Great Tits

[S. aureus]

I suppose here’s where I put in the obligatory crack about whether the bird itself is easy to see, or the image that you appear to have posted.
edit: to ad hoc

[Jobi1]

Had a lovely couple of hours wandering around Waters' Edge Country Park at Barton upon Humber yesterday. It's a former chemical works that's been brilliantly transformed into a nature reserve, and being right on the banks of the estuary is very popular with water fowl of varying types. Nothing wildly unusual in evidence yesterday, although a very large number of tufted ducks. Husband's review of them: "They're very 80s, aren't they?" Sure.

[ad hoc]

Three times today I've heard this. And you'd think it would be easy to see. But so far, no luck

[Felicity, I guess so]

A Dumfries and Galloway wildlife group on Facebook I'm in has recently featured lots of sightings of a pair of kookaburras, in Kirkcudbright...

[Sits]

Apologies for the quality as I attempt to convey the drama of the local cockatoos trying to see off one of a pair of kites.

[Sits]

Some more unexpected finds from extended garden recordings today. A kestrel, a redwing (on two separate occasions), a grey wagtail (again twice. It looks more yellow than grey, why wouldn't you mention that in the name?), a kingfisher (they do live at the river at the bottom of the hill but not sure if they usually stray this far from water), and a little owl (bit sceptical of that one. Would it have been awake at 8:45am? Why doesn't the map show it being present in the UK but according to Google it is?)

I believe Little Owls predominantly hunt at dawn(dusk rather than night, and are widespread in England.

[Third rate Leszno]

Been watching Eider ducks bobbing about in the harbour (in Fife) this afternoon. The air temperature is 5 degrees c, feels like 1 degree with the wind chill and I bet the water is even colder, but I swear they looked smug and warm in their layers of feathers.

[ad hoc]

This is why it's called the grey wagtail

[Balderdasha]

So 31 species recorded without leaving my house / garden so far.

[Balderdasha]

Some more unexpected finds from extended garden recordings today. A kestrel, a redwing (on two separate occasions), a grey wagtail (again twice. It looks more yellow than grey, why wouldn't you mention that in the name?), a kingfisher (they do live at the river at the bottom of the hill but not sure if they usually stray this far from water), and a little owl (bit sceptical of that one. Would it have been awake at 8:45am? Why doesn't the map show it being present in the UK but according to Google it is?)

[Sits]

That'll be somewhere on Islas Malvinas.

Thanks.

[HORN]

Great! Where is that?

That'll be somewhere on Islas Malvinas.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Wonderful photo.

Penguins always have that air of broken down commuters milling around a mainline station concourse that has "Cancelled" & "Delayed" all over the information board.

If someone could edit in a few little briefcases on the ends of wings it would be perfect.

[Balderdasha]

Apologies for the derail. I'd asked him months ago for a photo of them. Yesterday Master HORN finally delivered.

How is that a derail? Totally appropriate for the thread and fantastic photo!

[Sits]

Apologies for the derail. I'd asked him months ago for a photo of them. Yesterday Master HORN finally delivered.

Great! Where is that?

[HORN]

Apologies for the derail. I'd asked him months ago for a photo of them. Yesterday Master HORN finally delivered.

[Balderdasha]

A common chiffchaff and a song thrush this morning amongst all the usual crew. First time I've recorded a chiffchaff. So 26 species from our garden so far.

[Balderdasha]

That is annoying.

Yesterday I tried the leave the phone outside with Merlin on trick, and then forgot about it for 10 minutes or so while I did something else. I got lucky for a couple of reasons - firstly I left it in the shade and not long enough for it to then be in the sun, and secondly because I needed to make a call and couldn't find it not too long after I left it out there. If I hadn't had to make that call it might have been out there for quite a long time.

I did it yesterday while I was making dinner and then completely forgot where I put it and had a flat out panic for about twenty minutes when I couldn't hear it when my mum rang it.

[S. aureus]

That is annoying.

Yesterday I tried the leave the phone outside with Merlin on trick, and then forgot about it for 10 minutes or so while I did something else. I got lucky for a couple of reasons - firstly I left it in the shade and not long enough for it to then be in the sun, and secondly because I needed to make a call and couldn't find it not too long after I left it out there. If I hadn't had to make that call it might have been out there for quite a long time.

[Reality Checkpoint]

Okay I'll make it slightly easier:


Annoyingly I had the wrong lens on my camera and by the time I'd changed to the telephoto it had flown away.

[Reality Checkpoint]

Lets play spot the Peregrine Falcon:

[Balderdasha]

Leaving the phone to record by itself though reveals a load of extra birds that I didn't know were in our garden. Ignoring when Merlin had a malfunction and started recording birds from Brazil and Bhutan, in the last two days I've picked up: two woodpeckers, a green one and a lesser spotted one (apparently quite rare), coal tit (I knew we get them sometimes), lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, yellow-legged gull (I know we get loads of gulls round here, I'm not very good at distinguishing between them), bullfinch, Canada goose, common chaffinch, magpie, spotless starling (I didn't know there were different species of starling), tree sparrow (again, who knew there were multiple types of sparrow?), and siskin (which looks beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen it in the garden).

So I've now recorded 24 species of birds in my garden in three days. I think that's quite amazing.

[Balderdasha]

For some reason Merlin thinks that I've denied it permission to access my location, so my recent back garden sweep supposedly picked up the sounds of a spotless starling, a purple-throated euphonia and an orange-crowned warbler!

Mine did this earlier today and identified all sorts of birds that are never present in the UK like a Great Kiskadee and a Southern Yellowthroat.

[elguapo4]

For some reason Merlin thinks that I've denied it permission to access my location, so my recent back garden sweep supposedly picked up the sounds of a spotless starling, a purple-throated euphonia and an orange-crowned warbler!

Happened to me yesterday as well, got a couple of native North American birds

[Nocturnal Submission]

There was / is(?) some kind of database transfer going on, so it may be a temporary blip

Oh, really. Thanks for that. I checked my location permissions and couldn't see anything wrong with them so assumed, or perhaps hoped, that the issue was at Merlin's end.