The Lynx Effect 2 - The Lynxening

I'm an early riser. Always have been. But with owning the best dog in the world, I've had to be an even earlier bird, getting in a good walk before heading to work, so not unusual for me to be up between 5.30 and 6.

On the 12th, my alarm went off at 5.30. 
Kuura jumped up on the bed demanding cuddles. All very normal. 

As has become a habit, I began checking through the images from our trail cam. 

I tend to start from the back of the queue, checking the images from the previous evening and working forward through the night.

It was going as expected. Hare. Hare. White-Tailed Deer. Roe Deer. Hare. It was looking as though it was another average night, with not even the recently out of hibernation Racoon-Dogs having made an appearance...until I opened up the very last image. 



Ho. Lee. Fook.

There, glaring out of the screen at me, was a full body image of a stunning, amazing Lynx.

I shook Hanna awake, and realising that the Lynx had been in the garden just a few minutes previously, at 5.18, we ran to the living room windows and began scanning the garden with the flash light. 

Alas, what I believe is a Lady-Lynx had moved on. 

We recovered the memory card from the camera and began absorption of the amazing event. 



Panther-esque - our fantastic feline came up from the lake shore and entered the camera's field of view. Unlike our visit back in late 2019, this time she wasn't chasing prey, and so the camera images were a tad more relaxed and detailed.




She then stopped and stood scanning, presumably wary of the camera. And then she was gone. In which direction we know not. 




A little bit of processing brings out the best of the images. 

Hopefully it won't be too long before she makes another appearance, though I really must stop saying she's visiting "my garden". I mean, just look at her! She's in charge here, and we're just hairless apes that wandered up north. 

Other animals of late include the recently awoken Raccoon-Dogs.

An invasive species, but I do find them endearing.




Raccoon-Dogs


Roe Deer - this buck has been a nightly visitor.



Watership down

This evening I nipped out after work to cash in on some Spring migration. A successful hour produced a mixed flock of Tundra Bean, Greylag, Eurasian White-Fronted and Canada Geese.







Tundra Bean Geese




Whoopers standing head and shoulders.



Several Common Crane moved overhead, giving that amazing call, were my first of the year and a couple of Great Grey Shrike were hunting the fields. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finnish Focus On...Taiga And Tundra Bean Geese

Image
Have been meaning to write a post on Tundra and Taiga Bean Goose identification for a while now. Wildfowl are my guilty pleasure. I've always enjoyed looking for them. The escape issue turns a lot of people off them. Grey geese can turn people off further still. Since moving to Finland, being able to spend long hours in the field watching both types of Bean Goose has been a joy, especially considering how rare they are in Ireland.  Tundra Bean Geese are the far commoner species to occur here, making them the easier to photograph and so a good place to start. Tundra Bean Goose Tundra Bean Goose - careful assessment of structure is most important when identifying bean geese. Whilst there are size differences between the smaller Tundra and larger Taiga, this plays out most obviously in their structure and shape. Both species, rear on, can be extremely difficult to pick apart without the structural clues visible. The head and bill structure are crucial in Bean Goose identification. Thi...
Read more

How To Be A Rarity Finder

Image
A recent statistic popped up in my various social media memories.  To date I've been birding on 4 continents, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, and found rare birds on each of them. Pretty happy with that. 😎 So thought a post on how to go about finding rarities and importantly, how to BE a rarity finder was worth throwing up. They may sound like the same thing, but I have different views on both. One is methodology. The other is an outlook. Combine the best of both and you will achieve your goals. First up, the Methodology . 1. KNOW YOUR BIRDS This is an obvious one (though people may have different perceptions on what this takes.)  It stands to reason though, that to find a Lesser Yellowlegs as a vagrant, you're going to have to know what a Redshank looks like (in all plumages)...and Greenshank ...and Wood Sandpiper ...and then...just to be really fecking sure... Greater Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper and Marsh Sandpiper too. Lesser Yellowlegs - I've found 6 Lesser...
Read more

Racism and Bigotry in Birding

Image
It's hard to pick up a newspaper these days and not read about something the new moniker "alt-right" are up to. The rise of racism to more mainstream levels is undeniable. Do we, as birders, need to have this discussion though? Do we know it's out there, among us? I'm pretty sure we do. It's tempting to believe the best about yourself, and this extrapolates to ourselves as a group; as birders. It's tempting to believe that the hobby of birding, taking place in nature, with a holistic, interconnected view of nature, would not harbour backwards, ignorant, scumbag neanderthals, that would discriminate on the basis of colour, creed, ethnicity, sex or sexual preference...over the past two years I've learned, sadly, that this temptation would lead you to the wrong conclusion. Birding, like any other microcosm of humanity, has it's share of these regrettable people. When I say over the past two years, I mean, perhaps, I have been just as ...
Read more