A dozen long-tailed tits on one feeder of fatballs this morning - brilliant sight!
What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?
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I would hate to turn this lovely thread into anything (a) political or (b) contentious, but one cannot help noticing that the project-boat to bring cattle to graze meadows was partly funded by the EU. All this sort of thing will now cease, and is unlikely to be replaced by anything else. Island communities have done particularly well with EU help, as anyone visiting Scilly will notice.
Returning to curlews, can anyone give figures about the decline in the UK population? There still seem to be lots around in the West Country.
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The early bird may catch the worm but the late one gets the bugs. I was doing some clearing up in the garden this afternoon and as I decided the light had got too dim to be able to carry on I became aware that a female blackbird was fossicking around the various bits and pieces that I had been shifting. A wistful robin song was in evidence some of the time but the bird itself didn't appear this time - never mind, nice to hear and know it's still around.
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Originally posted by ardcarp View PostNice word odders. Presumably equivalent to 'rootling' or (here in the West Country) 'spuddling'.
Not heard it before but I would say the Cornwall origin is very likely as a result of Cousin Jacks moving around the globe with their mining skills when mines closed in Cornwall in C19th.
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Originally posted by ardcarp View PostNice word odders. Presumably equivalent to 'rootling' or (here in the West Country) 'spuddling'.
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Originally posted by Maclintick View Postor furtling, perhaps ?
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Originally posted by vinteuil View Post.... I noticed ferney used 'furtling' the other day. I was a little surprized -
http://drlindahumphries.com/?p=1021
That the word was - as with so many others - reused to apply to other rootlings is no fit matter for this Forum, I would have thought? Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off for a quick session on my Jingling Johnny.[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]
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Originally posted by vinteuil View Post.... I noticed ferney used 'furtling' the other day. I was a little surprized -
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Back on topic, a glance out of the kitchen window yesterday late afternoon revealed a couple of (red leg) partridges pottering on and around the patio. One was happy grazing the grass but the other, having very clumsily flown up and landed on the fence, was eyeing the bird food on the adjacent table. It kept leaning over and I wondered if it was going to try and land on the feeder; it thought better of it and then spent sometime staring at me with its head on one side - almost as if it was expecting me to do something. After it finally took the plunge and jumped off the fence into next door's yard I went upstairs to put some laundry away and saw that in fact there was a group(covey?) of 6 already there. There was some feeding but much of the activity was mooching around looking slightly out of place but not particularly wary or ill at ease, and demonstrating that they are really not very agile. The flapping up to the garage roof and from there to either the fence or the ground again was clumsy to say the least, took a lot of dithering before committing to action, and one could almost the grunt and 'oof' of effort each time. I was intrigued at the contrast between their showy front on plumage and the camouflage back. The setting sun was throwing a soft pink light over the garden and as the birds turned away from me the shape of their backs seemed to partly dissolve and merge into the surroundings, even on the green grass. The front-on faces do look very like puffins though - it was hard not to smile at them.
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