The Bird Thread

Yep. That’s 1/3 of it.
The bit to the north of the canal west of Rose Kiln lane is the first bit and the bit the west of Burghfield road is a distant hope.
That track down Circuit lane used to be about half a metre lower than it is now. Every year I used to add a few inches of road planings from highway works nearby to make it easier to use. Gradually it became a dam. Since the 2014 floods pipes were put in to get the water away faster. The authorities were worried about the impact on the houses at Burghfield bridge, which are the other side of the canal and completely unaffected by the flooding of these fields!
Until they were put in the fields stayed wet most of the year. Now they dry out in summer and the plan is to keep them wet.
If you ever head that way again let me know!

Sounds like a great little legacy adroit. Passion project or something you do for work?

It's a little-known fact that adroit is actually a beaver. :)

It was a job for 20 years. I packed it in ( to run away with the pro cycling circus )
but I carry on with some of the best / most local bits.
( and I didn’t last long in the circus! )

You’re not the first person to say that!
This is the first field I ever flooded surreptitiously. It’s now a massive Reed bed.

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Ah cool, used to use that track all the time. Lived on the Bath Road a few years back and that was the scenic ride to work (Southcote then canal into town). Used to see kingfishers and green woodpeckers all the time along the canal.

The tits are getting curious although this one seems to have its head on backwards

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Very excited to see this Great Spotted Woodpecker this morning, Olympic Park near the cycle track

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Great shots too. They're pretty glamorous.

No photos unfortunately, but I heard my first Corn Bunting of the year calling at the foot of Woodcote Hill on a ride through the Chilterns today - spring on the way ...

I love this time of year. Former matrimonial home in South Hampstead was a garden flat, I planted clematis, roses, Passion flower against an empty barren high wall/fence in 1997, trimmed it all lightly each year to encourage fresh growth. From 2005 we had a family of wrens nesting in there for a few years. Never seen anything so small before, we also had robins nesting too.

great photo!
I was told that starlings only moult half as often as most birds, saving them energy. When they are speckled the feathers are new, when they are dark the speckled tips have worn down.

Cool, I didn't know that. Here is a stonechat I saw later

Nice stonechat! I’m hoping to get out in the next few days as I’m aware of lots happening in bird universe. I’ve been caught up in building works and moving into the other half of the house, on top of day job, but I keep hearing those chaffinches and thrushes and dunnocks and robins singing.

I put a ground feeder out and set the camera up.
There was a nice selection of bird grub - mealworms/sunflower seeds/peanuts/dried fruit etc -
all gone the next day.

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This is why ...

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• front lawn (2).mp4

I saw the sun come out this afternoon and escaped for an hour

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Morning stroll in Burgess Park. Watched a cormorant wrestle with a fish for a good 10 minutes.

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A OWL???
A. Owl?

Yep, a owl. A OWL!

Is that a kite pic 2 bottom right?
PS nice owl

Nope, that’s one of our local buzzards. They mooch about just to the east of here, sometimes getting quite close to humans. I’ve not yet had one swoop at me when I am out on my bike, but that would not surprise me. Our kites are a bit more aloof but do pick stuff up from gardens.

Bit of a debate going on locally re foxes and parakeets -

fox are not vermin but parrakeets are. Any animal that messes up the eco system is a nuisance and IS vermin and needs controlling. Foxes contol RATS and mice, they are NOT vermin they help the natural eco system and are a form of natural pest control.
Parakeets ARE a pest, they are breeding far to fast and taking the natural species of britains nesting sites and thier food supply. These birds are not native and are in fact INVASIVE.. the RSPB advises NOT to encourage them into your garden or feed them as you will end up with NO other birds in your garden
IF A WILD ANIMAL IS A NUISANCE TO HUMANS, IT DOES NOT MAKE IT VERMIN... if they are making a mess, or any other such thing, this is NOT upsetting the natural balance of the eco system OR passing diseases onto humans... this is the ONLY reason to call a wild animal vermin. FOXES do a brilliant job of actually killing and eating rats,so they are in fact a gardeners friend.

I have the foxes, pigeons and parakeets eating the wild bird food.

They probably thought Brexit would get it done.... Grey squirrel anyone?