What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?

[Richard Tarleton]

Magpies have delightful cousins in the SW quadrant of Iberia in the shape of azure-winged magies, or rabilargo in Spanish. Very sociable, very noisy, and quite beautiful.

[vinteuil]

Magpies have delightful cousins in the SW quadrant of Iberia in the shape of azure-winged magies, or rabilargo in Spanish. Very sociable, very noisy, and quite beautiful.

... wiki seems to think that the Iberian ones may be Cyanopica cooki rather than Cyanopica cyanus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_magpie

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure-winged_magpie

.

[Richard Tarleton]

... wiki seems to think that the Iberian ones may be Cyanopica cooki rather than Cyanopica cyanus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_magpie

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azure-winged_magpie

.

Indeed - at one time it was thought that they were an isolated remnant pocket of the ones to be found in the Far East: the remorseless march of DNA studies has split them into their own species - or I think that's what happened.

The only live quail I've seen (as opposed to heard) was being carried to its doom, protesting, through the dining room of a hotel in remote Cazorla National Park in Jaen province in SE Spain, on the way to the kitchen. Mrs T and I looked sadly at each other. I am a keen eater of game nevertheless - one of the most sublime meals of my life included perdiz en chocolate, in a high-end eatery in La Alberca, nr Salamanca, washed down with a Ribera del Duero (not Vega Sicilia )

[ardcarp]

We seem to be on a topic of annoying bird noises. Adolescent seagulls (by which I mean the ubiquitous herring gulls) when they still have their first-year plumage and are still not quite independent from Mum and Dad make that awful crying/begging/squeaking noise for food. That really does get annoying.....

Back to quails. I've only had quails eggs once, at a posh wedding reception in the SCR [?] of an Oxford College. A delicacy, I suppose, but I wouldn't go out of my way to try them again.

[vinteuil]

Back to quails. I've only had quails eggs once, at a posh wedding reception in the SCR [?] of an Oxford College. A delicacy, I suppose, but I wouldn't go out of my way to try them again.

... o when we're being especially celebratory here - birthdays, children's doctorates, news of weddings etc - we quite often have quails' eggs as part of nibbles to go with champagne. They have them at w**tr*s*, and if you're canny you can get 'em cheap as they approach a sell-by date. They've had their shells removed, and come with the necessary celery salt. Yummy..


.

[Vox Humana]

... o when we're being especially celebratory here - birthdays, children's doctorates, news of weddings etc - we quite often have quails' eggs as part of nibbles to go with champagne. They have them at w**tr*s*, and if you're canny you can get 'em cheap as they approach a sell-by date. They've had their shells removed, and come with the necessary celery salt. Yummy..


.

I'd want to know which species of quail laid the eggs. I bet no one could tell me.

[ardcarp]

children's doctorates

Happens every day here...

[gradus]

From a BBC Nature website
By Henry Nicholls

8 April 2015


Reputation: Magpies are well known for their thievery, avidly collecting shiny objects to adorn their nests. They will also feed on the eggs and chicks of defenceless songbirds, a nasty habit that has caused a decline in many familiar species.

Reality: Magpies are not thieves, merely inquisitive. They are interested in objects but show no preference for shininess. It's true that they are voracious predators of songbirds, but there is no evidence that this has resulted in a population crash.

Well like all survey evidence there are outliers and I'm afraid that the noisy beggars who have taken up residence next to ur garden are associated with a drastic reduction in blackbirds in our garden. It looks like a causal link but perhaps it isn't, nevertheless I'd dearly like to shift the noisy beggars to somewhere where their beauty would be better appreciated.

[Richard Tarleton]

There's a nice passage in My Family and Other Animals (the book, not the TV series), where Spiro brings in a magpie's nest with young in it. Larry refers to their reputation for thievery and waves a 100 drachma note over them and the youngs' beaks naturally shoot skywards. Larry says it'll be like living with Arsène Lupin.

[Maclintick]

In the last week -- 20+ yellow wagtails at Otmoor, a pair of Black-Tailed Godwits & any amount of Lapwings & Snipe, the resident Kingfisher -- at Farmoor a Ruff, a Little Stint -- rumours of a couple of Manx Shearwaters -- surely off-piste to an alarming degree..we didn't spot them..so it goes...

[ardcarp]

When we see one or more magpies we just have to recite the rhyme....

One for sorrow Two for joy Three for a girl Four for a boy Five for silver Six for gold Seven for a secret, never to be told Eight for a wish Nine for a kiss Ten for a bird you must not miss.

.....though we seldom get beyond number 4.

The snag is, if you only see one, you just have to hang about for another.

[Vox Humana]

In the last week -- at Farmoor -- rumours of a couple of Manx Shearwaters -- surely off-piste to an alarming degree.

Very odd, but it does happen when birds get weakened by bad weather. There have been a few previous records of Manxies at Farmoor. The recent record was just the one, which spent the evening of 3 September there, but on 16 Sept another (presumably) was taken into care, having been found on a road near Oxford.

[gradus]

Ref the magpie flurry above our local paper, the East Anglian Daily Times, has published several letters this week about the huge increase in magpie numbers in parts of Suffolk and the consequent serious reduction in songbirds but to my surprise and perhaps the surprise of others too, today a letter has appeared that describes magpies killing hares both adult and juvenile. I wonder if this has been seen in other parts of the country?

[gradus]

On a lighter note, I noticed a group of 4 buzzards in a friend's field and I think they may be the 2 adults and 2 juveniles that we have seen and heard calling to each other during the Summer.

[Dave2002]

Ref the magpie flurry above our local paper, the East Anglian Daily Times, has published several letters this week about the huge increase in magpie numbers in parts of Suffolk and the consequent serious reduction in songbirds but to my surprise and perhaps the surprise of others too, today a letter has appeared that describes magpies killing hares both adult and juvenile. I wonder if this has been seen in other parts of the country?

How would magpies kill hares? Blind them first, perhaps.