BIRDS

The ones we get here don't chatter, they scream instead, such a great sound.

They've been sounding incredible on my walk to work in a morning. That screeching! It does my head in a bit to think that they travel from Africa and end up on the side streets of Cowley Road, Oxford.

My starling is getting his white speckly beard and eyebrows in response to god knows what seasonal signal.

back in Italy for the month, god the birdlife here is fabulous. my latest avian crush would have to be the female & juvenile red-backed shrikes I espied perching not five metres from me at the tops of isolated stalks in a roadside field. what delightful little birds - unless you're an even littler bird

they don't even budge when you come close - amazing confidence. but then again they're quite closely related to crows, so their self-aggrandising bastardry is assured

never seen a shrike before. thought they'd be bigger. but I knew almost instantly what they were when I saw their regal, hawkish repose. imagine a warbler with *attitude*, like as gallus as all jeremy, and that's a shrike

I'd love to see a shrike!

Now you can. This landmark in wildlife photography was achieved earlier this afternoon with a cameraphone and a pair of binoculars:

http://i.imgur.com/bCPJFjC.jpg

The decline of kingfishers in the UK is shocking ...

That's v sad. One of my favorite birds in its North American iteration. Halcyon days no longer...

the rivers are fucked and the land is following them

HEY so I'm in Cyprus right now (posting to ILX, I know), and without having to move from my seat I just saw in plain view a jaunty flock of Sardinian Warblers. Neat little birds. Might have a wander outside with the binoculars, see what else there is

just saw a buzzard, couldn't tell if it was a Long-Legged Buzzard or a Steppe Buzzard (which is, boringly, a subspecies of the Common Buzzard). aaargh!

I guess that Cyprus must be a stopping-off point for lots of migrants moving from Europe to Africa, so it's probably a great time of year to see all sorts of species there.

ps bring me back a lammergeyer okay?

yeah i figured it'd be the perfect time to visit. if i see a lammergeier i will endeavour to photograph it

don't get fucking sardinian warblers in Minecraft

ok wow you guys, I saw a kingfisher today - get this - at sea

in fact on one of aphrodite's rocks, the halcyon love reborn

What is the North American bird that will make a nest of rocks on the ground, and then if you try to get near its nest, it will try to lure you away from the nest with aggressive yelling? I think one has made a nest under a shrub of mine. I don't want to kill its babies but I don't want to kill the shrub through not watering! I think knowing the species name would help.

Killdeer? Not sure about the yelling, but I know they'll pretend to be insured to lure you away

*injured

Yeah killdeer! Thanks^3
Almost as big a conflict as the time some robins built a nest in my dad's barbecue's chimney. Well, a conflict for everyone but my dad, who wanted to grill more than not kill some baby birds :(

I will have to watch more but I hope it's just some wacky springtime mating behavez on these birds' part

oh killdeerpaws. Dumbest nesting strategy.Also how the fuck did I miss this post:

ok wow you guys, I saw a kingfisher today - get this - at sea

in fact on one of aphrodite's rocks, the halcyon love reborn

― C/3 Jenks kakling Neu! military£ absinthe snkkt! pckls Özil JTCF njhtdgs (imago), Tuesday, September 24, 2013 3:44 PM (5 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.somersetbirder.co.uk/black%20redstart%20brean%20small4.jpg

^ saw one of these sultry little things while i was out running along the clifftops on friday. slightly anonymous from some angles, like a really drab young euro robin, but as soon as they fly away there's that amazing rufous rump

Big beady eyes + tiny insectivore beak is the most adorable bird face morphism imo

i guess those eyes are totally evolved towards spotting small wriggly things in dim light conditions

There's a bird around here whose song is "chipper, chipper, chipper (in what would be a very whiny/wheedly tone if it came out of a person) -- wheet-wheet-wheet-wheet" and I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. I used to think it was a cardinal, but none of the recordings available online support that idea.

This is my yearly "the swifts are back in w12" post. Has been about a week.

Looking back at this thread their reappearance does seem to vary quite a bit, was April a few years ago, late may in other years.

And, unscientifically, I'd say there are more of them this year - I keep seeing 10 or so together rather than the 5s or 6s of last year

(I must go back to Hyde park and see if last year was a one-off or whether they congregate around the pond every year)

Parrots have names for themselves and each other! Plus baby parrots are ADORABLE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed9A4HPdXgQ

I don't know if it's the cool weather this week or what, but the hummingbirds in my yard are having a super freakout dance party.

Mine are too!

Anyway, today I've become smitten with little brown head parrots. Does anyone have a pet bird? Are they terrible to deal with? I'm not going to run out and buy one on a whim because they're about $600-700, but asking out of curiosity.

my sister in law had an eclectus parrot for about 10 years

I swear unless you talk directly to it for 8 hours a day, all it will do is scream that you're not paying attention to it. I wouldn't have lasted more than a week, I dunno how she managed 10 years. So much screaming. And she gave it a lot of attention!

Though she was GORGEOUS - beautiful deep crimson with bright blue swatches here and there, so amazing that those colors can exist on something in nature like that.

small birds are more manageable, I'm sure

One of my friends about 15 years ago had a parakeet and it was pretty rad. Just flew around the apartment and would eat food out of your hair, preferably after you had buried it a little bit.

I think it's probably better to have two birds instead of one so they don't get lonely, right? Might help with the attention issue.

That makes sense. It's weird to think of birds getting lonely and being super needy, but I guess it happens when you keep an animal capable of flight inside a house.

Parakeets are awesome, happy little goofballs.

VegGrrl otm re anything resembling a parrot, they are psycho and live for 100 years, they are FOREVER and can srsly put the hurt on you sonically and psychologically. At least a regrettable tattoo just sits quietly there on your flesh for the rest of your life and doesn't shriek and shit and attract roaches and prevent you from moving.

I live with two small parrots; my wife got them ages ago when she was a teenager. We have one other bird, a wild starling who was a lost hapless fledgling in a warehouse. Keeping him alive was a huge task, my wife spent a month feeding him on the end of a chopstick every 30 minutes. But he rules. Affectionate, mischievous, a mimic who makes 100s of interesting sounds at manageable decibel levels and crazy word salad phrases like 'jussst make ssssnake payments'. He shits A LOT though so his cage is high maintenance and yknow the couch gets strafed pretty hard. And he is a bird so he is psycho but I love him. Starlings and pigeons are the only wild birds it is legal to keep in the us iirc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0tP-p7m40

First swifts of the year in W12 today

Hen harriers on the brink in England:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/02/fourth-hen-harriers-disappearance-sparks-fears-of-extinction-by-persecution

The RSPB is currently embroiled in a high-profile row with former cricketer Sir Ian Botham, who owns a grouse moor on the North York Moors and fronts You Forgot the Birds, a campaign accusing the RSPB of obsessing over birds of prey to the detriment of other species. After public comments by the RSPB following the disappearance of three hen harriers from the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire in April , Botham’s lawyers sent the RSPB a letter threatening possible legal action against the charity.

You Forgot the Birds and other organisations representing grouse moor owners want the government to introduce a system of “brood management” whereby eggs are removed from some hen harrier nests on grouse moors, chicks are reared in captivity and then released into lowland areas, reducing hen harriers’ predation of grouse. But the RSPB is blocking attempts to introduce such a system, arguing that the grouse industry must first prove it is not breaking the law and persecuting the birds.

Protecting small birds by shooting them, nice one Beefy

Peregrines and hobbies taking ring-necked parakeets:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/nature-studies-londons-beautiful-parakeets-have-a-new-enemy-to-deal-with-10305901.html

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/birdnestsoup/B58afLMIMAAAVws.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/birdnestsoup/IMG_5F00_5440.jpg

like a big beautiful EDL metaphor

I had this very persistently noisy Blackbird visitor all of last week, then since Saturday it hasn't turned up :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFR-azBialE

an alarm call but i do love that sound. reminds me of walking along hedgerows on a summer evening

yeah that is the sound of evening

they're not terribly good at the old relaxing before bedtime thing

damn i had been sitting on my porch and noticed a nest build atop a lampbox fixture its prob like 50 ft away and had just seen for the first time clearly the bird nesting there (robin i think) and i went inside to do some laundry etc for idk like 20 mins?? and came back out and the nest was GONE

ther are some bushes in my line of vision to below it & i walked over sorta near it & did see a broken eggshell & mess but didnt see the nest really anywhere…i guess it mustve fallen? it was a lil precarious and the spot is right above a door idk and i saw the robin come back to the lampbox & like sit like it was trying to nest looking confused omg this is the saddest shit ever

Ugh noooooo