The Bird Thread

We think it was Magpies. RIP Blackbird chicks :(

(For avoidance of doubt, that is just the old nest, no chicks could be found)

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Genuinely liked the landscape format grebe image. 😎

Kites are being very noisy outside my window today.

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Fantastic pics.

They almost look mythical imo. (Nearly were)

re your 3rd pic - I saw one fly into a wire a few months ago. Didn't seem to do it any damage, it just looked a bit flustered for a split second then kept flying ;)

In London last week I cycled round a corner and a Magpie was pecking the absolute shit out of some small brown fledgling right in the middle of the road - fledgling was squeaking away in distress :( Magpie flapped off when I arrived on the scene and the fledgling ran into a bush.

Here are kittiwakes nesting on the Baltic arts centre in Gateshead.

That’s amazing - don’t expect to see them in an urban setting!

There's an upper floor and penthouses as well ;)

They are also all over the Tyne Bridge just upstream

Ok here are some more Farne Island pictures. We went on a family holiday to Northumberland last August, and did a boat trip round the islands but a) we had dogs so couldn't land on the islands, and b) although all the posters for the trips have puffins everywhere, by August they have all finished breeding and flown off into the North Atlantic, so my daughter who loves puffins (& who doesn't) was a bit disappointed.

So, as it's her birthday in June I thought I would take her back up there when the birds are actually there. We stayed in Newcastle and hired a car for one day to get to Seahouses where the trips run from.

First thing to say is the scale is quite astonishing. I think they reckon there are about 60,000 pairs of guillemots, about the same of puffins, and thousands of kittiwakes, shags, terns and other seabirds. The noise and the stench is quite something.

Puffins were the main attraction and certainly stepped up to the mark. As you get closer to the islands you start to see more and more of them flying around or swimming on the sea. Then when you land on Inner Farne, there are areas which are just riddled with burrows - the first time a random puffin sticks their head out of a burrow 3 feet away from you is hilarious.

Apparently 6% of guillemots have the white spectacle markings

There are plenty of razorbills although massively outnumbered by some of the other species

Lots of nesting shags with fairly sizeable chicks

Finally the terns: There was one area of Sandwich Terns who generally kept themselves to themselves

Arctic terns are very plentiful, with their "nests" (basically just an egg on the ground) right next to the walkways in many cases. This means that they aggressively defend these nests by divebombing you and dishing out pecks to the head. No-one is allowed on the island without a hat or hood. The last pic is my daughter running the gauntlet:

^amazing shots, thank you for posting. We went to the Farne Islands a few years ago, also too late for puffins. Hoping we might see some on Rathlin in early August.

Lovely pics since I last posted.

One of the blackbird chicks (fledglings now) had survived on ground, the mum was feeding it out by the ivy ground cover the other day. Perhaps the others made it too, the nest might have just fallen from their weight & movement as they grew?

^amazing shots

thanks - although it really isn't difficult, you can walk up to touching distance of all these birds and they just ignore you. I had my DSLR with 300mm lens but I could have take most of those with my phone (the Baltic pics are phone shots). I did chuckle a bit about the few hardcore twitchers on the boat in full camo with absolutely GIANT lenses that would have been able to zoom in on a single feather ;)

Yeh they have the claim of being the most inland colony in the world

Lovely stuff. We went for a boat ride around the farne islands when I was a kid, one of the highlights of my young birding life - just the sheer volume of amazing, beautiful birds and bird activity. Hope to go back one day soon with my kids in tow, before they become surly teenagers who don’t care about birds any more.

Eagle ? On the edge of Massif des Bauges.

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Nice article on Curlew
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/25/ready-for-takeoff-curlews-from-eggs-rescued-at-airfields-set-for-release

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Another 4.15 start today, but the best part was this family of moorhens as I came back home.

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Wren through kitchen window yesterday. They don't stop for long so not a great pic.

Also, Blackbird pair active again in garden so hopefully another nest & chicks in a slightly better location.

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We went last August and missed the Puffins, going again next week and just looked up the boat trip and they closed the Islands on Sunday due to avian flu. Will still go but going on the islands will have to wait for another time.

Black winged stilts in Doncaster on Monday