Tuesday 18 March 2008

Still waiting.....

As there has been some movement of migrant birds in the last few days particularly Sand Martins and Wheatears arriving on the south coast I half expected to bump into something new today. Although I only had a brief walk I actually saw very little. The councils environmental department are busy improving certain areas of the site and I think the use of heavy machinery has probably kept most birds quiet. They are improving the pools around the gas towers and the new scrape looks very promising and will undoubtedly attract migrants later in the year, and despite the diggers, the Teal are still present which bodes well. I did have a strange encounter with the woodpeckers this morning. Whilst looking for a very vocal Green I ended up finding five woodpeckers, three Green and two Great Spotted in the same tree, in dispute over the best nesting site! I was surprised just how dominant the smaller Great Spotted was compared with the more placid and usually solitary Green. I found two fresh holes, one clearly of each species no more than four metres apart. I have never seen this before, two active attempts in the same small tree, watch this space, I'll keep you posted!
Oh and I finally found some toads, two attached to the backs of female Frogs?

Now this makes me angry! Anyone seen anything? Copy and paste the link into your browser - Badger shot on Aylestone Meadows

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=132384&command=displayContent&sourceNode=232710&home=yes&more_nodeId1=132393&contentPK=20174046

3 comments:

Russ Malin said...

That is sickening. Badgers are prevalent at this time of the year and have enough to contend with, ushc as traffic, let alone these moronic bastards. Air guns have always been a feature (sadly) of this area so lets just hope they get them.....

rockfowl said...

Your right Russ, brave souls ehh Killing a Badger just after it's woke up from its winter slumber. Hopefully we'll get the bastards before they do something else!

The Drunkbirder said...

Shabby bunch of bastards. My guess is no one will ever come forward with any evidence and I doubt the police will have the resources to do much about it.

Back in Yorkshire with used to have a huge problem with Badger baiting, don't know how common it is now but I guess it still goes on as the farmers have little sympathy for the Badger.