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Bird Nerdz
Wang's Upon a Time 22 May 22 08:19
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A pair of bull finches this morning.  Dont think i have ever seen them before.  Love that my weird brain could immediately ID them.  All those hours copying pictures out of my Gilbert White bird book as a nipper.

also today: mallards with babies.  Canada geese.  Those weird psycho looking beige and orange geese, blue tits, black irds, egret, green woodies, magpies, dunnock, thrush and a goldfinch

is that the Merlin app Wang? it’s pretty cool for song and you get a sonogram of what you have recorded. it’s not always entirely accurate on short calls though; it has misidentified birds where I was quite confident about the id since I was holding them at the time 

Exactly Merkz, fűck those fūcking app developers man, stupid fųcking useless cųnts, couldn't make a fûcking bird recognition app if they tried, useless shower of fűcking stupid useless shıte băstards.

Oh, wait, this bird stuff is supposed to calm us isn't it? Sorry. 

I can see a pied wagtail from my window. (Little showoff prïck)

Couple of mallards fùcking in our pool today

They love a bit of it

Plus. Greater spotted woodpecker, euro jay, crow, tit with brown head, pigeon, black squirrel,  red squirrel,  black and white squirrel,  ants, angry over wintered wasp, two Bosnian sisters, Alice from Italy. 

Love burd watching

Bit late for the mallards, there's already ducklets swimming about here in the north downs

a flock of canadia gooses just flew overhead in a perfect V formation.  All is good

A tawny owl has very recently started hanging around the area at night. One of my favourite night sounds. Like a call from another world. 

Ducklings and goslings o n the mole this morning.  If anyone wants tiny bird porn (no, not Tromboner on tour in Barcelona at THAT club) then drop me an email - theshellfishgene at geemail dot com  Have sent to some of you already.

Those weird psycho looking beige and orange geese,

Egyptian geese? 

The black redstarts have seemed to disappear from the rooftops near my office, but the best time for peregrine-watching is soon to come.  The Jubilee bank holiday ought to see lots of activity as the young start taking flight and the parents have to keep stroppy teenagers fed. 

On Saturday, far beyond Imperial Wharf I saw a group of maybe seven or eight white birds I thought were large gulls at first, but they were long-necked, mostly white, with black bits in their secondary feathers that gulls don't have.  I thought they were duck (shelduck maybe) at first, but on reflection their manner of flight was more graceful - which was why my initial impression was that they were gulls.  After a bit of sleuthing I now reckon they were avocets.  

I think the hobbies are back in my local patch but being elusive.  I dream of one day seeing one pursue a swift - of which there are now good numbers over Regent's and Hyde Parks. 

Ftao guildford roffers, I saw a huge red kite circling above the centre of town the other day, over the wey bridge by stephens & bolton.  Didnt know they had spread this far south.  *happy faice*

@Merkz - seen any of those Alpine swifts yet?  

Did some birding in Berlin end of last month - cold and grey for the most part, but managed some neat sightings in the Tiergarten and around Kreuzberg/Tempelhofer Feld - hawfinch (a first for me), lots of nuthatches, and I also got to see my first treecreeper (they're around in London but I'd not managed to see one till this trip).  Plus some outstanding views of the bird I really wanted to see, the goshawk.  It's remarkable how their presence has so many knock-on effects - very very few crows and virtually no magpies in the parks compared to similar areas in London; any crows present would be in flocks at the edges of the park; woodpigeons were in good numbers but again flocking up together and often sitting up in high trees with a good view around; squirrels (red squirrels there) were present but much less obvious.  

Back in London: lots of peregrine activity the last two weekends, especially last Sunday.  I love the wonderful display flights you get to see at this time of the year.  Sunday afternoon there was a big group of what looked like fieldfares heading swiftly northwards, heralding the passing of another winter.  

not seen much recently- love a grey wagtail…. 

herring gulls scoping our roof for a nest at the moment - I’ve tied one of the neighbours’ cats to the chimney which should be enough of a deterrent (tho’ they’re big aggressive birds)

I am in Notts atm Pez, which, from the sightings map, looks like an Alpine Swift free zone; but I have seen one in the UK before.

I am just back from a week in Iceland which, while not a birding trip or at a particularly good time of year for birding there, was notable for Ravens and for Fulmar in large numbers - they were on pretty much every cliff face anywhere near the sea. I would love to go back and see the seabird cliffs there in the breeding season.  I also had a Snow Bunting from the breakfast table one morning, which was pretty cool.

 

We have a nesting pair of egret (or should that be egrets - Merkx, what's the correct plural?) on the river by the bridge.

Most mornings you can spot them fishing for sprats.  This is when I have most often seen kingfishers as a flash of blue across the white of the egret.

@Merkz  - I seldom travel specifically to bird (though enjoy birding when I go abroad greatly), but one of the trips I hope to make someday is Iceland.  Did any raptors make an appearance?  Amazing that the merlin is the commonest raptor there.  Gyrfalcon will be my main target (fingers crossed).  An escape showed up at Rainham last month but soon disappeared.  

@Wango - there are now two species of egrets in the UK - the little egret and the less common great egret (aka Great White Egret) which is almost heron size.  Would imagine yours are the smaller edition?  

Was transcribing my notes from the weekend last night and it struck me that the peregrines I've been watching seem to have been targeting smaller birds (starling size or smaller) quite a bit.  On Sunday there were three attempts for which I was able to identify the target - just a tiny little flicker dodging away, invisible until the moment it happens. Inevitably you often have no idea what they are after, but the spectacle of the hunt is something to see in itself.  Utterly enthralling stuff when it plays out in front of you.  

@Pez - no raptors - it would have been awesome to see a Gyrfalcon

I love a guided birding trip on occasion - let someone else deal with planning and logistics and just enjoy. it is also something that I have done occasionally with my father, now 82, over the years and those are experiences I will always treasure. with any luck I will be going to Arizona. then next year I am hoping to go (without my father) to the Brazilian Amazon 

On a very minor point of detail there is a nature reserve behind the Amazon warehouse in Peterborough where the birding is said to be very good. 

 

Or maybe that was dogging...

@bullace - I'm grateful that, though admittedly there are a few birds I would like to travel to see (luckily, most can be reached without suffering too much Flugscham), there is enough birdly fascination and wonder an hour (or less) away to more than satisfy me.  I don't generally seek, though gratefully accept them when they pop up, lifers or rarities... my main motivation for going birding is to see interesting behaviour, and seeing a pair of peregrines hurtling up and down in a synchronized flying display, or young hobbies racing each other towards a far distant adult bringing in prey, is about as interesting as it gets - indeed at times to call what you see merely interesting would almost be to diminish how amazing and awe-inspiring it can be.  Moments and memories of the kind Rutger Hauer talks about at the end of Blade Runner.  And what makes it even more special is that all of that is at most a bus ride away, sometimes only a lift ride up to my office rooftop.  It might be a little further from you, but I'll bet not by a huge amount - there are peregrines all over London, and probably more hobbies than folks might think in and around the outskirts.  

Alas that my other obsession, fishing, cannot be the same.  If roach and pike could thrill me like marlin and tuna, my wallet would sleep a heck of a lot better at night.  

Nice one.  I always enjoy a good look at a jay.  About two to three weeks ago they were out and about my local area gathering acorns.  They're egg-thieves and nest-raiders (in the season for that) just as much as any other corvid, but make up for it somewhat by their spiffier suits.  

Winter thrushes - fieldfares and redwings - have been steadily arriving over the last few weeks, along with thousands of woodpigeons (thought to be from the Continent).  Last weekend I was pretty sure I spotted a small party of wild swans high up and far off.  

We have swans and geese here flying around in echelons.  Great to see them flying and everyone moving for winter even if not all of them actually migrate. 

If any of you have berry bushes or trees (rowan, hawthorn etc) in your area - keep an eye out for waxwings.  This is one of those "waxwing years" when large numbers of them leave Scandinavia.  On Saturday there was a twittering flock of a couple dozen in Mill Hill, regularly descending on berries, little bothered by pedestrians going along the footpath, giving a small collection of birders wonderful views until they flocked up (probably wary of a passing sparrowhawk) and went away.  

They are the most exquisite creatures - soft pinky-brown plumage, bright flashes of yellow and red on their wingtips, dark marks around their eyes like a supermodel's eyeshadow.  I'd say they are the most attractive and charismatic of all our winter visitors.  

I saw a raptor of some sort hovering perfectly still above the road yesterday near bockets farm.

It was smallish, brown.  smaller than a buzzard - about half/two-thirds the size I would guess.

 I am thinking it was possibly a hobby?  

Kestrel.  Very pretty to watch when they are hovering like that.  Interesting factoid - they can see the ultraviolet trails from mouse/vole piss, helping them to find the little critters they feed on.  

Hobbies at this time of the year will be south of the Sahara feasting on locusts and other insects.  They'll be back around the end of April.  My most beloved bird of summer.  

I have noticed a lot of roadkill around of late.  I don't know if kestrels eat from the plate of Mutters.  maybe it was eyeing up something else that was feasting on tarmacdonald's

Hobbies are great. You will see them in the UK mostly darting over river margins, ponds, lakes and wetlands/marshes. They come here in the spring to eat dragon flies etc. They appear v dark, like a stocky swift or a two-thirds slight and darker peregrine. 
Ginger stable hover would be kestrel but you do see the larger greyer sparrow hawk doing something like a hover if it has the chance of pushing into a strong headwind. A kestrel will be like someone’s drone: stock still, adjustments to trim by tail flick, only head moving with a twitch to check prey below, dipping head to increase angle of attack to come out of the hover, fly forwards then lean over and soaring in a kite-like arc to change position then stabilising again, head into wind. Every few seconds the patter patter of wings to adjust lift if wind drops. A sparrow hawk is patter patter always, with wings that dont narrow quite so much and are broader in the upper wing - a bit more pigeony.  He is flapper flapper flapper not patter-stop-patter. 

https://youtu.be/wo83yu6Cu7w
This is quite helpful 

By the way, as a rule of thumb the kestrel eats live prey - shrews, bank voles, beetles. The sparrow hawk eats live song birds. You will find a pile of legs and beaks below its perch or nest, often on a pavement below a big tree. Red kites will eat carrion (ie compete with corvids for roadkill) but buzzards don’t generally.  buzzards will eat moles, rabbits, rats, mice which they will take live. If you see a buzzard on the ground it will ‘shroud’ its kill with its wings to make a protective teepee to keep off the competition but the kill will be a fresh one as with kestrels and s/hawks. All of them are likely to carry the kill to a perch to tear and eat. Kites are really the only ones common in the UK which behave like vultures enjoying a tarMaccys. 

Help me identify this bird. Last week - very cold bright sunshine on top of the South Downs I caught a glimpse of a bird in a gorse bush next to a dew pond - about the size of a collared dove, blue/grey barred feathers and a yellow beak - I only caught a glimpse and thought it looked like a cuckoo (which of course it wasn’t). 
Lots of skylarks, a couple of ravens, a stonechat, and a kestrel. Love the alternative name “windhover” and watched it do just that - sublime skill - sun playing on his back. I also saw a very fat rabbit, must be gorging on hikers’ discarded sandwiches. 

Lovely walk in the sun around Norbury Park yesterday.

tits galore (coal, blue and i think a great altho it is often difficult to tell these from coal).

Lots of sparrows and dunnets.

Big fook off crows.

and a red kite circling overhead.  they deffo seem to have properly established round here, must be the most successful reintroduction ever

12 year old decided to walk right through the biggest patch of mud and, as the fates dictate, lost his boot in the mire.  Cue a Taskmaster/Professor Branestawm effort using planks to effect a successful extraction

Egyptian geese

Interesting they're in your area - do you have parakeets around too?  Gyppos - as less politically correct birders call them - and parakeets are two of the trifecta of birds introduced from far-flung corners of the empire (the third, of course, being Canada geese) that have become a bit of a nuisance.  Then again, they didn't ask to be brought here... 

Last Sunday, high over Regent's - female peregrine patrolling at a thousand feet plus closed her wings and came down westwards like a Russian glide bomb, crossing the park in seconds.  Gulls appeared in my field of view as I followed her down in the binoculars, already scattering, but she wasn't after them - her target was a buzzard that pulled up in a flap as she whizzed by, not striking it, just passing (very) close by.  She stooped at it a couple more times before leaving it alone.  It wasn't a threat, this was just pure devilment - letting every other bird in the sky know she was there.  This is a great time of the year to watch them.  

Saw my first swift of the year on Saturday, then over the Lido at Hyde Park on Sunday there were three or four of them, feeding at quite low altitude along with a mixed bag of swallows and house martins.  My most beloved and most anticipated (save for the hobby, that travels north with them) birds of summer.  

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