Spring is in the air... and on the ground and in the water.....

[Lanthanotus]

Deemed it a good idea to copy the theme of this nice thread over from the DTF. I guess, since the folks here are interested in recent fauna, it may be an even better place? We`ll see....

Let`s start with some pics for the bug lovers amongst you....

Male Gryllus campestris tickled out of its hole the classical way


Bombylius major


Two bugs sucking the saps from a dead Phyrrosoma nymphula


Mating Coenagrion sp.


Two baby locusts.... maybe Tettigonia viridissima


Chicks of Athene noctua (three at all if you look closely, our local association frequently checks these nesting sites.


Skull of..... you guess is... Sus scrofa


Slow worm Anguis fragilis



How fares spring, well, almost summer, at your place?

[sirenia]

It is an endless titery here (the small bird variety), with Great Tits, Robins, Swallows, Blue Tits and more, only occasionally scattered by Sparrow Hawks.

[Advicot]

My farm is teeming with bird life this spring... the dunnocks in a 20 yr old ash tree, the buzzards in an 120 yr old sycamore, the great tits, blue tits and sparrows in 32 yr old plum tree, woodpigeons in a 32 yr old red maple, hundreds of jackdaws in a few 230 yr old sessile oak trees.

Obviously as we are on a farm we have lots of lambs maybe 60 born this year, and a new sheepdog to the family

[Lanthanotus]

Yesterday we had a short stroll through the little wood site between our house and the highway. It`s just a roughly 300m
wide lane of mainly pine forest on a very poor, sandy soil. Nevertheless we found some life that I haven`t encountered for
a while or never at all here at my place....

Dead shrew, Crocidura leucodon, being buried by two very busy buriying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides,
I have never seen these before here.


After several days of rain, though still much too less, I found a bright green male sand lizard, Lacerta agilis
in the last rays of the evening sun.





Last but not least, I found anoter dead specimen.... Lucanus cervus, the European stag beetle.
I haven`t seen a life male for decades, though I found several dead ones, three alone last year, and
all of them at the same place right at the edge of the town. So they do not seem to be particularly rare,
but males are at high risk of being preyed on by crows or magpies when they combat each other in
bright daylight. My hand shown for scale, this is just a medium sized specimen.

[Advicot]

Some amazing species you discovered on your walks