What gives you the thrill when spotting wildlife?

[Macaroon]

Every time I see a Goldfinch in the UK I am immediately enthralled...............

Every spring, the first cuckoo never fails to amaze me : Melancholy and optimism in equal measure..............

Once only, I had a pair of firecrests feeding not more than two feet from me in the hedge; pure magic............................

 

[santaman2000]

Thanks guys for the above.

I was thinking about this sort of thing the other day. Something that fascinates me is how creatures like mice can be so small, and yet have all the same basic organs and functions as me. For insects and spiders, they are even smaller, and using completely different systems for being alive, and yet they are just as alive as I am. I just find that amazing, and so I can sit and watch wildlife of whatever sort for hours.

Once you start thinking about plants, and how incredibly resilient they are (cut a branch off a tree and the tree just keeps growing. Do that to most animals and they die).....

Most mammals if not all anyway. Other creatures not so much though. Crabs will grow a new claw if they lose their old ones. In fact at least one species uses that as it's defense; it'll throw off one claw as a decoy in order to escape.

 

[bob_the_baker]

Every time I see a Goldfinch in the UK I am immediately enthralled...............

I know what you mean, we have a "charm" of goldfinches in our garden and they are beautiful birds and display some wonderful behaviour. They do get a bit argumentative when the nyjer seed feeder gets low, but oddly enough they never fight with the greenfinches over the same resource.

In fact, the relationships between the different species is fascinating to watch, I have lost many hours looking out of my kitchen window, watching the way the various birds and mammals interact, or not, as the case may be.

 

[Bushwhacker]

I know what you mean, we have a "charm" of goldfinches in our garden and they are beautiful birds and display some wonderful behaviour. They do get a bit argumentative when the nyjer seed feeder gets low, but oddly enough they never fight with the greenfinches over the same resource.

In fact, the relationships between the different species is fascinating to watch, I have lost many hours looking out of my kitchen window, watching the way the various birds and mammals interact, or not, as the case may be.

Grow some teasel and sit back and watch - cracking stuff!

 

[ZEbbEDY]

pine marten and otters, always good when either of those appear

 

[British Red]

Grow some teasel and sit back and watch - cracking stuff!

I have - its a year old now so should flower this year We have loads of finches (bull, gold, green) and I'm looking ofrward to it

 

[Stringmaker]

I never fail to wonder at the marvel that is new growth after coppicing or pollarding; last summer (thanks to a rabbit) I even coppiced a giant sunflower and it thrived!

 

[Rod Paradise]

Grow some teasel and sit back and watch - cracking stuff!

My mate Red Dog's Dad wrote a book about keeping and breeding finches & they used to catch them when it was legal, they'd sell them round the doors AFAIK (they're Gypsy). They'd take dried stalks and heads of teasel, seed them with fat & seed, and move them closer a wee bit each day until they were in position to drop nets when the birds were feeding.

 

[Bushwhacker]

I have - its a year old now so should flower this year We have loads of finches (bull, gold, green) and I'm looking ofrward to it

The flowers are gorgeous and bees, butterflies, all manner of insects gravitate towards them.

 

[Elen Sentier]

Just seeing an animal do its own thing without being disturbed is the real treat.

Me too. Things I've not seen before or see only rarely are an extra thrill.

behind every creative woman there's usually a very talented cat ...

 

[British Red]

Grow some teasel and sit back and watch - cracking stuff!

I have built it - will they come?


Teasel Heads by British Red, on Flickr


Teasel and hawthorn by British Red, on Flickr

 

[Bushwhacker]

I have built it - will they come?


Teasel Heads by British Red, on Flickr


Teasel and hawthorn by British Red, on Flickr

Superb! Won't be long before they start flowering.

 

[John Fenna]

I have managed to work out - using a camera trap - just when to expect the badger that dug a poo pit by our compost will visit.
Last night I watched him trundle around our garden as I stood up in our bathroom looking out of the window.
Tracking, from sign to sight, of a wild animal without leaving my property was quite a thrill ... rivalling seeing leopard stalking us on a foot safari in Africa!

 

[Angst]

hi....lol....john, i like that word trundle....seems to suit badgers!!!

not a rare animal but....i had an experience which i cant do justice to with words last year whilst camping near stonehenge...we'd just been out collecting some wood and were walking back along this road that had a huge oil seed field next to it...we disturbed a roe deer and in its panic to see us and avoid us it started jumping/runing....and for just a few seconds you could only see this head popping up and down....the oil seed was taller than the deer....so with each boing this head poped up...boing, head, boing, head, and initially the appearances were random until it got a fix on us then it bounded away in a straight line....boing, head appears through the yellow....boing....until it disappeared.....wish i'd taken a film of it....wonderful!

s

edit ps....this sounds a bit lame i know but i get delight whenever i manage to sit down for just a minute and see ANYTHING alive and doing its thing....ants nest near my feet....bees on the flowers....with the way things are going my appreciation is not far different for a bee or a snow leopard. snow leopards will probably be around long after bees at this rate lolol

 

[Elen Sentier]

I agree, Bushwhacker, seeing beaties, brids, insects, fish, trees, plants, anything is the buzz, and their signs and tracks, and hearing them too. One of the reasons I love being out is to wake up to the dawn chorus (it was fab at Northwoodl this last w/end). I hang out in my garden for this reasoin too. And being out at night, with no fire or lights, and having all the night denizens come close. It doesn't have to be rare to thrill me

@ Red - We used to have greenfinches here up to about 2003 and then they all suddenly went ... any ideas why? We're right out in the wilds but in the middle of an "industrial" farm (not ours!), we stopped having Little Owls then too. We do have goldfinches.

We get peregrines and red kites over the garden, sparrowhawks hunt in the garden, there's been a resident pair of buzzards here since we moved in. Our garden bird list often gets comments from BTO. There's badgers, foxes, polecats, fieldmice, dormice, squirrels (no reds unfortunately), hedgehogs, slowworms, occasional grass snake but not for last 3 years and lots more beasites. The insect population is good including lots of wild and bumble bees as well as honeybees from the local keepers, we also usually get a good crop of a fair few varieties of butterflies. They all give me a thrill just by being there, whether I see them or just smell or hear them, or find their sign.

I don't shoot - far too dangerous to everything else and I wouldn't kill cleanly as body is no longer up to it - but that would be good if I did. I like to go out with folk who stalk on the odd occasions when I can, that's such an art!

 

[British Red]

Try Niger seed in a feeder Elen - if there are any finches around, that'll bring em in. The Gold finches love it but greens too. Its likely that the greens have a habitat or food issue.

Its amazing how much life a few messy hedgerows and field edges will support - but farmers are so hard pressed by consumers demanding their "right to cheap food" that they cannot leave areas fallow or unworked now. Shame really.

 

[Ivan...]

All of it really! But at 5.30 this morning it was two female robins fighting in mid air about 3 feet in front of me, too busy scrapping to notice me for a frenetic 20 seconds or so.

Ivan...

 

[xylaria]

I must say the bees are putting on a mightly good show this year, which is causing me alot of delight. My nieghbours not very impressive otherwise cottoneaster has loads of bees on dry days. I haven't seen a hedge so busy in a good while. Bees are so interesting to watch.

I love watching the kites. They fly so beautifully. I can get them to come down sometimes to feed on the guttings, then a big argie bargie goes on between them [1st to the table] crows [bully off the kite] and seagulls [bully off the crows]. The foxes followed by the rats will clear up over night. The foxes are interesting, they behave very differant to town foxes.

 

[British Red]

You want to try them in an Apidea xylaria - fascinating to see such a miniature hive get built!


Apidea by British Red, on Flickr

 

[Lynx]

Just getting close to wild animals gives me a buzz. In recent weeks I've had a stoat run towards me when I was walking up a forest path. I surprised a large roe deer after getting within a few feet of it. This weekend I was watching a group of ten hares bunched together. These were full grown animals exhibiting what I feel is unusual behaviour. I photographed the same group in the winter and its on the site here somewhere. I just love watching nature.