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Jonathan
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« Reply #45 on: 13:28:04, 03-05-2008 » |
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And today our House Martins returned to last years nests under the eaves.
Great!
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Best regards,
Jonathan
*********************************************
"as the housefly of destiny collides with the windscreen of fate..."
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #46 on: 15:36:50, 03-05-2008 » |
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I've just found a broken and empty bird's egg in the garden, probably the victim of a magpie. I think it's a chaffinch's or a blackbird's egg, small, dull pale greeny-blue speckled with brown, but I'm not sure at all. Does anyone know of a good website for identifying eggs? I can't find one, which seems a bit odd.
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #47 on: 15:51:10, 03-05-2008 » |
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That sounds like a blackbird's egg definitely. Greeny-blue with brown speckles.
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We pass this way but once. This is not a rehearsal!
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #48 on: 15:53:52, 03-05-2008 » |
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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 #49 on: 16:04:09, 03-05-2008 » |
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Yes, Milly, I've decided it's a blackbird's. It's also the most likely, as we have a great many blackbirds, and they are remarkably stupid about where they build their nests - though I suppose magpies would find them anyway  . We have a few chaffinches, too. I found that site, but it's American, so not all that much use for us. |
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John W
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« Reply #50 on: 16:12:54, 03-05-2008 » |
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Mary,
Is there a really good site to help identify British Birds?
John W
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #51 on: 16:15:47, 03-05-2008 » |
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Try this one. Oops that didn't work. I'll work on it.  |
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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 #52 on: 16:55:02, 03-05-2008 » |
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I identify birds from a really good book that belonged to my father-in-law, A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe by Peterson, Mountfort and Hollom. My copy dates from 1966 and hasn't caught up with the ring-necked parakeet.
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #53 on: 21:03:10, 03-05-2008 » |
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I'm listening now to the birds settling down for the night, a lovely peaceful burbling and twittering, growing softer and softer. I'm sure it's a hard life being a bird, a struggle for survival, but they sound happy.
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martle
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« Reply #54 on: 22:12:05, 03-05-2008 » |
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I heard more birdsong today than I remember hearing for months - perhaps years. Where was I? In Uxbridge, smoking a fag outside our rehearsal room at Brunel University - a dour and concreted wasteland (sorry Richard and Ollie) parked next to Heathrow. Wood pigeons, starlings, blackbirds and many more. So what's that all about?  |
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Green. Always green.
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #55 on: 22:34:09, 03-05-2008 » |
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It's on the edge of your actual Green Belt (other than the one which holds your trousers up, and the one you gained at Martle Arts), so there's plenty of open land for them to feed in, though there's probably more roosting and warmth in the concrete jungle.
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martle
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« Reply #56 on: 22:49:53, 03-05-2008 » |
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Green. Always green.
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #57 on: 23:53:38, 03-05-2008 » |
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I heard more birdsong today than I remember hearing for months - perhaps years. Where was I? In Uxbridge, smoking a fag outside our rehearsal room at Brunel University - a dour and concreted wasteland (sorry Richard and Ollie) parked next to Heathrow. Wood pigeons, starlings, blackbirds and many more. So what's that all about? Moreover, as you have mentioned before, your home patch suffers from the presence of these vicious buglers:  who, as I know from watching the occasional raiding party landing in my garden, scare the more mellifluous birds off. |
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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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George Garnett
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« Reply #58 on: 08:19:24, 04-05-2008 » |
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The first swifts of the year have just arrived here. Always a cheering sight  |
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #59 on: 08:24:01, 04-05-2008 » |
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I love the sound of swifts make when wheeling through the air. Not exactly pretty singing, but it means high summer to me. They nest in the eaves of the little Victorian station here. Not too good for International Dawn Chorus Day in these parts - bucketing with rain |
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