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Hello and welcome to my new blog site 'Nature with Nev'. I will be adding posts covering birds, wildlife, plants, fungi and other things associated with nature including news and views. I hope you enjoy reading my blogs. 


Juvenile Short-toed Eagle, Malaga, September 2018 Copyright Neville Davies.


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A well-travelled Great White Egret

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  This handsome fellow is a Great White Egret, one of a pair I watched at the Goldcliff Reserve (Newport) on Friday June 9th. What stood out about this one was a red colour ring on the lower left leg with the letters ABP. I put the picture on my Twitter page (@ecology_cymru) and was pleased to receive a quick reply, and it seems this individual has done a fair bit of travelling already. It was ringed at Ham Wall in Somerset - https://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/reserves-a-z/ham-wall/ on 29th April 2022, and since then, recovery records have shown it to have visited North Yorkshire, Lothian, Northumberland, back to Wales (Powys), then up to Doncaster, and as of only four days before I seen it, in Derbyshire. Now that is not bad going for a bird barely two years old.  ABP ringed as a chick at Ham Wall Nature Reserve (picture                                  courtesy of the RSPB ringing project) I was also pleased to receive an email from Alison Morgan of the RSPB, who provided me
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The pine nut crackers

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(Article written for the Majorca Daily Bulletin as part of my weekly 'Wild Mallorca' column. Pictures copyright Neville Davies) Adult male Son Real Woods Mallorca Mallorca has a member of the finch family that is packed with character, quite large and with a unique shaped bill. Here, the Common Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra balearica) is a sub-species that in Catalan goes by the name of 'Trencanpinyons', or 'pine nut cracker', or Piquituerto común in Spanish. They have a length of 15 - 17cm with a wingspan of 27 - 30cm and a weight  between 40 and 53g. The familiar 'chip chip chip' calls always give away their presence, and they utter these calls both when feeding and flying to and from feeding areas in their small groups. Cases Velles on the Formentor road is my favourite site to visit to see these colourful finches, and where Mediterranean Flycatchers and Firecrests can also be added to the day's list. Mondrago is another good site as like Cases Ve
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A sting in the tail

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 Article for the Majorca Daily Bulletin for the week beginning July 25th 2023. I decided to write this week about my experience of getting stung by Jellyfish in the cove at Cala San Vicente (Mallorca), as this week parts of the cove have been closed off to swimmers for that reason. Read below a section of the chapter taken from my forthcoming book, 'Not quite living the dream'.   The scene of the crime - the beautiful little cove of Cala San Vicente. So, here I am one late afternoon with my three-quarter length shorts and white pasty legs on show, all set to go into the sea. I watched an Osprey that was showing well in the area and a Booted Eagle had passed high over the ridge. At the water’s edge however, I noticed a large number of purple coloured Jellyfish  about the size of a hand. They seemed to be motionless and washing up gently onto the sand. They all seemed to be on the left side of the cove by the protruding rocks. I had heard stories of people getting stung by Jellyf
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