The Bird Thread

Down in Cornwall, go out for a run and come across pheasants, a woodpecker (greater spotted), and a cuckoo. None of which I associate with coastal areas. A couple of huge ravens too, they were cool.

Went to Minsmere in Suffolk last week. None of the photos came out amazing, but still some unusual (for me) sightings.

Can't get uploads to work, so here's a google drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZPHwGOvhkDi4jnvhV3DhGBc7TR-29UlH?usp=sharing

^nice shots
Reed buntings, sedge warblers, whitethroats are all things I have only met since leaving London a few years ago, still a joy to see them

from a while back, the awful caw of a pair of magpies drew me to the window, and this feathery chap was tucking into a pigeon.
picture is poor because i was using a zoom through a window, so not to spook him too much.

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^how big was that pigeon?

blurred but still great to see at 5.15 this morning

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Common Whitethroat. One of my favourite birds. Some overwinter in Namibia. Look at a a map and see their journey to the uk for summer. The adults leave first to go back for the winter and the young follow. How do they do that?

The migrations boggle my mind, I was looking up a bird the other day and it said it winters in the Sahel, a much shorter journey than Namibia and I find it amazing such small birds can do such long journeys and that they have evolved for that to be necessary

I've just finished reading Tim Dee's book Greenery, in which he watches swallows, redstarts and stuff in opposite hemispheres. Quite astonishing.

I was more stoked by the slow worm tbh, not sure I've seen one before. There were a few marsh harriers at Minsmere but I didn't really get any good shots. Great to watch though.

Just got shat on by a swift.

Re-evaluating their ‘favourite bird’ status now.

Special.

Nice few minutes earlier on a walk enjoying the singing

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/09/i-fell-in-the-water-but-it-was-worth-it-guardian-readers-on-their-most-extraordinary-bird-photographs

I have a temporary visitor amongst my saddlebags in the lean-to, what I assume is a resting racing pigeon. Left it some water and raisins and dried rice as per a website I found. If it’s still here tomoz I might try reading the code on the ring.

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We had a racing pigeon drop by our place a few years ago… we called the owner and apparently it’s the law(?) that they come and pick it up. The guy we called was based up in Scotland and didn’t want to drive all the way down so asked if we wanted to keep the bird and we agreed so it stuck around as a sort of pet for a few months and was pretty friendly. Sadly it never got habituated to it’s new house and preferred to hang out on our roof before eventually getting hammered by a sparrow hawk.

/csb

This site says to put some food out for a couple of days to allow the bird to feed but then take it away again to encourage it to carry on its journey.

https://www.rpra.org/stray-reporting/

Thanks for the info. Yeah it seems pretty chilled out. Just leaving it be for now. I guess it likes being under the roof away from prying eyes of airborne predators. Wont help guard against the local cats mind you!

Just got shat on by a swift.

Re-evaluating their ‘favourite bird’ status now.

Well, that escalated swiftly.

It's quite common then? And I thought I was special! Haha. When I was about 6 a pigeon walked in our backdoor and decided it wanted to stay. It had absolutely no fear of me and my 4 year old sister and we found it hilarious that it wouldn't shoo away. I think it stayed for about a week before my dad lured it into a TV cabinet, closed the doors and drove it off somewhere to release it. It didn't come back to us :(

Incredible aren’t they!
In a couple of weeks they’ll be joined by noisy youngsters begging for food but at least the parents won’t have to fly back to the nest with it.

Maybe there’s timeloop monsters in the nest, more then four weeks and today first day I can hear chirping in the nest.

We're all watching springwatch right? Right?

No. Drop me the deal breaker...

Packham asking Michaela if she was commando live on TV was a moment, but it was just generally great as usual

Missed some tonight but didn't see any of their classic props :). Made by the same people that make the Xmas decorations for Blue Peter lol

Think I just saw a a swallow do a stall turn. Which is pretty fucking cool. I'm not really sure what happened since was quite fast but it was going along, angled up, stopped and next thing it was off in not quite its original direction but close to it. I kind of doubt myself now since I've never seen that before.