u/GirlInTheIslands

Noticed this young sparrow visiting my feeding table yesterday with a lump or growth on its throat and I’m wondering if anyone has any information or advice about this.

We first noticed it yesterday. It was the first bird at the feeding table in the morning and seems to be eating and drinking fine (better than most actually!)
It returned twice more, once around 4pm and then again around 7pm. However, it’s always alone and had a very weak call, just a tiny croak.

This morning it’s back (video is from today) and, despite feeding normally again, it seems to have lost its voice entirely. It seems to want to communicate.

The flock is about 100-strong and I’ve looked through my footage to see if it’s amongst the others at any point but so far I haven’t spotted it.

Yesterday I thought (hoped) that it was just a quiet wee youngster with a full, albeit lopsided, crop. Since its so quickly progressed to affecting the ‘voice box’ its obviously not a normal situation.

Having looked online, it seems there could be a number of causes… gapeworm, trich, a stuck seed, a growth or an injury. I’m pedantic about moving feeding stations regularly (due to the number of birds that visit) and cleaning them with veterinary disinfectant so I’m praying that it’s not trich. Our predators here (mink, stoats/weasels and larger birds) are pretty efficient so I can’t see it being a failed predator attack.

I’m familiar with animal rescues and with most bird cases I’ve become more inclined to let nature take its course rather than stress the animal out unnecessarily in its last hours. However, Google tells me to contact wildlife services.

Luckily I know local bird rehabbers who have the means to catch it. If it needs veterinary intervention my partner has offered to cover costs (we’re very invested in this little one now)

I’ll be contacting those birdy peeps anyway but I just wanted to hop on here as well and ask the wider community for your thoughts and advice too.

Since it’s otherwise physically healthy I don’t want to harm it with extra stress but I do worry that it seems to be unable to communicate and socialise. Could it have been rejected by its parents because of this issue yet it’s strong (well, hungry and bold) enough to survive?

Sorry, long post but I wanted to get everything in here!

I know that this goes without saying to most folk on here but it’s so important that I think it’s worth a post…

Animals are really struggling in this heatwave so please put water out for your local wildlife if you haven’t already!

I’ve noticed so many posts about birds trying to cool down by gular fluttering (it looks like panting) and mammals behaving unusually because they’re desperate for water. My family has been finding critters that are on death’s door due to dehydration and the water bowls they’re putting out are emptied each day and night by creatures just searching for something to drink.

Even if you don’t see anything visiting it, putting out a bowl of water can make all the difference to a struggling animal.

I’m so impressed by everyone’s beginner creations here, they look so smart and well-finished! I’m nowhere near the general level but I thought I’d share one of my first finished projects -a couple of robin nesting boxes that I made as gifts for family.

They’re made from old palette slats coated with bird-safe sealant (in case there’s any chemicals in the wood) and painted with non-toxic garden paint. I know that nest boxes are the easiest of DIY makes to do but I still managed to make them wonky but wood filler and a paint job seems to hide all manner of mistakes!

Robins hold some sentimental significance in our family so these were made as birthday gifts. I read up on what colours and shapes are most suitable for birds (more neutral so that they blend in/don’t attract predators and colours that aren’t too dark so that they reflect the heat) so the design is for aesthetics but hopefully it makes them liveable too!

I doubt there’s many nest boxes out there that took as much time to make as these did but I’m still quite pleased with them. The recipients liked them at least ☺️

*I’ve also included one of the garden signs I made to accompany them. I’m not going to pretend that a sanded and painted slat of palette wood counts as wood-working against all the other wonderful creations here but they were part of the gift so I hope no one minds me adding one in for context!

I just returned home to discover (with a very heavy heart) that a new family has made its home in my garden :(

As a wildlife-lover it breaks my heart to see them… understanding the damage that they’ll be causing to the other species living here and knowing that I now need to set traps to get rid of them. I know that they’re vicious predators but to me they’re also beautiful individuals that just happen to be in the wrong place.

We have an unstoppable mink population here so it’s a continual battle of catching and killing the poor things (I’ve never had to deal with them myself before but my neighbours regularly do). I wish that the funds were available to run a full eradication program, both for the native wildlife and for the sake of the mink themselves. Ugh, so sweet to see and so horrible at the same time.

I generally know what I need to do (I’ll get help from my neighbours anyway) but if anyone has any advice, tips or ways to make things more humane please do share them.

My aim is to be as cool as this chill wee guy

I feel kind-of silly for asking this because it’s so wood-like but I’d like to double check!

Found on the coast of NW Scotland, about 9” in length. It’s quite crumbly -I first thought it was some old firewood because of this and the blackened colour on one side but it’s heavy and hard like rock. One side is covered in tiny, cube-like crystals (druzy?)

Considering how fragile it is, could it be just partially fossilised? We have lots of peat bogs here so I wonder if it’s half preserved or has mineralised differently to the fossilised wood that can be sliced and polished.

I haven’t posted on here before but I’m so mesmerised by the colours and patterns of these pebbles that I couldn’t resist sharing them!*

We had a huge thunderstorm here about a week ago and I’ve recently been reading a fascinating book called Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem. In it she wrote that the heavy, darker light ahead of stormy weather is the best for spotting interesting things left by the tides. Luckily for me, I live on the shore so I rushed outside to explore in the rain. My excuse was that I needed to find a handful to use in a gift that I’m making. I think got a wee bit carried away though… I only needed 5 😅 (running out of pocket space might have been the only thing to stop me!)

I’m very much a baby rockhound so I’m still figuring out what everything is but I’m amazed by the variety of the pebbles we have here in Scotland. I’ve been working on recovering from a major breakdown and searching for rocks (or glass or pottery or fossils or beach litter) beside the waves has become a lifeline when I need to clear my head and get some time outside in nature. I’m learning a lot from this sub too.

I’m probably developing a bit of a habit so I’ll start returning some of them soon. Though, before I do, I hope I can afford to book a local geology guide to come over, have a look and tell me what I’ve actually been picking up! (I’ve worked out about half of them so far…)

Anyway, cheers for letting me share!

*Also, sorry in advance for posting them wet. I know that it’s a no-no in another rock sub (I was told off for that when I started asking in there) but I think it really brings out their colours and patterns. It also kind-of seems fitting since I found them like this in the rain

The way it opened its mouth in anticipation, omg! 🥹

Getting to hang out with these adorable rooks whilst making a pitstop off the M74 made my journey 100x better.

I quickly learned that throwing each bird a morsel in turn was a much better idea than this scatter/scramble method (which made the gulls squabble). These rooks were SO polite then, each standing and waiting their turn to catch something.

I went inside to buy some healthier food for them and was heartened to hear that they’re regularly fed by the staff too. If I worked there I’d be constantly distracted!

I’m suddenly reminded of those old videos of retching cats…

Caught in the act. RIP the pansy that was there 20 minutes beforehand (perfectly protected until the wire cage got blown over yesterday)

Additional crimes: being too cute and therefore consistently evading reprimand.

I found this rock in my garden and would love to clean it up for my display but I have no idea how to get the mud off without breaking the delicate crystals.

I’ve tried soaking it in warm, soapy water for a week and agitating it but that hasn’t been enough. A toothbrush hasn’t worked as it doesn’t fit in the spaces and isn’t delicate enough. I don’t have access to a sonic cleaner or specialist equipment.

I’m thinking of using hydrogen peroxide to take off the green, could it work on the mud too (since it’s partially organic matter)?

It’s from one of the white veins that run through the nearby basalt rocks and I’m assuming it’s calcite but there’s also lots of zeolite, quartz, chlorite and gyrolite here so I’m not 100% sure. Are there some cleaning methods I can’t use if it’s one of these other things?

Thanks in advance for any help and advice!

I can only imagine what they must be seeing!

(If I was more savvy I would’ve put a fitting soundtrack to this, but it’s just the sound of a windy Scottish night for now)

Creeps.

I’m not sure if all the rocks I’ve posted here are related but this is a selection of spotty stones that I’ve found along the shore in NW Scotland.

I’ve got a couple of large pieces of botryoidal hematite (photos 5&6) and suspect that that’s what some of these are, but I’m also curious about the ones with paler spots on darker stone. Could they be the same?

They can all be scratched with a steel nail.

None seem to be magnetic or glow under UV light.

They make a dark grey line when scratched across raw ceramic and this also gives off a smell similar to burnt matches (this isn’t present unless scraped or scratched)

Any help would be really appreciated, thank you!

I’m hoping that someone here might be able to help me…

I keep finding these pink/peachy-coloured rocks on the shore. There’s a lot of variation between them in terms of surface texture, colour, opacity, etc but each one has a rosy hue and many have two or more characteristics that link them to the others (for example, there are that have the opaque creamy appearance on one part but are a darker, translucent pink elsewhere)

I’ve attached photos to show that some have banding like agates and some are fused with another type of rock.

I’ve also attached a photo to show the range of colour.

The final photo shows some of the other pink rocks that I’ve found in the same area that I believe are different (granites mostly? I’m unsure)

It seems that the darker parts are harder on the Mohs scale but can still be slightly scratched by quartz. The more matte, chalky-looking ones are scratched more easily with glass or a steel pin.

Some leave a very faint pink mark when scraped onto raw ceramic but most don’t leave any visible colour.

I thought that, with the banding, some might be agate but I don’t know if that can form alongside another mineral in the same pebble.

I know that there’s a huge variation between them but I’m near-certain that they’re all somehow linked, although I’m prepared to be corrected.

Thanks in advance for any clues!