nature spots

Siege.

/ Andy Finnegan / 4 Comments

I try and get out in the environment not only is it physical exercise it is mental exercise. I always take a camera with me I never know what I will see on my trips out. A couple of times a week I go to the coast on Southampton Water. There were 3 Grey Heron fishing together at the Haven this morning. The 1st 5 pictures are of an adult bird the other pictures show young immature birds probably born last year.

The collective noun for Herons is a ‘siege‘,

Heron eat, lots of fish and eels, but also small birds such as ducklings, small mammals like voles and amphibians.

7 UP.

/ Andy Finnegan / 2 Comments

Not the well-known fizzy drink but the number of relatively newly hatched Mute Swan cygnets on Hatchet Pond in the New Forest.

I will say no more and let the photographs do the speaking – the only words I could find were ” just so cute.”

Trail camera.

/ Andy Finnegan / 5 Comments

Yesterday we collected our trail cameras placed at a Badger Sett in the New Forest. It was great to see several Cuckoos en route (see yesterday’s post).

Got a bit muddy in the process trying to get some photos of a small fungus.

In the UK and Ireland, it is known as the Bog Beacon,( in the USA it is commonly referred to as the Swamp Beacon.) This little fungus occurs only in very wet places and looks like a flower popping out of the water.

1st New Forest Pony foals of the year were also spotted during today’s walk.

The camera had some good Badger footage.

A Sunday Stroll.

/ Andy Finnegan / Leave a comment

A plant that favours the Water Meadow is The Milkmaid, a member of the mustard family it is also known as the lady’s smock or Cuckoo flower. The flowers; colour can vary from pale lilac to white. A food plant for the Orange-tip butterfly caterpillars – this female Orange-tip had found the Milkmaid flowers.

Today’s lucky spot was some Slow Worms. Mistaken by many for a snake Slow worms are legless lizards.

A female Blackbird.

Kes!

/ Andy Finnegan / 7 Comments

Every time I see a Kestrel in the hover it reminds me of the book by Barry Hines – A Kestrel for a Knave published in 1968. A book we had to read a school – set in a mining area in Northern England, the book follows Billy Casper, a young working-class boy troubled at home and at school, who finds and trains a Kestrel whom he names “Kes”.

There is a killer in the pond!

/ Andy Finnegan / 8 Comments

Red-eared slider – kept as a pet in the UK  many have been irresponsibly released into the wild. They are ill-equipped to survive in the damp British climate.- however, will global climate increases change this. What effect do these invasive animals have on our wildlife? What effects on our native waterfowl’s eggs and insects lava does releasing these unwanted pets have?

Red-eared sliders are considered an invasive species, they are seen as a pest in many countries including here in the U.K. the U.S.A and Australia as they can outcompete and predate upon native fauna.

Spotted in a local pond.