Last week I spotted a dunlin pootling along the margins of our local reservoir, & yesterday was delighted to observe what at first appeared to be a pair foraging in devoted proximity at the water's edge. At closer range it became clear that the pair was one half dunlin, the other half ringed plover, who flew off in tandem to continue their companionable rootling on the far shore. Is this normal behaviour ? From my position of relative ignorance I can only speculate that this was a mutually beneficial arrangement, for instance, one in which the longer-billed dunlin could perhaps excavate tasty morsels for the plover, who performed some other service in exchange...
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Just spotted your post, Gradus, which doesn't seem to have had a reply. Hen harriers are certainly in evidence at RSPB Otmoor, which is less than 20 miles from the Bucks/Chilterns area. So, entirely possible, methinks.Originally posted by gradus View PostComment
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Mac, thanks for the response. It would only be my second-ever sighting of one, the other was at Downton In Shropshire where a male narrowly missed a pheasant chick, luckily for the flock of chicks they saw him in time and darted into the cover of the nearest hedge.Comment
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Not a personal spotting but a Bonelli's Warbler has turned up on my cousin's farm in the Scilly Isles.Comment
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Yesterday afternoon I found a male blackbird on the ground right next to our compost heap; he opened his eyes briefly when I approached but did not move. A couple of hours later he was in the centre of the lawn, dischevelled, with flies and wasps buzzing around, so doubtless a fox or one of the neighbourhood cats had either investigated or finished the job.
Nature raw, etc etc, but still very, very sad.Comment
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Local RSPCA were out here yesterday when someone reported that our swan family (2 adults, 3 youngsters) were coated in something that looked like oil. One of the youngsters was caught, but the parents got wind of what was going on, and despite best efforts (including launching an inflatable boat to try to round them up) the others escaped being caught. One of the adults was caught early this morning, and the team are due back later to try to get the others and take them away to be cleaned up.
No other birds were affected, and the lake surfaces looked OK, but the beck appeared to have been contaminated. Yorkshire Water responded well, came and took some samples (thick black sump oil?), and plan on coming back to disperse it sometime soon.
Not the sort of excitement one really wants.Comment
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......Wednesday night, about 3 am, I wasn't sleeping, but had the bedroom window slightly ajar, and the radio playing very quietly Haydn piano trios.
There was some rustling outside, and then, what I assume to be an Owl started chirping (not hooting). It was hearing the tinkling piano and guessing that it might be mice?
Anyhow, I didn't fancy a scrum for my bedside radio, so I turned the radio off, and the bird eventually flew off. I didn't miss the piano trios.....Comment
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You mean the kee-yick, kee-yick shriek of the Tawny owl?Originally posted by Quarky View Post
As for Mice in, or on, the radio.
...Owls have hearing way beyond our resolutions, it would certainly know the difference.. ....... it was probably just calling for territorial or neighbourly owlish communications...
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Perhaps Stravinsky's The Owl and the Pussycat?Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostYou mean the kee-yick, kee-yick shriek of the Tawny owl?
As for Mice in, or on, the radio....Owls have hearing way beyond our resolutions, it would certainly know the difference.. ....... it was probably just calling for territorial or neighbourly owlish communications...
(It wasn't Messiaen was it? An Owl might find it at least verges on the curious...)
I'm all at sea over this report.Comment
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WE could be here some time following that...Originally posted by Bryn View PostPerhaps Stravinsky's The Owl and the Pussycat?...but the September sunshine beckons....
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Would that qualify as one of the 'squeaks and squawks' pieces RGF commented on in the Hovhaness thread?Originally posted by Bryn View PostPerhaps Stravinsky's The Owl and the Pussycat?
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I particularly love the Tawny's low, gentle, trilling song, as heard here........
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Yes, you're probably right Jayne. It was a friendly type of chirping. it didn't at first sound like an owl's call, but there ARE owls in the neighbourhood which we hear and see quite often, and I can't imagine there are other birds active at 3 am in the morning.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostYou mean the kee-yick, kee-yick shriek of the Tawny owl?
As for Mice in, or on, the radio....Owls have hearing way beyond our resolutions, it would certainly know the difference.. ....... it was probably just calling for territorial or neighbourly owlish communications...
Well whatever, it was certainly interested in Haydn....Comment
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If there is any form of street lighting in the area, the poor old robins are all to often promoted into singing through the night.Originally posted by Quarky View PostComment
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Well Bryn, it might have been a robin, even though there is very little street lighting around:
Robins can even be triggered to join in the singing of other nocturnal birds, notably the nightingale, to which it is distantly related. - RSPB website
The piano was playing very sweetly....Comment
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