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

[ardcarp]

short-toed eagles

A new one to me Dougie. Can you explain more..and where I might see one? Olive tree country, I guess.

[vinteuil]

.

http://www.europeanraptors.org/raptors/short_toed_eagle.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-toed_snake_eagle

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[HighlandDougie]

A new one to me Dougie. Can you explain more..and where I might see one? Olive tree country, I guess.

Vints has beaten me to it but, yes, country where there are snakes and lizards. I'm very lucky as there is a pair which return faithfully every year to a nesting site just across the small valley which lies below my house. Sometimes to be seen with a snake dangling from their talons (and, I think, the explanation for a - happily - very dead European Asp which I found in my garden and which I think may have been dropped by one of the eagles). They usually hatch one chick which can sometimes be seen pre-migration with ma and pa trying to teach it some basic facts of life. Lots of thermals around which they take advantage of (as does the local - evil - sparrowhawk) so a joy to watch from my balcony/terrace. This area - the Maritime Alps - abounds in interesting birds (and all sorts of other wildlife - I've discovered a small colony of geckos lurking behind some of the shutters) but then my house in Perthshire does as well - ospreys rather than short-toed eagles but both have the golden variety. And both, joy of joys, have blackcaps.

I find it difficult to express just how much pleasure I get from having birds waking me up, even in Scotland at 3.30am in June, and providing an accompaniment to that first (and, indeed, second) glass of rosé in the evening in France. And from watching squabbling blackbirds, a host of sparrows (house and tree), goldcrests, wrens, greenfinches (in the cypresses which are like a sort of bird hotel) - and so on. Much more rewarding to the soul than observing homo sapiens.

[Richard Tarleton]

Short-toed eagles - marvellous birds. Very big - a bit smaller than a golden eagle. I saw my first in mid-May 1982, on the last full day of my first birding trip to Mallorca (and the Mediterranean), flying over the legendary Boquer Valley. A rarity on Mallorca, and my companions and I had no idea what it was until we looked it up. A year or two later I saw lots in SW Spain, including some making landfall near Tarifa after migrating across the Straits of Gibraltar. The last one I saw, a few years ago, was near Salamanca, flying, with a dead snake dangling from its talons, over a large fighting bull breeding ranch. Its name in Spanish, appropriately enough, is Águila culebrera (snake eagle). Like the equally stupendous Bonelli's eagle, the Spanish name it after what it eats (Bonelli's is Águila perdicera, the partridge eagle ). 5 species of eagle in Spain - golden, Imperial, booted, short-toed, Bonelli's), seen 'em all. Lucky Dougie to have short-toed on his doorstep. The Tarleton Towers garden list boasts 6 species of raptor (red kite, peregrine, buzzard, goshawk, sparrowhawk, kestrel) - in late February we had 3 goshawks displaying.

[Vox Humana]

in late February we had 3 goshawks displaying.

Oh, very nice!

[ardcarp]

and, I think, the explanation for a - happily - very dead European Asp which I found in my garden and which I think may have been dropped by one of the eagles

Nearer to 'home', a friend of mine living near a bracken-covered hillside in Dorset has an occasional adder dropped in her garden. Apparently buzzards will attempt to take a basking snake...but they drop the adders PDQ, being unable to cope.

[Serial_Apologist]

Nearer to 'home', a friend of mine living near a bracken-covered hillside in Dorset has an occasional adder dropped in her garden. Apparently buzzards will attempt to take a basking snake...but they drop the adders PDQ, being unable to cope.

Have they been multiplying lately?

[johncorrigan]

Have they been multiplying lately?

One was dropped on a car windscreen, S_A...it was a window viper.

While I'm here I should mention that I have just returned from the Island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides. We go there twice or three times a year. In the summer we are well used to sound of the Corncrakes which serenade us at lots of times of the day and night in various parts of the Island, and which we rarely see.

Last week we were walking with our pals down the road towards the Village when Mrs C says, 'Listen! Corncrake!' We stopped beside the Parish Church and sure enough, there it was, the unmistakeable rasping cry of the Corncrake. Our pals were delighted. They'd never heard a corncrake as they only come at that time of the year and the corncrakes usually haven't arrived by then. There it was again - Corncrake! And then we noticed two starlings one on a wall and one of the eaves of the Church and they were calling back and forward to each other in Corncrake...absolutely..we could see their beaks moving. We watched them for a while operating bilingually. Nature...amazing, isn't it!

[Serial_Apologist]

One was dropped on a car windscreen, S_A...it was a window viper.

While I'm here I should mention that I have just returned from the Island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides. We go there twice or three times a year. In the summer we are well used to sound of the Corncrakes which serenade us at lots of times of the day and night in various parts of the Island, and which we rarely see.

Last week we were walking with our pals down the road towards the Village when Mrs C says, 'Listen! Corncrake!' We stopped beside the Parish Church and sure enough, there it was, the unmistakeable rasping cry of the Corncrake. Our pals were delighted. They'd never heard a corncrake as they only come at that time of the year and the corncrakes usually haven't arrived by then. There it was again - Corncrake! And then we noticed two starlings one on a wall and one of the eaves of the Church and they were calling back and forward to each other in Corncrake...absolutely..we could see their beaks moving. We watched them for a while operating bilingually. Nature...amazing, isn't it!

Copyright doesn't seem to apply in the natural world!

[Richard Tarleton]

Copyright doesn't seem to apply in the natural world!

Indeed. The song of the marsh warbler, now almost extinct in UK, consists almost entirely of mimicry, including material learnt in its winter quarters in Africa.

[doversoul1]

Nightingales: Slow Radio Monday 7th 00.30am

What do the forum's ornithologists make of this? Do I understand that the nightingales sang on while those humans were making artificial sound?

A magical late night listening experience - six musicians go into the Sussex woods to play nocturnal music with the nightingales, who gather there to sing at night each Spring. The soloists taking turns to respond musically to the nightingales
[…]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1pgkm

[Richard Tarleton]

What do the forum's ornithologist make of this? Do I understand that the nightingales sang on while those humans were making artificial sound?

A magical late night listening experience - six musicians go into the Sussex woods to play nocturnal music with the nightingales, who gather there to sing at night each Spring. The soloists taking turns to respond musically to the nightingales
[…]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1pgkm

Hmmm, I've heard of this before (last year probably) - Beatrice Harrison has a lot to answer for . I don't suppose it does a great deal for the nightingales, and we've got so few we can't afford to disturb them any further, would be my view. An anthropomorphic, anthropocentric activity which does nothing for me, I'm afraid.

Having said which, when I do sit out in front of the house to practice the guitar in spring and summer, a robin quite often sings very close by, but this is probably pure coincidence.

I'm gradually ticking off my spring migrants - two of my favourite songsters this morning, tree pipit and wood warbler.

[oddoneout]

Hmmm, I've heard of this before (last year probably) - Beatrice Harrison has a lot to answer for . I don't suppose it does a great deal for the nightingales, and we've got so few we can't afford to disturb them any further, would be my view. An anthropomorphic, anthropocentric activity which does nothing for me, I'm afraid.

The trailer trash referred to it as a collaboration which cause me to shout at the radio this morning. How can the nightingales possibly have had any say in the process? Imposition more like.

[Vox Humana]

I don't suppose it does a great deal for the nightingales, and we've got so few we can't afford to disturb them any further, would be my view. An anthropomorphic, anthropocentric activity which does nothing for me, I'm afraid.

I agree - and we are going to have even fewer of them, if Medway Council gets its way. :( The musicians need to be careful not to fall foul of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, whereby it is an offence intentionally or recklessly to disturb nesting or nest-building birds. The reason birds sing in spring is to attract mates and protect their nests and territory, so, given Nightingales' skulking behaviour (they sing from within cover and are not easily seen), there must be a real danger of disturbance here, unless the musicians keep a respectful distance.

[Richard Tarleton]

I agree - and we are going to have even fewer of them, if Medway Council gets its way. :( The musicians need to be careful not to fall foul of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, whereby it is an offence intentionally or recklessly to disturb nesting or nest-building birds. The reason birds sing in spring is to attract mates and protect their nests and territory, so, given Nightingales' skulking behaviour (they sing from within cover and are not easily seen), there must be a real danger of disturbance here, unless the musicians keep a respectful distance.

Indeed - it's wrong at every level. They have no way of knowing if they are keeping prospective mates away, and they will have no way of ascertaining the subsequent breeding success or otherwise of the disturbed birds. There will inevitably be some disturbance and doubtless alcoholic beverages. It's self-indulgent new age nonsense.

PS thanks for the link, Vox, I've emailed accordingly.