Lovely.
Blue Jay?
No idea. I can only recognize a few types: crows, ravens. sparrows, pigeons, hummingbirds. The cutie above does not fit in any category. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
Looks to be a very chubby fledgling Blue Jay to me.
^Agree.
“I’m not fat, I’m fluffy!”
I saw a little, baby snapper on the running trail today. It couldn’t have been bigger than a silver dollar.
I took a photo of this view and was unimpressed with my effort; but weirdly, The Google Earth People sent their camera van down this dirt trail (which leads from nowhere much to nowhere else much, passing through the middle of nowhere (-ish) en route) and the view they provide gives a better impression of the general emptiness. I’m sure there are much starker wildernesses out there; but none, I would hazard, within twenty or so miles of Big Ben.
Nature in broad sweep, I guess. The high ground straight ahead is Leith Hill, the highest point in SE England - someone built a tower on top of it to take it to exactly 1000 ft. The high ground to the right is the North Downs.
j
Breathtaking! I sure hope I get back to England some day.
Something more specific. Back in post 555 I mused on geese “kindergartening” their goslings, which I had seen a year earlier but had not seen since. But today, for the first time in a while, I saw something approaching it.
So here we have three families of greylag geese, seemingly looking after the kids collectively. The one adult on the far left is simply on guard duty*, for example. I didn’t know geese did this - do we have a goosologist in the house? Has anyone else noted this behavior? I know that @merrick has photographed grelags with goslings.- any thoughts?
j
* - And yes, I was very well guarded away.
Why, thank you - I’m very pleased you like it. And you remind me of something which has been on my mind for a while: I had been toying with starting a thread, an AMA of sorts, called something like Days Out In South East England - basically describing possible places to visit for Dopers who might be planning a trip, but also serving as a curiosity and entertainment for anyone else interested. I genuinely don’t know whether this would be useful/interesting, or niche to the point of ultra-vanity. Any thoughts? (And apologies for the hijack).
j
I might not post, but I would look at it!
I’m about as far from a serious goosologist as you can get, being both completely uneducated in such matters and a confirmed town mouse who only gets to see nature on intermittent weekends. But Wikipedia links to the wonderfully-named The Social Life of Greylag Geese, which states “shortly after the young hatch, parents may sometime join together, forming large groups that are able to defend all the offspring.”
I haven’t seen the behaviour myself, but the local density of greylags is rather low.
That’s pretty high octane goosology if you ask me. Nice work!
j
Went for a dip with some alligator gars this morning at Blue Spring State Park
Yikes! I would have come right out of that water.
I would very much enjoy it.
I would enjoy that too. I want to go back to England sometime.
I put up two new nest pockets under the eaves of our front porch. Less than a week later, we’ve got two house finch families nesting in them. One of the parents sings quite loudly whilst on their nest. I’ve never seen (well, heard) that happening before.
That’s what they say about raccoons around here. If you see one during the day, keep your distance.
Love this typo.
No typo - meant the wild bird parents, not wild parrots, which are not near my building (Our local colony is by the Highland, Indiana post office a couple towns over).