeper stopped keeping bees last year so it might be because of that.

We have lots of blue tits and long tailed tits, the robin has had a family, and the blackbirds are thriving. We did have goldfinch nest, but they decided to re-home, I think. Our lavender has been full of bumble bees, they seem to like the side of our house which faces the sun from early morn until about 2 o'clock. I haven't been to the bowls club much recently, but we used to have some red kites which flew over there, and I have been looking forward to watching those again this year. Too many trees and electricity wires here where we live to have birds of prey loitering.

I'ts been a really difficult 2 years for some species hasn't it. Bumble bees on lavender but very late to get any numbers up. Other pollinators, hover flies etc very few this year. Have not noticed bats outside for a few years. They rely on insects. We did admire some swifts though, quite high up over our garden, feeding on something.
However I was working in an office yesterday and just outside the ground floor window there were baby rabbits and 2 juvenile green woodpeckers, pecking at the bank where the rabbits have disturbed the soil, feeding on invertebrates.
Looking forward to going to N Wales next week where we can walk outside and see two kinds of terns within 5 mins of front door

My friend and I sat outside in her Stockport garden a few days ago, watching buzzards riding the thermals over the golf course behind her garden. We counted nine. Such a fabulous sight, especially when they swooped low.

That is such a simple pleasure, isn't in when, it is difficult to understand people who do not seem to enjoy the things that are around them. I remember when my children were little, in their push-chairs, how we used to talk (YES!) about the flowers in the hedgerow, and the insects on the grass, that of course was when life was lived at a slower pace.

I have lots of buzzards round here ( usually being mobbed by the gulls).
Seen lots of bumble bees but very few honey bees. Lots of moths and damsel flies, very few dragon flies and butterflies. It seems to be the smaller birds which have vanished. I did have bluetit family in my box and a great it is a regular at the feeders along with a dunnock. One sighting of a coaltit numerous blackbirds and my regular winter long tailed tits did not appear.

And NO BATS!

I live very near to the sea and get very few traditional garden birds as the bloomin' seagulls frighten them off. I also have a huge park almost next door and have seen quite a few foxes going in and out. My son and dil live on the outskirts of town and their garden looks out over fields. They have loads of fruit bats darting around their garden and see quite a few owls and other birds of prey too.

We`re also not far from the sea, so mostly see seagulls. We don`t see many other birds, just now and then, but maybe it`s better that way, seeing as we have a cat. On the river, well, canal really, out at the front of the house, we see ducks, geese, cormorants, swans and herons, oh, and moorhens.

I get loads of pesky gulls as well. They include a very noisy pair of blackbacks.