ED Nature Watch

[wolis]

Saw a male and female Blackcap in our garden on Sunday morning. Not seen here before. Lets hope they are going to start breeding locally. We are in Tyrrell Rd area.

[Jenny1]

Very exciting to see a pair! I shall have to do more research on this bird. Don't know much about it.

[BrandNewGuy]

There are certainly breeding blackcaps on Green Dale fields (behind Sainsburys on Dog Kennel Hill) and in Sydenham Hill Woods. Lovely song.

[Jenny1]

That's good to know. I shall keep my eye (and ears) open and see if I can spot them.

[Lynne]

Just had a fox in the back garden

[ollieloudon]

Saw a few frogs in the pond this morning

[Nigello]

Plenty of blackbirds and the odd magpie picking off the shrivelled crabapples near Goodrich School and - strangely - inch-long caterpillars that coil up when touched in the house. What could they be? (I put them outside thinking they must have come in on shoes, etc.)

[Jenny1]

It's possible (though I guess unlikely) that I saw a firecrest in the garden this afternoon. Probably a gold crest - but can't be sure.

[Asset]

Saw a flock of about 50 redwings down Greendale yesterday

[Sue]

We saw several water rats in Peckham Rye Park yesterday, in the area just up from the Oval.

Also a bit sad to see a female duck on the edge of the lake/large pond who seemed to be ill or hurt.

She was having trouble walking and seemed very subdued :(

[Nigello]

https://ptes.org/get-informed/facts-figures/water-vole/ Is this what you sawy? I saw something like this a couple of weeks ago on the pond bank.

"Status & conservation

Native and locally common but vulnerable to extinction in the UK. They are a priority species in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. A reintroduction programme is currently underway as well as our new National Water Vole Monitoring Programme.

Water voles are fully protected under section 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981(as amended). Schedule 5 of this Act makes it an offence to intentionally damage or obstruct access to water vole burrows."

[Penguin68]

If you have seen numbers together I think they are more likely to be actual rats rather than water voles. If their tails were hairless they certainly were. It would be great if there were water voles about.

[Nigello]

It looked a bit fuller than a normal rat and had that golden/yellow tinge to its coat. I was too far away to see its tail in de-tail....

[Sue]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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> If you have seen numbers together I think they are

> more likely to be actual rats rather than water

> voles. If their tails were hairless they certainly

> were. It would be great if there were water voles

> about.

Not sure now.

We saw them singly, but two or three in one area and another one on the way back in a nearby area.

Must admit they didn't look like that photo of a water vole, but they didn't look like ordinary rats either.

[2wans]

We're very fortunate to have a lot of wildlife down the back of our garden. Plenty of foxes, squirrels jumping from tree to tree often catches my attention when I'm in the kitchen. Wrens, robins, black birds & blue tits are often seen.

Early Spring to early Autumn I can hear birds singing late into & throughout the night from my bedroom which is up in the extention of our house. It sounds like a rainforest. Very beautiful.

This week I had a squirrel make off with 3 of 4 suet balls from our bird feeder. They're making good use of the left overs & everything we've cleared out from the back of our cupboards recently. They were intended for the birds during these cold months, but they have their feeders {a feeder for each type of bird food, all around the garden}, so I guess it's okay.

[cornelia]

Yesterday morning I saw four jays having an altercation on Stradella Road, near the Burbage Road end. So entertaining.

[JackieO]

I was excited to see a blackcap in my garden on Sunday - the first time I?ve spotted one. Then even more excited to see two redpolls. I?ve never seen them before. Apparently they are doing well and becoming more common, see https://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/gbw/about/news/latest/2013/redpoll-rise. Also anyone interested in birdwatching might like to register for BirdTrack - you can use it to see what species have been recorded locally. https://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/birdtrack/about

[Sue]

Even the sparrows have disappeared from my garden.

They don't appear to like Wilko bird seed or suet balls :))

[Elphinstone's Army]

cornelia Wrote:

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> Yesterday morning I saw four jays having an

> altercation on Stradella Road, near the Burbage

> Road end. So entertaining.

Jays are one of the reasons there is a dearth of small garden birds - they are nest raiders, take fledglings - along with magpies, also a handsome bird, they are the scourge of park, wood and countryside although of course, protected.

[Jenny1]

Don't forget to regularly defrost the water you put out for the birds. Greater risk to birds of death from lack of water than lack of food in this weather.

[Penguin68]

Don't forcefully break ice in ponds if you have fish in them, this will damage or kill the fish. Crack it gently - or leave e.g. a tennis ball in it so that it can be lifted out. Things living in your pond will need air so a long-term ice cover will also damage them.

[BrandNewGuy]

Elphinstone's Army Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Jays are one of the reasons there is a dearth of

> small garden birds - they are nest raiders, take

> fledglings - along with magpies, also a handsome

> bird, they are the scourge of park, wood and

> countryside although of course, protected.

According to the British Trust for Ornithology's report of an academic survey, "Are predators to blame for songbird declines?" "...There were a large number of positive associations between predators and prey, suggesting that predator numbers have largely increased as the amount of prey has increased. This is particularly the case for native avian nest predators (Great Spotted Woodpecker, Magpie, Jay and Carrion Crow). Although this largely exonerates these predators, as driving declines in the numbers of songbird species at a national level, it does not preclude individual predators having local effects."

So it's an exaggeration to lay the blame at the door of jays, magpies etc. Most species declines in the UK in the last 50 or 60 years are due to loss of habitat and consequently food, shelter etc. Everything else (cats, local pollution, jays etc) is very much secondary.

[cornelia]

Have a soft spot for corvids so my confirmation bias will side with BNG and the BTO on this one! ;-)

On another note: I am very excited as just got round to checking the bird identifier and realised that the little thrush I saw in Dulwich Park on Tuesday morning was a Redwing!

I have never seen one before and thought it was really lovely but didn't realise it's genuinely rare.

[dresswaves]

There was a whole flock of Redwing in The picnic area of Peckham Rye Park on Monday. I recognised them as last time we had some major snow a flock descended on my Crab Apple tree and spent 2 days eating all the fruit. They were joined by several Fieldfare.

[louisemurray]

Pair of Long tailed tits in the garden today - Marsden Road - rare siting for here.