The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: rbarlo32 on March 13, 2012, 08:14:51 pm
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the children have been very busy this weekend. they found an injured long eared owl. whilst walking the dogs they met an otter on the road. trying to convice the dogs that being friendly with an adult otter is not a good idea for there noses.
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I found a badgers set near the house just up the hill where the woods start. The neighbours have been here a long time and have had a look and its definately a badger set and must be a fairly new one. No livestock up here as its now a wildlife area. :thumbsup:
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Well not found but we are under the flight path of low flying migrating cranes ( gru gru). Quite a sight as the chevrons fly towards us and sometimes circle to wait for other groups. Noisy buggers too - even at 03:00 when those slogging it out from Africa fly over.
I read that they take the same route thru a 20 km corridor thru the Limousin. I reckon they use our chimney as a reference point !!
Spectacular!
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Lots of worms in my manure heaps.
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Last week OH left the back door of his van open, literally about 10ft from the house door, there was a large owl (think it was '
small short eared' owl) just sat on the door top, OH was stood at the house door and I stopped in my tracks coming back from the barn, just a little further away, eventually it silently flapped it's wings and swooped off, amazing.
knew small didn't sound right :)
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Well not found but we are under the flight path of low flying migrating cranes ( gru gru).
Cranes - I envy you! I remember them well from my childhood, flying over... :-\ Would love to see that again.
On my way to work, I often see a small group of 4 roe deer that graze around the building. And the woodpecker has been very busy in the car park again! As one of my colleagues said, it's one of the few good points about working there...
Apart from that, I also have loads of worms. Nice, big, fat ones. Even without manure. ;D
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There have been reports of a number of long eared owls around here Paul, one man had four at once in his trees. A lady who lives by the marina has had an otter go to her ponds everyday and they have eaten all the spawning frogs. The otters sit on the pontoons during the day down there! I personally dont want otters too close as they take the poultry but we have them washing themselves in the burn when they come out of the sea. They are our equivelent of foxes for folk that dont have them! I had to bring all my ducks up from their free range , burn flowing life to a paddock by the house away from them. The frog ponds on the moor are filling up with spawn now , the Summer birds are all returning , we have teal looking like nesting by a waterfall and more snipe than I can count in the irises. This is the best time of year for me as everything is coming back to life with the whole summer ahead.
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we see roe deer most days driving into stirling
we have a sparrowhawk that likes to visit the garden
obviously buzzards are everywhere around here
other than that fecking seagulls perched on the lampposts shitting everywhere waiting to steal the catfood my neighbour scatters on his lawn (we're not sure if its for his cats or to encourage the seagulls, he's very odd)
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I was quite excited to see a red kite over our fields last week. I hadn't realised they had made it so far east.
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a while back, our cat pulled down a birds nest which left us with starlings to handraise until i convinced the sspca to come and get them. i cannot stand worms but they scoffed the lot and we kept them warm in the incy. no idea wot happened after they were collected tho. here sspca was here and gone in less than a minute, and we never heard from them again.
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There have been reports of a number of long eared owls around here Paul, one man had four at once in his trees. A lady who lives by the marina has had an otter go to her ponds everyday and they have eaten all the spawning frogs. The otters sit on the pontoons during the day down there! I personally dont want otters too close as they take the poultry but we have them washing themselves in the burn when they come out of the sea. They are our equivelent of foxes for folk that dont have them! I had to bring all my ducks up from their free range , burn flowing life to a paddock by the house away from them. The frog ponds on the moor are filling up with spawn now , the Summer birds are all returning , we have teal looking like nesting by a waterfall and more snipe than I can count in the irises. This is the best time of year for me as everything is coming back to life with the whole summer ahead.
it was a bit of a surprise seeing the owl. it was a gorous creature pity it was to ill and went to the sspca. the inspector was fast for a sunday afternoon. i know otters are preditors and will eat our birds if we are not careful but i still love to see them. i took a while to explain to the boys that otters do move away from water. i dred the idea of them bringing one of those home.
yes you can feel spring in the air. the sheep are ignoring there feed so the grass must be growing. i just wish the fields would dry out quicker. gots loads of ditching and fencing to get done by someone this summer. its spring but i keep expecting the march snow
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Off the top of my head; various Deer, various Owls, Pine Martens, Stoats, Weasels, Foxes, Storks, Cranes, Gulls, Woodpeckers, Geese, Boar, Badgers, Sparrowhawks, Buzzards.
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wow thats a lot- off the top of your head too. So where do you live OhLaLa ?
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at a guess central london
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at a guess central london
;D ;D
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I take the point about otters but I'd still love to see some :)
i just wish the fields would dry out quicker. gots loads of ....work.....to get done by someone this summer. its spring but i keep expecting the march snow
yes, ditto.
I want to know where is OhLaLa too, that's an amazing list - from that name maybe France?
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Off the top of my head; various Deer, various Owls, Pine Martens, Stoats, Weasels, Foxes, Storks, Cranes, Gulls, Woodpeckers, Geese, Boar, Badgers, Sparrowhawks, Buzzards.
..........how could I forget, one of my favourite habitants here. Bats.
Love them.
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What with the bats and owls it sounds like you are not diurnal . But you still don't say where you live to see so much.
We see very few animals given how rural it is here in La Creuse ( France) but footprints in the snow covered fields gave away just how much pass us by.
We plan to drive into the Dordogne soon to spot the vultures ( a small group of them live off the river cliffs there).
martin
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Besides our location, I think we have so much here because of the way we work the land. We are lucky enough to have a fair bit, and we don't grow crops so the fields are ideal for wildlife. When we make hay we don't go right to the edge of the field, and we are very careful about spraying. The hay meadows are hedged, not fenced, so the deer come and go as they please. And we don't have our animals grazing the fields between cuts so there are plenty of wildflowers in the grass and in the hedgerows (and in due course, seedheads). There are also no rights of way so the fields are largely undisturbed. We also have a very large freshwater pond for wildlife to drink from, and a good sized mature orchard. Plenty of forage here, and all it attracts.
The Bats live in the roof space of one of our outbuildings, the Barn Owls have their young in our barn, and I'll often see her sleeping up on a high beam during the day. It's not unusual to wake up and see Tawny Owl sitting outside my windowsill of a night looking in (or most likely checking out it's own reflection). And last night Barn Owl flew past my bedroom window screeching, and later, past me when I was outside doing the 4am lamb feed (I also saw the darned fox in our adjacent field.... )
A couple of Doves have just hatched their young in our horse barn too.
When it has snowed I often take the youngsters out looking at prints, and right now it's soft mud so there are prints aplenty (stoat prints mostly).
And of course don't forget the 'Who did that poo?' game. Or the 'What did Barn Owl eat last night' investigation (from the previous nights batch of pellets which are regularly regurgitated onto the barn floor).
Fabulous for the kids to have such an opportunity to grow up with all this nature and knowledge.
:farmer: :wave:
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Wonderfull - the children Will never forget! My grown up daughter often recalls childhood events relating to wildlife we saw together.
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Used to have golden eagles flying above my house in Scotland
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That is lovely MGoM, you are lucky. I have always wanted to see one, its one of the reasons we plan to visit Scotland. That and the salmon fishing ofcourse, something I want to try one day...
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A Buzzard in the bottom tree,smooth newts,toads and frogs all hidden under soggy wood piles!A Two spotted ladybird and the largest Bumble bee I have ever seen. ;D In the hedgerow at first light were two muncjacks which often jump over the fence into the Pig area foraging,I must take some pictures of them as they are gorgeous!
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We to have small bats, badgers all over the place. Fox has a daily walk through one of our fields. Roe Deer that often give birth in the ruff ground at the back of our place. The usual hawks and buzzards. Over winter we get swans and geese, Spring Lapwings and lots of birds nest around the place. Swallows take over the buildings and we often find young frogs hidden among the grass. We used to have Skylarks but not seen them for a few years now. I hear an owl most nights but its not living with us. ;D
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The curlews were back yesterday ;D
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That is lovely MGoM, you are lucky. I have always wanted to see one, its one of the reasons we plan to visit Scotland. That and the salmon fishing ofcourse, something I want to try one day...
One year we saw three which was really exciting. The pair nested on the hill near us. It's a very steep-faced, craggy hill and one day two men decided to climb it. Half way up they were startled by a half lamb plummeting down. They had got too near the nest and were being warned off. It worked! ;D ;D