WonderfulWildlifeUK

Cloudy, 11°, fresh SSW. A windy day out today, rain coming later. A fairly quiet time out at Lollingdon. A flock of around 100 Starling appeared over the hill in a tight defensive ball. Alerted to a possible predator, and then a male Merlin appeared flying in from the south and went directly for the flock. It passed straight through without taking anything and continued north followed by the Starlings and they all disappeared from view over the hill! Good numbers of Winter Thrushes around, a Kestrel and 2 Sparrowhawk also noted. The berries on the Cotoneaster bush/tree by Cholsey Church are slowly going. Fieldfare , Redwing and Wood Pigeon seen feeding on them. 2 Mute Swan flew high NW over Church road @ 15:00. Mammals: Brown Hare and Roe Deer . Sparrowhawk from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2020/01/a-windy-end-to-january.html

Overcast with rain showers, 11°, light SW. Earlier in the morning there were a lot of Gulls on the flooded field along Church road. c250 Black-headed Gull , 3 Herring Gull (ads) and 2 Great Blackback Gull (1 ad & 1 1stw) . When I got back most Gulls had dispersed and just 40 odd Black-headed Gull present. A Peregrine flew over Green Lane, putting a flock of Rook and Jackdaw to flight and a Kestrel hunting nearby. Good numbers of Thrushes around. I stood by a gateway and watched c500 Thrushes fly past over a period of around 30 minutes. 90% Fieldfare and 10% Redwing . A small flock of around 50 Starling in the area and 2 Pied Wagtail and a single Yellowhammer flew overhead. 2 Mistle Thrush in song, 1 towards Winterbrook and the other close to the village. Also a couple of Song Thrush singing. Mammals: Roe Deer & Brown Hare .  Sparrowhawk (courtesy Alan Dawson) ↕  Starlings Yesterdays Red Admiral (courtesy Tony Rayner) from Cholsey Wildlife ht

Congratulations to Steve Miller who's photo above of one of our red foxes was chosen by Sean Weekly as our photo of the year for 2019. Steve's photo will be alongside the other 11 photo of the months in our coffee shop gallery later this year, and Steve will receive a photographic day voucher to come and spend a day with us photographing many of our other residents, and of course our foxes too! Thanks once again to Sean for being our professional judge. Here is what he said when picking out his favourite: "It's been a while since I have visited the centre and popped into see all the staff and visitors, I now live in Wales and its not quite as easy for me to come along now and visit. One thing I will try to do this year is pay the centre a few visits. I always love seeing everyone's images from the centre pop up across my social media feeds, and everyone's images progressively get better week by week.   After spending many a session at the centr

a series of photos from Alan of a Chiffchaff at Cholsey Marsh today. from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2020/01/chiffchaff.html

On New Year’s Eve, in a cosy cafe over pots of tea, a friend put a question to the group: ‘So what are you going to do to save the planet this year?’ I don’t fly, and have for a long time tried to tread lightly and shop sustainably, although I can always do better. […] from James Common https://commonbynature.co.uk/2020/01/28/bringing-nature-into-the-music-lesson-by-frances-jones/

Cloudy with rain showers, 8°, light SSW. Well, another quiet day out at Lollingdon. Just the usual Thrush flock and feeding in the cattle field area today and the usual Finch flock on the hill. Kestrel and Sparrowhawk both seen but little else. Both male and female Blackcap feeding in TW’s garden and a Stonechat at Cholsey Marsh recently. Per TW. Mammals: Roe Deer . from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2020/01/rain-again.html

Every day is a Big Garden Birdwatch in my garden, as I have a network of cameras and I monitor all the feeders constantly! I could have predicted the species that I would record today as I intimately know the species that visit! The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch is an annual event and, for four decades, the Big Garden Birdwatch  has recorded the visitors to our British gardens, thanks to increasing numbers of individuals who take part each year. It has highlighted the winners and losers in the garden bird world and is one of the biggest citizen science project! Today, I used my network of cameras to record some of the visitors that make up my species count.  Some of the cameras are wired IP cameras, that are connected to my PC and run through a piece of software called iCatcher Console. This records 24-7 and I can play it back and lift the footage. I also lifted footage from the Birdsy camera. I have written about this project throughout last year, as I am working with the team w

A bright start, clouding over with rain p.m., 8°, light SW. Alan took a walk along the Thames this morning. 2 Raven , a Chiffchaff , Water Rail , Reed Bunting , Buzzard , Great Crested Grebe , Egyptian Goose , Kingfisher etc.  Kingfisher  Great Crested Grebe Egyptian Goose from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2020/01/thames-cholsey.html

Overcast, 7°, light SW. An interesting time out at Lollingdon today. Firstly as I was making my way up the hill I noticed a Red Kite fly off and drop something on the track. By the time I got to the location, whatever it was had gone! I moved further up the track approx. 50m and stood in cover and watched. Around 5 minutes later a Brown Rat appeared on the track. It was obviously injured, presumably by the Kite. I could see a couple of Carrion Crow in the trees taking an interest when suddenly a Buzzard swooped down, grabbed the Rat and flew off with it. A flock of around 200 Fieldfare feeding on the hill and a Finch/Bunting flock feeding in a shelter crop. Mainly Linnet and Chaffinch with 5 Yellowhammer , 2 Reed Bunting and a handful of Goldfinch, probably more but could not see it all. A single Corn Bunting in song to the south of the hill. Around midday a group of shooters arrived and started banging away nearby. Time to leave, too noisy, wildlife running and flyi

Our two otter cubs couldn't of timed their first explorations of their home any better. Our week of opening after Christmas saw them continue their swimming lessons with mum, and then start to emerge once or twice on their own. For those visitors who happily watched most of the day, they were usually rewarded with a glimpse of them having a little wander before being dragged back home by mum. Since then they having slowly been getting a little bolder, sightings have been a little more frequent. Although still not predictable, they usually venture out on their own once or twice during the day, and mum is quite happy to leave them to it. We have even had one of them out for the keeper talk already... although it will be a good few more talks before they are used to the timings and confident enough to be there all the time. They are growing fast, but still small enough to be obvious cubs. Elwood, the dad, above is being as good as ever in helping to look after them... and

We had a great year at Yew View last year, with lots of great wildlife and some amazing insights into the lives of our local wildlife, especially our lovely Tawny Owl pair who raised  their beautiful owlets to fledge into the garden. We built an otter holt, with cameras and encouraged as much wildlife as we could into this 7 acre site. We have lots of exciting ideas and projects for 2020, of course. Hopefully, after months of high river levels, we will get our otter holt up and running with its two cameras. It has spent more time under water than above water so far and the cameras are sitting up in the office, waiting for the river to be stable enough for me to feel confident about reinstalling them! We are also going to upgrade some of the cameras we have, as well as creating some new feeding stations. We have a new piece of land that is also going to be developed for wildlife this year….. a large pool and boggy area for dragonflies and damselflies, wild flower meadow, tree planting

Overcast, 8°, light ESE. A walk along the Bunk line/Green lane proved somewhat quiet on a gloomy old day. Apart from good numbers of Corvids there were very few birds around. A handful of Fieldfare and Redwing , the odd Song Thrush singing and a single Mistle Thrush . A Grey Wagtail , a few Pied Wagtail and Meadow Pipit , a pair of  Bullfinch , a Goldcrest , a female Sparrowhawk drifted over and a small flock of Black-headed Gull and 2 Herring Gull . There were 3 Tawny Owl around Church road last night, all conversing with each other. Bullfinch (F) from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2020/01/few-birds-around.html

It’s week three of this years exercise in botanical appreciation and, due to various commitments, plant-hunting this week has been focused entirely on urban areas. Location dictates that the species featured this week are almost entirely weeds. Or at least those that the vast majority of the population may look upon as ‘weeds’. Weed, however, […] from James Common https://commonbynature.co.uk/2020/01/23/365-days-of-botany-week-3/

Foggy at first then bright, 5°, light W. A couple of shots from the garden today. One of our resident Robins is always on the lookout for food that might just be dislodged (with a bit of help) from one of the feeders. And a resourceful visiting  Jackdaw on the fat ball feeder. The Barn Owl seen on Cholsey hill yesterday, Per Richard Broughton. from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2020/01/resident-visitor.html

Sunshine, 5°, light NW. A frosty start and still rather quiet out there. The usual flocks of Fieldfare out at Lollingdon and a few Redwing . A single flyover Raven and a Corn Bunting on the hill. Lots of Gulls seen distantly around the pig fields and between Lollingdon and Aston, maybe 1000+ birds. A small flock of Black-headed Gull and a single Herring Gull on the flooded area near Church road. Mammals: Brown Hare and Roe Deer . from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2020/01/winter-doldrums.html

Sunny, 3°, light SW. A few pics on a bright but cold week end. 3 Teal over Cholsey (courtesy Alan Dawson)  A Red Kite with another Chicken. I guess someone is feeding them as Kites cannot kill prey this large and rarely take live prey. (courtesy Alan Dawson) The Sparrowhawk with prey (a Goldfinch). taken at a very acute angle thru a window, hence the poor quality shot. from Cholsey Wildlife https://cholseywildlife.blogspot.com/2020/01/week-end-stuff.html