BIRDS

Which is more metal. I think Vultures are more metal while Ravens are more goth.

http://www.myspace.com/vvltvre

Hey, good walk today, not birding or anything but took the bins and saw a firecrest, a peregrine, a water rail, two kingfishers and a half a dozen snipe. Also grey wagtail, buzzard, nuthatch, green woodpecker, reed bunting, kestrel and heron. Guess the cold, calm weather helped a lot. Didn't see any owls though, which I was really hoping to see as it got dusky.

where the hell do you live and can i live there too

This was deepest Sussex - banks of the river just north of Arundel. Lots of ducks too.

sweet

wonder if there were any smew. good time of year for merganser and shoveler iirc

hang on a WATER RAIL - those things are IMPOSSIBLE to see

have also never seen nuthatch...jeez

Smew like deep water iirc, so go to old gravel pits and reservoirs for those guys. For nuthatch you want some good broadleaved woodland, oak or something like that. If they're in yr area though they'll normally come to feeders and start bossing everything else around.

Lucked out with the water rail, it was that cold and icy that one of them was just hanging around in plain view. Didn't register it at first cos it was just this brown blob hanging around with the moorhens, so I assumed it was something equally boring.

Maybe I'll try and make 2010 the year I finally see a hawfinch.

have never seen hawfinch either! wonder if they are as delightful as goldfinch and bullfinch

there's a neat li'l gravel pit reserve in sevenoaks i used to go to all the time...got good waders and ducks there, mad good. should visit again soon! nuthatch and treecreepers remain beyond me

seeing a water rail like that is insane. i've heard them (at the aforementioned reserve) but not seen iirc *roots out checklist* oh wait i have! awesome.

ah, misspent youth

last night i was in a pub with upto11 and upto11's friends whom i'd never met before and i found myself describing the habitat and physiology of the duck preserved in a box on the pub wall. from the angle i sat i could not tell if it was an adult female red-breasted merganser or an adult female goosander (in retrospect it was almost certainly a goosander) so i gave both as options and said it was at least a merganser of some sort. a 'goose-like duck'. i believe the words 'freshwater' and 'maritime' left my lips at this point. i am a world-class conversationalist

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8434907.stm

RIP feathered one

Died of an incurable mallardy.

http://www.naturepics.co.uk/p7ssm_img_1/fullsize/Fieldfare_fs_fs.jpg

^ flock of these beautiful things on the one tree in our back garden today. Also redwing and blackcap.

We've had loads of redwing! I posted about them here: ITT: revealin' some mystic thruths l8r, stay tuned!!!

Fieldfare are scarcer. Tough call as to who's better looking.

Shagging hell, a woodcock has just flown over our garden wtf. I've never even seen a woodcock before, let alone in the 'burbs. Pretty unmistakable outline though. Also there's a big mixed flock of fieldfare/redwing out there right now. Maybe 40-50 birds? Bonkers.

!!!! that is insane!

Correction - I have seen woodcocks before, but only stuffed ones in country pubs.

Constant cascade of different birds into the garden today. Food and water keep getting covered up by the snow though. Blackcap still knocking around, love their Hitler haircuts.

my new year's resolution should have been to put food out for the birds

maybe it can still be done

Maybe 40-50 birds? Bonkers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8457214.stm?ls

Remember this? HI DERE WAHT IS AWESOME

Well, I done blogged it: http://cvpc.org.uk/2010/03/barbican-gig-review-a-journey-into-avant-finch/

Good news today, one more reason Pinnacles National Monument is so awesome.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/10/BAV01CD6K6.DTL&tsp=1

haha numbered condors! nice to see they're back, even if it is the big flagship species that get all the best conservation

now read my blog :P

http://www.sportsmansparadiseonline.com/Live_Owl_Nest_Box_Cam.html

Live barn owl webcam. Found one of these beautiful birds dead beside my barn yesterday, it had knocked its head :(

Two hummmingbirds doing a mating dance around my lemon tree. Weird vroom vroom air displacement noises, like a restrictor plate track race.

Aw sorry about your grim discovery! I'll check out the webcam in a jiffy.

Awesome pictures right now tbh. Beautiful birds.

Hope we're not going to get treated to live footage of the chicks eating each other though.

omg hai dere

background noise in that is pretty cool ambient soundscape imo

Hey LJ she was totally feeding a couple of mice to her featherless chicks an hour or so ago, I could not resist x-posting it to hi dere waht is awesome. God forbid I should start looking at her while at work, I will never get anything done now.

We always wanted to put webcams in all the bird and squirrel nests, now someone has done and it is A+.

How do I care for my fetusy babies with only these cruelly taloned feet and ripping beak to work with? Like this, see?

am slightly disturbed at the implications of that url. and also slightly disturbed by what appears to be a dismembered leg in the foreground at the moment.

Franklin Institute Hawks:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5417192

the swifts are back over shepherds bush - why spend summer in africa when you can spend them in W12?

only in their 2s or 3s at the moment. will be groups of 20 or 30 as the season progresses.

(i said almost exactly the same thing last year - BIRDS )

Swifts having been screaming over Brighton for a couple of weeks now. Cool guys.

i have been looking out for them, and heard them last night for the first time, but only saw them this morning.

African dry season means few flying insects.

Also

House Martins, Swallows, Swifts FITE!

the first swifts of summer = awesome

gonna give that FITE to house martins because they were my favourites aged 6 or 7 - such awesome li'l critters, but tbh all three of those birds are some all-time brilliance

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b74/righteouskate/bird.jpg

found this pretty little guy on the sidewalk outside my work :(

I'm kind of sure it's a tree swallow, but haven't been able to find an exact match in my id books. I live in Florida so we get a tooon of migratory birds this time of year.

dear baby moorhens near my flat, you are rad, and i am a little sad/concerned that last time i visited i could only see one of you, whereas before there were three

dear heron who is sometimes seen under the bridge STARING, have i seen you in 3 different places over a half-mile stretch of river, or are there 3 of you?

dear baby ducks, where are you? is it not duckling season yet? there were only 2 of you last year too, in '07 or '08 there were loads more, i worry

dear birds who aren't waterbirds, i never see you, so you get no love from me until you become a little more visible

I'm not saying it's not one, but that bill looks wrong for a swallow and the wings look quite short as well. xpost

yeah, it doesn't quite look right. I didn't want to stretch out the wings to get a better look at their shape.

http://springvalleypark.org/assets/images/black-throated-blue-warbler.jpg

^ okay I'm guessing it's one of these.

Black-throated Blue Warbler btw.

yessss perfect! thanks!

btw yesterday evening as I set out was a lovely, incredibly warm evening...I looked up into the darkening sky and yes that cry resounded...the first swifts of summer

Louis check out the picture of the long-tailed tits here omg mad cuteness:

http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?mode=potw

per previous post elsewhere, teh lyrebird <3 <3 <3:

http://skola.amoskadan.cz/s_aj/esc/images/Australia/LYREBIRD.jpg

http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/image_content/AlbertsLyrebirdPrinceoftheMountain.jpg

http://i.pbase.com/u16/trevor_quested/large/39074755.SuperbLyrebird.jpg

imo it's not a hipster peacock

long-tailed tits are awesome, they often come through my garden (although more a few years back) all going zee-zee-zee and flocking around in groups of 10 or so, they bloody love going about in gangs, all hyperactive flitting, flashes of purple and the undulating bounce of quick-flight between twigs on adjoining trees - oh yes, the long-tailed tit

torresian imperial pigeon

http://image59.webshots.com/159/9/46/46/2262946460012889947sVkefB_fs.jpg