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    Any idea what these are? I'm fairly sure they are not native to UK. They were very tame. Possibly escaped from somewhere.

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      Egyptian Geese?

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        That's exactly what they are. Thanks.

        Originally posted by wikipedia
        It spread to Great Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy where there are self-sustaining populations which are mostly derived from escaped ornamental birds. In the United Kingdom in 2009, it was officially declared a non-native species. Accordingly, Egyptian geese in Britain may be shot without special permission if they cause problems.

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          Their body language screams "we're not causing problems".

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            Following on from my failure to post any photos of parakeets last week, today I'd like to not post a photo of the kingfisher I followed for a good stretch of the Ashton Canal today. Has anyone ever managed to snap one of these fuckers with anything smaller than a rocket launcher? I get why wood pigeons are wary of people but does a kingfisher really have anything to fear from a cyclist on the opposite bank?.

            I could have taken a close up of a shag under a bridge but decided it wouldn't have been appropriate.

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              So not one of these then! (Not my photo):

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                No, not one of those. I've never seen anything like it in broad daylight before and assumed at first that it must be a hoopoe. As far as I'm aware hoopoes don't wear pants round their ankles though.

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                  A jay, then.

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                    Originally posted by Sits View Post
                    So not one of these then! (Not my photo):

                    That's a cormorant, isn't it?

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                      It’s a shag, a type of cormorant. When we used to go on holiday in Cornwall these were the only type of cormorant we ever saw.

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                        Cormorants are much more widespread i think, certainly inland. I'm not sure i could tell you the difference though in spite of guides on boat trips telling me more than once.

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                          Yes. I asked the question because the one in the picture looks exactly like the ones I see by the Thames most days (and which I think I've posted a picture of upthread) and which I thought I'd identified as cormorants.

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                            Shags are completely black and (I think) a little smaller. Hang on <checks Wiki>:

                            No consistent distinction exists between cormorants and shags. The names 'cormorant' and 'shag' were originally the common names of the two species of the family found in Great Britain, Phalacrocorax carbo (now referred to by ornithologists as the great cormorant) and P. aristotelis (the European shag). "Shag" refers to the bird's crest, which the British forms of the great cormorant lack. As other species were encountered by English-speaking sailors and explorers elsewhere in the world, some were called cormorants and some shags, depending on whether they had crests or not. Sometimes the same species is called a cormorant in one part of the world and a shag in another, e.g., the great cormorant is called the black shag in New Zealand (the birds found in Australasia have a crest that is absent in European members of the species). Van Tets (1976) proposed to divide the family into two genera and attach the name "cormorant" to one and "shag" to the other, but this flies in the face of common usage and has not been widely adopted.

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                              That's that cleared up then.

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                                Originally posted by Capybara View Post
                                Yes. I asked the question because the one in the picture looks exactly like the ones I see by the Thames most days (and which I think I've posted a picture of upthread) and which I thought I'd identified as cormorants.
                                According to the distribution maps on Wiki for the two types found in the UK, the shag is coastal only whereas the cormorant is inland too, so this makes sense.

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                                  Originally posted by Capybara View Post
                                  Any idea what these are? I'm fairly sure they are not native to UK. They were very tame. Possibly escaped from somewhere.

                                  We’ve got a pair of these squatting for the winter in an adjacent paddock, where the farmer has a couple dozen of heifers/bullocks. The cattle get fed some grain and hay every day to supplement their grass munching, so the geese get a free buffet.

                                  Down in Pembrokeshire the other day there was a few red kites soaring over the place we are (hopefully) buying, and a barn owl was spotted perching on a neighbouring, er, barn at dusk, which was nice. We only get buzzards rather than kites up here in the High Weald.

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                                    These two were around again today on the Albert Embankment. Tame as anything.

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                                      I've been hoping to get near enough to one of the cormorants while they are swimming to get a decent snap for ages but they are always too far away. I had the opportunity today - this one was right below me - but they really don't stay above water for long enough to compose a shot and once they are under you don't have a clue where they are going to surface.

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                                        These are great. Cormorants get a long way inland. We even see them occasionally in Slovakia. I've never been able to get pictures like these though.

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                                          I had a go at pointing the camera at seagulls yesterday afternoon.




                                          ​​​​​​​

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                                            Worked out all right didn’t it?

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                                              We were visited by a flock of long tailed tits this afternoon. Gorgeous little blighters. Cute little white heads and pinkish beasts. On the hazelnut tree just outside the window too which allowed me to watch them for a while.

                                              Not great tits, but great tits

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                                                We have a new visitor, twice in a couple of days, outside the kitchen door. The photo is through a double glazed window.

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                                                  Yay!

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                                                    That's a fine shot Sits. Very handsome bird.

                                                    i was watching long-tailed tits in the woods near home the other day. They let you get fairly close but not close enough for a good picture. They're in there somewhere.
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