@LunarSea those are absolutely stunning pictures Love the spiky chicks!
@Fairygirl a super heron picture too. My ex-neighbour lost many of his precious Koi to an opportunist bird. He has since had his pond filled in as he is too frail now - at 92 - to look after it. Fish that remained were safely rehomed.
Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
I found your comments very interesting @Dovefromabove. One of our neighbours had a very large pond full of fish. Several years after he moved and it had been filled in, someone clearly had a good memory.
I used to work on the site of a former stately home (Alderley Park) with a long-established heronry of upto 50 nests each year.
I spent a lot of time down in Devon when egrets started to get established as breeding birds in the UK. The ones I saw down there started sharing a heronry with the local herons and now there are probably 10-20 egret nests down there each year. At night they like to scream and squabble like angry dinosaurs. It's an amazing experience, as long as you're not trying to sleep
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
This is one of the things I love about this forum - a lovely diversion into things we find interesting. Herons are such graceful birds in flight. We were regularly accompanied by them at our old allotment, by a river. And they have become a thing in our family - we now pronounce the word heRON - after our youngest granddaughter pronounced it that way when reading aloud from The Lost Words (but only among ourselves and only to wind up youngest GD - who is now a teenager!).
I spent a lot of time down in Devon when egrets started to get established as breeding birds in the UK. The ones I saw down there started sharing a heronry with the local herons and now there are probably 10-20 egret nests down there each year. At night they like to scream and squabble like angry dinosaurs. It's an amazing experience, as long as you're not trying to sleep
I've been birdwatching on the Dee estuary off the Wirral today, watching many birds including Little Egrets (below) and their larger cousins Great Egrets (which are now also fairly common).
Little Egrets now share the heronry at RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands. During the breeding season you can hear their peculiar 'wobbling' sound, like we might make if we shake our heads whilst humming with mouth slightly open & tongue lolling In recent years they have even been joined by their other cousins - Cattle Egrets. Amazing watching them sitting on sheep's backs or feeding amongst cows legs.
Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border. I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I've been birdwatching on the Dee estuary off the Wirral today, watching many birds including Little Egrets (below) and their larger cousins Great Egrets (which are now also fairly common).
Little Egrets now share the heronry at RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands. During the breeding season you can hear their peculiar 'wobbling' sound, like we might make if we shake our heads whilst humming with mouth slightly open & tongue lolling
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful