ED Nature Watch

[Sue]

Lynne Wrote:

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> Just spotted the first clothes moth of the season

> in the bedroom. Does this count?

I sympathise. Despite my best efforts I've seen some too. GRRRRR.

[malumbu]

Bill Oddie as a child would cycle to a reservoir a few miles away from his home, which is very close to where my sister now lives. This is getting spooky. I also had a colleague who was a dead ringer for Kate Humble, who of course co-presented with Oddie. Even more spooky, and probably the ex-Goodie requires a thread of his own. Unless he has been seen in ED Sainsburys

On moths I get some other brown ones in the house, but they don't crumble to dust when you hit them so probably not clothes moths.

On wildlife when will I see the newts and frogs - double figures last year of each in the pond but only one frog sighing so far this spring. Saw some water snails in a ponds in Lambeth today, anyone recommend getting some for the garden pond and if so where?

[alice]

My enormous clumps of frogspawn have disappeared leaving a tiny blob. Could they have sunk just before tadding?

[Sue]

Apparently only 10% of frogspawn survives to become frogs, which is why so much is laid (just as well as otherwise the world would mainly consist of frogs).

[Nigello]

I saw a slim, almost elongated pigeon-sized bird, perched on TV aerials and screeching/squawking raspily and with a slightly fanned tail. What coukd it be? It?s not a jay or magpie or jackdaw/crow. I think I heard two of them.

[jimmah]

Could it be something like a thrush or a fieldfare?

I feel like this year there has been a really good variety of garden birds, I'm wondering if it was something to do with the last year.

[Nigello]

Unless they rasp noisily, I?d say no, not thrush, etc.

[BrandNewGuy]

Bill Oddie went to my school (KES Birmingham) and was allegedly expelled on his very last day for diverting all the traffic from the main road down the school drive and round in front of the main door...

[Sue]

BrandNewGuy Wrote:

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> Bill Oddie went to my school (KES Birmingham) and

> was allegedly expelled on his very last day for

> diverting all the traffic from the main road down

> the school drive and round in front of the main

> door...

:)) :)) :))

[Nigello]

Any help re the rasping bird would be gratefully received. Thanks

[Lynne]

Saw the buzzard again this lunchtime, circling around the Barry Rd, Upland's area I would think

[RichH]

Nigello Wrote:

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> Any help re the rasping bird would be gratefully

> received. Thanks

I can't think of anything pigeon-sized that makes the noise you describe. The only other pigeon-like bird that I can think of that vaguely fits the bill (beak?) is a collared dove but they don't "rasp" so far as I know.

I had a Garden Warbler in (fittingly) the garden today. Don't see them very often here but they've been on the up for a couple of years now. Might have to declare a "Buzzard Free Zone"!

[Nigello]

It wasn't pigeon like in any way other than its size. I thought it was a corvid but they were too light in colour.

[Penguin68]

Magpies have a harsh, jarring call.

[Sue]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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> Magpies have a harsh, jarring call.

Perhaps the bird making the call was a different one from the one Nigello saw?

[heartblock]

Yellow butterfly...:)

[Zig-Zag]

Young pigeons make a strange sound but a bit more like a duck than a rasp!!

Well the one on my garden does anyway 😂

[louisemurray]

Young fox cubs out in the sunshine at wildlife garden centre. Mother looks exhausted

[kiera]

Nigello Wrote:

I saw a slim, almost elongated pigeon-sized bird, perched on TV aerials and screeching/squawking raspily and with a slightly fanned tail. What coukd it be? It?s not a jay or magpie or jackdaw/crow. I think I heard two of them.

& ---------------------------------

> It wasn't pigeon like in any way other than its size. I thought it was a corvid but they were too light in colour.

Green woodpeckers are about the length of a pigeon but slimmer, with a slightly fanned tail and have a loud call, although I wouldn't say it was rasping. Their call is likened to laughing and is reproduced on the RSPB website

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/green-woodpecker/

Could that be the bird you saw?

[offspinner]

Nigello's bird couldn't have been a parakeet, could it? Against the sky it can be difficult to see colours.

[Nigello]

It was not a magpie or parakeet - definitely not green, not the same tail, and the sound was raspier, not screechy like a parakeet.

[MissDumpling]

Was it a jay, perhaps?

Wrote:

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> Any help re the rasping bird would be gratefully

> received. Thanks

[Nigello]

Yes, maybe a jay, but it seemed smaller. Anyway, unlikely to be anything rare.

[Lynne]

Many years ago I was listening to a radio phone in where a woman was trying to get a bird, currently in her garden, identified.

The panel suggested various birds, eventually setting on one bird which they said was about the size of a blackbird.

"Oh no" said the caller "It's about 2 foot tall"

It was something that had escaped from the local zoo

[Sue]

Lynne Wrote:

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> "Oh no" said the caller "It's about 2 foot tall"

> It was something that had escaped from the local

> zoo

:)) :)) :))

It's a bit worrying if the zoo hadn't noticed that it had escaped! (Or maybe they had but didn't know what to do about it .....)