The Bird Thread

The starlings that nested in the hole in the wall last year are back. I sit at the back of the house all day looking at the The male perched on a cherry tree at the end of the garden singing his mad whirring clicking whistling song and puffing his chest out and generally looking very pleased with himself.

Occasionally the female would take a break from nest building and join him and they'd mate then he'd go back to strutting about in his shiny green and pink gorgeousness. I watched him yesterday playing with a white down feather. He'd let it go and the wind would carry it up a metre or so then he'd leap after it and grab it and land back on his perch. He repeated that game for about 10 mins. Never seen anything like that before. He's got so much character.

I hope the local sparrowhawk doesn't take him out. I've seen him a couple of time come rocketing across the fences to take something from right where the proud father to be starling perches.

I was wondering if this interminable cold dry NE wind is affecting the birds ability to dig for worms too so have been watering the garden a fair bit this week. The lawn is already cracking dry.

Kestrel spotted hovering at the 'Tesco' roundabout,
(large with several trees and currently long unmown grass),
on the A312, Hayes by-pass, that connects the M4 with the A40.

Barn owl breeding is certainly effected as the voles are sparse with the lack of new grass growth.

Went for a ride / bird watch round the peaks yesterday. Was treated to sky larks singing like mad bastards, meadow pipits doing the same, a bunch of shore birds caning it about over Redmires reservoir (possibly a golden plover but not 100%, they were very nippy) and their chicks (frustratingly nesting out of sight below a bank) also singing like mad bastards, some geese, and a woodcock (a first for me, never seen one before). Only managed to snap the meadow pipits and the geese, but still a good day out all told. 

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Some different birds I saw yesterday

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Guineafowl, noisy yet delicious.

Some more different birds I saw yesterday

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Yes, entertaining too! Not sure I've ever eaten one tbh.

I've never eaten an Emu, but always had a burning ambition to slaughter Rod Hull.

Where were you the evening of March 17th, 1999?

Shouting out 'it shoulda been me'.

Angry bird

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Llyn brenig osprey nest felled.

https://twitter.com/nwpruralcrime/status/1388386952337149953?s=21

That’s awful. I generally take the view that the disaster of climate change is more alarming than the destruction of individual species or specimens, but this is so wanton and spiteful.

On a lighter note

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And a grey wagtail

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A Rufous Hummingbird and a Bullock's Oriole this morning.

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^nice! Are these in Vancouver or somewhere further south?

Bird thread just gone up a level. 😎

Loving the photos in this thread

Spare me 38 seconds of your time and tell me if this is a Cetti’s warbler at 34s, please!
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/qZ29yBe23bwGijHu5

Yes it is.

I grew up in the UK so the birds there are much more familiar to me, and I love seeing the pictures of them in this thread. But all the great pictures here finally tempted me into buying a telephoto lens so I could share some of the birds we get here.

^nice! Are these in Vancouver or somewhere further south?

Thanks! These are from Vancouver (well, Delta, which is a little way south of Vancouver proper). They are both migratory, and have only just got here. Although these orioles are not particularly rare I've never seen one before and it was pretty exciting. We watched it rummaging around in the apple blossom for quite a while.

Thank you - it was such a strong sound among the other bird noises, I thought it would be easy to identify on xeno-canto. But there seems to be a huge variation in its songs. Interestingly, the one recording that sounded most like mine was made a few miles away in Oxfordshire - does this suggest that birds have regional accents or dialects?