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

[jayne lee wilson]

No Goldfinches on the Nyger here now. Left uneaten - like last year post-breeding season. But there are very few Goldfinches here at all, and the occasional visitor tends to choose the larger sunflower dispensers, probably because of the lack of other finches to compete with. Any bird feeding from a variety of sources will pick the easiest, and it is easier to extract the sunflower. In July and August there is an abundance of natural food too. The weather this year has been fairly kind to insects, grass seedheads are ripe and numerous (I left the orchard grasses wild save for a path cut through).
Out in the country now, and in the scrubby dunes near the estuary, flocks of finches gather to feed on such sources. They'll come back to us, and the Goldfinches to the Nyger too, when the cold starts to bite.

A slow, quiet time in the garden. The dawn chorus is over.
Jackdaws are almost silent now, just a few family groups come once or twice daily for bread and seed, with a brief flurry of calls. Our resident, semi-tame Carrion Crow ("Corby") remains, and the loyal, friendly ferals, around 20, of which 3 pairs live on the house. The only regular activity comes from Tits: Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed, family groups of 7 or 8, calling as they move from station to station, feeding as they go.

[Richard Tarleton]

A slow, quiet time in the garden. The dawn chorus is over.
Jackdaws are almost silent now, just a few family groups come once or twice daily for bread and seed, with a brief flurry of calls.

Yes dawn chorus well and truly over - very quiet now. The one regular bit of excitement in the last 3-4 weeks has been provided by one of our local buzzards which has been raiding the jackdaw colony on our neighbours' property to grab recently fledged young jackdaws. The noise when this happens is indescribable. Now the jackdaws can fly better, that's happening less. "Corby" -

Saw my first returning autumn waders the other day - common sandpipers.

[AmpH]

Early yesterday afternoon - encounters with two very different kinds of red birds.

Investigation of the tell - tale roar of aircraft noise outside, revealed the Red Arrows going through their paces on a sunny afternoon, no doubt in preparation for next weeks airshow - no need to pay the £45 entrance charge round here ! As the noise subsided two adult red kites drifted lazily overhead, their angular wings with black and white patches together with characteristic deeply forked tails clearly visible - now increasingly common and well established on the annual garden list I am pleased to say.

As a child I would only have had eyes for the ' Arrows ', but whilst they are always worth seeing its the ' Kites ' which linger in the memory now.

[Lento]

Blackbird still singing away, for now, at least. Three noisy crows still flying around. Quite a few chirpy sparrows. Fewer goldfinches, if any.

[VodkaDilc]

Jackdaws are almost silent now, just a few family groups come once or twice daily for bread and seed, with a brief flurry of calls. .

Mercifully my garden is similar, after a few weeks of uproar. Silly question, perhaps, but where have the jackdaws gone? Mine seem to flock over a nearby dairy farm and spread towards my garden, but now it's all quiet. This is the first year they have got the hang of the birdfeeders, though, once they went away, the usual assorted tits and finches plus woodpeckers felt safe to return. If the jackdaws are past their peak, perhaps I can wash the birdfeeders now, which have got covered with muddy jackdaw footprints (pawprints?).
I still find it strange that all the other mid-sized/big birds don't even attempt the birdfeeders - blackbirds, thrushes, starlings, magpies et al - but just wait underneath for the droppings. Are jackdaws particularly intelligent or persistent? (if so, why not magpies too?)

[jayne lee wilson]

Have you read King Solomon's Ring, by Konrad Lorenz, Vodka? Lovely book - and a wonderful study of the very intelligent Jackdaws in there....
It's possibly the build of Blackbirds and Magpies - bulky body, long tail - that makes it harder for them on dispensers. They can learn though, and both visit suet blocks regularly here but always look a little awkward. I had to stop putting out blocks and cakes - the Jackies would eat them in a morning. I'll try again now. 2 Goldfinches settled in the appletrees nearby as I was having coffee this morning, but they didn't even visit the dispensers. The Earth is providing well enough.

AS for where the Jackdaws go... when the weather cools into October they start to flock towards evening, settle noisily in the trees for a while, then head off into town for a warm, architectural roost. But between now and then....probably out in the country somewhere. Dispersal, random or not, probably plays a part too.

[Richard Tarleton]

Another vote for King Solomon's Ring - marvellous book. One of the seminal works on animal behaviour, a book of scientific and literary brilliance.

[HighlandDougie]

No young jackdaws to rescue this year from the Scottish loft space, thankfully (quite challenging to catch while trying to balance on roof beams), but the three swallow chicks outside the front door have fledged and have been practising flying around. Now perched on a well-concealed iron bar with mama dive-bombing anyone who dares to go near them. I never cease to be amazed by the journey they make and always feel a bit sad when they go. Equally, their arrival in spring is a source of joy.

[ardcarp]

Sorry to change the subject from garden birds, but feel I must mention gannet bombardments seen last week in off the Brittany coast. Dolphins only played a brief visit to the boat, clearly having more urgent business. This proved to be the upward chasing of shoals of fish, whereupon large circles of gannets appeared overhead, wheeling above the action. Then they began 'strafing' the fish; there seemed to be some sort of 'taking turns' because although there must have been hundreds, the plunging birds must have been about 20 or 30 at a time...avoiding collisions? It would have been fascinating to see underwater, i.e. how far the gannets went down and how the dolphins and birds shared the spoils, presumably avoiding each other.

[Dave2002]

Mercifully my garden is similar, after a few weeks of uproar. Silly question, perhaps, but where have the jackdaws gone? Mine seem to flock over a nearby dairy farm and spread towards my garden, but now it's all quiet. This is the first year they have got the hang of the birdfeeders, though, once they went away, the usual assorted tits and finches plus woodpeckers felt safe to return. If the jackdaws are past their peak, perhaps I can wash the birdfeeders now, which have got covered with muddy jackdaw footprints (pawprints?).
I still find it strange that all the other mid-sized/big birds don't even attempt the birdfeeders - blackbirds, thrushes, starlings, magpies et al - but just wait underneath for the droppings. Are jackdaws particularly intelligent or persistent? (if so, why not magpies too?)

We have one very large birdfeeder. This seems popular with many larger birds, from parakeets to crows, to jackdaws to magpies. This apparently is because they can put their feet on the supports at one level, and peck away at the feeder hole further up. Maybe your magpies haven't passed their 11 or 12 plus yet!

Most of these birds have also mastered eating from a not so large peanut feeder, even if they do have to hang on sideways or upside down.

One thing I have wondered about birds is what forms of communication they have. Clearly copying examples is one way, and it may not be species specific. If a magpie sees a jackdaw mastering a bird feeder, there is no particular reason that I can see that it shouldn't be able to figure out that it can also do the same thing.

[Bryn]

Until recently my particular neck of the woods (at home, that is) has been relatively free from Ringneck Parakeets (Psittacula krameri). No longer, in the past few days I have heard rather more of their chatter than I really want to.

[Richard Tarleton]

Until recently my particular neck of the woods (at home, that is) has been relatively free from Ringneck Parakeets (Psittacula krameri). No longer, in the past few days I have heard rather more of their chatter than I really want to.

Acc. to the new BTO Atlas, the current population stands at around 8,600 breeding pairs, or 30,000 individuals post-breeding. The Greater London population has increased at an annual rate of 30%, but the range at only 0.4% (meaning sharp increase in density), but fingers crossed Braccan Heal remains on the edge of their breeding range - perhaps there's some post-breeding dispersal going on. So far, the Atlas says, they seem to be confined to areas of human habitation so are not having a detrimental effect on native species in the wild eg. nuthatches (as has apparently happened in Belgium) tho' I'm not sure what they mean for native species on, say, Hampstead Heath. Now if Mr Oddie were to look in on this thread he could enlighten us further.....

[amateur51]

No young jackdaws to rescue this year from the Scottish loft space, thankfully (quite challenging to catch while trying to balance on roof beams), but the three swallow chicks outside the front door have fledged and have been practising flying around. Now perched on a well-concealed iron bar with mama dive-bombing anyone who dares to go near them. I never cease to be amazed by the journey they make and always feel a bit sad when they go. Equally, their arrival in spring is a source of joy.

'Joy' is the mot juste, HD

[Richard Tarleton]

Talking of swallows, "A Single Swallow" an entertaining read, ams, more of an adventure/travel book with (I thought) the swallows a Macguffin to move the journey along .....

[amateur51]

Talking of swallows, "A Single Swallow" an entertaining read, ams, more of an adventure/travel book with (I thought) the swallows a Macguffin to move the journey along .....

A lovely book I agree RT