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

[Serial_Apologist]

It's a coincidence that this thread has just reappeared, having earlier caught sight of the largest carrion crow I've ever laid eyes on. Normally a sleek species, aerodynamic compared to rook or jackdaw, this one was bloated and almost halfway to being raven-sized. Busily engaged in retrieving a worm he hardly noticed me as I walked past a few feet away.

Sparrows have yet to return to this neck of the woods in any numbers.

[gradus]

Sitting by the Butley river this afternoon I saw a kingfisher fly for 50yds or so along the river bank.

[amateur51]

Sitting by the Butley river this afternoon I saw a kingfisher fly for 50yds or so along the river bank.

Halcyon days

[Richard Tarleton]

Halcyon days

One of our esteemed colleagues on the Forum is named for the kingfisher, not sure if I've seen him on this thread. Spanish, martín pescador.

From Wiki:

Modern taxonomy also refers to the winds and sea in naming kingfishers after a classical Greek myth. The first pair of the mythical-bird Halcyon (kingfishers) were created from a marriage of Alcyone and Ceyx. As gods they lived the sacrilege of referring to themselves as Zeus and Hera. They died for this, but the other gods, in an act of compassion, made them into birds and thus restored them to their original seaside habitat. In addition special "halcyon days" were granted. These are the seven days either side of the winter solstice when storms shall never again occur for them. The Halcyon birds' "days" were for caring for the winter-hatched clutch (or brood), but the phrase "Halcyon days" also refers specifically to an idyllic time in the past, or in general to a peaceful time.

The Fisher King appears to have nothing to do with kingfishers, but to be a variant on the Grail legend....

[gradus]

Ams learned pun had flown over my head until I read the explanation above, for which many thanks. Oh for the 'the Halycon days of yore' as they were once described to me.

[Richard Tarleton]

About 30 years ago I was brought the corpse of a North American Belted Kingfisher. It had crossed the Atlantic in autumn, as many North American birds do, only to be shot on the local estuary by a "wildfowler". At that stage it was only about the third to be recorded in the UK.

It was in good condition (apart from being dead), and I put it straight in the frozen compartment in my fridge. It now resides in the Ulster Museum, who had it mounted by a taxidermist. I couldn't even include it on my life list, as you can't tick a corpse

[Padraig]

That, Richard, apart from being a tragedy, is a good news story.

[vinteuil]

That, Richard, apart from being a tragedy, is a good news story.

... possibly a good "news story".

But not, I think, a "good news" story...

[Padraig]

Think what you like, vinteuil.

[Richard Tarleton]

I used constantly to be brought living birds that had met with misadventure or just got lost. Most memorably, a walker arrived with a closed rucksack containing a large bird that had crash-landed in the heather on the mountainside in thick mist . Out of the rucksack came this call, which I recognised instantly. I opened the rucksack, out shot a huge beak which slashed my hand. I went to find a bandage after which we took the great northern diver down to the shore where it set off like a paddle steamer. Going to the aid of a dying gannet was a bad idea, its fleas abandoned ship and transferred themselves to me. I always enjoyed mystery birds. A local farmer rang up to say a large bird had flown into his shed during a storm, and was still there. I asked for a description. "About the size of a small turkey, with webbed feet". It was a shag.

[ardcarp]

Has anyone noted the departing dates of swifts/swallows/martins in their area? We still had some martins here in Devon last weekend...nearly into October. Surely quite late?

[aeolium]

Richard (or anyone else) - have you read this book collecting some field observations by Mark Cocker & if so do you share the enthusiasm of the NS reviewer?:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/after-mark-cocker-s-glorious-book-you-will-never-look-blackberry-bush-same-way-again

(sorry, I don't have any rare birds to report on)

[Richard Tarleton]

Richard (or anyone else) - have you read this book collecting some field observations by Mark Cocker & if so do you share the enthusiasm of the NS reviewer?:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/...same-way-again

No, tho' he's an excellent writer if one likes that sort of thing. I'll probably go back to literary accounts of wildlife when I'm too decrepit to go out and see it for myself . I read a great many such when I was young and impressionable. I'm never quite sure who this sort of book is for. All that stuff about

a “swift-sculpted” landscape, “the wings shearing out waste, reaving the valley of all excess”

- - just go out and watch a swift, I say. But I haven't read the book so that probably unfair.

I had an excellent letter from him a few years ago following the reprint of JA Baker's The Peregrine (another highly literary, not to say poetic book for which Cocker wrote the intro) - I'd written in to the BBC Wildlife magazine (following a review of it) querying the reliability of some of Baker's sightings...I read it at an impressionable age, in the late 60s, but upon re-reading it, it just didn't do it for me, seemed merely overworked. But I first read it when I'd never seen a peregrine - I've lived near wild peregrines for nearly 40 years since.

[jayne lee wilson]

Lovely to see Dragonflies still around - 1 Emperor and 1 Common Darter today, the Darters are often a feature here on sunny October days, the Emperor already quite late...

Bird feeding at its slowest now, those finch and tit creches (with us running the nursery) have grown up and dispersed, so the seed dispensers last all of 2 whole days, with 3-4 Goldies enjoying the Nyger... Sparrowhawks terrorising the Pigeons who hardly get two minutes to eat their grain... occasional Buzzards overhead and - a distant view of a larger accipiter, probably a Goshawk, though I've not seen many to know the bird well, and don't know their current NW distribution. Too far, too high to see those white undertail coverts!
Pheasants back in the garden now, and they'll be with us till the Spring.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Has anyone noted the departing dates of swifts/swallows/martins in their area? We still had some martins here in Devon last weekend...nearly into October. Surely quite late?

I'd be interested to hear reports of this. I mentioned a while ago how I had a nest of "housemartins" (might have been swifts - they were certainly fast little chaps) attached to an air vent outside my study. They kept up a friendly chirrupping throughout most of the Summer - but seemed to have gone by the end of August. Do they only use the nest to bring up young? (In other words, were they still around somewhere - perhaps moved to a better neighbourhood! - or had they left the country?)