What's buzzing or flying near you 2021?

Common Tern.







Heron struggling with a Flounder which it gave up on.

 

Young Great Spotted Woodpecker.

 

It's nice to see them back. The breeding colonies were visited by a sea offer 3 years ago and all the birds left. They didn't use the lagoon for a couple of years after.

There are Choughs in my local beach ( Sandy ), I watch them playing when I walk there. Beautiful birds.

 

@luciusmaximus We only had one visit to Cemlyn, one of the two decent days weather wise.
The rarer Roseate Tern was not there while I was looking but is still there plus now an even rarer one, an Elegant Tern has arrived and Cemlyn is now full of Twitchers!
I only saw a couple of Choughs at South Stack but they were firsts for me.

 

Saw this peculiar creature on the side of my bee home yesterday! Anyone know what it is?

Nick

 

Ichneumon fly (wasp).

 

@Scrungee Thank you!

Nick

 

Funnily, I've just ID'd one for my daughter (who's close to completing her Master's in Ecology and Conservation).

 

Well, I can't imagine who sparked that interest in her...

It reminds me an awful lot of a mild-tempered wasp I photographed last year, Pimpla rufipes, but this thing has a much longer ovipositor.

Nick

 

Mistle Thrush.

 

We have four Jays enjoying our undersized cherries along with a tame scruffy Blackbird who unfortunately comes into our conservatory and poos. The latter is my fault for encouraging him.
Hardly any Swallows or Swifts, same with Butterflies and bees although Runners are setting well.
I have noticed a steady decline in small birds and insects, possibly related. Living on the riverbank we saw ducklings, not so plentiful these days may be down to the arrival of Gulls.

 

Little Owl at Portland Bill, sleeping again.



Rock Pipit.

 

I love Little Owls .. we have lots here.

 

I'm sitting watching lots of bright blue damsel flies over the garden pond.
I can see them mating and laying eggs in the water.

Just don't have a camera capable of catching the action.

 

There´s often a buzzard circling high overhead, and the raptors encourage the smaller birds to stay in the trees. A golden oriole jets across the garden fairly often and a hoopoe visits occasionally. Looking down into the canyon the other day, a bird 4 or 5 feet across drifted lazily through, which is a rare sight, most of the bigger birds stay high up. I think it was an eagle.
Swallows and swifts come and go, but unfortunately don´t nest here.
A helicopter went sniffing up the canyon last month, came back down and hovered nearby, possibly looking for marijuana plantations, since this is the most productive region of Europe for the Happy Herb. A few in pots on a patio are hopefully beneath contempt. (Even if they are nearly 8 feet high).
Wasps were a real nuisance last summer, hardly any around as yet. They like to crawl into my sandals when I´m immersed in spoon carving, and then panic when I move. The toes are an exquisite place to get stung !



This little brown job set up home right outside the kitchen door, up in the shady grapevines, (I was on full zoom for this one). It was there last year as well.
So many lives unfolding here, besides my own, it would be an act of crass colonisation to imagine I actually own the place. We´re all just a bunch of migrants.