First seal pup of the season spotted at reserve

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy9jl7g0nzyo 

Weekly seal update from Donna Nook - with Visitor Guidelines

https://www.lincstrust.org.uk/get-involved/top-reserves/donna-nook/weekly-update 

Donna Nook National Nature Reserve

https://www.lincstrust.org.uk/get-involved/top-reserves/donna-nook 

It's quite interesting within the Channel Islands the recolonisation of Grey Seals.

Anecdotally, the last Grey Seal was shot by a fisherman in 1910, on the East coast of Guernsey. I don't remember seeing any growing up as a child in Guernsey, then about 20 years ago, they started to appear.

We now have numerous colonies, and I see them locally in Alderney probably 2 or 3 times a week. The first pups have already been born this season and two have already been rescued by our local animal sanctuaries. Research shows that the local populations travel quite large distances, and individuals photographed here have turned up in Cornwall and Devon and also all the way up the French Channel coast.

On another note, I don't think I've seen so many migrant thrushes and blackbirds this Autumn, earlier this morning I counted nearly two dozen thrushes on the back lawn, outnumbering blackbirds. I'm wondering if this benign weather has had an influence? 

There have been relatively few migrant thrushes and blackbirds here yet.  Seems this is the year of the Hawfinches and Yellow-browed Warblers. A glance at my pager shows 3 Hawfinches today. A few Ring Ouzels have been reported too.

Sounds great…Roger…I’ve never seen  Yellow -Browed Warbler….atleast not to my knowledge! 

it’s been a very poor summer down here for hirundines…in last 10 plus years there’s been a drastic decline in the numbers of house martins nesting…the last small colony of martins here in Chichester has gone sadly…and just north of here at Lavant…which used to have a large colony ..this summer virtually devoid of them…yet when we were in Wales back in re seemed plenty around…I wonder if it is to do with the monoculture around these parts and the lack of insects? 

Multiple causes, I suggest, CWF. A decline of insects for food for whatever reason - climate trends, changes in cropping, declining wild areas. A lack of suitable nest sites perhaps? Generally tidier and less hirudine-friendly human homes and gardens? At our old place we had a washhouse outside and swallows regularly raised 3 broods a year there - much to our enjoyment. Friends used to ring the chicks and one year one was recorded on its way south, in Norfolk! Result!  We used to have swifts in the roof too. Then there's the issues of changes along migration routes that may impact on that process. Here's the BTO Cuckoo satellite tracking project as an example:

BTO's tracked Cuckoos - 11 south of the Sahara

https://www.bto.org/cuckoos 

It made me think, though, what does happen to birds? They all die of something or other, but you seldom see dead ones around...

Nature's clean-up squad - foxes and crows especially, I expect you have some around - but badgers, magpies and rats will eat carrion.

True enough, I guess it was the unusualness of seeing a dead bird right in the open that got me! It must have been there for a while, as it wasn't warm. There is a magpie that lives nearby (it's often perched in my neighbour's cherry tree) and even that wasn't interested.

I must try to track down this story - but I seem to recall being told Darwin himself asked this question, extrapolating the size of the blackbird population if all chicks were to survive. The booming population would be obvious to all - so where did they go? Where are they? This may have been a teacher's illustration of the point. Of course death and decay is all around us - but not for long, and seldom seen. A predator can be a species' best friend, so can a pathogen, weeding out the weak and keeping down competition for food and space. A scavenger polishing off carcasses is also doing us all a favour. Our friend the rat does a lot of clearing up, as do the corvids. 🐀 Foxes and badgers too.

Burrowing badgers cause £100,000 damage to road

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg4l1gk5dxlo 

The answer is, partially,  nest boxes. Several of them. House martins love them. There are not many, if any, house martins in the local villages (as a kid there were many) but we have more than a dozen pairs in nest boxes each year.

Yes, modern agriculture doesn't help and I suspect another problem is intolerance of nests by...humans.

Ring ouzels? Several reported from their favourite nature reserve near Hay Tor.

Did I mention hawfinches too???

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=154834479398021&set=a.123192172562252 

Did you realise we have just lived through World Jellyfish Day?

https://earth.org/world-jellyfish-day-2024-celebrating-the-graceful-drifters-of-the-ocean/ 

That'll cheer my missus up, she swims nearly every day and has come into contact about four times this last week with these stingers, loads about at the moment.

Would explain a local fisherman reporting coming into contact with a leatherback turtle, they love jellyfish. 

https://www.wired.com/story/swarovski-optik-ax-visio-ai-binoculars/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-gb 

These are the world’s first pair of AI binoculars, the company claims, with an onboard computer that can identify nearly any bird you point them at.

When we moved to this house in 2017 there was a pair of bullfinches here - but for some reason we never saw them here again!!!! ☹ Very attractive birds.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bullfinch 

"A number of unidentified drones have been spotted over three airbases in Britain, the United States Air Force (USAF) has confirmed.

The incidents, which occurred between Wednesday and Friday, saw "small unmanned aerial systems" spotted over RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, and RAF Feltwell in the neighbouring county of Norfolk."

Mystery drones seen over three US air bases in UK

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly2j54g5j9o 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002377x/the-killer-hornets 

We used to have a small flock of bullfinches in our garden for years - up to 10 at a time around the bird feeders. About 3 years ago they just disappeared and I've only seen the odd one a handfull of times since. It's such a shame because they are beautiful birds. 

I've no idea why they went, the only possible thing I can think of is a huge rise in the number of sparrows in the garden which really dominate the bird feeders? It's good to see the sparrows because they too had disappeared for a number of years but I hope they aren't driving other birds away.