Whats your most memorable wildlife encounter 2010

[allyryan]

I had a few this year one being putting out food on the bird table, and a sparrow hawk landed on it I dont know which of us was the most surprised. Late summer I was putting washing on the line and a swarm of ladybirds landed on the house.Thousands all over looking to hibernate. I rushed upstairs to close the windows and get some out. Even now we are still seeing them in the room.I should think the eaves of my house are full of them but glad to be of assistance!! AS for the sparrow hawk I have some photos but dont know how to put on

[counterlady]

Mine is very simple - cant get out much - but seeing a Woodcock in my back garden in the snow for a whole day until 10pm at night was amazing - not many chores got done at all

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by allyryan

I had a few this year one being putting out food on the bird table, and a sparrow hawk landed on it I dont know which of us was the most surprised. Late summer I was putting washing on the line and a swarm of ladybirds landed on the house.Thousands all over looking to hibernate. I rushed upstairs to close the windows and get some out. Even now we are still seeing them in the room.I should think the eaves of my house are full of them but glad to be of assistance!! AS for the sparrow hawk I have some photos but dont know how to put on

I think they are harlequins you are seeing and not our native ladybirds there is an intensive thread on this..

Harlequin Ladybirds

[davecatt]

Last June I spent a night out under the stars. I was sleeping under a willow tree wrapped up in a ground sheet, camera ready by my side just in case. At first light I woke to find three Roe deer grazing a few feet away,I darent move for fear of scaring them off so I just lay there and watched 'till they moved on.
Dave

[darrenm]

Finding a Bee-eater on the Lincs coast on my first day back

Having the chance of setting up and running a Natterjack Toad Tadpole nursery after the site i was working on had its Dune slack ponds dry out. It was very enjoyable and time consuming work and mostly done in my own time after work each day but the results were worth all of it. Now hopefully a new generation of Natterjack Toads will help boost numbers on the site.

Watching the largest feeding ball/frenzy of seabirds that i've seen in years and it included very large numbers of Gannets just off shore and just wish i had had my camera with me.

[thebeard]

several thousand spring to mind...

however i'll list a few, i'm currently at work but i'll post some photos later.

One would be witnessing for the first time a dragonfly emerging from its larval stage. It crept up through the slats in the wood of the landing stage i was fishing from, and stared at me for a while. I wondered what it was doing and continued packing up. The next time i looked it was moving strangely, then i realised what was happening. It took it around 40 mins to get out of its casing, and then it just lay there. i VERY carefully moved it onto a piece of reed and put it in a more sheltered position.

other highlights would be

-seeing roosting starlings at a nature reserve just outside of nottingham. around 3000 birds so relatively small, but awesome nonetheless

- Seeing up to 11 buzzards at one time over a period of a week or so, when the adults were attempting to move on their young in late summer

- Seeing my first red kite on a 'routine' visit to attenborough nature reserve, also the black tern that was here for around a week

- Seeing nesting lesser spotted woodpeckers, a lifer, and a very very rare breeder in nottinghamshire.

there's loads more, but these are probably the highlights! May 2011 be equally...or more so... spectacular!

[kevinb]

Well I have tried but can't really get it down to one moment so here are a few highlights of 2010:
The first would have to be a wet evening at the end of March on our local golf course, we were there trying to count the Toads coming to 2 ponds to breed. Our torch ran out of battery power when we had counted 504 toads and we had only checked the first pond!

The second would be a trip to Studland bay in Dorset where we saw all British reptile species in one day plus a short trip across the bay to Boscombe where we also saw introduced Green lizards and Wall lizards.

The third would be our trip to southern Spain, partly memorable to the volcanic ash cloud which meant a long trip back through Spain and then France but also because of the large Horsehoe whip snake I caught and the beautiful blue/green Grass snake subspecies astreptophora that my friend found.

Fourth would have to be our herping trip to Majorca where we searched for the Mallorcan Midwife Toad. This toad was only known from fossil records until 1979 when some live specimens were found. With the help of a local expert who was doing some research into them we found 23. The trip also included a boat trip to dragonera island where we hand fed hundreds of wild Lilfords Wall lizards, my partner sat down and had them climbing over her legs.

Firth and most recent would be a trip last week to Esher in Surrey to watch the Ring necked Parakeets coming in to roost. A noisy affair with bunches of 50 or 60 at a time screeching as they flew past us like green missiles.

[tiggerbabe]

Two for me

My favourite woodland walk, I heard a lot of blackbirds and others giving alarm calls and I assumed it was due to me and the dog walking through the lane. I stopped to have a look, and there was a tawny owl sleeping in the tree, totally oblivious! I was only about 10ft away and it never noticed, I have pictures, but they were taken on my mobile so not very clear sadly (first time i've uploaded pics on here so hope they work!)



My second memorable moment was in the same wood, there is a bench way in the middle of the wood, and I used to love to sit there with the dog and just listen to everything. There were a few bird boxes scattered around in the surrounding trees, and also some newly planted saplings in their protective tubes. One of these tubes was about 3ft away from the bench and I watched as a blue tit landed on top of the tube, then proceeded to fly down into it. I could hear the calls of the chicks and prayed that they were not where I thought they were...... I waited til the tit flew away for more food, and checked.

Sadly, this silly blue tit had made her nest at the base of the protective sapling tubing. I returned about a week later, only to find the chicks all gone and the nest empty. I think they could not have fledged vertically up a 4 feet plastic tube and that they must have been got at by a predator.

[SomeMight]

Yesterday I was quietly cycling along a wooded path and came across a small slow-flowing stream. A Grey Wagtail was flying low to the ground just in front of me along the length of the stream. It was nice to get that close to nature.

Feel free to visit my website at cawstongreenway.org

[Adam Cheeseman]

Two moments for me.

1. Seeing Red Kites drift high over the 80s Rewind Festival stage whilst listening to some great live music.

2. Finding my own Waxwings and seeing 64 of them from my girlfriend's kitchen window. (Though the actual counting of them took us several goes to reach a figure).

Cheers,

Adam