Wildlife October 2010

[Arykana]

Thank you, it is an  interesting information

[David Lyttle]

Dolomedes minor sounds like the name of some swot in a Billy Bunter book! The female great raft spider (Dolomedes plantarius) from the fens of eastern England has a leg span of about 7cm  and D. minor is not much less impressive at 6cm, so why minor? Perhaps it is smaller than the NZ fishing spider (D.aquaticus)?

Here is a link to Dolomedes aquaticus http://www.nzgeographic.co.nz/articles.php?ID=241

Antony, maybe you have already found it.

Maggi, It really is a lovely furry spider quite unlike the big fat slow ones that are usually found under my pots. My daughters were never very keen on helping me to pot plants as they kept finding these spiders.

[Anthony Darby]

Several large skeins of geese passed over my house today. Here are three of them. Many years ago I remember watching a TV programme with Peter Scott firing rocket propelled nets to trap and ring these birds when they landed in a field.

[Rogan]

Fascinating pictures Anthony, that's a lot of honking!  

[Anthony Darby]

They don't honk that much Rogan. Down wind, perhaps?

[Armin]

A clear sign NH winter is on the way Anthony... I hope to see soon some flocks of cranes in my area again.

[Anthony Darby]

Some more geese passed over my house again today. One skein heading back north!

[ranunculus]

Some more geese passed over my house again today. One skein heading back north!

Let's have a gander, Anthony?   

[Olga Bondareva]

Sunny frosty morning...







Rainbow after snowing

[Stephenb]

A clear sign NH winter is on the way Anthony... I hope to see soon some flocks of cranes in my area again.

Cranes are common breeding birds in this area and large autumn flocks gather on agricultural land, sometimes over 500! The largest flocks seem to have left in the second half of September, and the last was seen about 1 week ago, so they are on their way.

Incidentally, the first Waxwings have arrived - always brigthens up the dark autumn days...

[Roma]

Often see geese heading north here in the winter.  They fly north in the morning to feed and fly south again at night to their roost.

Spotted this cheeky chap in my garden just before lunch time today. 

[TC]

Feeling the temperature today, Winter cannot be far off.  A few miles inland from me, the geese arrived about a week ago.  Yesterday there were 143 Greylags, 5 Barnacle geese including one totally white leucistic bird, 1 Pinkfoot and 300+ Canada Geese.
The Solway coast at Caerlaverock had at least 10,000 Barnacle Geese but surprisingly no Whooper Swans as yet.  With the wind setting from the North, we can expect them sometime during this week.  We have a local population of 60/100 birds wintering in our locality and I will be looking out for them arriving.
The not very good picture is of a Spotted Redshank, (Tringa erythropus), looking nothing like its name would indicate.  This was also at Caerlaverock feeding up after the journey from Arctic Norway

[Gunilla]

Lovely frosty photos, Olga.  It's getting cold here, too. We had  -5 C last night. Today is a nice sunny day and the hoverflies are queing up for a meal.
Crocus speciosus and hoverflies

[Armin]

A clear sign NH winter is on the way Anthony... I hope to see soon some flocks of cranes in my area again.

Cranes are common breeding birds in this area and large autumn flocks gather on agricultural land, sometimes over 500! The largest flocks seem to have left in the second half of September, and the last was seen about 1 week ago, so they are on their way.

Incidentally, the first Waxwings have arrived - always brigthens up the dark autumn days...

Stephen,
I expect some cranes to pass over here E/October to mid November!

[Martinr]

Roma, that's a distinctly domestic looking bunny. Some poor child is probably heart broken