BIRDS

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

Quiz question (for which I don't have the answer): what type of bird does Alain Delon/Jef Costello have in his apartment?

huge:

http://thebigpicturemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Samourai-4.jpg

a finch of some kind

white rump, black cap, buff belly = female bullfinch

better known as a cowfinch

just kidding, it isn't

I popped to the library earlier (I know how to enjoy Christmas) where I found a copy of Melville on Melville and by jingo if NickB isn't correct. Mellville said he wanted it to be dull in colour, to match the room. You win a bottle of Evian.

According to Rui Nogueira (author of the book "Melville on Melville" published in 1976), the caged bird shown as Jef Costello's pet in "Le Samourai" was the only casualty of the fire that destroyed Jean-Pierre Melville's studio in 1967.

:(

on the one hand these albatrosses are v funny but also do they do this all day? is it a mating thing? so cool & strange

Look at these idiots. Are they friends or enemies. What do they think they’re accomplishing here. Come on, guys. https://t.co/OAlWYOqqS0

— Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) January 20, 2022

Could be talking bollocks here, but i think it's a ritual they do when they're reunited - if they're like other albatrosses, they mate for life but spend months at a time out at sea so don't really see they much of each other, so this is them reaffirming their bond.

omg that’s the BEST explanationn
i support it fully, true or not <3

yeah that's what it is. sometimes the cutest explanation is the right one. but only here, on BIRDS

*rubs bills with imago*

Birbwatch

goldfinch 4
blue tits 2
chaffinch 2
jackdaw 4
black cap 1
blackbird 4
pied wagtail 1
magpie 1 for sorrow
collared dove 2
starling 2

(Gloucestershire garden, 10-11 today. sparrows and the robins very shy today, as we the other two magpies. goldfinches often flock in their 8s or 10s but not today. jackdaw numbers also low given that walking down the road you'll see a pair on every other chimney top)

i am being a bit sneaky and collating mine from various peeks over yesterday, today and tomorrow. you only put birdfood out when it's the garden birdwatch, imago! yeah but i've also had to revise the positioning and configuration of my feeders to desquirrel them. putting in the hours.

anyway. it's been parakeet city so far. a maximum of 6 in the frame at once. that aside, a couple of great tits, a couple of dunnocks, a wren, some woodpigeons, a blackbird. can hear some goldfinches so i'll count them. wondering whether it would be ethical to bung in the grey wagtail that's visited my garden a few times over the last couple of weeks. i mean it's so much more impressive than the others that i probably have to, right

love a nice grey wag! <3

anyone had any greenfinches recently? realised the other day that I haven't seen one for ages and there used to be loads round here

pretty sure i saw one an hour later, but didn't have the best view

there is a huge parakeet colony in my area and has been for decades. I saw this jogger the other day who was exclaiming surprise at seeing a group of them flying past. I presume wild ones must be quite rare outside of London because I've seen local newbies completely surprised at their presence a few times before.

yeah they seem to be insanely well-suited for both the uk climate and suburban living!

at my parents' i've seen far more greenfinches again in recent years; think they're having a bit of a resurgence after some very fallow years

fuck I THOUGHT I'd desquirrelled it but I just watched one of rhe bastards slowly size up and then successfully perform a leap of a metre sideways x a foot upwards from a fence to land on the peanut feeder. astonishing and hateful stuff, big respect

ah that's good news! I know that they really got walloped a few years back by that virus which was largely being transmitted by them congregating at birdfeeders xp

keep moving the feeder by a few inches just to see exactly how far a hungry squirrel can jump

that could be tomorrow's project...

Mark e smith otm re squirrels

My parents have parakeets visiting the feeder in their new garden in birmingham, the rspb says that they're only resident around london and elsewhere they're winter visitors. had only seen them in the distance before, clinging to a garden bird feeder they look massive!

they've been living wild in my area for at least 20 years according to an old bloke from the farm. I've been regularly seeing them for probably 10 years now.

all year round I should add.