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

[gradus]

That looks lovely, a really healthy looking wetland. Multiple cattle egrets very exciting - we get the very occasional one here, ditto great whites - I think those are yours standing against the reeds about an inch to the right of the shadow? Lots of little egrets of course - these ones, in a field near my house, are pretending to be cattle egrets

Super pix.

[cloughie]

Has anyone who has bird feeders any suggestions for ways of catching the seeds discarded by birds - it sometimes seems that they eat one and drop two - and these end up as weeds in the border. Any suggestions?

[johncorrigan]

Has anyone who has bird feeders any suggestions for ways of catching the seeds discarded by birds - it sometimes seems that they eat one and drop two - and these end up as weeds in the border. Any suggestions?

Get some pheasants, cloughie. Out in our garden they hang out and clear the debris...and attempt to avoid the beaters and the shooters.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Has anyone who has bird feeders any suggestions for ways of catching the seeds discarded by birds - it sometimes seems that they eat one and drop two - and these end up as weeds in the border. Any suggestions?

I tried all sorts of "remedies" - the stones under the feeders (taking up valuable growing space, not looking very pleasing, and not working unless you completely pave over the whole garden), buying those special feeders that have a little "bowl" dangling from them to collect the falling seed (it didn't take long to understand the Garden Centre's saleskid's smirk as he took my money - the discarded seed goes anywhere except into the bowl! What the bowl does collect is rainwater - so that when you come to refill the feeder, a cupful of water gets splattered down the front of your trousers - oft resulting in a conversation with the neighbours in which you can see the thought "Well, he must have reached that age, poor old sod" gradually spreading over their expressions).

The only thing to do if you wish to cease having to fork out the suspicious-looking herbiage every year is to fork out the extra cash and buy the feed that doesn't include "fertile" seed. (You still get a coating of "dust" at the foot of the feeders, but this can be quickly tilled into the soil.)

[Richard Tarleton]

Get some pheasants, cloughie. Out in our garden they hang out and clear the debris...and attempt to avoid the beaters and the shooters.

Indeed - there are no leftovers in our garden, though in our case it's down to rooks, jackdaws and ground feeders like chaffinch. The seeds don't get time to germinate! This is not without its perils for the birds, here's another view of the rook that was innocently feeding on fallen seeds under our feeder when it was pounced on by a goshawk - the food chain in action

[ardcarp]

...another fantastic photo Richard.

[jayne lee wilson]

Similar to RT, below any dispenser here there are Squirrels Pigeons Jackdaws and Pheasants always grateful for the regular food supply when the thrown bread & grain spread on the meadow (formerly lawn) runs low...and occasionally the Sparrowhawk will pounce...

All very busy up-and-down today! Finches always do well here, great to see so many Coal Tits this year....

True enough I see some mysterious shrubs grown from various seeds, but I welcome them usually.... those sunflowers in the meadow which appeared in late October, from the thrown birdseed, are still hanging on..... but clearing all the wet leaves is another matter....

[ardcarp]

A pair of choughs have just been filmed on the Isles of Scilly. They was shown on our local BBC TV news programme, Spotlight Southwest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bk2n

(In the closing moments of the broadcast.)

The IOS are a wonderful place to be in Spring when birds, flowers and other wildlife are in abundance. Can't wait!

[cloughie]

A pair of choughs have just been filmed on the Isles of Scilly. They was shown on our local BBC TV news programme, Spotlight Southwest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bk2n

(In the closing moments of the broadcast.)

The IOS are a wonderful place to be in Spring when birds, flowers and other wildlife are in abundance. Can't wait!

It is a wonderful place - I was there in September and had the advantage of good weather. As for choughs I have had the privilege of seeing three at close quarters at Cape Cornwall and others in flight near a nesting site at the Lizard. So fortunate to live in Cornwall.

[Richard Tarleton]

Some Pembrokeshire chough - about 60 pairs dotted around the Pembrokeshire coast. The top two are adults, the bottom one a youngster.

[AnnC]

I now live in Oxfordshire ( some may remember me as A a while ago)
I see red kites all the time and I have one that sits at the top of a tree at the end of my garden and ‘mews’ at me. Beautiful birds, I sometimes see up to 20 on the nearby field

[jayne lee wilson]

I now live in Oxfordshire ( some may remember me as A a while ago)
I see red kites all the time and I have one that sits at the top of a tree at the end of my garden and ‘mews’ at me. Beautiful birds, I sometimes see up to 20 on the nearby field

Hi mysterious A....
Lucky you! Here in the NW, I often see (and hear) Buzzards and Sparrowhawks, occasionally Kestrel or Merlin, but how I long for those Kites to spread just a little farther North....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Welcome, indeed, AnnC!

... but how I long for those Kites to spread just a little farther North....

Or just a little further West - Kites were introduced in the area around Harewood House a few years ago, and I've seen them in North Yorks in the dales above Skipton (most memorably during that warm spell we had in February, on a walk near Bolton Abbey). Give them time.

[Padraig]

I now live in Oxfordshire ( some may remember me as A a while ago)
I see red kites all the time and I have one that sits at the top of a tree at the end of my garden and ‘mews’ at me. Beautiful birds, I sometimes see up to 20 on the nearby field

I remember an A, O AnnC, I remember an A.

[Dave2002]

Bird hearing

I remember an A, O AnnC, I remember an A.

I remember an A***** but perhaps not an A.

I just found this link about the hearing of birds - https://ornithology.com/the-hearing-of-birds/

I was surprised as I assumed that perhaps birds could hear over a wider frequency range than humans, but maybe they can't. We know that bats can use a form of hearing for echo location using very high frequencies, and I think that dolphins also have a much wider frequency range of hearing than humans. Maybe birds don't actually need to have very good low frequency responses - but I'm still a bit surprised at this.

I assumed (I guess incorrectly) that because many birds have fairly high pitched song, that they would have hearing which would go above the range of human hearing at the top end.