UKC

....has been good.  Red Kite this morning - first time I’ve ever seen one round here. Five kestrels hovering at once!  I’ve seen seven raptor species walking from my house this year. Mega views of Sparrowhawks, glimpse of a stonechat. Pair grey partridge and a cracking view of a brown hare ;saw five yesterday - definitely increasing numbers near me).  Oh, fox as well and plenty of roe deer, including a buck with antlers covered in vegetation  

Recently: peregrine chasing pigeons last weekend. Loads of young birds, a family of whitethroats being a highlight. Huuuuge flocks of linnets and goldfinch. Sedge warbler was a nice surprise yesterday. Lots of GS woodpeckers and nuthatch. Plenty butterflies included coma and painted lady. Oddest sighting was a tawny owl in broad daylight. Yellowhammers have done well, in fact everything seems to have done well this year - good balance of warmth and rain. 
 

Kingfisher and grey heron in nearby pond  

In the garden - great tits fledged and a female Sparrowhawk zoomed in and perched briefly on fence. 

Amazing list there! Sadly I never see kingfishers once the trees have come into foliage round here.

Have been out on the local chalk hills this week and the amount of Marbled White and Chalkhill blue butterflies is fantastic, also loads of 6 spot Burnett moths and Skippers, second brood Brimstones, Green Fritillaries and the odd Painted lady.

Nice butterflies. 
This mornings hare. 

Roe doe earlier this week. 

Early morning gs woodpecker. 

Grey heron. 

Young whitethroats and a young kestrel learning (lots of hovering and diving and missing!!). 

Young swallow. 

Walking the dog along the Bridgwater canal the other week and I’m sure I briefly glimpsed an otter before it clocked us and dived.

Was I imagining it? Is this a possibility?

It is a possibility because they are in just about every river there is: river Dane ha Ethel, and nearer me the Yarrow. And they can travel far. Mink are common on canals. Which part of the canal roughly?

The section that runs through Lymm. Lot of fish along that stretch, lots of overgrown wooded banks and patches of bulrushes 🤷‍♂️

No reason why not. They’re in the Mersey, and lots of fisheries nearby as well. I used to fish Lymm Dam a lot as a kid. Nice place. 

Small world. A circuit of the Dam is a regular for the dog and me and the church on the lakeside is where both my kids were christened. Top end of the dam is the only place I've been lucky enough to see kingfishers.

Leeds Liverpool canal last January. 

Whilst walking on the South Downs on Thursday I encountered a black grass snake on the path. It was about 2' long. It slithered off into the undergrowth before I could take a photo. Although from time to time I encounter adders, and slow worms, it's the first time I've seen a grass snake for many years, and the first black one I've ever seen. It was a great sighting and I was well chuffed.

Excellent. Only seen one, it was swimming across the river Brathay near where it enters Windermere. Didn’t have a clue what it was at first. And my only adder encounter was with one in the back of a crack right at the top of a route at Dunkeld. I was fiddling a wire in then heard this aggressive hissing noise so legged it to the top and told my now wife to be careful taking the wire out. (I couldn’t leave a whole bunch  of wires behind....)

Saw a grass snake at the top of the "crag" on the walk around descent of High Tor years ago.

Adders at Bosigran, one sunning itself at the top of the rocks in a nice coil. The other in the hole containing the peg on The Armchair (HVS 5a) which gave someone leading the route a bit of a surprise (and a bite) at the time. I believe they managed to avoid falling off and quickly finished the route in some pain.

A well known guidebook writer of this parish once told me how they'd encountered about twenty adders writhing about on a rock below Whitestone

They decided to come back another day.