The Bird Thread

Tawny owl without doubt. Just becoming territorial about now. The sound approach is a useful place to learn a bit about them.

What a fantastic page, thank you! I hear a resemblance to the female "soliciting" call. Didn't seem like she had any responses, unfortunately.

^indeed, and it includes recordings of “pulsed hooting” of the sort that had me completely baffled for weeks when I heard this weird trilling noise at night.
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/DtZoNYf3xBF3Exf78
I had wondered if it was snipe “winnowing” but eventually worked out it was tawny owls.

The mythical Ivory Billed Woodpecker is no more.

That is such depressing reading. And then there are all the unrecorded species that will be extinct before we know about them.

On a more cheery note, things seem today

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Shout out to the various birds who spent yesterday mocking me for not having taken my camera out with me, but especially to the kestrel and buzzard who spent ages in the same airspace meaning I could have got them both in the same shot.

This just turned up in my garden. I grabbed my phone and took pics through the grubby back door window. There was its mate nearby. Is it some sort of wood pigeon hybrid?

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The quality of forum photography has uped here and elsewhere.

Loving that magpie @Eejit

Managed to get a cheap teleconverter for my zoom lens to try and compete. (Well not £10K)

Tested it out on a great pair of tits.

Keep it up.

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I listened to this podcast a while back which really resonated with me - the often overly-optimistic search for these type of creatures (ivory billed woodpecker, thylacine etc) simply being a manifestation of our guilt about the destruction of natural habitats.

I never got round to watching the documentary Ghost Bird, but on this reminder, will give it a look,

Photos and a small bit of film were made, but I've often wondered about these extraordinary photos of a juvenile that was scared out of a nest (and returned). Is the bird actually alive or just posed?!

Also just seen the logging land was owned by the Singer sewing machine company. Singer were once the biggest user of plywood in the world, to make the shaped-ply box covers for their domestic machines. Won't be able to look at one of those again without thinking of the demise of this lovely bird :(

It looks like a juvenile woodpigeon that may have a disease, perhaps avian pox:

https://www.gardenwildlifehealth.org/portfolio/avian-pox-in-garden-birds/

That's what I thought too. It has no collar (yet) but does have bars on its wings. You do get these fancy pigeons with over developed wattles so that's why I thought it might be an unfortunate cross.

Had a wonderful time this afternoon with this very lost Snow Bunting that doesn't realise that Derbyshire isn't coastal or Scotland/North England. Such a nice looking bird and couldn't of been less bothered by people cycling and walking past very close.

Spent the day at Arne, Dorset. Was watching a lot of avocets and godwits when they all suddenly took flight. Looked but couldn’t see anything that might have spooked them. Later I learnt a Sea Eagle had flown over, but behind me.
Facepalm.

@greentricky love the Snow Bunting photos. I haven't seen one for a few years now - really nice birds.

Wheatear also on the dam wall yesterday hanging out with the Snow Bunting

Had a wonderful time this afternoon with this very lost Snow Bunting

beautiful pics.. 🥰

Got see a Bittern being mobbed by gulls at lunch, sadly no photo but was great. Bitten has been reported quite a bit near by for last few weeks, so was good to finally see it, if only briefly, sadly no boom

Gorgeous, I've never seen one.

I have no idea where you were, but a Bittern has just landed on the island opposite where I'm sitting, no chance of a photo, it's over 100 yards away. This is in East Sussex.

I have also been watching a Great Crested Grebe feeding its young, which was damned near as big as the adult. It has had 12 roach so far and reminds me of a greedy teenager in McDonald's.

Is a Great Crested Grebe in winter plumage a Great Crestfallen Grebe?

In other news I have seen a Kingfisher grab a dragonfly in flight, I have never seen this happen before.

Pics or...

If you can photograph a Bittern at over 100m and a Kingfisher in flight using only a mobile, I grovel before you!

A Marsh Harrier floated by later as well.

I am also in pursuit of a kingfisher snap.

I just about got a dragonfly in flight.

Must have been some take!

This was the same spot (Willington) I watched the bittern but a couple of weeks ago, clearly not in flight but a bit far to get a good image, heard a bloke near by tell his wife it wasn't even worth getting the camera out for

Chuffed to see these today (but not surprised, as I am in Pembrokeshire)

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