Many swallows (and perhaps swifts and house martins) seem to be very active round our house right now. I think mostly they are swallows - very fast and they have taken to flying at high speed in formation as if on a mission, and they make a terrific noise as they come and go. Sometimes the birds round here get really frantic when the red kites show up, but this high speed flying en masse seems fairly new behaviour to me.
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I reported on cuckoos yesterday - http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?24082-Cuckoos
Now I know they come around I'll try to catch some audio recordings.Comment
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They are a delight, especially earlier in the year when there are fewer full-time residents in one's garden (I feel lucky to have a resident pair which seem to like silver birches - of which I have probably too many). Spotted Flycatchers are back (in Scotland). Yay!Originally posted by oddoneout View PostComment
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Talking of delights, baby shelduck are really cute. They have a sort of black and white badger-like appearance. It's so lovely to watch them practising, er, ducking, ie heads in the water tails in the air along with their parents. I remember someone telling me that shelduck will crèche ducklings from other parents. No sign of that this afternoon...but here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khDkr3BB73QComment
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There must have been a dozen or more birds in our fairly small garden about half an hour ago! Mostly sparrows of one kind or another, but some nice scenes of a male blackbird feeding some younger female blackbirds.Comment
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The bird activity in my garden has dropped away as single brood species have raised their families and moved on. The dunnocks continue to run around the patio and borders by the back door as always, occasionally startling me by shooting out under my feet or pretending to be mice,but the blue tits which provide so much entertainment a few weeks ago have gone.Originally posted by Joseph K View PostComment
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I wonder how many common or garden species raise more than one brood in a spring/summer season? We were overrun with robins for a time (at least two separate nestfuls being fed obviously) and then there was a lull. But now they seem to be at it again. Is this because of the unusually fine spell of weather...or do many species raise two broods? We think our blue-tit box is being investigated again, having been used once to our delight.Comment
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A couple of years ago, swallows - 3 fledglings first time next door; 4 fledglings next time chez moi. Same parents taking advantage of good weather in August/September.Originally posted by ardcarp View PostComment
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A baby robin (from the first brood) got into our house this afternoon, via the sunroom. It lurked indoors for about 2 hours until MrsA tracked it down, perching on a lampshade. (I hope it enjoyed listening to choral evensong!) She managed to catch it and it seemed very tranquil nestling in her hands. Released outside, it flew straight into a thicket of ivy, whereupon a parent bird, within seconds, flew in to join it. Parent must have been on the lookout all that time.Comment
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Disagreeable sight on stepping outside of a female sparrowhawk about to dismember a wood pigeon just in front of the house. It flew off (just) then went round the back of the garage and, when I went to look, took off again with some difficulty. There were remains of a pigeon in the back garden yesterday so it's either greedy or - and maybe one of our resident experts might know - feeding young? I've read that wood pigeons are just a bit too bulky for the male of the species.Comment
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Live in a high-sided, Cumbrian stone-enclosed yard, small intense garden good for insects / retained heat etc, and the swallows are in mighty gangs having daily swirls and raids. Noise, speed of flight in highly confined spaces - oh, Ted Hughes, would you have loved this!Comment
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...and on the subject of poets, D.H. Lawrence pondered on what might happen when the swallows are gone. I remember a very charismatic English teacher introducing us to Bat. (Also insect feeders.) The line I remember so strongly is "wings like bits of umbrella".
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In the Hebrides this year it felt like there was a lot less bird life around than in previous years. Only a couple of times did I see the gannets out fishing, only the odd shag and few terns. I didn't see dead birds on the beaches, but pals going to other parts of the Scottish coast reported dead gannets on the beaches. Scotland's Makar, the excellent Kathleen Jamie, has a fine, though sad piece in the LRB on the effects of h5n1...'What use the summer sunlight, if it can't gleam on a gannet's back?', she says.
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Walking home along the Crystal Palace Parade yesterday with my shopping - that's the straight half mile running adjacent in parallel with where the great building once stood - I found a carrion crow crouched on its stomach beside the busy pavement at the spot between where Jehovah's Witnesses hand out copes of The Wake! and the pedestrian lights controlled crossing to the park. The poor thing didn't move as I approached and said "What happened to you then, little one?", but just blinked at me. I imagine it was either heat exhausted or had survived being hit by a vehicle and someone thoughtful had gently placed it there, relatively out of harm's way. I've seen wood pigeons in this state, usually after crashing into one of my windows, and they usually die quite quickly; this was my first ever crow.Comment
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Has anyone noticed, just recently, some garden birds seem to be taking a siesta in the very hot early afternoons? It all goes very quiet. (This obviously didn't happen during the busy nesting season.)Comment
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