... in Dorset (Isle of Purbeck) yesterday something that looked mighty like a serin. Bit unlikely, more probably a siskin. Not quite a yellowhammer... Must get better binoculiers....
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Calls also worth getting to know...impossible to confuse those in these cases....likewise behaviour....static pictures in bird books can be quite unhelpful.Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
You were in Dartford Warbler HQ
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Only one bird noticed today so far at the bird feeder - a dullish green colour. I guess most probably it was a greenfinch, but it didn't seem to have the yellow flashes near the tail which one sees in bird books.Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View PostComment
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A lot of young birds about at the moment, yet to develop their go-faster stripes....Comment
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Lots of magpies bickering & fighting, establishing territorial rights I guess. Quite a racketOriginally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post
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Juvenile sparrowhawk caught sparrow: does what it says on tin.Comment
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Not me you understand, but young Oliver ...
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Egrets, herons, curlews, oyster-catchers, dunlin, redshanks and a kingfisher on the backwaters of the Fal over the weekend. Tawny owls hooting by night and buzzards mewing by day.Comment
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9 days on the Dorset ( used to be the Hampshire) Riviera. A small flock of maybe 20 Sandwich Terns on the mud-bank in the pond (where the Noddy-Train arrives at the huts) where we later saw 2 greenshanks , a redshank and a Black-Tailed Godwit as well as the usual egrets and gulls. Turnstones on both the harbour-side and the Solent-side of the sandspit. A trip to Radipole (RSPB) Weymouth, was a bit dull. My tentative suggestion of a sighting of an Icterine Warbler (bright yellow chest, olive green/pale brown on the upper back, prompted by a guy on the viewing platform who brought it up on his phone) was made to the RSPB desk-wallah who pretty much ridiculed it, politely, " I think you should consider that you might be mistaken", so I was heartened to see an actual capture of said type bird recorded at Portland less than two-days later. Nevertheless I'm not counting it as a sighting. Back on Hengistbury Head when the sun came out a few days ago we saw a mixed flock including at least 2 Long-tailed Tits, a Great Tit, a Robin, several Chiff-chaffs all at one point working over a tree where a Spotted Flycatcher was plying his trade. This latter or his mate was photographed for Dorset Birds
which lists the amazing number of types of birds seen over Christchurch Harbour that we didn't see at all while we were there..Comment
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What appalling people skills - I wonder if it was an employee or a volunteer, I imagine (hope) it was the latter. Had they known their stuff, they should at least have done you the courtesy of assuming a level of expertise on your part and asked a properly diagnostic question (did you hear it call, how long were its primary projections - a disctinctive feature of icterine warblers) rather than dissing it out of hand. As you say, there are plenty of icterine warblers about, one or two passing through the Pembrokeshire islands recently.Originally posted by clive heath View Post
I am still in the stone age phone-wise. On holiday in Mallorca in May, I heard a birdsong in the pines opposite our balcony before breakfast which sounded not totally dissimilar to a blackcap, but not. I saw a blur as it flew. At breakfast, a father-and-son birding pair said "Did you hear the icterine warbler?". It turned out that son thought he recognised the song, found a recording of an icterine on his smart phone, played it from their balcony, the bird replied.... That's the way they do it these days.....
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Oh an Icterine Warbler...! SO many years ago, as a mere babe, I still knew my birds and was out on Hilbre Island when... they caught an Icterine in a mist net, and I was allowed to hold it for a while before it was weighed, measured and ringed. The lovely little bird stayed around the Observatory garden for a while before disappearing overnight...
Kew, kew! Yes it's Parakeets... Only the second time they've been here, 2 have been munching apples since Sunday, adding brilliant green to those deepening, enriched autumn shades. 3 stayed with us from November to March two winters ago, but nothing more till now. There is a small population in some of the larger Liverpool Parks. But they're wonderful to watch as they dash about and call, sweeping overhead. Wonderfully swift, sleek and agile.
Remember Nyger Seeds? The Goldfinches are really getting through a lot of that now, given cooler mornings when the Tits and Finches empty the larger mixed-seed dispensers so quickly.
(** Clive - "I think you should consider that you might be mistaken"
who does the RSPB rep think he is - Oliver Cromwell?)
Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 09-09-14, 20:20.Comment
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The resident Scottish swallows' second brood (4 this time) fledged last Friday but have been returning to the nest to roost. I've preceded them on my flight south (back to France) so I hope that all will go well with them on their much longer flight. It has been a very good year for swallows which is heartening as I feared that their numbers were diminishing year on year. Very good year also for most birds in the garden (spotted flycatchers through to robins) and more widely (the most black grouse I've seen in years; a young golden eagle with its mum last Thursday; red kites getting nearer and nearer to my glen in Perthshire). No parakeets as yet, though.Comment
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I certainly do! And I still have faith; but I have to report, jlw, that my Goldfinches compete fiercely with all comers for the sunflower hearts. They do occasionally take the Nyger seeds, even though in addition to a regular pair, a flock will sometimes invade the pitch. Lovely to see but disappointing to observe how they seem to deliberately ignore the Nyger seeds.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
Not having seen a wren all summer, I spotted one yesterday in a familiar spot near a low wall.Comment
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