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

[Dave2002]

Hi Dave, this all hinges on the identity of the larger bird - as you're not sure, could it have been a raptor - sparrowhawk, goshawk, peregrine etc ? (no idea where you live). Sounds more likely to me. The only bird likely to take a swift probably a hobby, but you're not going to mistake that for a crow. Swifts and hirundines would certainly mob a raptor - a crow, less likely.

Maybe you're right. I now think the birds may have been quite a bit higher up than I thought, so perhaps the larger bird was a buzzard. There were a lot of the smaller birds, and if they were swifts as I think I don't know why they just didn't fly away, or do they enjoy irritating some larger birds?
The noise at ground level was significant.

[kernelbogey]

I'm not a bird watcher, and have only just fallen across this thread. But I thought I'd report having seen a pair of Choughs and a fledgling in Cornwall while walking the Penwith coast path last month. A knowledgeable local passing in the opposite direction confirmed that they were choughs, and that the nest had been under RSPB night and day watch. He said that there were only six pairs in Penwith (the extreme western peninsula) and that they were a natural re-introdution from Brittany.

[Richard Tarleton]

A bit more about Cornish choughs . Maybe Brittany, but chough have also come across to Somerset and Devon from S Wales. The Welsh population is doing well - a bit more on population trends here. Colour ringing has been vital to an understanding of their lives, enabling individual birds to be identified with binoculars and followed over many years - here's a bit about that.

Their call generally alerts one to their presence - a nasal "kee-eouw", described by a well-known Northern Ireland birdwatcher and photographer a while ago as "a crow with a college education"

[kernelbogey]

Thank you Richard: I shall browse your links with interest. I didn't know there is a Welsh population. The Brittany story is merely what I was told: I'd have thought a migration from Pembrokeshire more plausible. It's good that they have returned, especially as they are a part of Cornish heraldry.

[Richard Tarleton]

Just had a look at the BTO Atlas - it seems genetic analysis (Wenzel et al, 2012) points to Ireland as the likely origin of the Cornish population.

Their survival closely linked to land management - they like areas where cattle are outwintered, and where there are permanent coastal pastures (they eat, inter alia, the invertebrates to be found in cow pats where the cows have not been dosed with stuff like Ivermectin.) This may be too much information!

especially as they are a part of Cornish heraldry.

PS Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, Wales - all very Arthurian

[aeolium]

PS Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, Wales - all very Arthurian

There is a reference to the chough in more than one poem by the eccentric vicar of Morwenstow, R S Hawker, e.g.:

"And mark yon bird of sable wing,
Talons and beak all red with blood,
The spirit of the long lost king
Pass'd in that shape from Camlan's flood!"

A note on the poetry about the bird claimed "The common people believe that the soul of King Arthur inhabits one of these birds, and no entreaty or bribe would induce an old Tintagel quarry man to kill me one."

There are definitely several choughs in Gower as I saw them when I was there a couple of months back.

[clive heath]

We've seen them on the Lizard Head but the population there seems to be variable and also here

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-chough-returning-to-its-nest-hole-in-the-famous-ronda-bridge-spain-78853674.html

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's the gannet season on Bempton Cliffs, where Frau A and I were this morning.

Here we have mother and child. The child is already heavier than the parent, but once the youngster takes wing, weight reduction follows.






Magnificent birds -







and stunning in flight -

[johncorrigan]

Loch of Lintrathen is on the way up to Glen Isla from Kirriemuir. Mrs C and I decided to take advantage of a rare decent Friday to have a stroll round it yesterday. We spotted an osprey fishing over the Loch and tried to get to a good vantage point. We watched for about 15 minutes and then it disappeared to the far side of the Loch. We walked back to the car and then as we came along spotted the beautiful bird back on our side of the Loch. As we parked on the layby another osprey came into sight which looked like a young one which made an unsuccessful dive. A third osprey appeared but we carried on watching the original adult and were rewarded with a dive and successful catch only 50 metres from us, the bird heading off low across the loch with its catch and the young one following seeming to look for a share. Worth the midgie bites anyday.

[gradus]

I thought it was a cat in distress until I looked up to see the buzzards wheeling around each other - plenty of thermal currents to glide on these days.

[greenilex]

Wonderful bald eagles on the Mississippi last week as we pottered along in our "pontoon" craft. Was also pleased to renew my acquaintance with the American robin in the family backyard.

[Dave2002]

Have the photos (msg 623) been taken down?

[Bryn]

Oh joy! The prunus outside the window here has just been raided by a gang of long tailed 'tits'. Such a delight to observe.

[clive heath]

At the water's edge in Christchurch Harbour we have seen several Turnstone, a few Ringed Plover (yellow/black beak). and we think Little Ringed Plover (mostly black beak , smaller) and very small indeed, a lone Little Stint. They came back several days running along with (easier to clock!) Little Egret and a pair of Swans with their four not-so-young-but-still-grey offspring. A local birdwatcher showed me a picture on his camera of an Osprey taking a fish from the harbour, he thinks it/they may be based at Arne (RSPB site near Wareham) for the autumn.

Last month we were able to enjoy the sights of small flocks of Bee-eaters and a pair of Hoopoe in Tuscany. At the nearby Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, famous for its frescoes, there are magnificent choir stalls with marquetry designs from 600 or so years ago, one of which includes a hoopoe.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=choir+stalls+monte+oliveto+maggiore&biw=845&bih=528&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAGoVChMI89vRmKHxxwIV8ArbCh1LmweX&dpr=1.1

links to the stalls but I haven't been able to find the hoopoe.

[Vox Humana]

Mrs Humana and I are just back from a short spell in Spain. The main reason for going was to visit the fabulous Sagrada Familia in Barcelona now the inside is more or less finished (it was all scaffolding last time we went) and I didn't get to see many birds - a lot of the migrants had already left. For the first time abroad, however, our temporary garden was graced with an Orphean Warbler. We heard it many times every day; I saw it properly precisely once! The only other garden birds were a roving flock of Long-tailed and Crested Tits and Firecrests. We had good views of Monk Parakeets in Barcelona and Sitges and heard them in one or two other locations. They seem to be quite common in that region now and must have spread in the last couple of decades since my 16-year-old Collins field guide (1st edition) doesn't mention them being in Spain at all. We also had a day out on the Ebro Delta and saw Greater Flamingos, many terns (Gull-billed, Whiskered and Caspian), egrets (Great White, Little and Cattle), Purple and Grey Herons, but, disappointingly, not a single Squacco Heron - I hadn't realised until then that they migrate south for the winter; heaven knows why they bother.