wildlife

[brianw]

Under the roof overhang today.

[mark smyth]

We saw swifts (I'm reliably informed by she who knows all!) in Padstow at Easter.

I think Easter is a bit early. My first swift arrived back yesterday. This is two weeks early

40 were seen at the south end of Lough Neagh on Saturday

[Anthony Darby]

Update on the returned jewelled geckos. As no jewelled geckos have ever been legally exported from New Zealand, they must have been poached from the Otago Peninsula. Alas, they won't ever be returned to the wild. http://blog.doc.govt.nz/2015/04/23/return-of-the-geckos/

Geckos now get better protection: www.doc.govt.nz/news/media-releases/2013/green-geckos-get-greater-international-protection/

[fredg]

One of MrsG's finds. ID please.

[Roma]

A Peacock butterfly in the garden yesterday

[Roma]

A busy mum's got to eat whatever the weather.  Five minutes between the first and last pictures.

[mark smyth]

An amazing sight of 1000s of swallow battling strong north west wind and a temperature of only 4c. What you see in front of me was also above me and behind me

Where did our youtube button link go?

[Maggi Young]

Where did our youtube button link go?

 Still works to load the video here Mark - but you need to make sure the url is simply http:// and not https - I've fixed your link for you. 

[Matt T]

We spotted a good variety of birdlife on our recent trip to the Netherlands, with great crested grebes particularly abundant and confiding! There were three nests right outside our hotel with the second pic showing the context for these, squeezed between the hotel car park and the marina pontoons (one is obvious, the second is just the other side of the gate/access where you can just see the bird's head and another was at the far end).

[Anthony Darby]

That is amazing. We had a mallard nest in the woods opposite the school used to teach at in Falkirk. Not hidden well enough because the kids found it and had an egg fight! There's a badger set nearby, but it's pretty safe, having been dug into the Antonine Wall.

[mark smyth]

amazing to see those grebes like that

[mark smyth]

Thanks Maggi

[Roma]

I rescued some tadpoles the other week.  The pond was almost totally dried up.  I was surprised how many survivors there were in two scoops of wet mud.  I took some duckweed with them and later gave them some chickweed.  They seem to be thriving.  I'm considering putting them back as there is plenty water coming down the ditch now but it could dry up quickly if we get another heatwave.  some summers they get dried out and others they get washed away.

[brianw]

More tadpoles ;-)
In a new small pond I have added both frog and toad spawn over the last month. Seem to have 2 species and/or generations. Apart from size and the timing of adding can I tell them apart? I added the frog a couple of weeks before the toad.

[Matt T]

Toadpoles are uniformly dark/black in colour whereas frog tadpoles will be a lighter, speckled brownish colour, which will be more noticeable as they get larger. Also, frog tadpoles may appear to have a deeper tail (i.e. including the transluscent part on top and bottom of the tail) than toadpoles.