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Martin
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« Reply #15 on: 23:29:07, 01-05-2008 » |
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In my old garden we used to get a jay every now and then. Such beautiful colouring.
More recently I've moved to a coastal location and am lucky enough to see a curlew most evenings when the tide in the loch is out and the waders are pecking away in the mud for worms. I also see lapwings in the fields. It's a quiet location, and when you are on the beach there are plenty of oystercatchers.
But the best thing is to walk down the lane and round the corner, and hear a chorus of twitterings and tweechings - I can hardly describe the sounds properly, but it sounds just like Rautavaara's Cantus Articus. It's marvellous stuff.
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #16 on: 23:51:42, 01-05-2008 » |
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I have a feeling that you're on (if not off  ) the opposite coast to me, Martin (the Loch's a bit of a giveaway), but we're very much the same for sounds, curlews and particularly oyster catchers being very common - the liquid burbling of the curlew's a wonderful sound, isn't it? We had jays down south, as well as their pushier yobbish cousins the magpies (sorry, Mills): there are some in the nearby woods, but none have visited that I've seen, and we're a magpie-free zone, though there are corbies (crows), buzzards and kestrels a-plenty. We have swarms of starlings, and the garden has wrens, sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds and robins, wood pigeons and collared doves: during the winter we were awash with finches, but they were probably over-wintering from Scandinavia. In the autumn and early winter we get skeins of wild geese, and it'll not be long until the swallows arrive. Gulls are an obvious constant, and we often hear owls at night. |
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Martin
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« Reply #17 on: 11:17:39, 02-05-2008 » |
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Well pinpointed, Ron. I've lived down south for all of my life until these past few months, so I'm now enjoying a totally different way of life. In the past we would occasionally make visits to bird sanctuaries and reserves, especially if we were on holiday, but now there's a wealth of wildlife on the doorstep, as it were. Birds are particularly wonderful, I always think, because they are free and largely unrestricted.
We also had plenty of magpies down south (I've noticed they hardly ever say 'England' here, always 'the South, or 'down south', but that's a whole new subject).
Loads of starlings, yes, and all the sea birds which I cannot yet differentiate - well, I'm still sorting out my terns from my gulls. Oh yes, and some herons, the grey ones and some smaller white ones also spotted.
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #18 on: 11:54:34, 02-05-2008 » |
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I'm envious, Martin. I have family connections in the West Highlands - not far from Fort William - and we get up there as often as possible, and one of the joys is the abundance of the wildlife, especially the birds. If there is anything in nature more majestic than the sight of a full-grown sea eagle in flight over a sea loch I have yet to encounter it.
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #19 on: 13:02:51, 02-05-2008 » |
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You never see a sparrow in London nowadays. So judge my delight to see this in the back garden in East Devon  |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #20 on: 15:28:33, 02-05-2008 » |
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I've read that the Cockney sparrow is no more.  I've got a decent little flock of sparrows going here in spite of the hawks. When you consider that they can eat three sparrows a day I suppose we're not doing so badly. I had a visit from the biggest crow I've ever seen in my life this morning. It was massive! In fact I'm wondering if it was a raven - except I've never seen one of those round here before. Perhaps it was just a big carrion crow.  |
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We pass this way but once. This is not a rehearsal!
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #21 on: 15:40:55, 02-05-2008 » |
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There are sparrows here in reasonable numbers. I do remember when the sparrows in London parks were so tame that they would come and eat from your hand - dozens sometimes, a little bit Alfred Hitchcock  . |
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George Garnett
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« Reply #22 on: 15:51:35, 02-05-2008 » |
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I'm still puzzling over Antheil's ... ... a bird I don't know the name of but it is blackbird sized and shape but has white splashes on its feathers. Anyone any idea? It's got me stumped. Any more clues Anthy? I suppose it could be a blackbird with albino bits since they sometimes do. The only other thing I could think of was a Ring Ouzel. They're quite rare (in the UK) these days and that would be a real treat.  |
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« Last Edit: 15:59:25, 02-05-2008 by George Garnett »
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David_Underdown
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« Reply #23 on: 16:27:48, 02-05-2008 » |
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As I said, plenty of sparrows still in my London garden.
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--
David
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #24 on: 16:30:34, 02-05-2008 » |
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Jolly good, David. Maybe they fight shy of going North of the Thames. (They can't take all those wholemeal organic breadcrumbs.)
Seriously though, here in the North Western fringes of the London Borough of Hackney (Highbury borders, as estate agents call it) I haven't noticed them for years.
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« Last Edit: 16:50:52, 02-05-2008 by Don Basilio »
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Martin
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« Reply #25 on: 16:34:53, 02-05-2008 » |
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the sight of a full-grown sea eagle in flight over a sea loch
That's on my most wanted list! We do get them here, but it's always somebody else whose seen 'em. |
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Andy D
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« Reply #26 on: 17:14:11, 02-05-2008 » |
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I made several tapes of the dawn chorus in my garden in the 80s - most birds were drowned out by the constant cheep-cheep-cheep of the ubiquitous sparrows. Nowdays there are hardly any around of course - so I'm delighted to see a pair in the garden who I'm hoping are nesting in the ivy on next door's extension.
I was also pleased to see a starling today.
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thompson1780
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« Reply #27 on: 17:24:40, 02-05-2008 » |
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I'm still puzzling over Antheil's ... ... a bird I don't know the name of but it is blackbird sized and shape but has white splashes on its feathers. Anyone any idea? It's got me stumped. Any more clues Anthy? I suppose it could be a blackbird with albino bits since they sometimes do. The only other thing I could think of was a Ring Ouzel. They're quite rare (in the UK) these days and that would be a real treat. A juvenile Fieldfare?  I used to have lots of Fieldfares come and eat the berries of a tree outside my bathroom windon in my old house, but they don't make it down the road where I am now. Chez Tommo, we have the usual house sparrows, dunnocks, starlings (nesting in the eaves), blue, great and coal tits, collard doves and wood pigeons, robins, and blackbirds. Oh, and all sorts of finches in the apple tree. And magpies (early in the morning). Crows and Red Kite are very often seen overhead, but not often in the garden (although kites often land in the field where I walk our dog). Occasionally, I get a green woodpecker sitting on the lawn prodding the grass. Oddly enough this is more common than things like wagtails (usually pied). A heron has visited our pond and eaten all the frogs. Don't think he got the newts  I have seen a Mistle thrush in our patch - it was too large to be a Song thrush. Lovely birds, thrushes. Tommo |
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Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #28 on: 17:34:12, 02-05-2008 » |
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Most of the birds in my garden are on the RSPB's list of common garden birds - blackcap, sparrowhawks and the occasional heron are the most unusual. I live on one of the flightpaths (?) for Martin Mere, though, so overhead we get skeins of geese and sometimes flights of swans - wonderful!
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Eruanto
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« Reply #29 on: 17:35:54, 02-05-2008 » |
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There were a few minutes earlier when some blackbirds took the decibel regulations into their own hands. Tweeting madly, and were mobbing some other bird. I think they had been nesting, they were certainly very busy. On a previous occasion a magpie stole an egg. I hope fate hasn't repeated itself. |
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"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set"
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