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

[Padraig]

... almost a haiku

Beautiful teamwork there. I can see it clearly.

My own news is that a sparrowhawk, which flits in and out regularly, seems to have taken up residence. He now perches inside the garden. The advantage is that I get a close-up view of him. He deserves a more poetic description.

[Padraig]

He deserves a more poetic description.

... birds and poetry. How about this :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-39028161

[Richard Tarleton]

Ah, Padraig. Yes I'm afraid the environment does tend to get even shorter shrift in NI than elsewhere. Nice to see Chris and Doris there, knew them well back in the day......

Our sparrowhawk has been through recently, either very early or when I was out, but tell-tale puff of feathers near the bird feeders....

[Bryn]

Somewhat more prosaic where I have spent the last couple of days. I have been visiting a friend who lives near Dover, and recording him playing some of his Beatles arrangement for solo piano (he has an early 20th century Steinway grand in his outhouse. Yesterday evening, just as he started to play "Blackbird" a cock of that species piped up in Jungian accompaniment. This afternoon it was joined by a cock sparrow. We decided against further takes.

[ardcarp]

Stainley grand

?? Has your spell-checker been on overdrive ??

[Bryn]

?? Has your spell-checker been on overdrive ??

No. Just the usual not so smart phone predictive text. Now corrected. At least it did not change "outhouse" into "nuthouse".

[Globaltruth]

Bit late with this post , unlike my mother who reminds me every year around Valentines Day that the birds begin mating on Feb. 14th

"The story of St Valentine’s Day begins with some unknown medieval birdwatchers, probably in France rather than England, who reckoned that birds begin mating in mid-February, and decided to give this a precise date: 14 February. (They may have followed some folk tradition – in Slovenia this is still said to be the first day of spring, when plants start growing, and birds mate.) As was normal at that period, they expressed the date as the feast-day of a saint; in the Catholic Church every day in the year celebrates at least one saint, and for a public who had no printed calendars it was easier to remember dates by names than by figures. It happens that 14 February is dedicated to one or other of two early Roman martyrs, both named Valentinus, believed to have died on that date. This does not mean that there is anything to link the martyrs themselves to birds, or to human love; it is by arbitrary chance that their name appears, and if the birdwatchers had picked on the 15th (St Faustinus’s Day) rather than the 14th, we would be now sending one another ‘Faustines’ as love-tokens." Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore Society

This means that I'm never sure if it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but around this time I do tend to notice huge congregations of our resident jackdaws wheeling, soaring, diving and cawing at full volume usually on a tolerably windy day, the flocks breaking up into smaller groups, then later on into pairs.
Spring is not too far away.


PS Chaucer was on it too:

For this was on saint Valentinës day
When every fowl cometh there to chose his mate.

[vinteuil]

PS Chaucer was on it too:

"For this was on saint Valentinës day
When every fowl cometh there to chose his mate."

... as was Herrick :

"Oft have I heard both Youths and Virgins say,
Birds chuse their Mates, and couple too, this day;
But by their Flight I never can divine,
When I shall couple with my Valentine."

[Richard Tarleton]

The list of birds that commence breeding in February is fairly short - ravens and crossbills spring to mind. But for most resident (as opposed to migrant) species, it's March onwards, so puzzling how that tradition arose. Woodpigeons can breed in any month of the year - billing and cooing, perhaps that was it? Insectivorous migrant species - our summer visitors - are only starting to arrive in late March. But evolution is a wonderful thing. The spectacular Eleanora's falcon in the Mediterranean does not breed until late summer/early autumn, so that they can feed their young on small birds migrating back across the Med - and, "en novembre, tandis que les marmottes sont déjà roulées en boule dand leur terrier, commence le temps des amours pour le gypaète..." - plenty of carrion in the snows of winter in the Pyrenees and Alps for bearded vultures (aka lammergeier, quebrantahuesos, gypaète) to feed themselves and their young....

[Padraig]

The spectacular Eleanora's falcon in the Mediterranean does not breed until late summer/early autumn, so that they can feed their young on small birds migrating back across the Med

Wrong thread? Not at all!

Redknots

The day our son is due is the very day
the redknots are meant to touch down
on their long haul
from Chile to the Arctic Circle,
where they'll nest on the tundra
within a few feet
of where they were hatched.
Forty or fifty thousand of them
are meant to drop in along Delaware Bay.

They time their arrival on these shores
to coincide with the horseshoe crabs
laying their eggs in the sand.
Smallish birds to begin with,
the redknots have now lost half their weight.
Eating the eggs of the horseshoe crabs
is what gives them the strength to go on,
forty or fifty thousand of them getting up all at once
as if for a rock concert encore.

Paul Muldoon 2002

[Richard Tarleton]

[Globaltruth]

Wrong thread? Not at all!

Redknots

The day our son is due is the very day
the redknots are meant to touch down
on their long haul
from Chile to the Arctic Circle,
where they'll nest on the tundra
within a few feet
of where they were hatched.
Forty or fifty thousand of them
are meant to drop in along Delaware Bay.

They time their arrival on these shores
to coincide with the horseshoe crabs
laying their eggs in the sand.
Smallish birds to begin with,
the redknots have now lost half their weight.
Eating the eggs of the horseshoe crabs
is what gives them the strength to go on,
forty or fifty thousand of them getting up all at once
as if for a rock concert encore.

Paul Muldoon 2002

Padraig thank you for this. A bit of on-topic thread hi-jacking with poetry never goes amiss surely...

William Cowper on The Jackdaw:

[QUOTE][There is a bird who, by his coat
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow;
A great frequenter of the church,
Where, bishop-like, he finds a perch,
And dormitory too.

Above the steeple shines a plate,
That turns and turns, to indicate
From what point blows the weather.
Look up -- your brains begin to swim,
'Tis in the clouds -- that pleases him,
He chooses it the rather.

Fond of the speculative height,
Thither he wings his airy flight,
And thence securely sees
The bustle and the rareeshow,
That occupy mankind below,
Secure and at his ease.

You think, no doubt, he sits and muses
On future broken bones and bruises,
If he should chance to fall.
No; not a single thought like that
Employs his philosophic pate,
Or troubles it at all.

He sees that this great roundabout,
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says -- what says he? -- Caw.

Thrice happy bird! I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men;
And, sick of having seen 'em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine
And such a head between 'em. /QUOTE]

[ardcarp]

The list of birds that commence breeding in February is fairly short - ravens and crossbills spring to mind. But for most resident (as opposed to migrant) species, it's March onwards, so puzzling how that tradition arose

Agreed. But here in the SW one is aware of what I'd call pre-breeding activity, e.g. jousts between males and 'inspections' of possible nesting sites. The rampant ivy on walls and trees in our garden...conservation being my excuse for not clearing it...seems very popular at the moment.

[Mal]

Whenever I glance out the windows there's are blackbirds loitering around the windfall apples from last Autumn! I'm surprised they haven't been eaten yet*. Magpie's were very amusing during recent storm, they tried maintaining their perch on uppermost tree branches during the worst of it. Would eventually get blown off, resulting in much squawking and aerobatics. Seagulls acting strangely, plodding around my nearest park, looking for worms (I guess...)

*Given that the windfall area is frequented by cats, you can take "eaten" to refer to blackbirds and apples.

[greenilex]

I always enjoy watching the gulls "paddling" in the Parks. They concentrate hard on making the sound of raindrops to encourage worms to the surface. It clearly brings results...music-making?