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

[HighlandDougie]

Astonishing goldcrest. My first sight of live bird.

They are lovely little birds (I am fortunate to have a pair which consistently nest in one of the conifers in my garden in France. As for me, a very loud - and visible - cuckoo here in sunny Seoul, South Korea.

[ardcarp]

So we have the Yelkouan shearwater Puffinus yelkouan - this is basically the Mediterranean version of our very own Manx shearwater. We also have the Balearic shearwater Puffinus mauretanicus, formerly known as the Mediterranean shearwater

Thanks RT. I was not observing them closely enough (nor through binoculars) to tell the difference. They behaved very much like our own Manx shearwater, so I guess they were not the Cory's version which you refer to later in your message.

Off topic, but we've just seen a hummingbird hawkmoth in our garden. We see a few of them in some years and none in others. Maybe it depends on whether we happen to see them or not!

[Richard Tarleton]

Off topic, but we've just seen a hummingbird hawkmoth in our garden. We see a few of them in some years and none in others. Maybe it depends on whether we happen to see them or not!

Lovely! Here's one I took on our buddleia last year. This year, we're moth trapping in the garden once a month throughout the year, to see what we have. 90-odd species so far.

[ardcarp]

Nice pic!

[ardcarp]

Could you give me a link for that, please, Richard? My goodness, with all this going on - and all that Mediterranean shooting to boot - it's no wonder our birds are declining. And then the birds that do reach us have to contend with our intensive farming and other habitat destruction. It's all very depressing.

A guy who was with me on part of my trip (mentioned somewhere above) jumped ship in Sicily to spend a [mainly walking] holiday with his wife. He emailed this to me:

I’d have expected to have seen several species of what to me are rare hawks including eagles, instead of which we saw a single buzzard. The small birds were neither seen nor heard — especially, there was an absence of warblers and nightingales. Perhaps even more telling was the fact that on our visit to Sellanunte, 50 miles there and back, there wasn’t a single insect on our windscreen.



As you say, depressing.

[ardcarp]

Everyone knows how bold a robin can be, for instance standing with head cocked only a few feet away from someone digging in the garden. This year, our resident cock robin is the boldest I've ever seen. I was mowing what we politely call our lawn today with a very noisy self-propelled petrol mower. As I went up and down, the cheeky chap was hopping about less than a metre away quite unpeturbed by the din. He obviously had hungry beaks to fill.

[Richard Tarleton]

Birders and others will have been intrigued by the tweet (whatever) read out by Sarah on Sunday Morning this morning - someone had written in to say they were watching a red-breasted woodpecker [sic] in their garden (while, presumably, listening to the programme). No such species, and wrong as a description. Why read this drivel out?

[ardcarp]

Quite funny really....

[Vox Humana]

Everyone knows how bold a robin can be, for instance standing with head cocked only a few feet away from someone digging in the garden. This year, our resident cock robin is the boldest I've ever seen. I was mowing what we politely call our lawn today with a very noisy self-propelled petrol mower. As I went up and down, the cheeky chap was hopping about less than a metre away quite unpeturbed by the din. He obviously had hungry beaks to fill.

I'm just back from a short break up in Northumberland. While having a cuppa and a cake outside a café at Robin Hood's Bay three birds landed in turn on the table I was sitting at: a Blackbird, a House Sparrow and a Song Thrush. Only on Scilly have I seen Song Thrushes that bold.

Of course we paid a visit to Inner Farne - the main reason we went up there. It's all it's cracked up to be. Really close views of Puffins (thousands of them), Guillemots, Razorbills, Kittiwakes, several Shags and a few Eiders. As for the Arctic Terns, some were nesting so close to the path that you had to be careful not to step on them. The terns are well known for bonking people on the head. My hat spared me the worst, but they have also learnt to go for long camera lenses and one tern managed to catch me on the thumb. It hurt!

Elsewhere it was good to see Lapwings tolerably commonly on the farmland and moors. It was also very heartening to see so many arable fields full of wild flowers - a product of sheep farming, I imagine. Almost as good as the Puffins was a flock of Tree Sparrows at Hauxley. Where I come from I literally have a better statistical chance of seeing a Rose-coloured Starling than a Tree Sparrow! The bird of the trip, though, had to be the drake Baikal Teal which decided to drop into Druridge Pools for a few days - a major rarity and a "tick" for me. A very smart bird it was too. Even Mrs Humana was impressed.

[ardcarp]

A little way upthread I was bemoaning the lack of bird...and other....life in the Med. It was very heartening to see swallows and swifts in countless hoards in the northern part of Le Pays de la Loire when we brought a g-daughter back from a French University this week. Insect life was clearly thriving. And returning on the ferry as we approached Poole, terns were dive-bombing like crazy, so fish must be doing OK too. We must be doing something right in N. Europe even if our Mediterranean cousins aren't. (This is just a personal snashot, of course, so I wouldn't claim to be wholly correct about the situation.)

[LMcD]

While strolling along the promenade in Oban last week, we noticed 2 chaps photographing (with equipment that looked as though it cost a fortune) smallish black birds with a white patch and red bill - the first time we'd ever seen black guillemots.

[Richard Tarleton]

While strolling along the promenade in Oban last week, we noticed 2 chaps photographing (with equipment that looked as though it cost a fortune) smallish black birds with a white patch and red bill - the first time we'd ever seen black guillemots.

Ah yes, lovely birds, known as tysties, in Scotland..... I used to have them near me in N Ireland. I hope I will be forgiven in certain quarters round here for repeating a story about when I was asked to entertain the wife of the Japanese Ambassador, who was on an official visit (this sort of thing happened a lot). She was a birdwatcher, and we were asked to show her around while her husband was doing something boring. I had it all set up - on the avenue of black pines, telescope on tripod trained on some juvenile long-eared owls, all ready for their approach....This was well received, but she said that what she really wanted to see were brack guirremots..........luckily there were some on the coast at the Bloody Bridge , at the foot of the Mournes, and I was able to oblige....

[LMcD]

Ah yes, lovely birds, known as tysties, in Scotland..... I used to have them near me in N Ireland. I hope I will be forgiven in certain quarters round here for repeating a story about when I was asked to entertain the wife of the Japanese Ambassador, who was on an official visit (this sort of thing happened a lot). She was a birdwatcher, and we were asked to show her around while her husband was doing something boring. I had it all set up - on the avenue of black pines, telescope on tripod trained on some juvenile long-eared owls, all ready for their approach....This was well received, but she said that what she really wanted to see were brack guirremots..........luckily there were some on the coast at the Bloody Bridge , at the foot of the Mournes, and I was able to oblige....

I hope they're not called tysties because the locals enjoy eating them ....

[Richard Tarleton]

I hope they're not called tysties because the locals enjoy eating them ....

Not a subject I know much about - HighlandDougie perhaps? - but there are several vernacular names for birds in Scotland ending in -ie. My favourite, not on this list, is bonxie, the Scottish name for great skua and a very appropriate one for this brute of a bird.

[gradus]

Cretingham, Suffolk, a little owl flew across the lane and landed on a low branch looking at us as we drove past.