Wildlife -Winter 2008

[Maggi Young]

Oh, Göte......

[Stephenb]

After tidying up the glasshouse and repotting several plants, I thought I would search for the Waxwings.  Some were still where I saw them yesterday and another group were up a tree in a car park.  I managed to get a few shots in the late afternoon sunlight.  My garden has an abundance of pyracantha berries and apples , but they never seem to discover them

Re-Waxwings, by far the most common bird here numerically in the October to December period in most years. It's a reasonably good year this year as the Rowan crop was good. You can expect a second wave in Scotland in the New Year as they've gorged themselves and the rowan berries are almost finished - if they manage to navigate the North Sea in their drunken state   Actually, there's a flock of about 60 at the moment that are eating sunflower seeds - seem more interested in that than the dried bilberries I put out for them! 

There can be so many of them that it's dangerous to move outside and, unfortunately, there are occasional cases of mass suicide against house windows (usually under the influence) - driving is also hazardous in a rain of rowan berry-defecating waxwings sitting in the trees  - when the picture was taken there were some 1-2,000 birds in the garden:

 

[David Shaw]

We have just come home from Forres where we saw a small flock of waxwings in  a tree. I doubt that we will get them in the garden because the blackbirds have taken all the rowan berries. There are now only cotoneaster berries left.
They are wonderful birds to watch and I would tolerate a flock of them, occasionally.

[mark smyth]

Rowan at this time of year are rare over here. The starlings strip them in August but they dont eat the yellow, pink or white varieties. I saw two today playing pass the berry. It's the wrong time of year to be planning baby waxwings.

Stephen do they nest in your garden? What most people over here dont know is they are insectiverous in the summer.

[Anthony Darby]

Etta, my female panther chameleon (Furcifer pardalis) is finally in breeding condition. Ringo, my green tree (Chondro) python - sorry, named by two pupils Chloë and Leona - (Morelia (formerly Chondropython) viridis) has decided that the only food his will eat is trapped mice from my greenhouse. I have an efficient break-back trap that requires no bait. I then freeze them and take them in to school where Ringo has his cage in my classroom. He refuses to eat the shop-bought mice lollies! I hope these pics are not too gruesome, but if I didn't feed him he wouldn't grew some more.

[Maggi Young]

Etta is a stunner!  So beautiful .... I hope her fella is impressed ?
Great photos altogether, Anthony.
Ringo is nicely marked, isn't he, looks in tip-top order with your mouses.... and he'll eat two in a sitting? How often does he need feeding?
 You'd think there wasn't any difference between the mice-lollies and your frozen mouses.........mouse/ frozen.......what's the difference?  Yours must be fresher.... or fatter?

[Anthony Darby]

Not sure Maggi? Perhaps the difference between a Tesco's duck and a shot wild one or a farmed salmon and one my brother in law has caught in the Forth? A friend who breeds these snakes says try rolling a reared defrosted mouse in a bag with a Bernard Matthew's chicken drumstick! The thing is, I'm glad he's feeding as they can be tricky. Now I just need a female!

Will take a pic of Sundance, Etta's intended, once he has moulted. He hasn't changed since I last posted a pic.

[maggiepie]

Oh Anthony, your Etta is absolutely beautiful and Ringo isn't bad either.
I would love to have a chameleon but it's too cold where I am, if we lost power in winter I don't know how I could keep one alive.

[ranunculus]

Ringo is nicely marked, isn't he, looks in tip-top order with your mouses.... and he'll eat two in a sitting? How often does he need feeding?
 You'd think there wasn't any difference between the mice-lollies and your frozen mouses.........mouse/ frozen.......what's the difference?  Yours must be fresher.... or fatter?

Have you tried vermincelli, Anthony?   

[Anthony Darby]

Had to look at that twice Cliff! At least my boas can take a rat-or-two-y.

[mark smyth]

Ashley I heard today waxwings are on the west coast so may be forced south

[Diane Whitehead]

Here's the view from my dining room window.  The young deer, probably
only recently separated from his mother, stands with his nose against the
window, watching us eat.  He's eaten all the cabbages and broccoli in the
garden, so now I put apple cores and carrot peel outside the door.  I have
lots of squash I grew, and chopped up one, but he doesn't like it much.

The hummingbird feeder is at the top of the window.  When he had just
finished eating a red apple, the deer stretched up to investigate the red
plastic flowers, but decided they were not edible without taking a nibble.

 A flock of bushtits have been feeding from it since the summer, and don't
pay much attention to the Anna's hummingbird  who tries his best to drive
them away. The bottle of syrup is wrapped in bubble wrap, as it has been
below zero for a while now.  When it gets down to -7, I have to bring the
bottle in overnight to thaw it and put it out again at first light, when I have
birds buzzing around my head, waiting for breakfast.

At first, the birds were nervous about the deer, but they ignore him now.

[mark smyth]

Diane shouldnt the hummer be away south by now? Are bushtits Chickadees?

[maggiepie]

 A flock of bushtits have been feeding from it since the summer, and don't
pay much attention to the Anna's hummingbird  who tries his best to drive
them away. The bottle of syrup is wrapped in bubble wrap, as it has been
below zero for a while now.  When it gets down to -7, I have to bring the
bottle in overnight to thaw it and put it out again at first light, when I have
birds buzzing around my head, waiting for breakfast.

Hi Diane, I am surprised you still have hummingbirds, do the Anna's hummingbirds not migrate?
What do they eat in winter?
At the moment all I have are chickadees on my window feeder.
I only moved to Canada in 2001 so chickadees and hummingbirds are still a real novelty to me.

[Stephenb]

Stephen do they nest in your garden? What most people over here dont know is they are insectiverous in the summer.

No, it's a very long way (over 1,000 km!) from here to the only area of Norway that Waxwings breed every year - that's the Pasvik Valley which is in the far north on the border with Russia (nearest town is Kirkenes, which I'm sure the Scots on the forum could guess what means). My first holiday here many years ago was to Pasvik to see the Waxwings - met some German birders there and they told us they'd just seen Bombycilla garrulus and kindly showed us the way. I remember seeing a bird on the edge of a lake flycatching low down from rocks on the water's edge taking mosquitoes!

After the first wave of Waxwings arrive in the garden in the autumn, it can still be quite mild and there are still a lot of insects about. It's fascinating watching groups of Waxwings flycatching en masse from the tops of spruce trees in the garden! They almost catapult upwards one after the other, a bit reminiscent of the way Gannets dive for fish....

At the moment my flock (120 today) are feeding on the ground on the driveway - they seem to be taking birch seeds!?

There are spread breeding records also in other parts of the country and I saw a small flock (family party?) this summer for the first time near here.