wildlife

[Lesley Cox]

Lovely pictures this morning on Facebook of Rafa's gorgeous bloodhound (Alcea? Anthea?) who made her first puppy appearances here a few years ago. She's a BIG lady now, off with family and friends on a daffodil hunt.

[Maggi Young]

Nothing wild about Althea - she's a big softie!

[David Lyttle]

South Island Robin (Petroica australis) male and female in southern beech forest near the Mararoa River. These birds are very tame which means they are easy prey to introduced predators (stoats, rats etc). However there were a lot of them present in this patch of forest.

[fermi de Sousa]

Happy Christmas!
This morning I saw a different sort of hover-fly attracted to the Gilia capitata flower which I couldn't identify
cheers
fermi

[fermi de Sousa]

Some more pics of the hover-fly and the Gilia capitata
cheers
fermi

[johnw]

A mass kill of marine life has been ongoing since Boxing Day in southwestern Nova Scotia.  No cause has been determined and it appears similar to what's happened in Cornwall and on the east coast of the USA recently.  A big cross-section of marine species and no land or aerial predators are touching the carcasses.  Very puzzling.  The public as you might expect is jumping to conclusions.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/fish-kill-off-st-mary-s-bay-lobster-clams-crabs-beach-1.3913265


Has the Cornish event been explained yet?


john

[Roma]

Followed this link, was attracted by another headline and found myself going through all 161 pictures of crazy lobsters .  I am curious about so many things and there is so much information out there, I could sit here all day. 

[GordonT]

John,  I have been following this story, and am dismayed by all the crazy conclusions people make. Given the silence of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, I figure they still haven't found the cause. What I wonder is if that magnitude 3 earthquake that shook Weymouth NS earlier in the month might have liberated sub sediment methane. It would lead to temporary anoxia- and cause multi species die-off. That would seem to me to be a more probable cause than the experimental turbine placed hundreds of miles away in the Minas Channel

[johnw]

The news gets worse, apparently seals and a young humpback whale* have washed ashore overnight.


Gordon, I have to agree with you that it had to be something toxic from a vent or an imbedded pocket.  I initailly thought a heat vent from the quake but the gulls would immediately be out in full force to feed. The new test tidal turbine seems to be a popular scapegoat but there's no sign of physical damage to the bodiesand no predators.


Have you heard of any similar events in NS outside St. Mary's Bay?

ps 30 Dec. 2016  - no mention of seals in subsequent reports, the whale death is apparently unrelated to the problem according to the Dept. of Fisheries.

john

[brianw]

I noticed our local Lidl had nest boxes with built-in cameras in stock again yesterday. ~£30 from memory. Plug into laptop or TV types. The former are powered using the usb lead; don't know about TV type.
Not the highest quality videos but entertaining all the same last spring. Check the camera alignment before installing; mine was a bit off centre when bought.
Nothing using it as a winter roost so far this season; it's been up for a month or so after cleaning.

[David Nicholson]

Apparently a small flock of Waxwings at a site between Newton Abbot and Bovey Tracey has got local Twitchers in a state of euphoria

[brianw]

The last of the Red Sentinal crab apples are feeding up to 9 blackbirds at a time over the last few days. A few Redwings on odd days too. Mostly they feed on the bird feeder sunflower seed spillage though. Noticed several RS crab apple trees in the January sales here. Bought another together with 2 Sorbus trees. Maybe I will eventually tempt some waxwings to visit.

[annew]

A friend just rang to ask if I knew what might have buried a whole rabbit in her garden. She doesn't have a dog. It was buried just beneath the surface. The only thing I can think of are a neighbour's dog or a fox. Might anything else be responsible?

[Matt T]

Most likely to be a fox. They will kill more than they need if they have the opportunity to be cached for lean times.

[brianw]

A fox buried a squirrel in my sand bed, leaving the tail sticky out. I pulled it out and transferred it to the lawn, but it still came and checked for it a couple of days later. There clear anything I leave out over night.