30 Days Wild - Day 28 - Lulworth Cove, a day by the beach

Lulworth Cove has got to be one of my favourite places by the sea. We come down here a couple of times a year. I love playing on the beach, exploring around the rock pools, paddling and swimming in the sea and ending the day with chips.

Lulworth Cove has an amazing amount of wildlife and history. The rock formations are really interesting especially round at Stair Hole.
Although the weather was drizzly yesterday it was still warm and not too cold in the sea.
It was great fun as 10 of us went down for the day.


This fish below is a small Flounder

Flounder

Stair Hole is a hidden bay surrounded by hills. You can see where the sea has made archways through the Portland stone.

Stair Hole

Every rock I looked on there was either a Fish or a Sea Snail. When the tide is low there are lots of rock pools to look around.

Sea Snail

Blenny

Brilliant at camoflague

 This is me standing outside the Lulworth fossil shop with a dinosaur skeleton (not real).

Herring Gull

My mum took all the underwater photos as she was teaching a Search and Recovery lesson for the day.

30 days Wild - Day 26 - Meet some of the neighbours

I'm very lucky where I live because my house is surrounded by woodland and farmland so I get many visitors in my garden and around my house.

We have badgers come right up under the windows, deers in the front garden. Tawny owls and Barn owls in the back garden as well as lots of garden birds and some of the farmland birds such as Yellow hammers and Linnets.

At the moment we have 5 nests in the garden.

 Here are a few of my neighbours that were around today.

The Wrens have had young that have fledged, they hop along the fence and from tree to tree.

The local Great Spotted Woodpecker pays our bird feeder a visit every day for peanuts.

 This time of year birds need water due to the heat.

New types of Butterflies have appeared, such as the Marbled White that loves to feed on the thistle flowers.

 H3 is a female Buzzard that was ringed in Surrey over two years ago. You can see the green ring on her leg. She has a mate and I hope they have bred this year. Both birds are around most days. If they have just fed I can get quite close to them.

This Deer was separated from its friend for a couple of days but now they are back, in the field next door, together. 

Sheltering from the sun, in the shade under the tree

The Pigeons have had another brood of chicks, finger crossed they don't get eaten like the last two.

The Blackbirds have had their second brood in the same nest. All 5 fledged from the first brood.

30 Days Wild - Day 24 - Trail camera

I had a trail camera as a present a couple of years ago.

A trail camera is a great way to film animals behaving naturally.

It isn't as easy as just putting the camera down and hoping it will get something, you have to do some research into the animal and know that it will be there in the first place.

I use the camera a lot at the badgers sett, which is easy because I know the best places to put the camera now.

The camera has caught on film the badgers fighting, mating, the cubs playing as well as a badger chasing a Muntjac deer.

Two nights ago I went into the garden and saw a Barn Owl sitting on the shed roof, so last night I put the trail camera on the roof of the shed hoping the owl would return.

It did.

Now I know that it flies in from the left, from the field, between our Laural and Lilac tree I am going to put the camera in a different place tonight, hoping to catch the owl not so close to the camera.

Some animals are harder because they don't have patterns to their behaviour, so it is difficult to predict if they will walk past the camera.

Since I have had the camera it has filmed Foxes, Deers, Jays, Squirrels, Rabbits, birds in the gardens, Rats and Mice.

I would like to try for Hares and Weasels.

This is the smallest cub this year, but it is growing fast now.

30 days Wild - Day 23 - Evening by the river

For Day 23 of 30 Days Wild we went down to watch the Swallows and House Martins by the river.

It was a beautiful evening with the sun blazing down. 

The sun on the water made fascinating reflections of the trees from the riverbank. It was extremely peaceful sitting at the waters edge listening to the birds singing.

My mums friend lives by the river, so while she sat in the garden drinking tea and chatting, I took photos, then my sister, my friend and I went and explored the fields and river side.

A local fisherman told us where he often sees Water Voles so I am looking forward to spending some time in the summer holidays looking for them.

The House Martins live right underneath my friends house and come back every year. It is amazing to think that they come back to the same house from Africa every summer.

They are quiet easy to tell the House Martins apart from the Swallows because the Swallows have a red chin and a sharp pointed tail.

Both birds spend time flying along the river side catching small flies.

The Swallows are nesting right underneath the weir, where it is safe from predators. 

  

On the road by the lock there were a few Grey Wagtails.
 My favourite part of this bird is how it wags its tail around.

The House Martins were going up under the eaves of the house. They are just starting to build nests.

Out on the path a female sparrow had caught a small Stag beetle and was pecking it, throwing it up in the air and pecking it some more. The bird flew off when we got closer but the beetle was already dead.

Reflections of Swallows in the water

Our local farmer leaves wide strips of the field for the wild flowers to grow and the Barn Owls like to hunt along these strips.
We sat and watched a Barn owl for ages as it took food back to its nest, then came out hunting again.
While we were watching the Owl, a Raven flew over and a Red Kite passed us with a Swallow or House Martin in its talons.

30 Days Wild - Day 22 - My Local Patch

If I don't go anywhere else Wildlife watching during the day  I at least walk around the field next door to my house.
Around the field is exactly a mile long - I know this because my sister and mum are having a competition at the moment to see who can run the fastest all the way round.

Over that 1 mile walk there is still so much to see.
Here are a few things I saw on Day 22 of 30 Days Wild.

This young Crow is the chick that belongs to the Crow that feeds in our garden, I watching it take food from the garden every day and fly with the food to its nest in the oak tree.

There are always Roe deer in the field, this one looks very thin at the moment.

The edges of the field are covered with wild flowers.

The flowers attract the bees and butterflies.

Painted Lady

I always see loads of birds such as Yellow Hammers, Kestrels, Red Kites, Buzzards, Skylarks and Pigeons.

Lapwings and Hares - 30 days Wild - Day 21

In the field we have two elusive animals, Hares and Lapwings. Today we saw both of them together. They share the same space because they both like open fields where they can see predators coming.

The Lapwings were being very aggressive to any bird that flew overhead by diveboming them, the reason for this is they have chicks and they must be protecting them from predators.

Every time a rook or gull flew over a lapwing would rise from the ground and chase it away.

Once the predator had gone the lapwings settled back down on the floor but one or two always stay up in the sky as if scouting.

We sat for a few moments at the edge of the field and spotted 4 chicks through the binoculars. 

I managed to get a photo of the closest one. 

We didn't like to stay too long, although the Lapwings only seemed bothered by the other birds.

I am surprised the chicks weren't affected by the heavy rain we had yesterday.

 This hare was sat just behind a poppy flower but shot off when it spotted us. After watching the Lapwings we walked to the bottom of the field and back up, to find the hare sat back in exactly the same place behind the Poppy again.

A Little Egret flew over us as we walked back home.