Nature Watch, with Ron Freethy

AUGUST is the month when the young birds and mammals are beginning to find their wings and feet.

Swallows are now feeding their second brood of youngsters and there is evidence to prove that the first brood of swallows then help the parents to feed the next clutch.

This system works so well at times that swallows can often raise three broods in a season.

This is just as well because the hazards of migrating more than 10,000 miles results in many casualties on the way.

Badger and fox cubs are now taking their first tentative steps to independence.

Many folk think that all foxes are a threat to those who keep livestock. There are rogue foxes just as there are rogue people.

Many foxes live the whole of their lives feeding on rabbits, voles and carrion without knowing what a lamb looks like.

Foxes eat more vegetable matter than is realised and near Bolton last week I watched a dog fox reach up on its hind legs.

When I focused my binoculars I realised that the fox was eating ripe red rowan berries. Although hedgehogs are active at night and at dawn and dusk, I have often seen these prickly characters eating slugs and worms which have been brought out of cover by a heavy shower of summer rain.

This happened last Saturday in Brierfield Woods.

I heard a snuffling sound among the leaves and there I found three hedgehogs eating slugs.

A heavy shower of rain, followed by sunshine, caused silvery droplets of water to reflect from the prickles of the hedgehog.

The long (and hopefully hot) days of August are happy hunting grounds for those of us who love our wildlife.

LETTER OF THE WEEK: What was bird with yellow legs?

I AM writing to you following a recent sighting of an unidentified bird of prey.

When I was at work, my son saw it in my back garden on the ground, plucking and eating what I think was a sparrow from the feather remains I found.

His description of this bird was that it was large, about 12 inches tall. It had a dark front with white spotting, dark head, dark wings with white tips and a dark back. It had yellow legs, feet and eyes. It also had leg feathering. As a great animal and bird lover myself, I do have several books on the subject. I showed my son Michael pictures of possible birds, including the sparrowhawk, which I thought it would be, but he said it was not. He said it had more of a peregrine-type head.

Although he saw all the pictures of these birds, he could not positively identify this bird. He said that he would know it if he saw it.

I must add that a few weeks ago I was at the kitchen sink and I saw a large dark-backed bird travelling at high speed directly into my tall privet hedges. It happened so fast that I merely saw it for a couple of seconds.

I was hoping that you might be able to identify of this bird. I only wish I had seen it myself.

BERYL JONES, Lytham Road, Blackburn.

RON REPLIES: There is no doubt that the bird seen by Beryl and her eagle-eyed son is a peregrine. The key point in the identification is the prominent yellow legs. This is typical of the peregrine but its behaviour, described so well, also points to the peregrine.