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

[Serial_Apologist]

Has anyone noticed, just recently, some garden birds seem to be taking a siesta in the very hot early afternoons? It all goes very quiet. (This obviously didn't happen during the busy nesting season.)

Foxes yes! - but not birds as such, although I've seen blackbirds fanning out their wings as they lie motionless on their tummies in hot sunshine. Perhaps they're sunbathing?

[oddoneout]

Foxes yes! - but not birds as such, although I've seen blackbirds fanning out their wings as they lie motionless on their tummies in hot sunshine. Perhaps they're sunbathing?

Might be anting - that's what they do on my lawn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anting_(behavior)

[Serial_Apologist]

Might be anting - that's what they do on my lawn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anting_(behavior)

That makes sense!

[Dave2002]

Very fast birds - probably swallows - but could also have been swifts - which came to practice aerial bombardment around our house late yesterday afternoon. Most probably were swallows - as I believe that swifts can't perch on wires or ridges - though maybe they can simply flop down on roof tiles. Several flew straight at me, but diverted at the last second. I'm still trying to get good photos of these birds - particularly in flight. Very difficult.

I'm also not sure if swallows and swifts mix - if they don't that sways the classification towards swallows. There were many of them - often in the air at the same time.

[Bryn]

Swifts and swallows have suffered severe reductions in their U.K. summer residency in recent years, now helped by such as Eton College clearing away their many nests when cleaning the frontage of their School Hall and Library a decade or so ago. They were a major feature of the area.

[oddoneout]

A couple of weeks ago the swifts at work were doing a mass display - swooping, diving and screaming all at high velocity - round the courtyard which is flanked on two sides by high buildings which magnify the sound and the activity. I reckoned they would be gone shortly as it seems to be a precursor to the seasonal departure. Sure enough a couple of days later all was quiet.
Very few swifts nested in my road this year, although there have been no significant changes(reroofing, although the design of the roof profile and the use of pantiles means that such work doesn't usually cause problems) that would have kept them away so I assume their absence is part of the general decline. When they did the pre-departure displays it was always a bit disconcerting as the combination of narrow road and blocks of terrace housing makes for a canyon effect through which they'd hurtle in a kind of avian Red Bull air race, not keeping above head height or at any distance from any humans around.

[agingjb]

Swift are very dark, longer wings; Swallows (and house martins) have white (front or rump), Sand martins are brownish.

If they are really moving too fast to separate by eye, swifts screech.

[seabright]

One ought to keep a shoebill in the garden ... One's friends would have a great time bowing and shaking their heads while he does the same thing back ... :) ...

[Maclintick]

Has anyone else experienced a steep decline in the number of garden birds in the last month or two ? Our regular blackbirds, tits, dunnocks & so on have all but disappeared. We wondered if this was due to many of them having succumbed in the July drought, but recently worrying reports of avian 'flu have begun to circulate. On our country walk yesterday the trees and hedgerows were eerily silent..

[ardcarp]

Plenty of twittering here in the SW. Which region are you in, Mac? One unusual sight yesterday was a sky (cloudless) full of swallows all flying about high up and randomly as if they didn't know what they were doing. It may of course just have been caused by an abundance of flying insects. However one expects them to be lined up on telephone wires waiting to go off to warmer climes. Maybe the unusually hot weather has made them linger longer, perhaps worrying about climate change?

Irrelevant PS. Got a really good sighting of a kingdfisher following the course of a local stream. A dipper there too.

[oddoneout]

Plenty of twittering here in the SW. Which region are you in, Mac? One unusual sight yesterday was a sky (cloudless) full of swallows all flying about high up and randomly as if they didn't know what they were doing. It may of course just have been caused by an abundance of flying insects. However one expects them to be lined up on telephone wires waiting to go off to warmer climes. Maybe the unusually hot weather has made them linger longer, perhaps worrying about climate change?

Irrelevant PS. Got a really good sighting of a kingdfisher following the course of a local stream. A dipper there too.

I read recently that swallows have been risking an extra (third) brood as a result of the heatwave, so perhaps they are juveniles getting their flying practice in rather later than usual as they fledged later?

[ardcarp]

Yes, that seems a good explanation of what we saw. Thanks, Odders.

[Maclintick]

Plenty of twittering here in the SW. Which region are you in, Mac?

We're in Oxfordshire, and there was plenty of avian activity locally until the July heatwave. At that time we regularly topped up the birdbaths in the garden for our resident blackbirds and thrushes, but since then there's been a decline in numbers, particularly of the smaller species who were very active in the spring.

[ardcarp]

Another explanation is the annual moult, which takes place in the Summer and reduces native birds' flying activities.

[oddoneout]

Buzzards doing their periodic cruising of the thermals the past few days - mostly just a pair, so I'm wondering if the younger members of the group that is often around have finally moved on to pastures new. I'm not sure if the pair in the wood at work bred this year as we didn't either hear or see any youngsters, and normally they are very much in evidence on both counts.
The various gulls/terns/seabirds all seem to have moved away and the sky's chorus has changed as a result. Unusual for them all to go in such a short space of time; the oystercatchers often go away quite soon after the youngsters are flying well, but there are usually small numbers of other birds staying around, at least on a part-time basis.