Great Tits

[SouthdownRebel]

Great Tits

Ospreys in the UK were down to a single breeding site in Scotland when I was a kid - the RSPB bought the land specifically to protect them. Since then they have had success in increasing their range, with breeding pairs now present in Cumbria, Snowdonia and on Rutland Water, the latter being the site of a major conservation effort in recent years.

Edit: Here's a link to that project.

The Northern Harrier is known in the UK as the Hen Harrier - here they are critical status, mostly because of the propensity of gamekeepers on the grouse moors to blast them out of the sky to protect the grouse until posh people arrive to blast them out of the sky.

[Third rate Leszno]

Great Tits

Great photo Amor.

I have some croppable red kite shots that I took in Mid Wales about 6 years ago that I must dig out and put on here. Would love to see an osprey in the UK, but I think I got spoilt on holiday in Florida where they were ten a penny, nesting on what seemed like every second telegraph pole down the Gulf Coast.

[Sits]

Great Tits

Pretty widespread then. They appear to be fairly commonplace along the beaches of tropical North Queensland. I have a couple of truly horrendous in-flight shots done on the iPhone. Even I wouldn't dream of sharing them here. Unless I have previously.

[Sits]

Great Tits

Ospreys that is.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Caught a couple a Harriers this morning. It would probably have been better if the one in the foreground was in focus, but I kind of like the photo anyway.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Anna's Hummingbird going through his pre-flight stretch



(Note: all my photos on here, and the other photo thread, have disappeared as Dripbox no longer supports it's public folders, Bastards. If you're interested they can all be viewed at http://pictureswithoutpeople.weebly.com/)

[Gerontophile]

Great Tits

These two ducks have taken over the communal pool (it looks like East Germany, but the camera had to see through two fences.)

[SouthdownRebel]

Great Tits

It's fair to say I've rediscovered the birding bug. I used to do it a lot with my dad but got out of the habit after he got ill.

So I took a trip to the Pulborough Brooks reserve today - bought some new binoculars to replace my bulky old 10x50 pair that I inherited from my grandad 25 years ago. A nice new pair of 8x42 EDs that I can use without removing my glasses and that can fit in my bag for post-work jaunts. Might add a telescope at some point to help with greater distances.

My ID skills are seriously rusty, but I'm confident I saw the following:

Skylark
Canada Geese
Kestrel
Chiffchaff
Mute Swan
Greenfinch
Lapwing
Moorhen
Shoveler
Wigeon
Pheasant
Goldfinch
Pochard
Cormorant
Little Egret
Great Black Backed Gull
Blue Tit
Pied Wagtail
Grey Heron

Also heard, but didn't see, Green Woodpecker. Plus a few other species I see every day and can't be bothered to list above. A nice little haul, though a planned second stop at Pagham Harbour where they apparently have a Black Redstart didn't happen.

Here's a photo of half a grass snake:



And an inexpert shot of some of the Wigeon and Pochard etc:

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Not bad for a day's birding SR. I'm more inclined to wander vaguely about with the dog until something grabs may attention. Or sit down somewhere quiet with a book (and a camera) and see who shows up. But, there again, I don't remotely consider myself an even semi-serious birder.

I did go looking for the rumoured Great Horned Owl chick yesterday though. When I lived here fifteen years ago, a pair were resident in a local park. Every year they'd raise two chicks. I don't know when they left, but since we returned to the area five years ago there's been no sightings, until now. On Tuesday I stumbled across a gaggle of camo-clad people with long-lenses and tripods. Seems a nest with a single chick had been identified. No one saw it that day though, nor since apparently. No sign of the parents either. Seems probable the local eagles got it. Pity.

BTW I'm trying out a new image-hosting site:

https://postimage.io/

It's free, and more user friendly than Photobucket. I used it for my last couple of uploads (above) and it seems fine. I'm not sure what the storage limit is. I'll probably find out as soon as they've got me hooked!

[Sits]

Great Tits

SDR's post about Pagham Harbour reminds me of my teens - from about 14-16 I was a paid-up member of the RSPB and used to go on the coach trips and everything. Pagham Harbour, Minsmere and the New Forest were the three birding meccas we visited in that time. Can't remember many "ticks" but a few which come to mind:

New Forest:
* Darftord Warbler (Britain's rarest breeding bird?)
* Redstart

Minsmere:
* Avocet (obviously)
* Marsh Harrier
Didn't get to see a Bittern which was the one I really wanted.

Pagham
* One or two types of tern

And from the beach at Pagham, Eider ducks - would that be likely SDR? Otherwise it would be somewhere else. Is Minsmere on the coast?

We and our Dad put loads of food out for the birds in the winter, and in a particularly harsh one we had all sorts of desperate souls coming in every day, not just the expected winter visitors Fieldfare and Redwing, but also a couple of summer visitors who had failed to leave with their flocks, a male Blackcap and a Reed Bunting.

[Sits]

Great Tits

I think there was a Brambing too.

Amidst all the Cockatoos and Kookaburras, I miss the British birds.

[Gerontophile]

Great Tits

Sits wrote: I I miss the British birds.

Phwoar etc.

That's a nice snake SdR. And that hummingbird is fantastic AdC.

There were a couple of hummingbirds hanging around here last year, and hopefully they will be back, but my camera is not fast enough to catch them. And I am sticking to that story.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Put up a feeder or two. They'll be back and forth all day and you should be able to get some decent photos.

I love hummers, but they're such aggressive little buggers. There used to be a hummingbird house at London Zoo. As a kid I thought it was magic. The colours, the speed, the buzzing. Then one day it was closed. I never knew why until decades later when a friend got a job there. Apparently they shut it down because of the mortality rate. The birds are so ferociously territorial they were killing each other.

[Sam]

Great Tits

Good grief.

Fastest heart rate of any animal in the world, your hummingbird. The blue-throated hummingbird was once measured as beating 1,260 times a minute. We get them (hummingbirds generally, not the blue-throated one) visiting our balcony from time to time.

[SouthdownRebel]

Great Tits

Sits wrote: And from the beach at Pagham, Eider ducks - would that be likely SDR? Otherwise it would be somewhere else. Is Minsmere on the coast?

Definitely plausible along the coast from Pagham, yes - though it probably would have been during the winter months. That said, off the coast at Minsmere is equally plausible.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Sam wrote: Good grief.

Fastest heart rate of any animal in the world, your hummingbird. The blue-throated hummingbird was once measured as beating 1,260 times a minute. We get them (hummingbirds generally, not the blue-throated one) visiting our balcony from time to time.

Yes, their metabolism is amazing. It was only recently figured out how they managed to migrate several thousand miles without their hearts exploding. Apparently they're able to "gear down" for long distance flying, so wing-beats are way less frequent. Another thing I discovered, just yesterday, is that they build their nests principally out of spider webs. They do this because the webs are flexible enough to accommodate the chicks as they grow.

[SouthdownRebel]

Great Tits

Back to Pulborough Brooks again today, this time with SDR Jr who I'm trying to enthuse - it seems to be working. In addition to grass snake and adder, the following add to last week's list (many of which we saw again):

Bullfinch*
Nuthatch
Teal
Shelduck
Long Tailed Tit
Jay**

* Especially enjoyed this as they're one of my favourites and it's been a long time since I saw one
** Spent a good 5-10 minutes on a branch 5 metres away just showing off

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

The perils of identification.





Top is a Song Sparrow (I think!) that I uploaded here a couple of weeks back. Bottom is a Savannah Sparrow (I'm fairly sure!) photographed the other day. Or are they the same? This is the problem with Sparrows. There are thirty-four separate species listed in Petersons's Field Guide for Western North America, about eight are local. A couple are obvious — Golden Crowned and White Crowned — otherwise it's a bit of a lottery. The key difference between these two is that the Savannah Sparrow has a notched tail. I think the other one's a Song Sparrow because it's slightly duskier, but without seeing it's tail I can't be absolutely sure.

If I'm honest though, I don't really care. In both cases it's all about the photo. I love the locations and the bokeh, the birds are just showing off the scenery!

[Amor de Cosmos]

Great Tits

Way back last year, when I was farting about with my little point 'n' shoot Sony, I photographed Killdeer on the beach. Here's a better picture:



They're nesting again at the moment. I spent about half an hour this morning with them. The females are practically invisible. I got a glimpse of one when I arrived but she headed straight for the nest and disappeared. The male's job is to draw intruders like me away. This is a three stage process. First he yells loudly. Then runs away hoping I'll chase him. Finally he quickly digs a shallow hole, squats in it, fans his tail at me and arches his wings (see below). The display is a well designed "Yah boo sucks, asshole! I'm over here if you want a piece!"

On the face of it it's a terrible place to nest. There are predators galore, crows, eagles, gulls, rats and probably racoons at night, plus people and dogs walking by all day. You'd think they'd look for somewhere quieter and safer, but based on the calls, there are several pairs within a few metres of each other, so it must have something going for it.

[SouthdownRebel]

Great Tits

One Swallow doesn't make a summer, but it certainly helps - saw my first of the year today, along with Grebes (Great Crested and Little), Turnstone and a variety of ducks.

[Third rate Leszno]

Great Tits

Very pleased to see a Red Kite as I was coming over Shap on the M6 yesterday - first one I've seen up there since they were reintroduced to the South Lakes 7 years ago.

[Sits]

Great Tits

Give it five years they'll be all over the place, if the south east is anything to go by.

[SouthdownRebel]

Great Tits

Today it stopped raining long enough for me to have a wander across the fields near Climping, which is as near to a local patch as I have. Spent 20 minutes watching a Buzzard hunting - it would spend a few minutes soaring overhead, then return to a nearby tree for a few minutes. It repeated this several times but each time it perched in a different tree. Fascinating to watch, even though it didn't catch anything this time.

I'm up to 53 different species for the year so far, with Linnet and Whitethroat added to the list today. One of the birding magazines is running a 200 species challenge, so I'll see how close I can get to that. A week in Devon at the start of June offers the chance of a bonanza.

[Kevin S]

Great Tits



Very strong set of first class stamps released this week.

[Sits]

Great Tits

Oh very nice. The blackcap and yellowhammer stand out.

But cuckoo as songbird?