BIRDS

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Dendroica-petechia-001.jpg/800px-Dendroica-petechia-001.jpg

http://www.missico.com/personal/tidbits/images/mad_bluebird_large.jpg

even Jonathan Franzen thinks so

self-lol

is youn still searching for the ivory-billed woodpecker?

Wow guyz there was a wren just sitting on the bin outside the window. I don't remember the last time I saw one of those.

Reed Bunting in my folks garden the other day.

Handsome chap.

http://www.birdsofbritain.co.uk/img.asp?i=photos/birdguide/reed-buntings.jpg

bloody bird image hotlinking prevention

http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/reedbunting_male_300_tcm9-142425.jpg

thanks RSPB.

We have a big climbing jasmine that is breaking down its puny trellis -- I was going to trim the vines and shore it up with a new trellis, but a robin started a nest in it last Saturday and now I don't want to disturb it. The nest is only 5' off the ground, so I'll be able to get pics of the nest and eggs and babies as spring and summer progress.

like 15 minutes ago i was in a garage lights dimmed listening to music chilling and then there is a significant buzz next to my left shoulider ! i check and get the fear for a sec thinking it's a giant water bug about to bite me but it was an exhausted hummingbird , that managed to cling on some box and sort of passed out. a piece of string twirled around its beak, i could pull on it to free it and it wouldn't wake up n.e.way turns out it was pecking on a chunk of sticky stuff around one of it's foot, was obsessed by it. i wrapped it up in a piece of clothe and cleaned it with a tweezer. put it outside it managed to take off but took off straight up all confused feeling caught up under the roof of a porch. idk it landed , i took it up and put it in great wide open space and it took off in a similar way, sort of straight up til i lost sight of it. now i wonder if i should have done things differently to optimize it's chances of survival. not that it matters much, they are not close to being extinct i guess, but I'm under the impression there is a possibility it got high enough, got exhausted again and sort of fell to a critical injury and end up dying. hm. good luck little dude , u got me involved! http://i.pbase.com/o6/16/585616/1/74204871.6hvWOxlQ.birdhummingbirdgreen8237.jpg

a surprise cute little memento mori, that i could have done without, but it's sort of always like that , with that sot of thing yeh

I was happy to see the hummingbirds come around this year anyway even though I didn't put out feeders for them.

hey look at those birds

yo YOC representin', i ain't forgotten u guys

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/central.park.birds.2.887058.html

Did you just say he contacts you through a fucking bird?

What particular species... of bird?

http://jet-point.com/wp-content/ice_cream_stealing_birds_6.jpg

http://jet-point.com/wp-content/ice_cream_stealing_birds_11.jpg

http://jet-point.com/wp-content/ice_cream_stealing_birds_1.jpg

picturesofbirdsstealingicecream.com

loooooooooooooooooooooooooool

i fucking love gulls

That's kind of horrifying for me. I'm sort of scared of birds. :-(

Herring Gulls are just so garrulously kickass and obnoxious in a sort of totally awesome way

They all scare me.

Best gull story ever is that one time when they were little my friends Kevin and Jef where swimming in the ocean and Jef picked his nose and smeared it on Kevin and then ate the rest. Kevin was so grossed out that he puked right then and there in the ocean immediately after which a seagull flew down and ate the puke. True story.

Lesson? Gulls eat vomit and are therefore gross. My friends are gross too but also v v awesome.

All seabirds (and indeed most birds) eat vomit. When adults feed their young, they do so at first largely through regurgitation.

What a delightful conversation!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2421246/Vicar-has-to-wear-hard-hat-to-church-after-seagull-attack.html

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Savage-Seagull-Attack-Leaves-Woman-Bloodied-And-Shaken-In-Somerset/Article/200807215030277?lpos=UK_News_Article_Related_Content_Region_13&lid=ARTICLE_15030277_Savage_Seagull_Attack_Leaves_Woman_Bloodied_And_Shaken_In_Somerset

Please check out the caption on that article's picture. I think we should invite the guy who wrote it.

Scary! But yes, great caption.

The url reminds me of the Zoolander speech - no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied along the way, just so long so you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied and dying along the way...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090320/twl-environment-us-birds-usa-1202b49.html

good luck usa

A robin is nesting in an archway thing in my parents' backyard:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c287/expatrica/P5090114.jpg

So blue!

What sort of robin? A real robin or yr silly "American robin" which is actually a thrush?

x-post Aren't they awesome? I got a bunch of cool pics. I keep trying to get one of the mama but she flies away when I get within 3 ft of the nest. :-(

LJ - I don't know, I guess an American one? One of the brown and orange ones.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/content/images/2005/01/13/2005_feature_bird_watching_robin_gallery_470x300.jpg

'real' robin. I'm sure it will be this, the american robin is also brown and orange but larger.

They're nosey little birds, and will get very close to you if you're minding your own business. I think you getting close to their nest is not a great idea. I'm always greeted with friendly robins when I'm out fishing, stealing my maggots.

camping in wales once, i was awoken to a robin that had hopped into our tent.

We have Blackbirds nesting in our garden and they have lovely blue eggs too. I imagine it's a "don't eat me" message to other animals. Not that it stops the bastid squirrels who will eat anything.

Thrush eggs are speckled blue incidentally so these are mos' def' robins.

Ste is right about the noseyness too, as soon as we start gardening they'll come hopping along and sneak any worms dug up. They get bullied by the sparrows in our garden but they can mostly hold their own.

i think i still immediately think of christmas when i see robins, from when i was a kid and seeing them on christmas cards all the time.

xp, yeah i think they stick to the same 'zone' more than most other birds, so when other birds enter their territory they can become very defensive.

The UK Robin is limited to Europe, you don't get them in North America. Those are definitely American Robin eggs too, ours lay 5 or 6 little pale brown jobs.

new garden has Coal Tits nesting in a box on a Scots pine

The robins in our garden are being very charming at the moment. One of them, presumably the male, keeps coming to the feeder to get a sunflower seed, then flying up to a nearby branch to feed it to his mate as a sort of little love offering.

x-post - we've got blue tits, kind of apprehensive about the chicks first few days 'in the wild' what with all the cats round our way (the furry bastards).

Yeah, I'm getting confused - when we were talking about american Robins being Thrushes I thought - european thrushes but I see now (having gone to wiki - d'oh) that it's a whole different thing. and quite groovy looking.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Turdus-migratorius-002.jpg/200px-Turdus-migratorius-002.jpg

Yeah, they're smart looking fellers aren't they? Colourwise they're kind of a composite of the body of a song thrush, head of a blackbird, breast of a robin. Every now and again, one will get blown over the Atlantic by a storm and will turn up in a garden somewhere for a few days. Lords knows what happens to them after that.

So to sum up...(to get it clear in my tiny brain)

European Robin (with eggs)
http://www.taxidermy4cash.com/tonyrobinnest.jpg

American Robin (see above)

European Thrush
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Song_thrush.jpg/250px-Song_thrush.jpg
and eggs
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Three_Song_Thrush_(Turdus_philomelos)_eggs.jpg/180px-Three_Song_Thrush_(Turdus_philomelos)_eggs.jpg

I like the way that those robins painted a picture of a church in their spare time.

They seem to have rigged up an electricity for the nest as well

Oh, they're clever.

with all the topics on ILX that turn into US/UK comparison threads, I'd still never have guessed "robins" was one of them

the poster responsible...less of a surprise

I retract "silly", although I maintain that calling it a robin is a big fat misnomer

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/hunting/condor/images/condor119.jpg

we see your fancy britishes robin and raise you a california condor

my backyard in SF is populated by Anna's hummingbirds:
http://www.comoxvalleynaturalist.bc.ca/assets/images/birds/annas_hummingbird_m.jpg

and Stellar's Jays:
http://www.governmentcaucus.bc.ca/media/Stellar%27s-Jay_225.jpg

and occasionally the fearsome Common Raven, western:
http://tompawlesh.smugmug.com/photos/225724675_Zc65L-M.jpg

these guys actually scare me. they're big as fucking gulls, and i'm used to crows.

I retract "silly", although I maintain that calling it a robin is a big fat misnomer

― sorry for british (country matters), Monday, 11 May 2009 11:55 (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I spent most of this winter complaining about these texas-sized robin imposters. Turdus Migratorius indeed.

Genus Erithacus or nothing, mate. Red breasted bastard thrush.

My dad had a big, barrel-shaped barbeque grill used for smoking meats. It had a little chimney with a latch that could open or close access to it. My dad had left it open and some robins built a nest in it. My dad wanted to remove the nest so he could cook on it, but naturally his three daughters greeted this with protests and tears. This debate happened every few days until the birds left the nest.

british robins are very territorial and will fight to the death to protect their territory.

The national aviary here in pittsburgh one of these

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/128223385_cb9f040e60.jpg?v=0

a pygmy falcon, which would probably loose in a fight with an territorially aggrieved robin.

omg such conflicting and confused thoughts about that bird

They have one of these too

http://whyfiles.org/shorties/180chickadee/images/pygmy_owl.jpg

For a so-called national aviary it is very small, I think someone built the national aviary of Liechtenstein here. They have a sloth as well which is rather delightful but not strictly a bird.

Is that a pygmy owl? I know such a breed exists.

Ah, so it is. URLs are so helpful.

There are several breeds, I really want to got to the dessert to see the cactus dwelling ones

http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper997/stills/hdyogypb.jpg
http://www.swca.com/projects/project_images/6647_1.jpg
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/images/POCactus.jpg

That Condor is more goth than Bimble.

Bimble needs to up his game and start wearing some identification tags around his arms imo

I know I put this somewhere else but I'm very pleased with it.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/3303372099_ec2f10dc34.jpg
A Partridge On My Patio.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/graphics/seagull.gif

british robins are very territorial and will fight to the death to protect their territory.

but not their good names, apparently

i like how their brazen hardness is perceived as cuteness.

i like to get on with birds
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carljgodwin/2707309584/"; title="Hello there! by carljgodwin, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/2707309584_ca294bb2ca.jpg"; width="333" height="500" alt="Hello there!" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carljgodwin/2707319866/"; title="At one with nature... by carljgodwin, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3058/2707319866_973405e1c8.jpg"; width="500" height="333" alt="At one with nature..." /></a>
what are these btw?

nooooo!
i like to get on with birds
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/2707309584_ca294bb2ca.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3058/2707319866_973405e1c8.jpg
what are these btw?

thats better

choughs

coastal members of the crow famly, tend to nest on cliffs, i think they might be the official bird of cornwall or wales or some shit

there's a little robin redbreast that is in my garden everyday. He perches on top of the same seat and shits on it.

i was in Austria at the time.

oh shit they might be Alpine Choughs then! Actually, given the colour of their beaks, I'd say that's exactly what they are. My bad.

Argh I can't believe I made such an elemental error

Don't be angry with yourself, at least you know what they are.

Different beaks. But damn it you were close enough!

xp

now all you gotta do is pronouce em correctly

crows are bastards

now all you gotta do is pronouce em correctly

Featherstonehaugh-Cholmondeley

crows and gulls are the kings of birds imo, theyre just harder, cleverer, more resourceful and more straight-up aware of their surroundings than the sweet innocents of the avian world

and crows, on top of this, are passeridae, the more advanced and sophisticated half of the phylum...it's everything in one package: brilliant flying skills, advanced social interaction, improvised eating routines, fearless predation

Dunno if you've seen them in the wild LJ, but choughs in particular are amazingly agile flyers and so at home too in the windiest and wildest of places. Awesome critters.

you dare doubt the lengths this not-quite-recovered ornithologist would go to to see a chough? pfah!

anyway, yeah, when we went to Wales and scouted out Skomer Island that one time, choughs aplenty cavorted by the cliffs. this was approximately 2 weeks before the sea empress disaster fwiw

Ooooh, never been to Skomer. Gonna wait till the kids are a bit older and then take them birding up there to see da puffinks. This year's plan is to show them OWLS. Failed miserably to manage this last year though.

was a grey wagtail in the park this morning - i see him about twice a year

I think grey wagtails ought to lobby parliament for a name change. They've definitely been short-changed there.

probably the yellow and pied wagtails got named 1st, then someone saw the grey one and was all bollocks gotta keep up this colour + wagtail thing we got going on.

wagtails are more or less my favourite birds

the misnomer of "grey wagtail" and the manner in which its colourful hues reveal themselves at closer inspection (along with th fact that it incorporates the colours of the other two, gaudier wagtails) forms an intrinsic part of a section of a long poem i wrote

songs for ornithologists:

CD-R80: Songs for ornithologists

the grey wagtail landed on the path in front of me today and i got within 10ft of him as he was hopping along and doing the sinusoidal flight thing they do. great tail feathers.

in other bird-related news, the swifts are back which is always a joy. why they fly back from south africa to W12 every year is beyond me but i'm glad they do. we get flocks of 20 or 30 of them at times, dogfighting amongst themselves. and the overcast weather means they were flying quite low this morning when i was out. they fly past level with my 3rd storey windows on occasion, screaming as they go. nature's stukkas.

omg you totally read me, we had the first swifts of summer last weekend, they rock the skyline like nothing else

http://markthog.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/turkey-vulture1.jpg

These guys are everywhere in the Appalachians. In the summertime I love watching them ride the thermals, so beautiful and graceful. Of all the birds, Vultures and condors are the most metal.

imo the raven is more metal

we are having a frenzy of birds in our back yard these days, and just this week i saw a pine grosbeak and a indigo bunting.

birds are so cool.

imo the raven is more metal

The raven is not metal; wtf. They start out as wee ravens listening to TMBG and the oldies station and grow up o listen to sorta artsy shit like Kate Bush & Kronos Quartet, claiming they like modern composers & that Stockhausen is 'amazing' but it's all kind of a front.

If they like anything metal it is like Kayo Dot & shit tho they have a guilty soft spot for female-fronted Eurometal lite.

Ravens or Vultures! I think we need a poll!!

What would Varg chose?
http://gfx.dagbladet.no/pub/artikkel/5/54/540/540102/varg1_320_1215331211.jpg

ABout which bird is superior or which is more metal?

varg choose eagle owl lolz

Which is more metal. I think Vultures are more metal while Ravens are more goth. But if you're talking in terms of birds, IHMO it's the raven.

So does this mean goths better than metal? I don't think Varg would approve.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-M5PyYHH2kk/SBbHQ0n4rzI/AAAAAAAAAk8/FpBCx2i9Q3Q/s320/varg_vikernes_story.jpg

next door neighbor's cat killed a rainbow lorikeet in my backyard this morning. sad affair. such handsome little guys.

http://geoffhill.com.au/uploads/images/birds/rainbow%20lorikeet.jpg

so, flock of great tits in the park this morning so i stopped and had a look (because often there are long-tailed tits in the mix too and we don't have those back home). then i noticed a jay on the ground pecking a young great tit into unconsciousness and flying off with it in its beak (closely followed by a mob of other great tits). do jays do that, eat smaller birds?

i did later see a mixed flock of great and long-tailed tits by the hospital (which is now solely used for filming tv dramas) but they looked very bedraggled in the rain.

apparently so:

http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/jay.htm

"Jays feed on acorns, beech mast, fruits, insects, small rodents, bats, newts, birds' eggs and young birds."

Just like the other crows I suppose - they'll eat whatever's going. Must be easy pickings for them when the young first leave their nests. 'Our' blue tits are yet to fledge, I think it'll be in the next couple of days. Has been pissing it down here which won't help them, but it has kept all the cats away.

On my ride in this morning there was a young blackbird in the gutter at a really busy junction in town. Luckily it was a red light so I could jump off to pick the little guy up and move him to safety. So bedraggled though, poor feller.

A bird used her body as a dam to stop overflowing drainpipe water from soaking her chicks

Not as depressing as it sounds (the bird didn't die).

omg <3

mistle thrushes are the best thrushes fwiw

Which is more metal. I think Vultures are more metal while Ravens are more goth.

http://www.myspace.com/vvltvre

Hey, good walk today, not birding or anything but took the bins and saw a firecrest, a peregrine, a water rail, two kingfishers and a half a dozen snipe. Also grey wagtail, buzzard, nuthatch, green woodpecker, reed bunting, kestrel and heron. Guess the cold, calm weather helped a lot. Didn't see any owls though, which I was really hoping to see as it got dusky.

where the hell do you live and can i live there too

This was deepest Sussex - banks of the river just north of Arundel. Lots of ducks too.

sweet

wonder if there were any smew. good time of year for merganser and shoveler iirc

hang on a WATER RAIL - those things are IMPOSSIBLE to see

have also never seen nuthatch...jeez

Smew like deep water iirc, so go to old gravel pits and reservoirs for those guys. For nuthatch you want some good broadleaved woodland, oak or something like that. If they're in yr area though they'll normally come to feeders and start bossing everything else around.

Lucked out with the water rail, it was that cold and icy that one of them was just hanging around in plain view. Didn't register it at first cos it was just this brown blob hanging around with the moorhens, so I assumed it was something equally boring.

Maybe I'll try and make 2010 the year I finally see a hawfinch.

have never seen hawfinch either! wonder if they are as delightful as goldfinch and bullfinch

there's a neat li'l gravel pit reserve in sevenoaks i used to go to all the time...got good waders and ducks there, mad good. should visit again soon! nuthatch and treecreepers remain beyond me

seeing a water rail like that is insane. i've heard them (at the aforementioned reserve) but not seen iirc *roots out checklist* oh wait i have! awesome.

ah, misspent youth

last night i was in a pub with upto11 and upto11's friends whom i'd never met before and i found myself describing the habitat and physiology of the duck preserved in a box on the pub wall. from the angle i sat i could not tell if it was an adult female red-breasted merganser or an adult female goosander (in retrospect it was almost certainly a goosander) so i gave both as options and said it was at least a merganser of some sort. a 'goose-like duck'. i believe the words 'freshwater' and 'maritime' left my lips at this point. i am a world-class conversationalist

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8434907.stm

RIP feathered one

Died of an incurable mallardy.

http://www.naturepics.co.uk/p7ssm_img_1/fullsize/Fieldfare_fs_fs.jpg

^ flock of these beautiful things on the one tree in our back garden today. Also redwing and blackcap.

We've had loads of redwing! I posted about them here: ITT: revealin' some mystic thruths l8r, stay tuned!!!

Fieldfare are scarcer. Tough call as to who's better looking.

Shagging hell, a woodcock has just flown over our garden wtf. I've never even seen a woodcock before, let alone in the 'burbs. Pretty unmistakable outline though. Also there's a big mixed flock of fieldfare/redwing out there right now. Maybe 40-50 birds? Bonkers.

!!!! that is insane!

Correction - I have seen woodcocks before, but only stuffed ones in country pubs.

Constant cascade of different birds into the garden today. Food and water keep getting covered up by the snow though. Blackcap still knocking around, love their Hitler haircuts.

my new year's resolution should have been to put food out for the birds

maybe it can still be done

Maybe 40-50 birds? Bonkers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8457214.stm?ls

Remember this? HI DERE WAHT IS AWESOME

Well, I done blogged it: http://cvpc.org.uk/2010/03/barbican-gig-review-a-journey-into-avant-finch/

Good news today, one more reason Pinnacles National Monument is so awesome.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/10/BAV01CD6K6.DTL&tsp=1

haha numbered condors! nice to see they're back, even if it is the big flagship species that get all the best conservation

now read my blog :P

http://www.sportsmansparadiseonline.com/Live_Owl_Nest_Box_Cam.html

Live barn owl webcam. Found one of these beautiful birds dead beside my barn yesterday, it had knocked its head :(

Two hummmingbirds doing a mating dance around my lemon tree. Weird vroom vroom air displacement noises, like a restrictor plate track race.

Aw sorry about your grim discovery! I'll check out the webcam in a jiffy.

Awesome pictures right now tbh. Beautiful birds.

Hope we're not going to get treated to live footage of the chicks eating each other though.

omg hai dere

background noise in that is pretty cool ambient soundscape imo

Hey LJ she was totally feeding a couple of mice to her featherless chicks an hour or so ago, I could not resist x-posting it to hi dere waht is awesome. God forbid I should start looking at her while at work, I will never get anything done now.

We always wanted to put webcams in all the bird and squirrel nests, now someone has done and it is A+.

How do I care for my fetusy babies with only these cruelly taloned feet and ripping beak to work with? Like this, see?

am slightly disturbed at the implications of that url. and also slightly disturbed by what appears to be a dismembered leg in the foreground at the moment.

Franklin Institute Hawks:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5417192

the swifts are back over shepherds bush - why spend summer in africa when you can spend them in W12?

only in their 2s or 3s at the moment. will be groups of 20 or 30 as the season progresses.

(i said almost exactly the same thing last year - BIRDS )

Swifts having been screaming over Brighton for a couple of weeks now. Cool guys.

i have been looking out for them, and heard them last night for the first time, but only saw them this morning.

African dry season means few flying insects.

Also

House Martins, Swallows, Swifts FITE!

the first swifts of summer = awesome

gonna give that FITE to house martins because they were my favourites aged 6 or 7 - such awesome li'l critters, but tbh all three of those birds are some all-time brilliance

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b74/righteouskate/bird.jpg

found this pretty little guy on the sidewalk outside my work :(

I'm kind of sure it's a tree swallow, but haven't been able to find an exact match in my id books. I live in Florida so we get a tooon of migratory birds this time of year.

dear baby moorhens near my flat, you are rad, and i am a little sad/concerned that last time i visited i could only see one of you, whereas before there were three

dear heron who is sometimes seen under the bridge STARING, have i seen you in 3 different places over a half-mile stretch of river, or are there 3 of you?

dear baby ducks, where are you? is it not duckling season yet? there were only 2 of you last year too, in '07 or '08 there were loads more, i worry

dear birds who aren't waterbirds, i never see you, so you get no love from me until you become a little more visible

I'm not saying it's not one, but that bill looks wrong for a swallow and the wings look quite short as well. xpost

yeah, it doesn't quite look right. I didn't want to stretch out the wings to get a better look at their shape.

http://springvalleypark.org/assets/images/black-throated-blue-warbler.jpg

^ okay I'm guessing it's one of these.

Black-throated Blue Warbler btw.

yessss perfect! thanks!

btw yesterday evening as I set out was a lovely, incredibly warm evening...I looked up into the darkening sky and yes that cry resounded...the first swifts of summer

Louis check out the picture of the long-tailed tits here omg mad cuteness:

http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?mode=potw

per previous post elsewhere, teh lyrebird <3 <3 <3:

http://skola.amoskadan.cz/s_aj/esc/images/Australia/LYREBIRD.jpg

http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/image_content/AlbertsLyrebirdPrinceoftheMountain.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/u16/trevor_quested/large/39074755.SuperbLyrebird.jpg

imo it's not a hipster peacock

long-tailed tits are awesome, they often come through my garden (although more a few years back) all going zee-zee-zee and flocking around in groups of 10 or so, they bloody love going about in gangs, all hyperactive flitting, flashes of purple and the undulating bounce of quick-flight between twigs on adjoining trees - oh yes, the long-tailed tit

torresian imperial pigeon

http://image59.webshots.com/159/9/46/46/2262946460012889947sVkefB_fs.jpg

http://64.17.184.245/images/1-a/Torresian%20Imperial-Pigeon%20-%20Australia%20-%2011-19-2007%20-%20014.JPG

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2010/5/28/1275039850678/long--tailed-tit-feeding--006.jpg

see it bigger here

been seeing a lot of red-winged blackbirds hanging out on cattails lining the shore of a park pond across the street. i enjoy their conservative use of color, they're not all obnoxiously slutty about it like some other birds WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3738/redwingblackbird.jpg

also, a few weeks ago this scene unfolded at the same pond, apparently some geese produced a gaggle of goslings and then when i tried to photodocument the goslings the geese hissed at me but did not comically peck at my crotch like so many geese have done throughout history

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/6297/photolp.jpg

I've been seeing a lot of red winged black birds lately too, they are stunning!

Took this a few weeks ago. They saunter leisurely across the street in the late afternoon, stopping in front of cars to peck at little items of interest:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b74/righteouskate/peacock.jpg

what, those roam wild where you live? do you live in...thailand?

As soon as I find a copy of the book here at work, I'm going to share a quote about peacocks and their displays vs evolution....

Florida. The release and subsequent adaptation to the wild of exotic pets is incredibly common down here.

Laurel, I hope you find it! Are you thinking about how the trains of the males are more of a hindrance than a leg up on mating because the weight of the tail slows them down making them more vulnerable to predators? I read recently that the decorative trains (specifically size and color variation) have been found less effective in mating than calls and other physical displays, which is pretty interesting.

lol best use of username ever

I'm not really obsessed with peacocks...

do you ever find dead peacocks in the road, peacocks

haha actually, no! It's a little street between two parks and I like to think, despite their wandering primarily during rush hour, that people are so pleasantly suprised to see them that they stop right away and wait patiently for them to pass. The females are gorgeous.

Although... the ranger for the two parks is really on top of his game so there might be some hit and runs that are picked up before anyone notices. I hope the former is the case.

all staring down their noses at the other birds

they must think themselves the landed gentry of their domain

aduh:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b74/righteouskate/30-rock-203.jpg

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/05/27/article-0-09C73668000005DC-994_634x421.jpg

take the silhouette of that and you have a very bizarre creature indeed

That pic is from a DM article - [url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1281970/Swooping-150mph-golden-eagle-really-knows-meaning-fast-food.html]Swooping in at 150mph, this golden eagle really knows the meaning of fast food.[/url

I'm pretty sure they don't travel at 150 mph?

hahahahaha methinks the Mail have their raptors confused

The symmetry is amazing but it's the look on his face that kills me. "Yes, I am going to eat you, bwahahaha..."

at that angle it looks like it's a slightly sympathetic, pitying, amused expression

o lowly vole, if only you could fly like me

flying dinosaurs, how do they work

http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/ifwis/ibt/userfiles/image/photos/800/olive-sided-flycatcher--tom-munson.jpg

Bird ppls have decided the olive-sided flycatchers call is saying, "Quick, three beers!"

flycatchers are incredible birds

some of my favourite memories involve watching them at primary school

I saw a hawk in downtown Toronto today, a fucking hawk (roughly 2 feet in size, too).

Golden Eagles definitely swoop at around 150mph, fastest is the Peregrine Falcon at around 200mph

in neighbours garden finishing off a pigeon.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4001/4568033551_d8b10a9d87.jpg

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l69r5jj3zT1qak053o1_250.gif

This bird has a RUMEN!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Q-himJgaU&feature=related

They are all feathered dinosaurs but particularly that one.

poor smelly bastards

better one, sorry, temporarily obsessed will stop now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18582_zqzF8&NR=1

I mean now.

worth watching gets even more amazing towards the end
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-groCeKbE

Wow, thanks for posting that.

Had just come on here to ask "Where is good for watching migrating starlings?" and it turns out it's two miles up the road ... Marvellous.

When's a good time to see starlings as in the above clip? (Looks like Feb?)

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/11/23/1290551753396/Flamingos-001.jpg

if only its tail wasn't melting amirite

shaped a bit like the Spurs logo

Some people have actually said that the image is divine intervention and proof that there is a God

That God, eh?

fucksake everyone involved, especially the flamingoes

flamingoes are among the most boring of birds imho

if I wake earlier than the heroic 16:00 I have set my alarm-clock to I will rank all the birds whose jpgs still adorn this thread

flamingoes are among the most boring of birds imho

― pro EVOO sucker (acoleuthic), Wednesday, 24 November 2010 08:59 (10 hours ago)

ha

i agree

great fucking birds (an incomplete list)

gulls (larger ones)
corvids
wagtails
swifts (and martins, more so than swallows)
robins when singing
ALL WADERS EVER esp sandpipers
small falcons
shrikes
buntings (much more so than finches)
the chiffchaff
the zitting cisticola aka fantailed warbler
treecreepers although I've never seen one ;_;
migratory thrushes
PIPITS

pipits might be stealth winners actually

stormy petrels also altho they are almost too elusive and unlikely

SHIT BIRDS (British; incomplete)

geese
ducks EXCEPT mergansers and wigeons
mute swans
small gulls
owls when portrayed as cute
large raptors when portrayed as superior (ospreys have their moments for instance but r overly fetishised)
coots when there are too many of them and they are not being violent (violent coots r GREAT)
starlings (do not need to explain this)

So much wrongness, more later.

BIRDS THAT CAN BE GREAT DEPENDING ON MOOD

pigeons (esp wood)
woodpeckers
tits (esp crested)
the dunnock
the heron (esp in unexpected surrounds)
the moorhen
the kingfisher when not gratuitous
gamebirds when not in season
grebes when you haven't seen one for a while
gannets the first time you see them; see also auks - the black guillemot is a delightful species actually
fulmars when you haven't had an overload of shearwater stiffwingness
wrens when they're not being miserable skulkers

ok geese needs more of a breakdown. brent geese are cool.

Can't believe yr trying to troll me on ducks tbh.

wtf wrens are awesome whatever their mood

^

wrens are awesome when flitting around in full view and singing; not when they're dashing around the undergrowth and you can't see them

ducks are a bit played ime - the wilder, faster-flying ones are mad cool tho - <3 goosanders

oh shit, EIDERS ok eiders are also cool but they're seagoing ducks - much preferable on the whole

Smew, garganey, eider, long-tailed duck - all classics of the genre imo.

^^^all otm; feel ashamed now BUT I must stress those are ALL seagoing migratory sorts as per my amendation - actually thought of long-tailed ducks, add harlequins and goldeneyes too

Smew are actually fucking spectacular. Sorry, Smew. I was attacking your staid and pond-bound brethren.

Rolling my damn eiders here.

SHIT BIRDS

geese

you ever seen Fly Away Home, motherfucker?

haha I've caused a controversy :/

am just flinging ideas around tbh - will have made my peace with all the shit birds before and will do so again

red kites over oxfordshire = great btw

http://i47.tinypic.com/dnltu8.jpg

forgot you were A Bird Man aco, always found that charming abt u

SHIT BIRDS

geese

you ever read The Once and Future King, motherfucker?

as for non-migratory thrushes, the order of greatness is

mistle
(big gap)
ring ouzel
blackbird
song thrush
nightingale

ok whatever, take up thy goose and shit everywhere

geese are at their best when u r feeding them and u hit them on the back with a large piece of bread and it makes the most satisfying noise

lol

when i was a kid i was feeding ducks and a swan attacked me, v scary

SOmehow I read that as "Shit...birds..." like how a vulgar person like me says "shit" in reflex to the profound. All those birds are awesome, imo, I even like how starlings have fucked up America so much. "Like" meaning I appreciate all invasive species in an abstract way. ALso I think you need to see the owl movie in 3D. The climax is an owl flying around with a fire bucket while Dead Can Dance plays.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3276/2950725421_9cfd5fe4be.jpg

i still got a lot of love for the geese

after that owl movie came out i spent a few weeks just saying the phrase 'owls of ga'hoole.' at choice moments, something about it just cracks me up

I am p sure I ruined the movie for all the kids there by repressed-laughing like crazy through the whole thing.

Makes me feel like an ass but OTOH the owl kept making this face

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OuKIMUeA20M/S8Q8Zynpc0I/AAAAAAAAC_k/KyQTUx90QDg/s1600/gahoole-owl.jpg

While he made that face, he would say something like "That can't be," or "That's not right" or "We must get to the Guardians" in a fake Aussie voice.

abbott there are always exceptions!

residential swans are disgusting; the best ones are the migratory ones
some geese are dandy (the smaller ones and the Egyptian ones)
shelducks are mutant duck-geese and are v cool
owl movie will be watched with my kids in 13 years' time. owls are great but only when in their wild, elusive element - subtle birds, hunters. also, Kiwi accent not Aussie iirc

ok there IS one awesome small gull, the JUVENILE kittiwake

Actually made a giant detour w/ the family on Sunday explicitly to look for owls over the meadows, but we drew a blank and now they hate me 8>

The asshole of the bird world is the cassowary.

its great imagining the owls forging all those helmets and shit... a sword that has OWL OF GA'HOOLE engraved in it... u have to imagine 'gahoole' being said gahoooooooole like 'cooooookie crisp' btw'

http://www.moviedir.com/photos/movie-legend-of-the-guardians-the-owls-of-ga-hoole-hq-33883903-photo-10.jpg

traumaowl.jpg

hahahahaha

I think I must have had a traumatic duck/geese (or "geeck" as I just typed initially)feeding experience too because now it kind of scares me to death. Did it with my parents a last year and as soon as one of the ducks became a little too grabby and aggressive I spooked and ran clear across the street. I love birds in theory but irl they make me nervous.

hahaha traumaowl.jpg otm

http://i.pbase.com/o2/49/818749/1/118416236.wC5oDril.IMG_4888copy.jpg

sad that this bird will turn into a boring small gull in its adulthood :(

i hear owls all the time but can never find them with my eyes, except for one night when i pulled into the driveway and there was a huge fuckin owl perched on the mailbox

egyptian goose = fake goose

how about a good ol' bar headed

http://www.rampantscotland.com/colour/graphics/bar-headed_goose_hoggan05345a.jpg

The asshole of the bird world is the cassowary.

― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 30 November 2010 12:29 (48 seconds ago)

yes but they're much more interesting than anything larger

barnacle goose >> bar-headed if we're getting into specifics

Actually made a giant detour w/ the family on Sunday explicitly to look for owls over the meadows, but we drew a blank and now they hate me 8>

― Krampus Interruptus (NickB), Tuesday, 30 November 2010 12:28 (3 minutes ago)

harriers (as 'small falcons') are the best predatory birds for scouting over meadows, but if you see a long-eared I guess it is mad rewarding

i hear owls all the time but can never find them with my eyes, except for one night when i pulled into the driveway and there was a huge fuckin owl perched on the mailbox

― Princess TamTam, Tuesday, 30 November 2010 12:30 (2 minutes ago)

you see, this is AWESOME and how owls shd happen

Yeah, that sounds great.

Owls that we get hunting over the wet meadows here in the winter are barn owls and short-eared owls - shorties are a top bird and they don't really give a shit about you standing there watching them either.

I haven't seen any of those! I need to, I think.

Cormorants = very much a solid, unspectacular bird. Black redstarts = superb, belong on Great list

anyway yeah concentrate on the positives guys

parakeets yall

was thinking today what the cultural equiv of them was

sum 41, apparently

MIA

imported from SE Asia, gaudy, noisy, all over fucking London these days, rly irritating, kinda played

thought they were african or s/thing

wasn't including provenance in my calculation

thing about 'keets tho is they're huge, like as big as a crow but different shape and usually too high in trees to gauge their size

they're ring-necked parakeets, totally indian subcontinent dude read yr field guides

provenance is only an optional part of my comparison; it works pretty well even w/o factoring it in

they're quite small-bodied tttt, size accentuated by large head + lengthy although usually damaged tail (scuffles w/ pigeons, household cats, holly bushes)

The specific origin of the birds is not known, but they most likely came from a single pair of breeding parakeets which escaped or were released in the mid-1990s. Other origins have been attributed to them: the most popular idea being that they escaped from Ealing Studios, West London, during the filming of The African Queen (which was actually made in the Isleworth Studios) in 1951. Other theories are that they escaped from an aviary during a 1987 hurricane; or that a pair released by Jimi Hendrix in Carnaby Street, London, in the 1960s, are to blame.

if one must invoke corvids, then the magpie is most expedient control set - and a species whose tails are ruined with roughly equal regularity

but somehow for all their nest-raiding passerine-slaying cruelty, magpies are abt 5000x less cuntish than yr screeching herbivore wankers

yeah don't worry i'll trust u on their origin

can't imagine a pigeon fighting

keets p big tho imo

not a zat knight but maybe an avian john mensah

just thought i'd give some <3 to them cuz usually i patronize them as gaudy wastes of time but damn if surviving (prospering judging by the racket they were making today) in northern european winters doesn't give them some cred

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Keet&oldid=190135750

they have hijacked a fieldfare each and are using its body warmth for sustenance. don't trust those bastards

screeching herbivore wankers

do truffle fries count? cuz they're a fungus rather than a plant

The word "Keet" means orca in the Tlingit language

dude you're part of the problem, put yr offal in the freaking bin next time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1urw2vbBsY

i felt something fly up out of me and contribute to the deforestation of a lime tree ;_; peace god

http://www.brisky.com/content/node-8/parakeets.jpg

http://www.ophrysphotography.co.uk/images/news/waxwings3018.jpg

Kinda hoping that waxwings come here this year. 60 reported outside Debenhams in Eastbourne today, not so far away...

they look kinda chill i guess

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3110/2553697683_81e7cb80e5.jpg

BEST BIRDS

"the waxing trend"

http://media.peopleofwalmart.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/1918Two.jpg

peace god

Those birds look like they're wearing deal with it shades from afar!

btw today I discovered the worst thing in the world

What's up with these birds falling out of the sky?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9432186

http://www.cepf.net/SiteCollectionImages/506x180/506x180_philippineEagle.jpg

I'm kind of bird phobic, I think. I mean I like birds to look at and from afar but up close, wiggins central. My sister in law has an eclectus parrot and though v cool to look at I don't like being near it. The one time it sat on my shoulder I spent the whole time staring straight ahead praying that it wouldn't peck my eyes out. Plus I was chased by a goose once so I have a general distrust. Sorry birds. Nothing personal

birds are great but having one of those psittacotic freaks on yr shoulder does not sound like fun

don't get me wrong parrots r basically chill but mainly for sitting in cages and listening to coal chamber

there are loads of birds here at night, guessing nightingales? never see them but <3 their songs

nightingales are creatures of deciduous woodland not urban greenfield

probably robins, mebbe songthrushes

btw you shd all look at my link a few posts upthread

I like the sound of birds at night.

LJ are you a bird watcher / ornithologist?

in my early days I was much more devout, but yeah I guess

Lapsed Ornithology still pretty cool IMO

may the bird be w/ u

Go in peace and love to serve the birds

damn feels so weird now lj knows i'm not akshly in ldn but a delapidated fortress in a slovakian birch forest ;_;

u shd host a vibrant, classico-noise-based alternative to exit festival

i really like birds and always have done, but i've never got any sort of knowledge about them....just like to observe the local fauna yknow

it feels so weird that nobody knows why all the sparrows have disappeared

Wow, 68%

ime it looks like more than that even

they're a v gregarious species and depend upon colonies - scarcities of food, disease or any kind of downward fluctuation (usually caused by changing agricultural procedures) means that entire colonies will subside

http://i.imgur.com/VZNGz.jpg

http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/biologicalsciences/falcon/

they're falling out of the sky in the US.

nightingales are creatures of deciduous woodland

Read this first as "delicious woodland."

Us bird massacre due to fireworks (apparently) Happy new murdering birds eve (maybe) you lot >:(

Now happening in Sweden...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12118839

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/12170571

Fancy that!

they know

they know it's time

I've heard of birds getting drunk on fermented berries before (waxwings iirc). Never heard of them dying from it though. RIP starlings

fuckers be optin' outta the foodchain

rip starlings, sorry i called you shit birds upthread

I've heard of birds getting drunk on fermented berries before (waxwings iirc). Never heard of them dying from it though

In the version of this nth-hand anecdote that I heard, they did die

was going to chatter idly about my own bird-spotting news but will keep it off this doomed thread of bird deaths for fear of jinxing my new feathery palz

DO IT

(red kites again? lol)

In the version of this nth-hand anecdote that I heard, they did die

Lots of recorded instances of it, so maybe they sometimes do :(

Oh, did I talk about red kites on here already? I do not remember. The other half's father (who takes birds v seriously) is coming to visit soon and is most insistent on being taken to east Oxfordshire to see them, though. Hope they put on a good show.

No, this week's bird news is that there's been a leucistic Egyptian goose hanging around my walk to work all week. I had never seen the like before. Fed some ducks this lunchbreak and had it eating birdseed out of my hand. Wait, real birder types wouldn't approve of that at all, would you? Ahem.

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By vinous pomace and fermented grain

Egyptian goose

FAKE GOOSE

Wasn't familiar with that Nabakov couplet, thanks ledge!

Last leucistic bird I saw was a snow white blackbird.

Oh, did I talk about red kites on here already? I do not remember.

think it was you who affirmed my claims of their chiltern ubiquity!

also, handfeeding migrant rarities is some sort of heady fever-dream of twitching which could only happen to a casual birdwatcher

Apparently Norfolk has a lot of Egyptian geese. Don't think I've seen a full-colour one outside a WWT centre, never mind the small patchy pale brown + white thing (with bright yellow eyes!) tagging along with the greylags who are winter regulars on the path to work has been making me happy all week. Thank you, little guy.

The bigger, hissier geese don't quite seem to know what to make of it, but it's never far from them, so it seems to have half-joined the gaggle.

I hate collective nouns, so I don't know why I used that one. But yeah, did wonder if its readiness to hand-feed means it came from one of those WWT places (don't know if they all do hand-feeding but the one near Belfast does). It's not ringed or anything is all I know.

And yes, no red kites here in Oxford itself but almost as soon as you leave the city to the east you start to see them. At least, that's been the case so far. Probably when we take the in-laws to see them we will be stood on a windswept hill for a week staring into empty skies.

God that was long. Do some work, spacecadet!

a passing of spacecadets

LJ you need to rank the finches, buntings, sparrows, tits and larks.

imo

broadly,

pipits > buntings > tits > finches > larks > sparrows, and I *like* sparrows

will rank individual birds at some point

that'll take some time.

Audible chuckles

I do love Otmoor but see more starlings over Kidlington Sainsburys ...

My wife took this one through her office window today. It's a red-tailed hawk eating a pigeon.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs890.ash1/179798_499492798799_667643799_6350014_1191043_n.jpg

That hawk looks so sad, like he feels bad for the pigeon or something.

Now I like gulls most of the time, but all morning there's been one herring gull who has been hanging around a rabbit hole on the grassy bank outside my window, and every time a baby rabbit pops up to have their first nibble of fresh spring grass, this fat fucking gull chases them and tries to eat them.

fucking awesome

the birds in NZ are rad btw and I am going to buy a book and identify them all. there is a sort of blackbirdy one that is everywhere but it has gaudy white patches all over its wings and a very haughty supercilium. I think if I were a NZ bird I would much rather be it than a kiwi.

I'd never witnessed this behaviour before but it seems like it's definitely a thing...

picture linkified cos it's sad and gross

xp yeah, I would be a total noob with nz birds

herring gulls bring out the Princess TamTam in me more than probably anything else in the world. that picture ownes.

Talking of NZ, I always remember seeing kea on Attenborough's Life Of Birds staking out shearwater burrows, listening intently for movement and then digging the chicks out with their bills once they knew they were inside. Evil bastards.

Might not have been shearwater btw, but some burrowing bird anyway.

Ooh, not sure I've seen a kea! I did see a fucken kickass hawk from the car tho. Gonna investigate our birds of prey pronto -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AWCvay6vj0

Evil bastards, I tell you.

the birds in NZ are rad btw and I am going to buy a book and identify them all. there is a sort of blackbirdy one that is everywhere but it has gaudy white patches all over its wings and a very haughty supercilium. I think if I were a NZ bird I would much rather be it than a kiwi.

― acoleuthic, Monday, 28 February 2011 11:32 (5 days ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_world%27s_100_worst_invasive_species

third one

:D

The starlings over Kidlington are incredible at the moment, around 1730 in an evening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_world%27s_100_worst_invasive_species

ninetieth one

:D

Birds Youtube Song

I saw a pyrrhuloxia today!!

I did not take this pic but look at this dude

http://www.birdsasart.com/rootjpegs/pyrrhuloxia-male-TX-279T0001.jpg

phyroloxia if I'm not mistaken...I've always wanted to see one.

I saw one in Cruces, once, too.

swifts are back over W12, have been a week or so. which makes them nearly 3 weeks earlier than last year, i think.

saw a budgie in the park this morning, fighting with the blackbirds. and winning.

Why is there so little sexual dimorphism in doves & pigeons compared to other types of birds?

http://orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/jambu%20fruit%20dove%20cl.jpg

There is some, but mostly in what I think of as exotic species (like the jambu fruit dove above). Don't think any UK residents show it, so from that POV, that's a good question!

I was thinking about it yesterday – how come these doves don't have much sexual dimporphism? The dove in question btw is the white-wing dove, which is all over the Southwest:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Zenaida_asiatica_-Tuscon_-Arizona_-USA_-8a.jpg

I thought, maybe I am just unobservant. But today I saw two doves have sex in a tree and I thought, nope, no way I could tell those two apart.

Swifts are back here too btw koogs, and every year their screams make me wish I'd got round to fixing up some nest boxes for them. Maybe next time! xxxp

whenever i see this thread title i think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=651UYYxrfh0

I'm guessing that any sexual dimorphism in pigeons and doves would be for sexual display or competition. Thinking about the species I'm familiar with that aren't obviously dimorphic, during courtship the males do tend to do a lot of that puffed-up neck, strutting about stuff instead, and that probably serves the same purpose without the evolutionary effort? Wondering too if bright colours might make them more obvious to predators, all our native species are really drab earth and rock colours (albeit with subtle flashes of irridescence).

Not an expert, but some poking around in Google suggests that the lack of strong dimorphism is related to the fact that most pigeon species share parenting duties--kind of makes sense, any heavy-duty male plumage or w/e would probably attract too much attention to the nest?

PS would like to cosign pyrrhuloxia love upthread.

Did read the recommendation somewhere that upturned bin lids are left in the garden with wet mud in them, as swifts/martins are struggling to make nests.

omg this morning at 7am there was a bird cycling through about 6 different calls... like a car alarm that cycles through different sounds. it was CRAZY. i have no idea how to figure out what it was.

shazam for birdcalls can't come fast enough

If it was all clicks and whistles and crazy things, it might have been a starling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9waQFLwF7no

it was much more lyrical than that

Probably some sort of thrush then - American robin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98DFgHAe-Qw

i am starting to think it was maybe a mocking bird singing through several different calls/sounds?

http://www.birdjam.com/birdsong.php?id=4&osCsid=ddunch423ggjr7q0ei58jcmia7

I have a robin friend

> swifts are back over W12, have been a week or so.
> koogs, Friday, 13 May 2011 09:33 (11 months ago)

saw one, friday 27th april. although now he's probably flying around soaking wet wondering why he bothered.

Seeing Gambel's quails – always a treat! They're so charming. I saw three today.

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/I-like-my-house.jpg

Photo and caption by Mark Bridger/National Geographic Photo Contest. This is Gandalf the Great Grey Owl and he gets scared flying out in the open so his owners have built his aviary inside a brick shed. He now loves spending his days watching the world go by out of his window.

That's a sad state for an owl to be in. Come out and play, big feller!

How Does An Owl Hide?

Is it a good time of year to go to Slimbridge Wetlands Centre?

nice weather for ducks. (don't know)

we had 10 (count them) goldfinches on our tiny tree over christmas.

Niger seed?

re SWC : from the website it appears that more stuff will be happening at the end of jan.

also, it hasn't stopped raining here for days now (i live quite near), and cant imagine it being overly pleasant there.

Is it a good time of year to go to Slimbridge Wetlands Centre?

Would be better if it was much colder and frozen, I reckon that with the relatively mild weather and all the rain, then all the native wildfowl and waders will be distributed over the surrounding countryside. Never been but I think Slimbridge has a collection of captive birds so there will be all of them and they probably have feeding stations and managed habitat for wild songbirds so there might be good numbers of those. Might be a chance of all the other birds pulling in some raptors too, so I think you've got as good a chance of seeing stuff there as you would have anywhere else.

i enjoy birds but there's something undeniably sinister about them as well

Just refilled the feeder outside my office window. Birds get happy, and it's a home entertainment system for the cats and me.

Thing I love about birds is the sense that they're so at one with their environment. You watch them doing their birdy things and going about their birdy business and you get this sense that at one birdy level they know so many secret things about how life works in the local area... funny little rhythms of life that we're not privy to, when and where it is that all the bugs start hatching out, whose garden to visit for frostbitten rosehips when the winter takes hold, what bush you can safely shelter in on a cold, wet night, stuff like that. Also the sense of vulnerability you get from them - most birds are living on a knife-edge when it comes to finding enough edible calories especially in competition with everything else out there, or when they're dodging hazards like cats and hawks and humans and whatnot. You know you're cushioned from a lot of that stuff as a human, you don't have the same vital day to day struggles, but at the same time you do get some inkling of the fragility and specialness of life.

birds are more it's true

more REAL damn

i've grown to enjoy parakeets in winter, for their incoongruity and resilience, even if i still tire of them in summer

Ha well they're the other end of things, they just tough it out in a big unruly mob and don't give a flying fuck for local sensibilities. Hanging out at the local rugby club, shitting fruity shits on flash motors, I'm all for it.

that is an excellent description of why birds are interesting
they have to be observant if they want to survive
people sure don't

Otmoor supposed to be good for starlings/murmuration at the moment - apparently from 1530 onwards - if any of you are Oxford-based or thereabouts.

http://www.wildlife-photography.uk.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/720-grey-wagtail-IMG_2795.jpg

^ One of these snazzy little fellows has taken up residence by the puddle on the flat roof right outside my office window.

waxwings.

i had never seen a waxwing until this afternoon. saw one on the floor, wondered what it was. then noticed another dozen in the bush next to it. hid around the corner whilst i got the camera out only to find i was stood under a tree with another dozen in the branches...

they aren't native to uk, but there were some stories of flocks of them visiting a couple of years ago, feeding on berries (which these were)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3396938/Waxwing-leads-Russian-invasion.html

(my photos sucked)

oh man, waxwing envy here. good spot koogs!

Yes, nice spot. Have never seen a waxwing.

Some good pics here: http://fair-isle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/henry-waxwings-hand-feeding-again.html

Am amazed how much a starling murmuration cheers me up - was sat in a traffic jam on the way home, watching a thousand or so starlings swooping over the local Harvester. Fucking beautiful.

acquainted the mrs with a long-tailed tit today, she was most enthused. mad love for that grey wagtail, dippy li'l chap I'm sure

<3 long tailed tits. we get them in the park

there's a waxwing sightings tweet feed here: https://twitter.com/WaxwingsUK lot of them about by the look.

We had two groups of long tailed tits at one point, of seven and eight birds. But I never see more than three at a time now. Wondering if they've dispersed or died.

i see mixed flocks containing long tailed tits and great tits. i think flock size varies with time of year (fledging? food?) have seen largish flocks in the last year.

There was great footage on Winter Watch of long tailed tits roosting: the first two to sit on the branch remained on the outside (ie. the coldest bit) and the rest would squeeze themselves in the middle. There didn't seem to be any shift or rotation in this to keep the outside birds warm.

really want to start a band and call it Mixed Tit Flock

thought i saw a bullfinch this morning but it was high enough up that it cd've been a waxwing

nah it was a bullfinch, just checked the calls

Today's posts itt dear to my heart. One of 2012's highlights for me was finally seeing Cedar Waxwings. And we have a pet starling who is my special buddy.

Anyone been up to Otmoor recently? We're starting to get starlings gathering about five miles away. Wondering how it's looking on the reserve?

Fairly good murmuration over the Harvester in Kidlington, this evening, around 1745.

I realise this is quite specific and not much use to most people ...

I wish ppl here in the US admired starlings like you guys do. They're v hated here.

this is interesting, about the way they were introduced into america

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Starling#North_America

Help needed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFklknp6lWE

could be wrong but i reckon that's a song thrush there myself. very short phrases that are sometimes repeated once or twice with a definite pause before moving on to the next phrase. sung from up in a tree too - i've got a hunch that nightingales sing from lower down in cover, plus their song has got lots of weird alien clicks and laser gun trills.

this is a song thrush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWSyv_E8Pxc

nightingale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INzqozVbYL8

Hummingbirds showed up here 3 weeks ago and have been freezing their asses off.

it's the repetition inside each line that's the big difference to my ears. the song thrush is all dat-dat dat-dat dat-dat weeeee, whereas nightingale is just all over the place in a brrrrrrrr-brip-be-bap-deeeeet--zuuuuuel kinda way xp

do you feed the hummingbirds wmc?

here's the thing, though - the bird I saw (and you can just about see it in the video) didn't seem to have any markings on its underside

next time I'll have my binoculars on me

Nick -- yes, we have feeders on the back deck and outside my office window.

must be amazing, would never get any work done if i were at your desk

lj - guess it'll be there again tomorrow, same time, same place. always think of nightingales as very secretive things, would be nice to get a good sight of one. on our dog walk today we had whitethroats dodging around in the gorse. swifts have come back too, best birds ever

this is better nightingale film btw, this one sounds really goddamn song thrushy too i'm getting more confused the more i listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enOsGUdyjmc&NR

maybe you have to see them live or something but in a way they're a bit overrated imo, i reckon robins and dunnocks have far prettier songs. best one i hear regularly though is the wren. really long complex energetic lines, they're like the john coltranes of the bird world doing this sheets of sound thing. really blast it out for such diddy fuckers too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EAzaDSN70o

otm, wren song has been avant-garde for millennia

was definitely drawn out of my way to the nightingale/curiously unspotted songthrush tho. something about the song was arresting and alien - I was, as they say, compelled from my orbit, and the dog had to sit patiently while I drank it in, not at all feeling like I was riding the Romantics' steez

A gila woodpecker has made a nest at the top of a saguaro in my front yard. This is very exciting to me! This hole 16 feet up constantly emitting baby bird rasps with a mom periodically flying in and out.

A dove has taken up residence in our back yard. It doesn't seem injured, but it spends all its time on the ground, just hanging out, nestled down in the lawn except when our dog it out doing his business and barking at oxygen molecules. I wondered if it's a fledgling that doesn't quite know where to go next, but my daughter says she's seen its mate come around to it a few times a day.

our neighbours have installed a nest-box roughly 1 metre away from our bedroom window, currently occupied by a family of Great Tits. the parents approach the box cautiously, hopping all the way down the fence to a chorus of wheedling. needless to say, we're enthused

turkeys outside my window at 5:00 this morning. lobblelobblelobble. they've gone all huge, fat and wattley for summer. it's shooting season, so all the little country stores are selling "turkey supplies". by which they mean things with which to murder the beasts.

Went for a walk down the Thames foreshore at lunch and there were 2 Canadian geese with 3 goslings, so cute. Loads of geese around today, 3 different types. They're pretty tame, we were walking by really close and they just eyed us a bit and went back to napping.

there are swifts that fly around my neighbourhood, screaming, which is cool.

but today i was at hyde park's round pond and the swifts there, with all the extra space (and the high wind) were mental. 30 or so of them, down to about a foot off the water at times.

Feeding on midges I guess. Swifts are great, we always get a few pairs round here. A couple of years ago we found a baby one sitting on the pavement, didn't really know what to do with him/her, didn't really want them to be got by a cat so I picked them up and put them on a wall. So amazingly light! But he/she had these really horrible big lice things scuttling around on their plummage, tried to knock them off but they were really flat in profile and kept sliding in down under the feathers. Weird alien looking beasts. Anyhow, pretty sure the fledgling didn't survive cos I think I'm right in saying that swifts can't take off from the ground (wings too long, legs too short), so there's no way a parent could land to feed them.

Oh it was the swift lousefly, a parasite that is specific to swifts:

http://cdn1.arkive.org/media/15/15605FC2-2238-4770-9713-420ED99B6244/Presentation.Large/1-2-day-old-common-swift-chicks-in-nest-with-swift-lousefly-Crataerina-pallida.jpg

I love the swifts that come out at dusk around here, chattering their little hearts out while they fill up on bugs. I grew up hearing them called chimneysweeps instead of chimney swifts.

The ones we get here don't chatter, they scream instead, such a great sound.

They've been sounding incredible on my walk to work in a morning. That screeching! It does my head in a bit to think that they travel from Africa and end up on the side streets of Cowley Road, Oxford.

My starling is getting his white speckly beard and eyebrows in response to god knows what seasonal signal.

back in Italy for the month, god the birdlife here is fabulous. my latest avian crush would have to be the female & juvenile red-backed shrikes I espied perching not five metres from me at the tops of isolated stalks in a roadside field. what delightful little birds - unless you're an even littler bird

they don't even budge when you come close - amazing confidence. but then again they're quite closely related to crows, so their self-aggrandising bastardry is assured

never seen a shrike before. thought they'd be bigger. but I knew almost instantly what they were when I saw their regal, hawkish repose. imagine a warbler with *attitude*, like as gallus as all jeremy, and that's a shrike

I'd love to see a shrike!

Now you can. This landmark in wildlife photography was achieved earlier this afternoon with a cameraphone and a pair of binoculars:

http://i.imgur.com/bCPJFjC.jpg

The decline of kingfishers in the UK is shocking ...

That's v sad. One of my favorite birds in its North American iteration. Halcyon days no longer...

the rivers are fucked and the land is following them

HEY so I'm in Cyprus right now (posting to ILX, I know), and without having to move from my seat I just saw in plain view a jaunty flock of Sardinian Warblers. Neat little birds. Might have a wander outside with the binoculars, see what else there is

just saw a buzzard, couldn't tell if it was a Long-Legged Buzzard or a Steppe Buzzard (which is, boringly, a subspecies of the Common Buzzard). aaargh!

I guess that Cyprus must be a stopping-off point for lots of migrants moving from Europe to Africa, so it's probably a great time of year to see all sorts of species there.

ps bring me back a lammergeyer okay?

yeah i figured it'd be the perfect time to visit. if i see a lammergeier i will endeavour to photograph it

don't get fucking sardinian warblers in Minecraft

ok wow you guys, I saw a kingfisher today - get this - at sea

in fact on one of aphrodite's rocks, the halcyon love reborn

What is the North American bird that will make a nest of rocks on the ground, and then if you try to get near its nest, it will try to lure you away from the nest with aggressive yelling? I think one has made a nest under a shrub of mine. I don't want to kill its babies but I don't want to kill the shrub through not watering! I think knowing the species name would help.

Killdeer? Not sure about the yelling, but I know they'll pretend to be insured to lure you away

*injured

Yeah killdeer! Thanks^3
Almost as big a conflict as the time some robins built a nest in my dad's barbecue's chimney. Well, a conflict for everyone but my dad, who wanted to grill more than not kill some baby birds :(

I will have to watch more but I hope it's just some wacky springtime mating behavez on these birds' part

oh killdeerpaws. Dumbest nesting strategy.Also how the fuck did I miss this post:

ok wow you guys, I saw a kingfisher today - get this - at sea

in fact on one of aphrodite's rocks, the halcyon love reborn

― C/3 Jenks kakling Neu! military£ absinthe snkkt! pckls Özil JTCF njhtdgs (imago), Tuesday, September 24, 2013 3:44 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.somersetbirder.co.uk/black%20redstart%20brean%20small4.jpg

^ saw one of these sultry little things while i was out running along the clifftops on friday. slightly anonymous from some angles, like a really drab young euro robin, but as soon as they fly away there's that amazing rufous rump

Big beady eyes + tiny insectivore beak is the most adorable bird face morphism imo

i guess those eyes are totally evolved towards spotting small wriggly things in dim light conditions

There's a bird around here whose song is "chipper, chipper, chipper (in what would be a very whiny/wheedly tone if it came out of a person) -- wheet-wheet-wheet-wheet" and I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. I used to think it was a cardinal, but none of the recordings available online support that idea.

This is my yearly "the swifts are back in w12" post. Has been about a week.

Looking back at this thread their reappearance does seem to vary quite a bit, was April a few years ago, late may in other years.

And, unscientifically, I'd say there are more of them this year - I keep seeing 10 or so together rather than the 5s or 6s of last year

(I must go back to Hyde park and see if last year was a one-off or whether they congregate around the pond every year)

Parrots have names for themselves and each other! Plus baby parrots are ADORABLE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9A4HPdXgQ

I don't know if it's the cool weather this week or what, but the hummingbirds in my yard are having a super freakout dance party.

Mine are too!

Anyway, today I've become smitten with little brown head parrots. Does anyone have a pet bird? Are they terrible to deal with? I'm not going to run out and buy one on a whim because they're about $600-700, but asking out of curiosity.

my sister in law had an eclectus parrot for about 10 years

I swear unless you talk directly to it for 8 hours a day, all it will do is scream that you're not paying attention to it. I wouldn't have lasted more than a week, I dunno how she managed 10 years. So much screaming. And she gave it a lot of attention!

Though she was GORGEOUS - beautiful deep crimson with bright blue swatches here and there, so amazing that those colors can exist on something in nature like that.

small birds are more manageable, I'm sure

One of my friends about 15 years ago had a parakeet and it was pretty rad. Just flew around the apartment and would eat food out of your hair, preferably after you had buried it a little bit.

I think it's probably better to have two birds instead of one so they don't get lonely, right? Might help with the attention issue.

That makes sense. It's weird to think of birds getting lonely and being super needy, but I guess it happens when you keep an animal capable of flight inside a house.

Parakeets are awesome, happy little goofballs.

VegGrrl otm re anything resembling a parrot, they are psycho and live for 100 years, they are FOREVER and can srsly put the hurt on you sonically and psychologically. At least a regrettable tattoo just sits quietly there on your flesh for the rest of your life and doesn't shriek and shit and attract roaches and prevent you from moving.

I live with two small parrots; my wife got them ages ago when she was a teenager. We have one other bird, a wild starling who was a lost hapless fledgling in a warehouse. Keeping him alive was a huge task, my wife spent a month feeding him on the end of a chopstick every 30 minutes. But he rules. Affectionate, mischievous, a mimic who makes 100s of interesting sounds at manageable decibel levels and crazy word salad phrases like 'jussst make ssssnake payments'. He shits A LOT though so his cage is high maintenance and yknow the couch gets strafed pretty hard. And he is a bird so he is psycho but I love him. Starlings and pigeons are the only wild birds it is legal to keep in the us iirc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0tP-p7m40

First swifts of the year in W12 today

Hen harriers on the brink in England:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/02/fourth-hen-harriers-disappearance-sparks-fears-of-extinction-by-persecution

The RSPB is currently embroiled in a high-profile row with former cricketer Sir Ian Botham, who owns a grouse moor on the North York Moors and fronts You Forgot the Birds, a campaign accusing the RSPB of obsessing over birds of prey to the detriment of other species. After public comments by the RSPB following the disappearance of three hen harriers from the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire in April , Botham’s lawyers sent the RSPB a letter threatening possible legal action against the charity.

You Forgot the Birds and other organisations representing grouse moor owners want the government to introduce a system of “brood management” whereby eggs are removed from some hen harrier nests on grouse moors, chicks are reared in captivity and then released into lowland areas, reducing hen harriers’ predation of grouse. But the RSPB is blocking attempts to introduce such a system, arguing that the grouse industry must first prove it is not breaking the law and persecuting the birds.

Protecting small birds by shooting them, nice one Beefy

Peregrines and hobbies taking ring-necked parakeets:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/nature-studies-londons-beautiful-parakeets-have-a-new-enemy-to-deal-with-10305901.html

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/birdnestsoup/B58afLMIMAAAVws.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/birdnestsoup/IMG_5F00_5440.jpg

like a big beautiful EDL metaphor

I had this very persistently noisy Blackbird visitor all of last week, then since Saturday it hasn't turned up :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFR-azBialE

an alarm call but i do love that sound. reminds me of walking along hedgerows on a summer evening

yeah that is the sound of evening

they're not terribly good at the old relaxing before bedtime thing

damn i had been sitting on my porch and noticed a nest build atop a lampbox fixture its prob like 50 ft away and had just seen for the first time clearly the bird nesting there (robin i think) and i went inside to do some laundry etc for idk like 20 mins?? and came back out and the nest was GONE

ther are some bushes in my line of vision to below it & i walked over sorta near it & did see a broken eggshell & mess but didnt see the nest really anywhere…i guess it mustve fallen? it was a lil precarious and the spot is right above a door idk and i saw the robin come back to the lampbox & like sit like it was trying to nest looking confused omg this is the saddest shit ever

Ugh noooooo

Idiot!

j/k poor fucker

had me googling are birds conscious idk jurys still out maybe

http://www.boredpanda.com/crow-rides-eagle-bird-photography-phoo-chan/

http://i.imgur.com/57oz9x4.jpg

new symbioses: the next stage of avian evolution

http://www.irishexaminer.com/media/images/h/heron2_large.jpg

http://www.irishexaminer.com/video/news/video-herons-gather-on-street-for-fish-scraps-in-cork-340614.html

woodpecker outside the house is really going to town on a tree. don't kill it, woody!

https://scontent-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpl1/v/t1.0-9/12717797_10154536310207137_2092846437496941064_n.jpg?oh=dd3536b942503cc308dc9f9c9a79e918&oe=57651410

pretty though.

https://scontent-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpl1/v/t1.0-9/12744542_10154536313937137_5395022595720415546_n.jpg?oh=f401d98b773739fad5c1c493d90639fc&oe=572B6F4A

hey imago:

https://twitter.com/Rutland_InFocus/status/701017120759480320

ty that is superlative

although my favourite aspect of it is the twitter handle

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/emvgfx/live/c8xp5v

^ Springwatch birdcams. red kites, grey wagtails, swallows, wrens nests...

bloke stood under a tree on the way to work with a falconry glove on, looking up forlornely. didn't see the actual bird.

(this was white city, the trees in question are often full of parakeets when i'm leaving in the evening, perhaps this was for that. i know they use a raptor in paddington station to scare away the pigeons)

Look how still this kingfisher keeps it head while hunting, incredible! #Winterwatch pic.twitter.com/QW8saez9Qo

— BBC Springwatch (@BBCSpringwatch) January 28, 2018

That's great. We all know that itching feeling that can occur when you're trying to intently focus on something specific (at 0:37)

Absolutely :)

Had a redwing in front of house today. Never seen one before.

Red-tailed hawk in the park the other day. Not sure whether Pale Male.

Sunbathing crow.

recently a Goose in Florida had a friend die and has taken to destroying windows, attacking children at buses and hanging out with quote unquote lawless ducks

I guess yesterday was International Vulture Awareness Day and i thought this tweet salute to the bearded vulture deserves its own recognition. “I am the MOST METAL culture because my diet is mostly bones” must be a lyric somewhere.

Vultures are amazing, and very important. Did you know: vultures are often a "dead end" for many common diseases spread by carrion? Rabies, botulism, anthrax, & more can't survive a vulture's digestion! #IVAD #VultureAwarenessDay #InternationalVultureAwarenessDay #LoveVultures pic.twitter.com/vi2jjOyXkj

— Jennifer Miller (@Nambroth) September 1, 2018

you say vulture i say culture

First swifts of the year in w12 yesterday. That's easily two weeks later than usual. Plus I've only seen two at any given time.

verified barred warbler sighted around the outskirts of sheerness. feels quite exciting. i'll probably alert the rspb

even Jonathan Franzen thinks so

self-lol

― gabbneb, Wednesday, January 23, 2008

pvmic

I finally refilled the backyard feeder and we have a newcomer to this yard, a male rose-breasted grosbeak.

Yes it's real. pic.twitter.com/GxRESJeJFv

— Bobbie Hineman (@HinemanBobbie) May 17, 2020

and my bird

one of the ravens has left the tower (they are still quorate though). but someone posted this video in response and i've bever heard a raven before.

We are so sad to hear this; we loved Merlina and always looked out for her when we visited. Here she is in 2019 in conversation with Jubilee. Wherever you might be, sleep well, petal. xx pic.twitter.com/fzOAebrsiy

— 𝒪𝓉𝓈𝒾 𝒲𝑜𝓁𝒻 🐺 (@otsiwolf) January 13, 2021

they have a vast vocal range. there's at least one youtuber who has chatz with theirs

Had a redwing in front of house today. Never seen one before.

― Grandpont Genie, Friday, March 2, 2018 10:04 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Saw one in the park the other day, ditto.

This seems to be a growing thing every year: webcams on peregrine falcon nests in Flanders (mostly church towers) - scroll down to the map & you can click on them

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2021/03/29/jaarlijks-komen-200-slechtvalkkuikens-uit-hun-ei/

e.g. here in Mechelen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpLZ59y6Ivg

ok, aussie bake-off often has (brief) shots of birds around the tent shed. kookaburra are obvious, the magpies are wrong but also obvious, but there are a couple i can't find on oz garden bird websites:

1) like a goldfinch but unsaturated

2) like a pied wagtail but solid black on top, solid white on bottom

turns out searching for 'finch' and 'wagtail' helps

1) double barred finch maybe

2) willie wagtail

I think I saw a goldfinch once where I live and a red woodpecker where I lived previously but they were unknown in my childhood so perhaps not unusual but still special for me. The birds are really loud now at dawn or maybe I missed it before.

at Home we'd get 8 or 10 goldfinches at a time visiting the feeders, but around here it's the odd one or two, typically sat on tv aerials chirping away.

the woodpecker tree in the park blew over about 8 years ago and i've seen a lot fewer since. i still hear them from time to time.

Goldfinches are such joyous little things. People would keep them in cages as song birds before ready access to canaries and the like.

I was walking into the woods the other afternoon and there was a goldcrest in the hazel poles at eye level, about 3 feet away. It's rare to get have such a close up of them. They're tiny - smaller than a wren - but with the same puffed up 'don't fuck with me' quality and its mohawk was pulsing as it dodged about. Awesome.

actually, the final show ended with a montage of the birds. the double barred finch wasn't, was too big for a finch

http://www.koogy.clara.co.uk/birb.jpg

unfortunately the orange light in this room did odd things to the photo, turned it blue, so i've desaturated the whole thing because the actual bird was greys and blacks. beak and legs were bright orange though.

Noisy Miner? https://ebird.org/species/noimin1

yeah. looks like it, thanks.

i thought the mask was more like a goldfinch, but it's not. and the beak shape and the odd yellow eye thing is an exact match, so yeah.

(Perhaps all photos of birds, except crows and those little brown birds that seem to be everywhere, should be taken in colour. But photographers may have other reasons or views.)

I'm hoping the goldfinches come back in the spring (when I think they were last around).

Curious if any Europeans envy us Americans our goldfinches like I envy you yours?

looks like a siskin, but brighter

looks like a small, stubby oriole

There’s a feral euro goldfinch population that lives in prospect park. I am jealous of european robins tho

American goldfinch looks a bit like a yellowhammer too.

looks like a cross between a finch and a yellow warbler

i saw a hawk on my fire escape in bk!

Thread’s making me jealous of Brooklynites too now!

:-) i think there's something going on on my roof bc i see a lot of cardinals and bluejays stop on the FE b4 flying upward.

Yes we have a peregrine couple living on top of our 6 story apt building in Williamsburg BK, it is a treat whenever they are glimpsed. Bird life otherwise not very exciting in this zip code. Yearly one-day invasion of grackles to eat all the berries (I assume?) is always nice.
Closer to prospect park/the cemetery obv lots cooler bird action
Also the reservoir which I’ve never been to

Those Noisy Miners (a.k.a. "mickeys") are the coolest birds, super intelligent and engaging. When I worked in Newcastle they used to take my lunch from my hand (and not because I was offering, I would hear a brief rustle behind me and a mickey would zoom past and snatch a beakful of burger on the wing).

silly looking bird!

aw I think they're beautiful
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/images/full/noisyminer_204104716.jpg

How is ur starling jon?

Ah. Merlin is no longer with us. Last winter my wife noticed a weird fatty bubble growth under his wing so we took him to the bird vet and they found in his blood work that he had bird leukemia. He soldiered on until a couple of months ago. He didn’t seem to be in any pain through it all, ate hearty until his last day. He was 14. He leaves us with many weird catch phrases he uttered during his younger days.
Honey mustard
Mayor beebee
ORITCH (seemed to be his word for fruit/berries)
Good morning good morning
Just make snake payments
It’s the snake universe
MARITZA (also seemed to mean “fruit”)

And many more. He went through a phase of using penis in his word salads when he was 2 or 3, lots of good ones in that time (“yes bird. Just my penis. Just the thickest.”)

It’s not easy to raise a lost starling chick (you have to feed them every 30 minutes all day long) but the result is a tremendously entertaining and playful pet. Which shits A LOT.

It's the snake universe ;___;

RIP li'l buddy

Honey mustard
Mayor beebee
ORITCH
Good morning good morning
Just make snake payments
It’s the snake universe
MARITZA

this is the tracklist of my new hyperpop album fwiw, Beatles cover and all

If you want to do a deep dive, the Twitter account @mybirdsaid was my wife’s repository for his sayings during his most voluble years

Aw, ty

Condolences jon. He is babbling nonsense to god now.

In his wake, parakeets have come. I’m afraid I allowed mrs JNJ to go a bit parakeet crazy during the isolation of this pandemic. Also one Java Finch

❤️

yikes, that sounds like a thing

Quiz question (for which I don't have the answer): what type of bird does Alain Delon/Jef Costello have in his apartment?

huge:

http://thebigpicturemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Samourai-4.jpg

a finch of some kind

white rump, black cap, buff belly = female bullfinch

better known as a cowfinch

just kidding, it isn't

I popped to the library earlier (I know how to enjoy Christmas) where I found a copy of Melville on Melville and by jingo if NickB isn't correct. Mellville said he wanted it to be dull in colour, to match the room. You win a bottle of Evian.

According to Rui Nogueira (author of the book "Melville on Melville" published in 1976), the caged bird shown as Jef Costello's pet in "Le Samourai" was the only casualty of the fire that destroyed Jean-Pierre Melville's studio in 1967.

:(

on the one hand these albatrosses are v funny but also do they do this all day? is it a mating thing? so cool & strange

Look at these idiots. Are they friends or enemies. What do they think they’re accomplishing here. Come on, guys. https://t.co/OAlWYOqqS0

— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) January 20, 2022

Could be talking bollocks here, but i think it's a ritual they do when they're reunited - if they're like other albatrosses, they mate for life but spend months at a time out at sea so don't really see they much of each other, so this is them reaffirming their bond.

omg that’s the BEST explanationn
i support it fully, true or not <3

yeah that's what it is. sometimes the cutest explanation is the right one. but only here, on BIRDS

*rubs bills with imago*

Birbwatch

goldfinch 4
blue tits 2
chaffinch 2
jackdaw 4
black cap 1
blackbird 4
pied wagtail 1
magpie 1 for sorrow
collared dove 2
starling 2

(Gloucestershire garden, 10-11 today. sparrows and the robins very shy today, as we the other two magpies. goldfinches often flock in their 8s or 10s but not today. jackdaw numbers also low given that walking down the road you'll see a pair on every other chimney top)

i am being a bit sneaky and collating mine from various peeks over yesterday, today and tomorrow. you only put birdfood out when it's the garden birdwatch, imago! yeah but i've also had to revise the positioning and configuration of my feeders to desquirrel them. putting in the hours.

anyway. it's been parakeet city so far. a maximum of 6 in the frame at once. that aside, a couple of great tits, a couple of dunnocks, a wren, some woodpigeons, a blackbird. can hear some goldfinches so i'll count them. wondering whether it would be ethical to bung in the grey wagtail that's visited my garden a few times over the last couple of weeks. i mean it's so much more impressive than the others that i probably have to, right

love a nice grey wag! <3

anyone had any greenfinches recently? realised the other day that I haven't seen one for ages and there used to be loads round here

pretty sure i saw one an hour later, but didn't have the best view

there is a huge parakeet colony in my area and has been for decades. I saw this jogger the other day who was exclaiming surprise at seeing a group of them flying past. I presume wild ones must be quite rare outside of London because I've seen local newbies completely surprised at their presence a few times before.

yeah they seem to be insanely well-suited for both the uk climate and suburban living!

at my parents' i've seen far more greenfinches again in recent years; think they're having a bit of a resurgence after some very fallow years

fuck I THOUGHT I'd desquirrelled it but I just watched one of rhe bastards slowly size up and then successfully perform a leap of a metre sideways x a foot upwards from a fence to land on the peanut feeder. astonishing and hateful stuff, big respect

ah that's good news! I know that they really got walloped a few years back by that virus which was largely being transmitted by them congregating at birdfeeders xp

keep moving the feeder by a few inches just to see exactly how far a hungry squirrel can jump

that could be tomorrow's project...

Mark e smith otm re squirrels

My parents have parakeets visiting the feeder in their new garden in birmingham, the rspb says that they're only resident around london and elsewhere they're winter visitors. had only seen them in the distance before, clinging to a garden bird feeder they look massive!

they've been living wild in my area for at least 20 years according to an old bloke from the farm. I've been regularly seeing them for probably 10 years now.

all year round I should add.

need to get David Peace on the case, they are living in the rural end of Dewsbury, quite near where he grew up. I call London centric bullshit on the rspb here!

surprise birdwatch wildcard around these parts: a heron, which has been seen in gardens eyeing up the goldfish.

christ these cunts can shimmy up narrow metal poles too, game over. unless i construct some sort of conic obstacle

a sheath up the pole made from stacked large plastic drinks bottles with the bases cut off does that trick i believe.

'the trick', i just don't know what part of my brain these wild substitutions come from.

Just vaseline your pole imago, their momentum gets them about three feet up before they just slide back down again

https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/new-yorkers-rover-bald-eagle-central-park-nyc

I took the day off from work so my wife and I could go look for a Sora that had been spotted this morning at a wetland preserve in the north suburbs. We saw two (!) and they totally made my week.

Oh awesome, congrats! We saw a sora unexpectedly while failing to see the cinnamon teal we were looking for and it was super exciting.

Birds outside my window had a 10-second conversation that I wish I could have recorded for you. It wasn't the usual call and response. What were they talking about?

Bought my wife a brilliant little transparent house-shaped feeder that suckers onto the kitchen window for our smaller birds to have a go on, instant joy.

Then a blackbird tried to land on it and couldn't settle so instead shat all over it in spite, BIRDS

bumper day for magpies down the park today. 18 in total, including one bopping around that was obviously new - slightly ill-defined feathers, making feed-me motions to the parents, but already like 80% the size of the parents

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/16/science/pandemic-nature-anthropause.html

there is a bird that appears to have a nest somewhere in the top of my overgrown hedge. I'm so crap at bird identification but it might be a starling. It keeps getting closer and closer to me and doesn't take flight if I move. Even my dog who chases pigeons is chill with it and just sits and curiously observes it hopping around the garden.

what are those birds outside every morning at about 5:30 (West London) making the comedy laser beam noises? whoop whoop. piaooooo.

I don't know but the Birdnet app should tell you.

it is none of these: https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-songs/what-bird-is-that/

Well, starlings are mimics, so their range of sounds is much wider than what is represented there. Plus they commonly congregate in urban areas. So my money is on our dear old friend Sturnus vulgaris.

Maybe someone's been playing the Go-Kart Mozart version of Roger Whittaker's New World in the Morning within their earshot, who knows?

Could well be ring-necked parakeets? Noisy bastards.

whoop whoop piaaaaooooo definitely sounds like a starling

i love how starlings talk! i once heard two of them quietly making car alarm sounds to each other and it was mighty cute i tell ya

i think it'll be too quiet to get a recording (and f downloading an app just for this tbh). will try and spot the culprit(s) tomorrow.

there was a 4am blackbird but I've not heard him for a while. every morning, just before it started getting light. and then he'd stop.

Someone on the street whistles after a woman. It is the characteristic two-note whistle. It may or may not be the same subject and object each time.

In some highly evolved species, there might be a separate whistle to denote the various types of attraction by the gender of the subject and the object and the nature of the attraction. This would be better than pronouns if outside of this it did not matter.

A pigeon made a nest in the tree in my garden and has been a constant presence for the last month. It would never leave the nest or at least I'd never seen it leave so I presume it was protecting a bairn. I noticed two days ago it had gone + hasn't been sighted since. Then today I noticed a dead squab in the garden directly below the nest. It has definitely been killed by another bird because there is a big grotesque hole in it that looks consistent with having its flesh eaten by a beak or beaks. I was wondering if a bird of prey did this or maybe there could be other squabs up there that decided to eat their sibling when ma didn't return.

could have been a magpie. They will dine on pigeon given the opportunity

I get annoyed with pigeons when they shit on me or on my bins or all over the path to my front door, but feel genuinely sad about this.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fc4GMyqWIAI9cdM?format=jpg&name=small

happier days for my pigeon friend.

a zillion redwings on the tree just outside my window, right on Snow Day cue. it does have berries after all

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-gloucestershire-64458219

could see a section of this out of our back window whilst home at Christmas but the main event seems to have been above the local park about 500 yds away

(starling murmuration)

I do the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch every year on the last w/e of January. One spends an hour counting them. In our garden this year we had:

blue tit 7, great tit 4, blackbird 2, long-tailed tit 2, coal tit 1, dunnock 2, blackcap 2, nuthatch 2, great spotted woodpecker 1, robin 2, starling 2, goldcrest 1.

This is the biggest species diversity we've had by far in the decade or so we've been living in our house. And there are species that visit occasionally that didn't deign to appear during that hour, including wood pigeon, pied wagtail, magpie, chaffinch and goldfinch.

It helps that we feed them a lot! Fat balls, suet pellets, peanuts, seed mix, mealworms and Flutter Butter (peanut butter for birds).

On one occasion we had a parakeet. There are probably 6 or so breeding pairs within Oxford...they hang out in the University Parks apparently. They've been going further up the Thames year by year. I saw some in Old Windsor in 2018 and that was the first I'd seen them outside SW London.

neat eagle

https://maineaudubon.org/news/rba-stse-2023/

fuck the post but respect to the headline writer
https://nypost.com/2023/02/03/hoo-dini-owl-on-the-loose-after-vandalism-at-central-park-zoo-enclosure-cops/

this morning i finally saw the woodpecker i've been hearing for the last month

on my 36th birthday the other week, while moping about not being allowed on a cable car, i finally saw a Dipper for the first time, was one of the greatest birthday presents ever ngl

sick. i saw one of those in downtown denver

Dippers rule. Only one I've seen 'live' is on the river in Betws-y-Coed. Amazing wee thing.

I was totally gobsmacked I was like there is no way I'm finding this animal in a 2 mile stretch of creek and YET

mine was in Matlock Bath, was lucky enough to get a good photo and video too, in breeding song too

a lifetime of gazing at creeks and streams thinking 'just maybe' and it's when my gf has said no we're not spending 30 quid each on the cable car and i'm moping behind her back into town, look down and pow

Never seen a dipper, but always feel a kinship with them as someone who likes to sing AND swim,

Apparently this is another case where the UK version looks a lot cooler than the US one. Still hope to see an American Dipper one day.

uk one looks like the us one but with a cool paint job

A couple of weeks ago I saw a bearded vulture with my own eyes, it was absolutely majestic. Today I went to Wikipedia to learn more about it and.... jeez

It usually disdains the actual meat and lives on a diet that is typically 85–90% bones. While the bone marrow contains fat and energy, they consume all of it.[26]This is the only living bird species that specializes in feeding on bones.

The bearded vulture can swallow whole or bite through brittle bones up to the size of a lamb's femur[28] and its powerful digestive system quickly dissolves even large pieces. The bearded vulture has learned to crack bones too large to be swallowed by carrying them in flight to a height of 50–150 m (160–490 ft) above the ground and then dropping them onto rocks below, which smashes them into smaller pieces and exposes the nutritious marrow.[9] They can fly with bones up to 10 cm (3.9 in) in diameter and weighing over 4 kg (8.8 lb), or nearly equal to their own weight.[9]

After dropping the large bones, the bearded vulture spirals or glides down to inspect them and may repeat the act if the bone is not sufficiently cracked.[9] This learned skill requires extensive practice by immature birds and takes up to seven years to master.[29] Its old name of ossifrage ("bone breaker") relates to this habit. Less frequently, these birds have been observed trying to break bones (usually of a medium size) by hammering them with their bill directly into rocks while perched.

Spot dippers fairly regularly here in Dublin. Although this is on the Dodder, which can get fairly bucolic in certain stretches even though it's essentially in the middle of the city

I've seen kingfishers there once or twice too. Near impossible to photograph with my crappy phone camera though

I've just remembered: when I was searching how to spell Betws-y-Coed earlier, Google asked me if I was looking for 'busty co-ed' so that's nice.

Been quite a bird-shy winter on the whole? Last thing I can remember of note was a tree full of redwings, I assume beginning the long-haul home.