BIRDS

Absolutely :)

Had a redwing in front of house today. Never seen one before.

Red-tailed hawk in the park the other day. Not sure whether Pale Male.

Sunbathing crow.

recently a Goose in Florida had a friend die and has taken to destroying windows, attacking children at buses and hanging out with quote unquote lawless ducks

I guess yesterday was International Vulture Awareness Day and i thought this tweet salute to the bearded vulture deserves its own recognition. “I am the MOST METAL culture because my diet is mostly bones” must be a lyric somewhere.

Vultures are amazing, and very important. Did you know: vultures are often a "dead end" for many common diseases spread by carrion? Rabies, botulism, anthrax, & more can't survive a vulture's digestion! #IVAD #VultureAwarenessDay #InternationalVultureAwarenessDay #LoveVultures pic.twitter.com/vi2jjOyXkj

— Jennifer Miller (@Nambroth) September 1, 2018

you say vulture i say culture

First swifts of the year in w12 yesterday. That's easily two weeks later than usual. Plus I've only seen two at any given time.

verified barred warbler sighted around the outskirts of sheerness. feels quite exciting. i'll probably alert the rspb

even Jonathan Franzen thinks so

self-lol

― gabbneb, Wednesday, January 23, 2008

pvmic

I finally refilled the backyard feeder and we have a newcomer to this yard, a male rose-breasted grosbeak.

Yes it's real. pic.twitter.com/GxRESJeJFv

— Bobbie Hineman (@HinemanBobbie) May 17, 2020

and my bird

one of the ravens has left the tower (they are still quorate though). but someone posted this video in response and i've bever heard a raven before.

We are so sad to hear this; we loved Merlina and always looked out for her when we visited. Here she is in 2019 in conversation with Jubilee. Wherever you might be, sleep well, petal. xx pic.twitter.com/fzOAebrsiy

— 𝒪𝓉𝓈𝒾 𝒲𝑜𝓁𝒻 🐺 (@otsiwolf) January 13, 2021

they have a vast vocal range. there's at least one youtuber who has chatz with theirs

Had a redwing in front of house today. Never seen one before.

― Grandpont Genie, Friday, March 2, 2018 10:04 AM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Saw one in the park the other day, ditto.

This seems to be a growing thing every year: webcams on peregrine falcon nests in Flanders (mostly church towers) - scroll down to the map & you can click on them

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2021/03/29/jaarlijks-komen-200-slechtvalkkuikens-uit-hun-ei/

e.g. here in Mechelen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpLZ59y6Ivg

ok, aussie bake-off often has (brief) shots of birds around the tent shed. kookaburra are obvious, the magpies are wrong but also obvious, but there are a couple i can't find on oz garden bird websites:

1) like a goldfinch but unsaturated

2) like a pied wagtail but solid black on top, solid white on bottom

turns out searching for 'finch' and 'wagtail' helps

1) double barred finch maybe

2) willie wagtail

I think I saw a goldfinch once where I live and a red woodpecker where I lived previously but they were unknown in my childhood so perhaps not unusual but still special for me. The birds are really loud now at dawn or maybe I missed it before.

at Home we'd get 8 or 10 goldfinches at a time visiting the feeders, but around here it's the odd one or two, typically sat on tv aerials chirping away.

the woodpecker tree in the park blew over about 8 years ago and i've seen a lot fewer since. i still hear them from time to time.

Goldfinches are such joyous little things. People would keep them in cages as song birds before ready access to canaries and the like.

I was walking into the woods the other afternoon and there was a goldcrest in the hazel poles at eye level, about 3 feet away. It's rare to get have such a close up of them. They're tiny - smaller than a wren - but with the same puffed up 'don't fuck with me' quality and its mohawk was pulsing as it dodged about. Awesome.

actually, the final show ended with a montage of the birds. the double barred finch wasn't, was too big for a finch

http://www.koogy.clara.co.uk/birb.jpg

unfortunately the orange light in this room did odd things to the photo, turned it blue, so i've desaturated the whole thing because the actual bird was greys and blacks. beak and legs were bright orange though.

Noisy Miner? https://ebird.org/species/noimin1

yeah. looks like it, thanks.

i thought the mask was more like a goldfinch, but it's not. and the beak shape and the odd yellow eye thing is an exact match, so yeah.

(Perhaps all photos of birds, except crows and those little brown birds that seem to be everywhere, should be taken in colour. But photographers may have other reasons or views.)

I'm hoping the goldfinches come back in the spring (when I think they were last around).

Curious if any Europeans envy us Americans our goldfinches like I envy you yours?

looks like a siskin, but brighter

looks like a small, stubby oriole

There’s a feral euro goldfinch population that lives in prospect park. I am jealous of european robins tho

American goldfinch looks a bit like a yellowhammer too.

looks like a cross between a finch and a yellow warbler

i saw a hawk on my fire escape in bk!

Thread’s making me jealous of Brooklynites too now!

:-) i think there's something going on on my roof bc i see a lot of cardinals and bluejays stop on the FE b4 flying upward.

Yes we have a peregrine couple living on top of our 6 story apt building in Williamsburg BK, it is a treat whenever they are glimpsed. Bird life otherwise not very exciting in this zip code. Yearly one-day invasion of grackles to eat all the berries (I assume?) is always nice.
Closer to prospect park/the cemetery obv lots cooler bird action
Also the reservoir which I’ve never been to

Those Noisy Miners (a.k.a. "mickeys") are the coolest birds, super intelligent and engaging. When I worked in Newcastle they used to take my lunch from my hand (and not because I was offering, I would hear a brief rustle behind me and a mickey would zoom past and snatch a beakful of burger on the wing).

silly looking bird!

aw I think they're beautiful
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/images/full/noisyminer_204104716.jpg

How is ur starling jon?

Ah. Merlin is no longer with us. Last winter my wife noticed a weird fatty bubble growth under his wing so we took him to the bird vet and they found in his blood work that he had bird leukemia. He soldiered on until a couple of months ago. He didn’t seem to be in any pain through it all, ate hearty until his last day. He was 14. He leaves us with many weird catch phrases he uttered during his younger days.
Honey mustard
Mayor beebee
ORITCH (seemed to be his word for fruit/berries)
Good morning good morning
Just make snake payments
It’s the snake universe
MARITZA (also seemed to mean “fruit”)

And many more. He went through a phase of using penis in his word salads when he was 2 or 3, lots of good ones in that time (“yes bird. Just my penis. Just the thickest.”)

It’s not easy to raise a lost starling chick (you have to feed them every 30 minutes all day long) but the result is a tremendously entertaining and playful pet. Which shits A LOT.

It's the snake universe ;___;

RIP li'l buddy

Honey mustard
Mayor beebee
ORITCH
Good morning good morning
Just make snake payments
It’s the snake universe
MARITZA

this is the tracklist of my new hyperpop album fwiw, Beatles cover and all

If you want to do a deep dive, the Twitter account @mybirdsaid was my wife’s repository for his sayings during his most voluble years

Aw, ty

Condolences jon. He is babbling nonsense to god now.

In his wake, parakeets have come. I’m afraid I allowed mrs JNJ to go a bit parakeet crazy during the isolation of this pandemic. Also one Java Finch

❤️

yikes, that sounds like a thing