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Lockdown and wildlife

Couldn’t believe this the other day, I know I had a fox sunbathing in the garden a while ago but this one was just strolling round in broad daylight. They’ve definitely made a home for themselves in our gardens.

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Anyone knowledgeable about bugs/bees/hornets?

Found this bad-boy crawling across the floor the last night and nearly shat myself. Trying to identify it and a bit of Googling suggests it might be the ‘Vespa crabro’ hornet? There are various articles and websites warning us that the giant Asian hornet ‘Vespa valutina’ has found its way to the U.K. with warnings of dire consequences and to report them when found.

Some information does suggest the Asian one can in fact be smaller than the European queen so it’s confusing. Also, this one crawled out from under the log burner so looks like it’s covered in ash which is not helping with identification. I’d just bought some wood in from outside so it could well have been nesting in the pile there. Difficult to be sure of the precise size but for a bug it did seem pretty big and even the dog legged it when the thing took off. 30-35mm as a rough guess.

Probably not that unusual but worth asking for thoughts/advice all the same.


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I see more foxes than people these days. And yes I know the drive needs jet washing.

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We've had a hedgehog in our garden the last few nights, first we've seen of them this year. Also had a pair of bullfinches visiting lately but not seen them since last week, probably been put off by the aggressively protective nesting blue tits who seem to love attacking anything smaller than a blackbird.
 
MARKakaJIM said:
We've had a hedgehog in our garden the last few nights, first we've seen of them this year. Also had a pair of bullfinches visiting lately but not seen them since last week, probably been put off by the aggressively protective nesting blue tits who seem to love attacking anything smaller than a blackbird.
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Hedgehog and Bullfinches are a great result. I’d love to see either my garden but it’s not happened in years. Bullfinches are odd aren’t they - distinctly dislike visiting a garden usually it seems.
 
Mel Evo said:
Hedgehog and Bullfinches are a great result. I’d love to see either my garden but it’s not happened in years. Bullfinches are odd aren’t they - distinctly dislike visiting a garden usually it seems.
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I think I'd seen a single male twice in nearly years living here and then last week we saw him maybe 4 or 5 days in a row and most of those days accompanied by a female. Always went to the feeder full of sunflower hearts.
 
The dog was scratching at something in the wood store a couple of weeks ago so I moved some logs to investigate and found a hedgehog hibernating. Wasn’t sure at first if it was hibernating or a goner as figured they’d come out of hibernating earlier than late April but it has been cold at night recently, so quickly covered it back up and left it be. Was a bit concerned that disturbance might’ve done it some harm if hibernating but wasn’t sure what else to do.

Anyway, walking home from the boozer the other
night noticed a hedgehog happily strutting it’s stuff near the back door and the nest vacated.
Would quite like to feed/encourage it but with a curious dog might not be a good idea and besides, it already looks like it’s worked that out and for itself and claimed asylum next door.
 
MARKakaJIM said:
Two hedgehogs together in my garden tonight!

Bats have recently made their debut for the year too.
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Bats were putting on quite a show yesterday evening. Had never seen them before and thought they were quite spectacular to watch. Was considering putting a bat box up as want to do the right thing and encourage wildlife, but a bit of Googling suggests they might already be roosting in the trees. Furthermore, looks like you can get yourself caught up in real red tape problems if you’ve bats roosting, and considering the local Stasi knock on your door if you so much as trim a branch off a tree just don’t want to get caught up in the ball ache of all of that.

Lovely to see but not to be encouraged I think.
 
EpsomWolf said:
Bats were putting on quite a show yesterday evening. Had never seen them before and thought they were quite spectacular to watch. Was considering putting a bat box up as want to do the right thing and encourage wildlife, but a bit of Googling suggests they might already be roosting in the trees. Furthermore, looks like you can get yourself caught up in real red tape problems if you’ve bats roosting, and considering the local Stasi knock on your door if you so much as trim a branch off a tree just don’t want to get caught up in the ball ache of all of that.

Lovely to see but not to be encouraged I think.
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One of the developments I was involved with in Jersey was the upgrade of an old cottage. The works involved the construction of a new roof with additional bedrooms in the roofspace. The original roof was a bat roost and the new roof constructed so that the roost was incorporated into the ridge.
 
Saw a sight I've not seen before yesterday while walking the dog. Caught a flash of black and white out the corner of my eye, on closer inspection it was an adult Blackbird which was mostly white with a few streaks of black
 
Metal_Warrior said:
Nice one, it'll be leucistic. I managed to photograph a leucistic Red Kite earlier this year, almost look like a different species but your head's telling you different!
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bloody hell, I've got to go and look up leucistic now😃
 
leedswolf said:
One of the developments I was involved with in Jersey was the upgrade of an old cottage. The works involved the construction of a new roof with additional bedrooms in the roofspace. The original roof was a bat roost and the new roof constructed so that the roost was incorporated into the ridge.
Click to expand...

Bet that put the works back a bit didn't it?

Never happened across bats on a job yet but can be enough of a game just sorting the initial surveys out nevermind obtaining the licence and mitigation works if you find the buggers.
 
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