Today's Wildlife Encounter

[William Clough]

I know it is not a rare bird by any means but to me this Wheatear is the most elegant bird of all. Seen today in the Big stone / Cracken edge area.

[molehill]

3 days backpacking and 2 nights wildcamp around the Llyn peninsular coastal path with the Missus, brought usual array of interesting wildlife and flora. Highspots for me were watching a pair of peregrines hunt a sea cliff and choughs (always nice to see and hear).
But top spot was the adder in the Pwlelli sand dunes, virtually trod on it but just saw it's movement and stopped. Beautifull bright male specimen (I think), I held it's attention whilst the Missus got the camera out for a couple of photos. I love snakes and adders were very common when I lived in Sussex, but this is the first I've seen in years and the first in Wales. Chuffed to bits, I stopped the oncoming dog walkers and gently encouraged it out of harms way.

[noel]

Woodchat shrike. In Sicily. I've not seen a shrike before, but this one was very fearless.

[plodding bear]

A red Kite flying over Ilkley Moor yesterday. I know there's plenty round Harewood and Bolton Abbey, and I've seen them over the A59 near Blubberhouses, but a first for me, on Ilkley Moor. I also watched/heard a skylark, singing all the way up from ground level as it rose like a jump jet straight up, until I couldn't see it with the naked eye, then it disappeared even from binocular view, but I could hear it clear as a bell all the time!

[wharfeego]

Bank Vole in the drystone wall in our yard...tempted out with peanut butter

[Derby Tup]

Lovely photo wharfee

Wood warbler and pied flycatcher in Strid Woods yesterday afternoon, first swift of the year today driving near Pudsey (me driving, not the swift!)

[The Navigator]

First swifts over the River Lune too yesterday.
Good to see them back.

[wharfeego]

First swifts over the River Lune too yesterday...

...first swift of the year today driving near Pudsey (me driving, not the swift!)

My first Swift scything through the blue sky over 'ellifield yesterday.
Any advance my first Spotted Flycatcher this year, in a nearby wood?

[Derby Tup]

My first Swift scything through the blue sky over 'ellifield yesterday.
Any advance my first Spotted Flycatcher this year, in a nearby wood?

Not spotted a Spotted Fly wharfee. Any cuckoos your way yet?

[molehill]

My Swifts are due any day now - our favourite visitors. I cleared their nest boxes of the current unwanted inhabitants :angry: (no I'm not saying what, some would not approve) so they are alll ready for the swifts who have preferential treatment. They've nested on the house since we arrived in 1986 but numbers decrease every year, we are lucky to have 2 pairs now, where the valley used to be full of them.

Flycatchers due as well, always turn up and use one of the boxes in the apple trees.