Birds, blog, British, British Wildlife, charity, Frog, Fungi, hedgehog, Mushroom, Nature, Photography, pond, wild

Nest Box Support!

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You might know that in Linn Park there are 40 bird boxes! Well Friends of Linn Park have just been supported even further by Travis Perkins (Muirend) allowing us to double that number! The local merchant gave Friends of Linn Park an absolutely amazing deal meaning more wildlife homes around Linn Park and the local area. We cannot thank them enough and we would highly recommend them as their wood is FSC approved and very competitively priced.

Please have a look at their website and visit their stores!

https://www.travisperkins.co.uk

Thanks to the support from everyone and Travis Perkins (Muirend) we will have around 100 boxes in the park for the coming years! Every box will be checked once a week during the breeding season and as many chicks as possible will be ringed by the Clyde Ringing Group for scientific purposes. We will run bird ringing demonstrations where members of the public will have the chance to release birds in their hands! The amount of data we will be able to collect will be amazing! Here is a list of boxes we will have up in the park (a few others may be created but are still undecided on for now):

Small Boxes

  • 25mm diameter hole
  • 28mm diameter hole
  • 32mm diameter hole
  • Special Treecreeper Box Design
  • 100mm high front
  • 60mm high front
  • 140mm high front

Large Boxes

150mm diameter hole

Species We Aim To Get Nesting

  • Blue Tit
  • Great Tit
  • Robin
  • Dipper
  • Grey Wagtail
  • Treecreeper
  • Nuthatch
  • Spotted Flycatcher
  • Goosander
  • (Any other birds/ animals would be great!)

Other funding will also allow us to create Bat Boxes, Bug Houses, Butterfly Houses, Hedgehog Houses and more! (This will be in the future) Our aim is not only to provide scientific data for the British Trust for Ornithology but also to get more young people interested in nature. There are many other reasons too! Volunteers are wanted for monitoring boxes around Linn Park and other places right across Glasgow. (If you are interested in helping then please contact me through the contact page)

Thank you!

Birds, blog, British, British Wildlife, Nature, Photography, Waxwings, wild

Waxwings in Hamilton

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A couple of Waxwings were spotted at the junction between Quarry Street/Tuphall Road, Hamilton. They were reported to have been showing reasonably well.

I decided to go and see them as it’s not often you get just a few in an area, they are usually in flocks of around 100 birds. Whenever they are in flocks they are difficult to get photos of as they all move very fast and get in the way of one another when you try to take a photo.

I arrived in the morning and throughout the morning I met many familiar faces and got some nice views whenever they came down to feed on the berries. The only trouble was that they were in people’s gardens and I didn’t want to disturb anyone by making them think I was taking pictures of them. Nobody was negative about photographers being there but the people were very friendly and asking questions about the Waxwings.

Overall I had a brilliant day and I had the opportunity to catch up with some people and meet two new people from the area! we even saw a Sparrowhawk and a Buzzard!

Birds, blog, British, British Wildlife, Nature, Photography, wild

Jack Snipe Ringing

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Some of you might know that I take part in Ringing! Different ringing projects run across the year but as Winter approaches, Jack Snipe ringing has started again. This is done at two places, one place called Cathkin Marshes (Scottish Wildlife Trust) and another called Windlaw Marsh.

I was out with the Clyde ringing group today and we managed to catch 19 out of the 25 Jack Snipes seen! They are amazing!

(All photos from this blog have been taken by KEVIN SINCLAIR)

Jack Snipe (Lymnocryptes minimus)
Jack Snipe (Lymnocryptes minimus) Undertail Coverts
Jack Snipe (Lymnocryptes minimus) With Suspended Moult
British, British Wildlife, hedgehog, Nature, Photography, pond, wild, Wildlife

Help Hedgehogs!

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Hedgehogs need our help more than ever and its up to us how we tackle this problem of depreciation caused by some whose carelessness and thoughtlessness has caused such a negative impact to our hedgehog population. There are around 7 billion people on earth and only 1 million hedgehogs in the UK!

All I ask is for people to do simple things like cut gaps in the bottom of fences, make hedgehog homes, feed them appropriate food and make sure their gardens or local area is hedgehog friendly. Please do not put slug pellets down. Make some proper hog habitat and they will keep the slugs under control.

Recently I have had a hedgehog in my garden that I have been encouraging. It now comes to the pond to drink but I have made sure it has not become too tame. It will still curl up in a ball when I get close to it. Sometimes it can be lured closer by food but that’s about as tame as I’ll let it become. What amazing creatures! Thanks for reading 🙂

European Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus)
European Hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus)

 

Bee-eater, Birds, blog, British, British Wildlife, Nature, Photography, wild, Wildlife

European Bee-eater at Crawford, South Lanarkshire

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This species had not been seen in the Clyde area since 1869 making this an extremely exciting species to see. After my previous fail of seeing this European Bee-eater a few days ago, This day absolutely made up for it. This has to be one of my birding highlights of all time!

We arrived at around 09:45hrs and parked up at the side of the road just beyond the bridge at Camps Road. My dad and I walked towards a castle keeping a carful watch out for it landing on the power lines. After a 1min walk towards the castle I looked over at our car and saw the Bee-eater sitting on a wire next to the car! Some others arrived to watch it from the other side. It stayed for a while before flying off into some other trees, then flying off to the trees next to the castle! At this point I was standing on the bridge with Ruth Rowlands (links to her social media at bottom of page) and my dad watching it in the distance.

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On Wire Next To Houses and Cars (not visible in picture)
372A5460 European bee-eater (Merops apiaster)
 European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster)

We headed over the field towards the bird and met some other birders who had beat us to it’s current location at the top of a tree. We all stood in a line and stared it down as it stayed in the tree. Time went past and more people started to show. As it warmed and the sun appeared from behind the grey clouds, the European Bee-eater became more and more active and its habits became clear. It would fly out the tree and catch a bee in mid-flight! It would then fly back to a point in the tree where it would eat the bee! It was so active and tame that it even came 2 meters from us to pick an insect off the grass at our feet! Nobody could believe it when this happened. It was incredible in the way it so carefully picked up an insect until it flew back into the tree.

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 European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster)

We stayed a while longer and the bird clearly became more and more mobile, flying for a while and landing in trees even further away. More people had arrived including some people we knew before and it was great to catch up with them and meet new faces. The bird was most active at around lunch time but I have a feeling that it will be heading off soon.

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 European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster)

I honestly can’t believe how great it was! It was 1pm now so we decided to wrap it up there and head off to sheildhill farm to see what we could find. We found nothing, sadly but it was still an amazing day!

Please check out Ruth Rowlands!

Facebook: Ruth Rowlands Photography

Instagram: ruth_rowlands

Twitter: photoruthie

Young Wildlife Enthusiast, Volunteer, Blogger & Photographer.