For WHO's birders

[Nurse Ratched]

"I thought you might like this video.



It's a compilation of different birds singing. Beautiful photography. If you expand the 'title' under the video it gives a list of species and the times they pop up in the video. Most of the species are familiar to us in the UK, but there are some 'exotics' (the cranes - wow, what a noise!) It was filmed in Belarus. The guy has a channel you can subscribe to. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and maybe it'll take your mind off you-know-what for a few blessed minutes."

[WHU(Exeter)]

"Gph, is that thing true about moths then? That with their eyes when they're flying towards light in their eyes it's darkness they are flying to?"

[gph]

"When I had my cataracts done, I did a bit of reading about the surgery and its background. In the old days, after a cataract operation, people saw colours they'd never seen before*, as initially they didn't replace the lenses, and you had to use glasses, and then, later, when they did give you prosthetic lenses, initially these were transparent to uv. Nowdays, the lenses filter out uv. *I went up, I went down, I saw colours never seen before All spinning roun' (Pink Fairies, albeit singing about drugs rather than cataract operations)"

[Mex Martillo]

"How come you know that gph, bit obscure innit?"

[gph]

"""Red is the dull end for bees, violet the bright end."" is slightly wrong. I should have said: ""Red is at one of the dull ends for bees, violet is in the bright stretch."" The sensation I get when I see blue might not even be the same as the sensation you get when you see blue, so I can't speculate what sensation bees get when they see it."

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Purple is a sneaky colour mixing the red and blue ends of the whole spectrum. I suppose bees see as bright blue what you see as purple, right gph?"

[gph]

"No, you want to think of the classical colours of the rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Red is the dull end for bees, violet the bright end."

[WHU(Exeter)]

"But if they're going primarily (or in our garden almost exclusively) for the purple flowers, wouldn't that mean that they were going for duller flowers on their colour spectrum? Wondered whether it was the pollen specific to those flowers, but the purple ones are wide ranging"

[gph]

"Bees, like humans, are trichromatic, which means their colour vision is based on three different kinds of colour sensitive cells. In humans, these cells have peak sensitivity around red, green and blue. In bees, the peak sensitivity is around green, blue and ultraviolet. Brillliant red things look very dull to bees (assuming they don't have uv pigments to compensate). Incidently, humans are blind in uv primarily because the lenses in our eyes are opaque to it - the cells in our retinas can detect it (but not at peak sensitivity). There is an evolutionary trade-off between being able to see uv, and protecting the retina from uv. The advantages of being able to see it are unaffected by longevity, the disadvantages are not - our eyes had to last around 40 years prior to modern medicine. Shorter-lived vertebrates, especially birds, can see uv."

[lab]

WHU(Exeter ) 10:16 . In all fairness badger beers are quite good.

[WHU(Exeter)]

"Why do bees almost solely pick purple flowers/plants? Loads of different plants and flowers in our back garden, but the bees only ever seem to head for the purples, hundreds of them all over the lavender especially."

[J.Riddle]

"Crassus, I saw this at the cinema when released, watch this and tell me otters are not cute little balls of fur :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnSAATCOoc"

[Tomshardware]

Good spot Exeter.?üëç?üè?

[WHU(Exeter)]

Saw a badger scampering along a street in a Bristol suburb. Although it was on the edge of the city it was still a surprise to see one there. It's claws on the pavement made a hell of a racket and the way it was shifting looked like it was racing for last orders.

[Crassus]

"Nurse Allow me to appraise you of the current otter situation - Well meaning but deluded 'ecologists' thought it a good idea to reintroduce these little bastards, and were granted permission to do so Problem is, they put them into water courses that have not been otter habitats for donkeys years and bear no relation to when they were This was and continues to be compounded by complete fuckwits who have been illegally putting them all over and in a density that is entirely unsuitable The otters themselves are shitcunts of the highest order, the so called ecologists will say that they eat merely small silver fish for food purposes - utter bollox They are akin to foxes in a hen house and will kill for the fun of it. The fish stocks across the country are being savaged by a protected species predator of which they have no knowledge Oh and if that is not enough, they are taking birds of all type, from warblers to swans. Whole delicately balanced eco systems are being ruined The otters are not having it all their own way either. Released into unsuitable water courses in far too greater number they are unable to sustain a natural range due to over population. Hence numerous road kills and attacks upon garden ponds and residence in the Grand Union Just Google Otter Predation, rest assured that these are not the cute little fur balls that they are made out to be"

[gph]

"A squirrel committed suicide by gph when I was on my pushbike. With great skill, it managed to run between my wheels and get run over by the back one. Although it limped into a bush, I was unable to find it. Not sure what I would have done if I did, but it was surely not long for this world."

[Capitol Man]

"Did a wtf was that double-take, then realized I was right next to a river and it disappear into bank. I’ve nearly run over a few things. Mountain Lion on Vancouver Island was the most surreal. Like a giant house cat."

[gph]

Sea otters are in the tool-users' club. Although they are firmly in their stone age.

[gph]

Sea otters are in the tool-users' club. Although they are firmly in their stone age.

[Nurse Ratched]

"You get otters in the US? Nice. I've never seen one. Zeb - yeah, loads of butterflies this year."

[zebthecat]

"The nesting birds have buggered off now leaving the robins, sparrows, wood pigeons, collared doves and the jays that hide in the oak tree. Loads of butterlies though. Not sure if it is just me but there are a lot more about this year."

[Capitol Man]

Not a bird at all but I did nearly run over an otter today. Fast little bigger though. Didn’t fly either.

[Tomshardware]

"Theres loads of spiders in our garden, lately the garden orb spiders with the classic webs are everywhere. Throughout the year we also have the false widows which have different style of web."

[zebthecat]

"JAC 12:01 Wed Aug 5 The pair that arrived here seem to have stayed put. They put me in mind of early jet fighters in flight - there is something about their shape. They like my Bramleys but have to argue with the Jackdaws, Starlings, Blackbirds etc."

[zebthecat]

Nurse Ratched 6:38 Sat Aug 8 That is fab. Went for a walk today in my local wild place the Ashdown Forest as saw a lot of swallows yumming up the insect life.

[Nurse Ratched]

"Belarus Bloke is back. https://youtu.be/3XJLrGPYBoc Duelling nightingales, anyone?"