That sounds cool. Although it did conjure up the following image :-)

It's stag beetle time of year! The males can be seen flying late May - late June at dusk, and are easily identifiable because they're so big and have those large mandibles. They remind me of little helicopters; whenever I see them flying I recall that scene from Apocalypse Now! and Ride of the Valkyries goes through my head. The females, who are smaller and have less prominent mandibles, send out a pheromone that attracts the males. They land near to the females and viciously fight each other for the prize of being her mate. They often crash land so watch out for them on the ground too although. Thus far this year they don't seem to be as numerous as in the past few years, but I've seen a few. Here's a pic I took of a pair of males fighting in the back garden of my previous house in Valley Road a couple of years back.

The Stag Beetle party is continuing in my garden (apols for the rizlas - was the nearest thing I could find to provide scale).

Gotta love the stag beetles. Latest from Springwatch @ The Cross - two pipistrelle bats have been flitting around my back garden for about an hour. A male stag beetle flew over too earlier (maybe looking for his ladyfriend?), but unsurprisingly the bats didn't take it on.

Are the "sea wall badgers", Wivenhoe's equivalent of Jasper Carrott's blue goldfish?

"Just bend a bit further down - you'll see em!" ;-)

Very odd sighting in my back garden at The Cross just under an hour ago - as me & the lodger were having a cuppa we noticed lots of birds making panicked noises - towards the back of the garden there was a bird of prey on the bean poles - near to the bird table. It was about the size of a woodpigeon (pretty sure of this as a woodpigeon scarpered out of the tree at the back at the same time), with ruffled "tatty" brown wing feathers. It looked directly at us for a second and there was a little bit of pale colouring on it's "face". Then it flew into the cover of a big fir tree at the back - causing more angst ridden bird noises (also heard some high pitched cheep noises that could have been the mystery bird) and thrashing about. My first guess was it could have been a juvenile buzzard (have seen buzzards towards Fingringhoe and they are making a come-back in the area) perhaps attracted by activity on the bird table - but I legged it indoors to grab camera and binoculars by which time it must have gone - via the back of the tree. :-( Lesson to us all - keep camera to hand!)

If anyone can shed any light that would be great. It's closest in appearance to the pictures of juvenile buzzards I looked up and seemed too large (and the beak too thick) to be a young sparrowhawk - although we do get em round here.

Here's hoping we're not just hallucinating up here. :-)

Not quite as exotic as Hazel's buzzard (blimey) but I've had something of a frog infested day. Silly cat brought the same frog in twice. The first occasion I thought the poor fella was dead. I packaged him up for the bin.

About an hour later when I was burying him in Colchester Borough Council's finest bin bag, the corpse started to twitch. Clever fella. He was playing the cat (and me) for dead. Off he went down the bottom of the garden.

...only to return about five hours later.

Whoops.

I took no chances this time and liberated Mr Frog in a pond at the bottom of Park Road - an oasis of tadpoles, frogspawn, frogs, depending on the season.

Quite pleased that I have got a crap cat that can't kill.

Some very noisy cackling birds woke me up yesterday. Like a crow noise?

Its Jackdaws then! http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/j/jackdaw/

Good spot! One of these little fellas is currently nesting towards the Station end of the Trail. Most beautiful.

As long they don't wake me up!

Wildlife spot - startled a muntjac deer in the woods not far from rosabelle car park at 6.30 the other morning, nontrivial sure who was more surprised! Beautiful little thing though...

A Harbour (aka Common) Seal was swimming and fishing off the Shipyard jetty a few minutes ago, before moving upstream

Chris

Seals are not uncommon further out in the estuaries of the essex coast, with small breeding populations in places like the Walton Backwaters (you can get a boat trip from Walton to see them). They do come futher up the rivers like the Colne on occasion, but in the year we have been here, we have seen one only on 3-4 occasions (not that we spend ALL our time looking out of the window or standing on the shipyard jetty). Best one was a few months ago on a very still morning and you could actually hear the crunch of a flatfish it was demolishing!

But don't assume that every mammal in the water will be a seal: most will be but there's the off-chance of an otter or porpoise as well...

The seal was out this morning off Whitehouse beach - and so was a guy skinny dipping! I don't know which aquatic mammal was more surprised, but the guy was definitely a bighter shade of pink when he came out than before he went in...

These insect pics were taken at Sunnymead just before the showers started. I think the dragonfly is Ruddy Darter.

Debs found this on the trail this morning. It is about 6cm at this stage! It is the caterpillar of the Emperor Moth. Sadly, haven't got a pic of the adult moth yet, but would love one!

wow - amazing orangey seal pictures Hazel! Thanks for the info on them and about the boat trip, which looks interesting. I will look it up. Cheers :)

Red Admiral basking on a bamboo cane this afternoon. A short but beautiful life...

And a pretty mournful tune they make, whichever key you try it in... :)

In the garden today.

Yep, small tort. Large Tort now extinct in Uk :-(

I had the most amazing dragonfly experience earlier. I was cycling along the Trail and a beautiful, large dragonfly pulled up paralel to my left hand side, about 30 cm away from my face. It followed my direction for no longer than five seconds, before flying off at a far greater speed than I was cycling.

Had two noisy V formations of migrating geese fly overhead and down the river early hours Sunday, between the shouting could hear their wings pushing the air, autumn is near. They must be shattered !

Thanks Glyn, was wondering where they came from/heading, as it was dark could not give further details other than very noisy :) I need to refresh my ID, will be coming along to the vigil soon so will learn more then. Also interested in the moth nights, have missed some socials/events as I work fri sat & sun nights but would be interested in any weekday/nights and weekend day events

We will be exhibiting the best of the previous night's moths on the jetty in the morning, so lets hope for a warm, still night on Saturday...