Four Hungry Mouths

I was going to wait and see if the Spotted Flycatchers fledged and then write a post about them but I just couldn’t resist showing you a 30 second “taster” of what life is like in the nest at the moment.

done

My Top Six Garden Bumblebees (Plus One!)

Forgive me blogging-friend for I have sinned. It has been 40 days since my last blog. I seek forgiveness by giving you my “Top Six Bumbles” and promise to do many, many hours of penance in front of my computer in the coming months.

Buff Tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) photographed June 2009

Open Day Success… and no rain!

When I woke up on Saturday morning, the morning of the Open Day, the sun was shining – but not for long. Soon the rain was pouring down and the wind was blowing like there was no tomorrow. “Better dig out my waterproofs” I thought

Open Day at the Urban Wildlife Centre, Corfe Mullen

It’s Open Day at the Dorset Wildlife Trust, Urban Wildlife Centre in Corfe Mullen on Saturday 16 May! Come along if you live nearby. As a fully-signed up volunteer (I have the t-shirt as you can see below!) muggins here will be in the Education Room showing people small mammals and reptiles (and trying not to be bitten by them while in front of small children), there will be a BBQ and guided walks on the beautiful Upton Heath. Lets hope the sun shines and we have a great day. I will try to get some pictures!

Wildlife Webcam : Armchair Birdwatching!

What does a pair of common kestrel, an English nature reserve, a wildlife webcam and a website have in common?

To Kill a Mockingbird? More like “Killing me softly with his song”

This post shouldn’t really be on Urban Extension (it should be on FloridaWildlife) but I wanted to upload a recording and I can only do that on ere…

A nestful of osprey

You’ve seen the osprey nests in Scotland (via webcam?) now see them on my KeysWildlife Blog by clicking the following:  Florida Keys Ospreys

Long Walk, Heat Exhaustion & Bitten by Something

If you’d like to have a laugh at my expense and read about how I walked over 10 miles in 80 degree heat and got stung by an unknown “thingy” and didn’t arrive back home until 8pm then click here.

Oh, what big eyes you have!

All the better to see you with…   No, I’m not finding new species of dragonfly in the Dorset countryside, I’m actually thousands of miles away on a small island called Conch Key. I’ve got the Atlantic out of the sitting room window and the Gulf of Mexico out of the bedroom and I’m about as far south as you can get in the good ole US of A. To find out what wildlife I’ve been pestering click on this Florida Keys Wildlife blog link for the next 3 weeks. Hope to see you soon… Jane

Butterflies, Bees & Bumbles

It was a truly beautiful spring day today in Dorset. Perfect blue sky and lots of warm sunshine.

I think the insects appreciated the warmth as much as I did and in-between bouts of gardening, housework and washing I chased them round the garden with my camera.

Green Veined Butterfly, originally uploaded by Nature Watch Corfe Mullen.

Tulip

Tulip, originally uploaded by Nature Watch Corfe Mullen.

OK this isn’t a native wildflower… but it is beautiful and to me it signifies Spring, bright sunny days, pollen and insects!

A Perfect Shade of White : Wood Anemone

Wood Anemone, originally uploaded by Nature Watch Corfe Mullen.

I’m posting a few of the photos I’ve taken recently. These were taken on 31 March under the Remedy Oak (see previous post). I’ve played around with their background colour a little, but their yellow centres were so amazing I just had to make that zing…

Orange Tip Butterfly : Dipped in Paint

My first orange tip of the year seen today basking on a daffodil in my back garden. With wings open above and closed below.

The “Royal” Remedy Oak : Just an Ordinary Tree?

A couple of times recently I’ve driven over to Woodlands, a small hamlet between Wimborne and Cranborne, to survey the intriguingly named Remedy Oak for the Ancient Tree Hunt. I must admit it’s very easy to miss, blink and you’ve driven past, but get out of your car and walk around it and I promise you will not be disappointed.

As you’ve never seen a deer before!

I told you the roe deer got very close the other day when they visited the garden. This is a still from the short video I managed to get from the outside “badger and fox” camera. There’s a short bit of film as well, so that you can see his gorgeous antlers!

The Mystery of the Badger Sett is Solved

I spent most of Friday trying to find out what was happening about the baited badger sett in my previous post.  I “badgered” the police and the council and I eventually got Natural England involved and sent them one of my photos.

They found out that the bait has been put down by a local Ecological Consultant trying to work out if the artificial sett was being used. The blue pellet that I picked up and crushed must have been a very old “plastic” pellet. They have been baiting the sett for many, many months and the pellets eventually degrade and crumble (which makes sense as you wouldn’t want plastic pellets all over the place).  They are thinking of building another artificial sett on the other side of the road…. as someone is having problems with badgers digging in their garden.

So thank goodness it wasn’t poison. I’m really, really pleased. Apparently the consultant shouldn’t have been using blue pellets (he should have used green or yellow) because blue are so easy to confuse with slug pellets! Apparently I even had the Natural England experts confused and the guy I spoke to said it had been a good learning exercise for all of them. No one had realised that the plastic pellets degrade quite so well! I can relax now.

Poisoned Badger Sett?

A friend and I found an artificial badger sett a couple of days ago. We are really worried that it has been poisoned.

It’s really weird… I won

And I have a very posh solid glass, engraved obilisky-thing to prove it!

Receiving my award from John Raymond, The High Sheriff of Dorset (and Trustee of Dorset Wildlife Trust) and Cllr Ray Dudman

Those deer definitely brought me luck.

The Pride of East Dorset Awards : The Tension is Rising!

I’m off to the Pride of East Dorset Awards! Completely out of the blue I found myself nominated in the Green and Glorious category “rewarding a person or group responsible for helping improve the environment of their community”. So in less than two hours I will either be giving my best Gwyneth Paltrow-esque acceptance speech, or I will be looking at the winner with daggers in my eyes (only kidding!).

Two gorgeous deer were in the garden this morning. They got so close to the sitting-room window that if it had been open I could have lent forward and touched them. In fact Andrew had to bang on the window as one of them was trying to eat a complete azalea bush. It looked at him with sleepy bambi eyes (the deer that is, not Andrew) and then wandered off to have a munch on some tasty camellia flowers! Who said wildlife is scared of humans.

Hopefully they will bring me luck tonight…

“Let’s cut down the starling roost!” Who made that decision?

For years starlings have been roosting just down the road from my house in a large clump of bamboo during the winter. It’s in the front garden of a block of flats in a busy residential road. If  you happen to walk past at dusk you will see a couple of hundred starlings gathering in the sky. However, I should really say “could see” because in January (between our two coldest bits of weather) it was cut down. I was so angry and upset that it’s taken me until now to tell their story.

The brown bit (next to the telegraph pole) is where the bamboo used to stand