Cool.
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Cool.
Male adder near Howbarrow. Hisssss
High drama on the mean canals of Coventry this morning...
About half a mile from the city centre basin, i ran past a large swan. Coming the other way was a woman walking a huge Husky type dog. The swan obviously took exception to it, perhaps it had young close by. What i can only assume was a show of aggression, it starting hooting loudly, and ran along the water (a lot faster than i could ever go) as if it was going to take off... instead it just kept running across the water for about 100 metres, stopping just short of the husky. The husky to it's credit was having none of it, and starting barking the place down and swinging for the fences.
Even more credit must go to the woman who was walking the dog, and also had a pram, she didn't even flinch and calmly moved on when it was done.
Fantastic entertainment.
Also a female duck looking after about a dozen lovely ducklings on the side of the canal. No more than a couple of hundreds yards further i spied a large rat (which was large enough that i initially thought was a rabbit).... no doubt fancies roast duck for his sunday dinner. Hope the ducklings all survive...
not seen the sparrowhawk for weeks, not even during the recent spell of lovely weather a week or so ago... (it is usually around on warm bright days).
I did spot a bird of prey which had obviously been killed by a car when i was out on country roads a few weeks ago... i couldn't identify it, don't have enough knowledge, i hope it wasn't "my" sparrowhawk...
Although the garden is quite a hive of activity.... magpies, robins, bluetits, blackbirds, sparrows and starlings, pigeons... i expect all of these are pretty common though...
Heard our first cuckoo of the year on Saturday. We were walking across Matley Moor and the cuckoo appeared to be in woodland near Rowarth. We'll miss them in Scotland this year - we normally hear one on Jura and it then seems to follow us wherever we go for the next fortnight in the West Highlands!
Don't get many Cuckoo's here in Otley, but I love to hear them. Went running to Ilkley Moor as I have heard them on the north facing slopes around White Wells, but no luck - though got a 4 hr run out of it. Heard my first Cuckoo last night, whilst on the Dyfi Osprey nest camera. Does this count?
Saw my first ever Yellow Wagtail just now whilst out walking locally. It was hopping around on the ground at the edge of a shallow pond. See greys regularly by the river, but this was much yellower. Nice
Our cuckoo arrived on 23rd April and has been driving me demented with its incessant cuckooing. I love it. I live on the bank of a sea loch in North Skye. The Arctic Terns arrived last week along with a bunch of swifts. Absolutely love this time of year. There's a seal colony 200m from us. When we moved here in 2006 there were 6 resident seals. This year I've counted 70! Not sure why they've increased so steadily. There will be more next month when they have their pups. Great fun to watch and really nosey. Was watching about 10 of them swimming down the loch leaping like dolphins.
2 buzzards. One of them usually swoops at me to scare me away, but it was a bit windy today for such dangerous manoeuvres.