tymdek 的最愛

Came flying across the road in front of the car with remarkably slow wingbeats (almost like a heron). Lighter coloured patches on the upper side of the wings. I was too stunned to react in time, that's why I only have these photos. The first two have been edited to make the image brighter and adjust the colours a bit. Colour was quite dark, though difficult to see because of the twilight. Very large bird, at least as large as buzzard, maybe bigger. The last photo shows the same branch but without the bird.

This series shows Watshamiella alata watching Sycoscapter cornutus oviposit into a Ficus burkei syconium (fruiting body) for over seven minutes; after the Sycoscapter female departs, the Watshamiella female proceeds to oviposit into the same hole. Compton et al. (2009) described this behaviour for different species of Watshamiella in Uganda and Kenya on Ficus sycomorus and Ficus artocarpoides.
Compton, S.G., Van Noort, S., McLeish, M., Deeble, M. and Stone, V., 2009. Sneaky African fig wasps that oviposit through holes drilled by other species. African Natural History, 5, pp.9-15. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230580629

First iNaturalist record.

With Graham Armstrong, Pete Ellis, Steve Guy, Guy Langan, Paul Harvey, Phil Heath, Ian Lewis.

Seen for more than an hour after dawn, in a small loose group of Eur. Curlews, feeding in a short-grass field on the south side of the main lake. This was "limpy" - the bird that had been shot about 3 weeks earlier, but seemed to make a recovery.

This location is the last known wintering site for this species. The last record from here was in February 1995.

Here is a link to the last video taken at this site, in January 1995:

http://www.hbw.com/ibc/video/slender-billed-curlew-numenius-tenuirostris/bird-foraging-short-grass

It was climbing on branches in higher parts of birch crowns and jumping between them, moving from tree to tree rather chaotically. Below people were goggling at it, above three magpies and one crow were worrying and trying cautiously to arrack, but it seemed to enjoy playing. This did not look what i would consider a wild animal behaviour, so I could not exclude it escaped from captivity. On the other hand, our town is immersed in the forest... It did so at the same place for about an hour, graduallt becoming less motile, and I just left it... For 42 years here I only once have seen a martes before in the surroundings, in 1980s.