Author Topic: Birdwatching.  (Read 6606 times)

crabbyob

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #30 on: May 28, 2018, 02:43:04 PM »
plus rats and weasels fortyone
we all enjoy and egg
“Life may not be the party we hoped for, but as we are already here we may as well dance”

fortyone

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #31 on: May 28, 2018, 03:02:38 PM »
On Springwatch a few years back they were trying to figure out what was taking all the avocet eggs on the reserve they were producing the program from. They set up IR cameras and it turned out to be a badger - that posed them a bit of a conundrum with one protected species noshing on the eggs of another. I think in the end they figured out it was just one individual so they caught it and moved it somewhere else. Good job there's no Convention of Badger Rights :)

Ashy

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #32 on: Jul 10, 2018, 10:08:22 AM »
I have just seen a green woodpecker, unfortunately it flew away before I could get the camera out. I am going to keep my hat on in case it comes back.

Phil

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #33 on: Jul 10, 2018, 03:29:04 PM »
I'm also lucky to live near the coast where  I can probably see a greater variety of birds  than I do inland.  There are of course the various gulls, terns and wading birds,  but occasionally I see less common ones such as Bar tailed Godwits, Long tailed ducks and Eider.  I always enjoy seeing the flocks of Little Stint which we find in large numbers along the tide line.  Rock Pippits are very common along the rocky coast here.

Oh so that's what a Godwit is.

I thought it was a derogatory name for Labour's Tom Watson.
"I've stopped arguing with idiots. They will only bring me down to their level and beat me with experience.”

Paraphrased from George Carlin

fortyone

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #34 on: Jul 10, 2018, 04:02:54 PM »
Close but no banana Phil. What you were probably thinking of starts with a F.

crabbyob

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #35 on: Jul 10, 2018, 04:26:01 PM »
i saw the above mentioned Tom being interviewed on telly today...my god the man has lost about five stones, i hope he is preparing to take over as leader...
my Indian friend in Cambridge's mom that i also call mom, was fascinated by things i showed and did in India [non of which are relevant here] but she showed me a xmas card with a Robin on and told m her daughter had told her i could make one come into their garden, she knew i was a magical kinda a guy so asked me to show her a Robin... i looked at her daughter in the kitchen whose shoulders were shaking with laughter... so i got the lawn-mower out and cut half of the lawn and came back inside and took her mom to the patio door, within three minutes the greedy wee chap was there, he uses the lawnmower handle as a perch, but i have threatened him if he uses it as a toilet he is barred... after i had put the mower away i called mom to the patio to hear a Nightingale... now how many of us have heard one of those, i had to google it for verification...
“Life may not be the party we hoped for, but as we are already here we may as well dance”

firenze

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #36 on: Jul 10, 2018, 05:05:15 PM »
Golly a Nightingale!  Not heard one since my Pa who was an avid birdman held me by the scruff with a hand over my mouth, he held me until the Nightingale sang its song.
Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Mark Twain.

Boppa

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #37 on: Jul 10, 2018, 07:29:40 PM »
I am a long term birder, and have taken part in many surveys down the years. I also photograph twildlife stating with didgiscoping, then DSLR, and im also using a compact superzoom these days.

Northumberland is a great area for birds especially the Farne Islands, and ive visited Wales, Scotland, and holidayed in Norfolk in pursuit of my hobby.

Phil

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #38 on: Jul 10, 2018, 11:38:52 PM »
Close but no banana Phil. What you were probably thinking of starts with a F.

Yeah, that's the one, but I thought Godwit might be a polite version, you know, when people say sugar instead of sh-t.

 ;D
"I've stopped arguing with idiots. They will only bring me down to their level and beat me with experience.”

Paraphrased from George Carlin

Ashy

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #39 on: Jul 11, 2018, 06:45:07 AM »
Yeah, that's the one, but I thought Godwit might be a polite version, you know, when people say sugar instead of sh-t.

 ;D
I must remember that next time I am in the grocer's.

Nimby

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #40 on: Aug 04, 2018, 10:40:07 AM »
Since I moved up here a few years ago I have taken up birdwatching, as there are so many to see. While at my previous house five miles south of here, I saw a pair of cuckoos frolicking in my garden. Apparently very rare to actually see cuckoos, but not here in the Hebrides. There was a heronry in some trees about half a mile from the house, and when I took my nephew there we accidentally disturbed a golden eagle, which flew from a tree maybe forty feet away and around us in a circle, before settling on a fence post and waiting for us to go away, which we did.

At my current house, where I've been for a couple of years, I get visited by about 20-30 starlings, and almost that many finches. There's also a regular blackbird and a robin, an occasionally a wren too. Overhead are seagulls and crows almost constantly, geese very often, & curlews now and again.
Down at the beach a mile away I always see ducks and oystercatchers, and often lots of gannets flying up to the Butt of Lewis some ten miles north.

firenze

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #41 on: Aug 05, 2018, 11:30:42 AM »
Glad to hear there are still birds to see Nimby, me too an avid watcher  tho' my country market town edge has become suburbia. 10 yrs ago birdwatching was great and varied here but now I'm lucky if I see anything but the brave Sparrow, Robin and Blackbird. Finches are on the deserters list! However I persevere with bird food.
Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Mark Twain.

Michael Rolls

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Re: Birdwatching.
« Reply #42 on: Aug 05, 2018, 01:15:19 PM »
Live on the edge of three miles of farmland containing about a dozen houses. Woods in the other direction. Regularly see Seagulls, Pheasants, grouse, buzzards, sparrows, robins, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, chaffinches, bullfinches, siskins, green finches, wrens, wagtails, oyster catchers, pigeons, skylarks, blackbirds, crows, ravens, rooks, greater spotted woodpecker and probably others I can't remember. One thing intrigues me - in Surrey we were inundated with starlings. Up here saw nary a one until a couple of years ago when we started seeing the occasional one.
When I say 'regularly' I don't mean all of them every day  - the only ones you can guarantee to see every day are the sparrows, blue and great tits, pigeons and crows. Might see a woodpecker once a week, a buzzard three times a week sort of thing.
Mike
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