ED Nature Watch

[benmorg]

Sue Wrote:

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> Wonder how those people who mock homoeopathy can

> explain how it works on foxes? It can hardly be a

> placebo effect when the foxes presumably don't

> know they are being treated.

The great thing about homeopathy is that you can use rain as a cure-all, since the water in rain will already have a memory of every compound on Earth and the dilution rate is very high. Presumably the fox drank some rain and that cured it.

[Sue]

Don't let's turn this thread into a discussion on homoeopathy, there's one on the forum somewhere already, wish I'd never posted about the NFWS remedy now :))

Perhaps you should put your points to the NFWS, however, if you think they are supplying ineffective remedies for foxes, despite being an organisation set up to help them.

[Karent]

lol

[Sue]

Anyone else seen the swifts?

Seen them a few times in the last few days in the Crystal Palace Road area.

I think they're swifts, anyway :)

Deffo not swallows, possibly house martins but look like swifts to me ......

[The Minkey]

Not yet, Sue. Hope they make a return to the skies above the golf course/reservoir. I don't recall seeing them last year so I thought their nesting sites had been redeveloped or something.

Pleased to see the goldfinches back in the garden. Feisty little birds. They don't give up their feeding post easily.

[dazeykat]

Yes, first saw the swifts a couple of days ago. Heard them before I saw them, really.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

House Martins in Adys Road - here every year. Their cheep is quite distinctive.

[Sue]

Memo to self: get binoculars :)

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Don't bother - beer goggles are much more fun!

[Sue]

And you get to see twice as many birds! Just can't identify them ....

[Sue]

Oh no, nearly all my tadpoles have disappeared :-S

I only seem to have three or four left :-S

The other day I saw a cat with his paw outstretched over the tub, do you think cats have got them?

A friend also thinks robins eat them??

[lousmith]

Sorry to hear that Sue, Some cats may take tadpoles, though I doubt most would bother, I've never seen robins doing it, but I'm sure they would be a tasty treat for a brooding robin, What I have seen apart from ducks decimating frogspawn, is mangy magpies and also crows are very adept at hopping up to the edge and very accurately dispatching a good many at one sitting. Nature allows for about 0.1 % of tadpoles to reach adulthood, so the odds are heavily stacked against them. After bouts of predation, the remainder do seem to get a bit more savvy amd are harder to spot subsequently. May be the case. Try enticing them out with some chicken!

[Sue]

Seriously? Chicken? Cooked or raw?

I shall raid my freezer immediately :)

Should I drop it in on a piece of string?

My neighbour is feeding hers lettuce, but the person who gave me the frogspawn told me the taddies would just live on algae?

Haven't seen any magpies or crows in the garden, and certainly not ducks :))

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

It's probably the lesser spotted flapjackdavius.

[Sue]

:))

[lousmith]

Mine love left-over cooked chicken. Tadpoles have definitely carnivorous if not cannibalistic tendencies after they have sprouted their back legs. Frogs are of course exclusively carnivorous. Just chuck it in. you could try string. Rhey love a scrum! a thumb sized piece of chicken will heave in all directions and be gone by morning. The tadgers develop very quickly with the high protein diet.

[Sue]

AAARRRGGGHHHHHHH

[civilservant]

Erk! Thanks for that lousmith

Had assumed that tadpoles were clean-living vegetarian types that with a fondness for lettuce.

Clearly not.

Shall try the chicken menu as soon as I have chicken to feed them with.

Given that I was relying on Sue's pond to top up our own domestic taddie population, the news of depredation by cat/magpie/lesser spotted flapjackdavius is seriously bad news :(

[Sue]

civilservant, clearly I am a very poor keeper of tadpoles :-$

I lie in bed worrying about what may have happened to them.

Did I top up their water a bit too enthusiastically?

Should I have kept the hosepipe on "gentle shower" rather than "full volume" ?

Oh no.

[Sue]

Sue Wrote:

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> AAARRRGGGHHHHHHH

xxxxxxx

I think this might have been posted in response to a completely different post :))

But hey it's late ......

ETA: Ah, I have realised the AAARRGGHHH was due to the cannibal stuff :))

[lousmith]

Re tadpole cannIbalism. I doubt they killed it themselves, but they're definitely not letting it go to waste! If you look closely at the far left taddy, just above the tip of the poor dead taddie's tail, you can see the tiny bones of the newly emerging leg, looking like an X-ray. Keeping our eyes peeled for the lesser spotted flapjackdavius. Please find attached a far cuter image, more suitable for a Sunday morning.

[Karent]

My 4 don't even have proper legs yet! Still, it's not a race......

[civilservant]

aaahh - re-use and recycle! even our tadpoles are doing it!

seriously, sue, I do so hope you find them all hiding beneath the lettuce leaves - that's where our five or six hang out and prefer to stay unless poked (kindly, of course) to see if they are yet recyclable

lousmith, I thought you'd attached an image of the mysterious lesser spotted flapjackd., and clicked on the link all agog...

before we get lounged, add in haste that one of our blackbird couples may be nesting!

[Katy Tonbridge]

Happy to report a nest of goldfinches in a tree near Colwell Road, beautiful birds, though noisy.

By the way, although this thread is called the Nature watch, it should really be called "ED Wildlife Watch" since as far as I can tell almost all the posts are about creatures. Would it be divisive to start a parallel thread called East Dulwich Tree Watch, so that discussions about trees can happen there rather than get buried in this all-encompassing Nature thread ?

Just a thought...

[The Minkey]

Not exactly ED, but I saw a Blackcap yesterday in a tree near the footbridge between Camberwell Crem. and Crofton Park, yesterday. It was the song that attracted my attention first, quite lovely.