wildlife

[Stan da Prato]

  In a pond near there was an Icelandic Bar Tailed Godwit in it's spectacular rufous plumage. 

I think you mean Black-tailed? The Icelandic  sub-species has been increasing and they are indeed smart birds in breeding plumage.  Bar-tailed are more northern with some breeding in N Scandinavia  but most in  arctic Russia/Siberia.

[TC]

Quite right Stan.  In my wife's diary she has it as a Black Tail - why I got it wrong ...no idea.  We have steady passages of the Icelandic race during migration on the West coast.

Today we were up at Loch Doon for a look at the Ospreys.  It appears that they have got eggs.  Picture taken from the TV monitor.

Today's picture was  185 KB   When I posted it was refused and I was told it was over 200kb !

Back to photoshop and try again.

Success !  That was hard work.

[Maggi Young]

Pix with lots of  meta data will affect the final file size, Tom. Sorry that you find a problem with the resizing - I can only reiterate that I have little problem, either with the  SRGC resizing tool of my old faithful, ACDSee4  - many others have made suggestions as to the methods they use - in the  picture thread, for instance.

[ian mcdonald]

We have had black tailed and bar tailed godwits on the local patch.

[ian mcdonald]

'Jews ear' fungi seen today img. 1010345.   Auricularia auricula-judae

[ArnoldT]

Had to look that one up.

Etymology

Auricula is a Latin word meaning ear. Judae means Judas, the Jew who it is said betrayed Jesus. Older field guides may list this species under the common name Jew's Ear fungus, a derogatory term that I will mention only once in case you see it either online or in an earlier printed publication and wonder which species it refers to. Other, older common names for this species include Wood Ear and Judas' Ear - the latter a reference to the belief that Judas Iscariot hanged himself on an Elder tree in shame after betraying Jesus Christ to his executioners. The legend, which dates back more than 400 years, suggests that the fulgal 'ears' that emerge from Elder wood are visible residues of Judas' tormented spirit.

[Anthony Darby]

Fascinating research Arnold. 

[ian mcdonald]

According to the RHS, the judas tree is Cercis siliquastrum. Other names for the elderberry (Sambucus nigra) in the UK, are bore tree and bour tree. There is a village not far from me called Bawtry, probably the same derivation. Names written down for the domesday book were often written phonetically. I assume that the elderberry was common in this area.

[angie]

Somebody was happy to see the rain today , he/she sat the from 9.00am till my visitors came and soaked in the sun oh meant to say rain.

Angie 

[brianw]

Starlings, blue tits, robins and blackbirds all feeding young. The blackbirds are building their second nest while still feeding the first young. The female is doing the collecting as usual.

Our Blue tits hatched last (8th) weekend. Clutch of 7. This weekend I can see the feathers forming well.
This is using a Lidl nest box with built in camera powered by the usb socket on my laptop. Camera aim off centre and fairly low quality but seeing things I have never seen before. Makes me want to get a better quality one for next year, but then they will probably not use it. Still shots or video, day or night (led). I will post some pics later

[ian mcdonald]

Hello Brian, the blue tits use the main nest box in my garden about every 4 years. I don,t know why this is, perhaps a series of boxes may encourage them to nest in the garden every year.

[brianw]

We are only going from memory but we think in our previous garden the box (another) was used more years than not. Don't know why this might be, but when placing this current box I checked online as to the best aspect for mounting. Neither of our boxes were ideal apparently, but then I have 3 other boxes on this house, different types, all facing north and none has been used in 2 years, except as an occasional winter roost for a great tit. This current box faces almost west picking up the sun maybe ~3pm but the old box faced east and was in full sun until early afternoon.
Apart from making sure you don't cook the birds in full sun and installing at a reasonable height, don't know how critical all this might be. This garden is full of birds and has thick hedges and trees around so no habitat or food problems.
Our old box now sits fairly low down behind the garage and seems to be used by bees every year now.

[Tristan_He]

Mid May and a few more butterflies starting to appear. Not so many orange-tips about now but just emerging is this little gem - green hairstreak Callophrys rubi. (this photo was actually taken in June 2013).

[Palustris]

May be nice having lots of wild life around, but the badgers have eaten over 1200 tulip bulbs over the last few weeks and in digging them up they have totally destroyed all the plants and shrubs in one bed. Now that there are no bulbs left in there, I expect they will move on and destroy more of the garden.

[ian mcdonald]

Brian, in regard to your tit box, is there a metal plate over the hole. If not, birds may feel at risk from squirrels and woodpeckers. Palustris, in spite of the damage I would be pleased to see badgers. Perhaps scones with jam might tempt them away from your plants? I have never seen a live badger. Plenty of dead ones as road and rail casualties. Most have been killed one way or the other in this area, many by illegal diggers.