BIRDS

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Savage-Seagull-Attack-Leaves-Woman-Bloodied-And-Shaken-In-Somerset/Article/200807215030277?lpos=UK_News_Article_Related_Content_Region_13&lid=ARTICLE_15030277_Savage_Seagull_Attack_Leaves_Woman_Bloodied_And_Shaken_In_Somerset

Please check out the caption on that article's picture. I think we should invite the guy who wrote it.

Scary! But yes, great caption.

The url reminds me of the Zoolander speech - no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied along the way, just so long so you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied and dying along the way...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090320/twl-environment-us-birds-usa-1202b49.html

good luck usa

A robin is nesting in an archway thing in my parents' backyard:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c287/expatrica/P5090114.jpg

So blue!

What sort of robin? A real robin or yr silly "American robin" which is actually a thrush?

x-post Aren't they awesome? I got a bunch of cool pics. I keep trying to get one of the mama but she flies away when I get within 3 ft of the nest. :-(

LJ - I don't know, I guess an American one? One of the brown and orange ones.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/content/images/2005/01/13/2005_feature_bird_watching_robin_gallery_470x300.jpg

'real' robin. I'm sure it will be this, the american robin is also brown and orange but larger.

They're nosey little birds, and will get very close to you if you're minding your own business. I think you getting close to their nest is not a great idea. I'm always greeted with friendly robins when I'm out fishing, stealing my maggots.

camping in wales once, i was awoken to a robin that had hopped into our tent.

We have Blackbirds nesting in our garden and they have lovely blue eggs too. I imagine it's a "don't eat me" message to other animals. Not that it stops the bastid squirrels who will eat anything.

Thrush eggs are speckled blue incidentally so these are mos' def' robins.

Ste is right about the noseyness too, as soon as we start gardening they'll come hopping along and sneak any worms dug up. They get bullied by the sparrows in our garden but they can mostly hold their own.

i think i still immediately think of christmas when i see robins, from when i was a kid and seeing them on christmas cards all the time.

xp, yeah i think they stick to the same 'zone' more than most other birds, so when other birds enter their territory they can become very defensive.

The UK Robin is limited to Europe, you don't get them in North America. Those are definitely American Robin eggs too, ours lay 5 or 6 little pale brown jobs.

new garden has Coal Tits nesting in a box on a Scots pine

The robins in our garden are being very charming at the moment. One of them, presumably the male, keeps coming to the feeder to get a sunflower seed, then flying up to a nearby branch to feed it to his mate as a sort of little love offering.

x-post - we've got blue tits, kind of apprehensive about the chicks first few days 'in the wild' what with all the cats round our way (the furry bastards).

Yeah, I'm getting confused - when we were talking about american Robins being Thrushes I thought - european thrushes but I see now (having gone to wiki - d'oh) that it's a whole different thing. and quite groovy looking.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Turdus-migratorius-002.jpg/200px-Turdus-migratorius-002.jpg

Yeah, they're smart looking fellers aren't they? Colourwise they're kind of a composite of the body of a song thrush, head of a blackbird, breast of a robin. Every now and again, one will get blown over the Atlantic by a storm and will turn up in a garden somewhere for a few days. Lords knows what happens to them after that.

So to sum up...(to get it clear in my tiny brain)

European Robin (with eggs)
http://www.taxidermy4cash.com/tonyrobinnest.jpg

American Robin (see above)

European Thrush
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Song_thrush.jpg/250px-Song_thrush.jpg
and eggs
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Three_Song_Thrush_(Turdus_philomelos)_eggs.jpg/180px-Three_Song_Thrush_(Turdus_philomelos)_eggs.jpg

I like the way that those robins painted a picture of a church in their spare time.

They seem to have rigged up an electricity for the nest as well

Oh, they're clever.

with all the topics on ILX that turn into US/UK comparison threads, I'd still never have guessed "robins" was one of them

the poster responsible...less of a surprise

I retract "silly", although I maintain that calling it a robin is a big fat misnomer

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/wildlife/hunting/condor/images/condor119.jpg

we see your fancy britishes robin and raise you a california condor

my backyard in SF is populated by Anna's hummingbirds:
http://www.comoxvalleynaturalist.bc.ca/assets/images/birds/annas_hummingbird_m.jpg

and Stellar's Jays:
http://www.governmentcaucus.bc.ca/media/Stellar%27s-Jay_225.jpg

and occasionally the fearsome Common Raven, western:
http://tompawlesh.smugmug.com/photos/225724675_Zc65L-M.jpg

these guys actually scare me. they're big as fucking gulls, and i'm used to crows.

I retract "silly", although I maintain that calling it a robin is a big fat misnomer

― sorry for british (country matters), Monday, 11 May 2009 11:55 (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I spent most of this winter complaining about these texas-sized robin imposters. Turdus Migratorius indeed.

Genus Erithacus or nothing, mate. Red breasted bastard thrush.

My dad had a big, barrel-shaped barbeque grill used for smoking meats. It had a little chimney with a latch that could open or close access to it. My dad had left it open and some robins built a nest in it. My dad wanted to remove the nest so he could cook on it, but naturally his three daughters greeted this with protests and tears. This debate happened every few days until the birds left the nest.

british robins are very territorial and will fight to the death to protect their territory.

The national aviary here in pittsburgh one of these

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/128223385_cb9f040e60.jpg?v=0

a pygmy falcon, which would probably loose in a fight with an territorially aggrieved robin.

omg such conflicting and confused thoughts about that bird

They have one of these too

http://whyfiles.org/shorties/180chickadee/images/pygmy_owl.jpg

For a so-called national aviary it is very small, I think someone built the national aviary of Liechtenstein here. They have a sloth as well which is rather delightful but not strictly a bird.

Is that a pygmy owl? I know such a breed exists.

Ah, so it is. URLs are so helpful.

There are several breeds, I really want to got to the dessert to see the cactus dwelling ones

http://media.collegepublisher.com/media/paper997/stills/hdyogypb.jpg
http://www.swca.com/projects/project_images/6647_1.jpg
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/images/POCactus.jpg

That Condor is more goth than Bimble.

Bimble needs to up his game and start wearing some identification tags around his arms imo

I know I put this somewhere else but I'm very pleased with it.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/3303372099_ec2f10dc34.jpg
A Partridge On My Patio.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/graphics/seagull.gif

british robins are very territorial and will fight to the death to protect their territory.

but not their good names, apparently

i like how their brazen hardness is perceived as cuteness.

i like to get on with birds
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carljgodwin/2707309584/"; title="Hello there! by carljgodwin, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/2707309584_ca294bb2ca.jpg"; width="333" height="500" alt="Hello there!" /></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carljgodwin/2707319866/"; title="At one with nature... by carljgodwin, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3058/2707319866_973405e1c8.jpg"; width="500" height="333" alt="At one with nature..." /></a>
what are these btw?

nooooo!
i like to get on with birds
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/2707309584_ca294bb2ca.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3058/2707319866_973405e1c8.jpg
what are these btw?

thats better

choughs

northern hemisphere/european magpies aren't particularly closely related to australian magpies

this is a robin/robin deal

ahh

As I remember them, Australian magpies have an extraordinary range of calls and vocalisations - to the point where they're often kept in cages, iirr? When I was in WA, I remember chatting to a postman who had a cap with eyes drawn on the back, to deter angry magpies. Sheesh.

I know British magpies can be buggers but they do have an extraordinary vocal range of their own. Up close, they can burble, creak, gargle, burble and natter with the best of them.

Before I knew what the hell a Larsen trap* was, I was walking along a field edge and found a caged magpie. I instinctively knew it was transgressive but I let the poor bugger out anyway.

*a big cage in two parts for angry farmers, where you keep a corvid in one half and keep the other half open to lure other territorial corvids and bingo have two birds for the price of one.

there was a program about the Australian artist/poet Frieda Hughes on WS yesterday. She had a magpie friend called George who used to perch on her head while she was painting and play with her dogs. I can't imagine a UK magpie being like that.

I should add that I love magpies when they're not being psychos, I've seen parent birds with youngsters bugging them, fussing back, bickering, they're so personable and funny. And kind of terrifying, if they look you in the eye.

the Iberian Magpie which I saw loads of in Portugal has blue bits instead of white bits, which owns

oh wow

I got bopped in the back of the head by an aggressive red-winged blackbird yesterday. I've seen them swoop at people at the park before, but this is the first time I've had one make contact and draw blood.

Yeah we have some very aggressive red-winged blackbirds around my work, I got swooped at twice yesterday. Not enough to draw blood, but unsettling anyway.

there was a program about the Australian artist/poet Frieda Hughes on WS yesterday. She had a magpie friend called George who used to perch on her head while she was painting and play with her dogs. I can't imagine a UK magpie being like that.

She actually found and raised her magpie in Wales

I didn't pick up on that - was only half listening while doing the washing up. It sounded like she lived somewhere rural and assumed she was still living in Australia. I've heard stories before of people who develop friendships with wild birds and always enjoy this stuff. The closest I've ever got was one particular blackbird last summer that would spend a lot of time near me in the garden and this went on for weeks. But it would scarper to the hedge if I ever tried getting too close.

What happens when a bird decides it's ready to run a weather report on its own

[source, full story: https://t.co/1Mh9rSVlMC]pic.twitter.com/ZC6CxQC1m2

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 9, 2023

couple of weeks ago spotted an empty birds' nest in the parking lot of a nature preserve i frequent in LI.

today was informed that 1) it was an oriole's nest 2) it has since been destroyed by crows, and broken eggshells were found.

spotted an oriole today right by where the nest was, though. also, lots of crows.

Saw a very large owl sitting on the top of a power pole while driving to Target this past Sunday morning. Surprised me because I thought all owls were nocturnal. Then a couple of miles later I saw a hawk or large eagle come in for a landing on another power pole, and when we passed a small creek I saw a duck with a surprising amount of ducklings — eight or nine, it looked like — paddling around in the water.

Modey Lemon - Crows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=augVsAcmEH8

https://i.ibb.co/ygCC7Bt/IMG-20230615-183021721.jpg VERY active tern & piping plover nesting site at Stelhi Beach in Bayville attracted a huge film crew yesterday. or at least i assume they were there for the birds, i have no idea. saw dozens of terns and a few plovers, then a couple more plovers by adjacent preserve at Fox Point. captured some audio & video.

today saw a sparrow flying around inside the supermarket in Manhattan, but wasn't able to get a pic