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

[Lento]

the Gretna Green one is pretty good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Q-EbX6dso

Stunning: just imagine the droppings, though!

[ardcarp]

Mrs A visited Radipoe Lake near Weymouth last week and was lucky enough to see a marsh harrier and a hooded merganser. The latter is an individual male who should rightly be the other side of the Atlantic, but who for whatever reason has been turning up at Radipole for several years now. He has no mate and hangs out with the tufted duck. It's probable he thinks he is one because his seasonal comings and goings coincide with theirs. Wish I'd seen it myself...but work

[Richard Tarleton]

Great spot, Radipole. Also good for one of those heard-rather-than-seen birds, the Cetti's warbler, which sings all year round - an ear-splitting "Chink-chinka-chinkachink". Read here for its adoption of the "Beau Geste" strategy.

[ardcarp]

It's hard for those of us who are fascinated by birds to understand how they are of no interest whatever to other (most?) people. I was teetering on the Cobb at Lyme Regis at the weekend, watching the purple sandpipers again...now 6 in the group....through a pair of bins. A guy with a camera with one of those long telescopic things on it enquired what I was looking at. Assuming he was a birder of some sort, I replied 'purple sandpipers' which was met with a sort of puzzled silence while his brain worked out that ornithology was involved somewhere. "Not really interested in birds, mate", he said with a tinge of amused pity in his voice and walked on to shoot the mad wet-suit brigade, windsurfing in sub-zero temperatures.

[Padraig]

It's hard for those of us who are fascinated by birds to understand how they are of no interest whatever to other (most?) people.

Take my wife, for example...........

Even so; tell me this:
Recently I was checking the view from the kitchen window - the area where the feeders are hung in the trees. A bird flew at great speed from left to right of my view, coming in on a downward swoop, passing the feeders at its eye level and disappearing out and up. It was slightly bigger than a blackbird, of a similar shape, but had a brown(ish) plumage. These were the only features I noticed in the second or two that I had. Using that information I consulted my book and came up with - the common kestrel. There's nothing common about kestrels as far as I'm concerned as I don't believe I've ever seen one, but could I be right about this?

ps the full feeders were unattended at the time, and there was no sign of feathers in the grass when I went out to look.

[Richard Tarleton]

padraig - it was undoubtedly a sparrowhawk - classic behaviour! Females brown, males more bluish with an orange tinge below....

[Padraig]

padraig - it was undoubtedly a sparrowhawk - classic behaviour! Females brown, males more bluish with an orange tinge below....

Thanks Richard. I'm very pleased with sparrowhawk - I haven't seen one of them either, to my knowledge. But oh! I wish it had been a kestrel. Sounds more............ aristocratic?

[Richard Tarleton]

Very different behaviour - aka windhover - hangs on the wind looking for mice, beetles etc moving in the grass....

https://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/k/kestrel/

http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/s/sparrowhawk/

[jayne lee wilson]

Thanks Richard. I'm very pleased with sparrowhawk - I haven't seen one of them either, to my knowledge. But oh! I wish it had been a kestrel. Sounds more............ aristocratic?

"An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King;
A Peregrine for a Prince, a Saker for a Knight;
A Merlin for a Lady, a Goshawk for a Yeoman;
A Sparrowhawk for a Priest, and a Kestrel for a Knave."

Book of St.Albans, 1486.
(see also, "Kes"... directed by Ken Loach, and Barry Hines' novel, "A Kestrel for a Knave" )

[Richard Tarleton]

"An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King;
A Peregrine for a Prince, a Saker for a Knight;
A Merlin for a Lady, a Goshawk for a Yeoman;
A Sparrowhawk for a Priest, and a Kestrel for a Knave."

Book of St.Albans, 1486

The taste for sakers for falconry was, I'm guessing, a result of the Crusades, being birds of the near and middle east as well as central Asia. I've been to an area where they breed - Kopački Rit on the Danube (E Croatia) - but did not see one. The Arabs fly them at Houbara bustards

(see also, "Kes"... directed by Ken Loach, and Barry Hines' novel, "A Kestrel for a Knave" )

This film inspired a spate of small boys to take kestrels from the wild, it was reported at the time

[Padraig]

"An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King;
A Peregrine for a Prince, a Saker for a Knight;
A Merlin for a Lady, a Goshawk for a Yeoman;
A Sparrowhawk for a Priest, and a Kestrel for a Knave."



Book of St.Albans, 1486.
(see also, "Kes"... directed by Ken Loach, and Barry Hines' novel, "A Kestrel for a Knave" )

That's me in my place, j l w. It must be time to jack in the amateur ornithology - I'll just watch.

I watched Kes a dozen times.

[Richard Tarleton]

Just checked in the BTO Atlas, Padraig - kestrel still the most widespread bird of prey in Ireland (in Britain, the buzzard has taken over), present in every 10km square except in small areas of, roughly, inland Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh - so you should get lucky sooner or later, especially if you are out and about in coastal Derry and Donegal.

[gradus]

Saw a kestrel today hovering very low - about 10 feet - over a hedge on the Ipswich Hadleigh road at appropriately enough, lunch time.

[Serial_Apologist]

Saw a kestrel today hovering very low - about 10 feet - over a hedge on the Ipswich Hadleigh road at appropriately enough, lunch time.

That could have been a luncheon vulture!

[gradus]