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

[Vox Humana]

Our local Woodpigeons are becoming positively brazen. When I was young you could never get near them: they'd be off with a clap of wings for fear of being shot. Even up to four or five years ago, if they were in the garden I only had to appear at the window and they would promptly flee. Now they are quite happy to land on our fence even when I'm in the garden and today I got to within ten feet of one before it took flight. I wouldn't mind, but they're just automated eating machines on legs.

[jayne lee wilson]

There are at least three fairly tame Wood Pigeons who will come on my kitchen yard wall to feed off peanuts and grain. They don't allow very close approach before returning to the trees or the mixed flock on the lawn. But I can call one particular Ring Dove down from its favourite Sycamore each evening, high above the old shed, by saying "nutties! Come on...!" and spreading them across the wall for it to see.

It sits there waiting for me, and is all but hand-tame. In the very early morning there can be at least a dozen, feeding with 20+ Jackdaws and their young, on the food I lay out before first light. (The Hedgehogs get first bite whilst it's still dark).
Most of these, like most of the Daws, are very wary - creatures of the treetops. I'm fascinated by how, each year, a very few learn to be bolder in the daytime for the food reward - perhaps watching the friendly Ferals and learning from them.

If you really peer at a Wood Pigeon you notice how beautiful it is. The delicate shades of dove-grey, the iridescent greens and purples and white of the pleated ruffle on their necks...
Toward dusk, several start to sing their five-note chorus, overlapping across each other like a stretto....I'm very fond of them. They are a woodlander spiritus loci....

[Richard Tarleton]

But I can call one particular Ring Dove down from its favourite Sycamore each evening, high above the old shed, by saying "nutties! Come on...!" and spreading them across the wall for it to see.

Amusing to see the pecking order on the ground under the squirrel-proof seed feeder - there is a steady light shower of spillage from the feeder, and the most numerous beneficiaries are chaffinches. When ring/collared doves and squirrels are there at the same time, the doves approach the squirrel sideways, raising the wing nearest the squirrel in a vain attempt to look big and intimidating. Squirrel v. rook is amusing - the rooks hop around in an attempt to approach the squirrel - or what the squirrel is eating - from behind, the squirrel ignores them till they get too close.

[gurnemanz]

Our local Woodpigeons are becoming positively brazen. When I was young you could never get near them: they'd be off with a clap of wings for fear of being shot. Even up to four or five years ago, if they were in the garden I only had to appear at the window and they would promptly flee. Now they are quite happy to land on our fence even when I'm in the garden and today I got to within ten feet of one before it took flight. I wouldn't mind, but they're just automated eating machines on legs.

The pair of local wood pigeons that frequent our garden like perching on our TV aerial which is directly above the path down the side of the house where they leave ample evidence of their voracious eating.

[Bryn]

Amusing to see the pecking order on the ground under the squirrel-proof seed feeder - there is a steady light shower of spillage from the feeder, and the most numerous beneficiaries are chaffinches. When ring/collared doves and squirrels are there at the same time, the doves approach the squirrel sideways, raising the wing nearest the squirrel in a vain attempt to look big and intimidating. Squirrel v. rook is amusing - the rooks hop around in an attempt to approach the squirrel - or what the squirrel is eating - from behind, the squirrel ignores them till they get too close.

I found the bully-boy behaviour of collared doves a source of some amusement when they first turned up o the garden a couple of decades ago. However, the damage they have done to my FM Yagi aerial (breaking off the reflector) has led to my adopting a distinlty antagonistic relationshio with them. Now they have bent one of the directors on the DAB Yagi ainmed at the Guildford repeater. Fortunately my main DAB aerial if a simple dipoole mounted some what higher. I wonder if leaving ersatz carion out for the local red kites might help disuade the collard doves from visiting?*

*Not a serious suggestion. Much as I would welcome visits to the garden by the red kites, intentionally feeding them is not to be encouraged if you do not want to upset neighbours. Kites can leave quite a mess. If one does want to feed them, see here.

[Dave2002]

A few years ago I was in the garden and the birds stopped twittering. Then a large bird flew over the treetops, either a buzzard or a red kite. It was quite low, and I was surprised at how big it looked from underneath. Didn't stop, or try to land though. I assume it would have been able to take off, though might have had to try hard. That's the only time I've seen one that close.

Recently saw siskins - which I'd never seen before - in a garden in Scotland.

[oddoneout]

While packing shopping in the car outside the supermarket I heard what I assumed was a blackbird's warning call. Was more than a little surprised to see that it was in fact a young wren bobbing along the edge of the shrubbery in front of the car. I am quite used to the fact they make a noise out of proportion to their size and that they can be quite willing to exhibit 'pugnacious small dog' tendencies when facing large threats, but their calls tend to the scratchy and harsh in such situations rather than the more musical plinking of a blackbird alarm.

[Serial_Apologist]

A few years ago I was in the garden and the birds stopped twittering. Then a large bird flew over the treetops, either a buzzard or a red kite. It was quite low, and I was surprised at how big it looked from underneath. Didn't stop, or try to land though. I assume it would have been able to take off, though might have had to try hard. That's the only time I've seen one that close.

Recently saw siskins - which I'd never seen before - in a garden in Scotland.

One of the most extraordinary natural phenomena I ever witnessed was the behaviour of a swarming mass of starlings in the vicinity of a city park, just before sunset. The mass, which had swooped in amid deafening chattering, instantaneously fell totally silent on occupying the trees all around me, and then, on a split instant one could only think must have been orchestrated at some signal, all took off in a chorus of resumed chattering, organising themselves into those remarkable shape-shifting sky sculptures, mingling, separating and re-mingling against the deep orange sky.

[gradus]

A few years ago I was in the garden and the birds stopped twittering. Then a large bird flew over the treetops, either a buzzard or a red kite. It was quite low, and I was surprised at how big it looked from underneath. Didn't stop, or try to land though. I assume it would have been able to take off, though might have had to try hard. That's the only time I've seen one that close.

Recently saw siskins - which I'd never seen before - in a garden in Scotland.

The raptor incident reminds me of walking up a farm path in deepest Shropshire and meeting hundreds of pheasant chicks coming the otherway. Suddenly a great whirring and all the chicks disappeared instantly into the hedge. Something caught my eye and I looked up to see a male hen harrier pull out of a dive ten feet or so above my head - the only time I've seen a hen harrier and mighty dramatic it felt.

[Vox Humana]

Something caught my eye and I looked up to see a male hen harrier pull out of a dive ten feet or so above my head - the only time I've seen a hen harrier and mighty dramatic it felt.

That reminds me of my first sighting. I was walking down a footpath towards a marsh. On my left was a grassy field; on my right was a hedge about eight or nine feet high. Without warning a male Hen Harrier suddenly appeared from just the other side of the hedge. It saw me, rose several feet while looking at me before veering back whence it had come. Dramatic it certainly was.

One of the most extraordinary natural phenomena I ever witnessed was the behaviour of a swarming mass of starlings in the vicinity of a city park, just before sunset. The mass, which had swooped in amid deafening chattering, instantaneously fell totally silent on occupying the trees all around me, and then, on a split instant one could only think must have been orchestrated at some signal, all took off in a chorus of resumed chattering, organising themselves into those remarkable shape-shifting sky sculptures, mingling, separating and re-mingling against the deep orange sky.

Twenty years ago there used to be a very large winter roost of Starlings at Bristol Temple Meads railway station. It very often attracted a Sparrowhawk. This was in the days when Starlings were still plentiful. One morning I had to catch an early train for the south coast. The train was at the platform, waiting for the departure time and I was sat in a carriage watching some bushes behind the open part of one of the other platforms. Dawn was just breaking and the Starlings were leaving their roost. They would sidle up to the tops of the bushes and take off in a cloud. No sooner had they gone than another contingent of Starlings would take their place and repeat the performance. This went on for several minutes. It reminded me of a battleship firing salvo after salvo of shells.

[Richard Tarleton]

Given the interest in cuckoos above, I thought this might be of interest. They've been and gone without my hearing a single one this year. Sad!, as Donald Trump would tweet.

[cloughie]

Twenty years ago there used to be a very large winter roost of Starlings at Bristol Temple Meads railways station. It very often attracted a Sparrowhawk. This was in the days when Starlings were still plentiful. One morning I had to catch an early train for the south coast. The train was at the platform, waiting for the departure time and I was sat in a carriage watching some bushes behind the open part of one of the other platforms. Dawn was just breaking and the Starlings were leaving their roost. They would sidle up to the tops of the bushes and take off in a cloud. No sooner had they gone than another contingent of Starlings would take their place and repeat the performance. This went on for several minutes. It reminded me of a battleship firing salvo after salvo of shells.

Morning Murmurations over the Meads!

[Bryn]

Given the interest in cuckoos above, I thought this might be of interest. They've been and gone without my hearing a single one this year. Sad!, as Donald Trump would tweet.

Tracking cuckoos is definitely better than tracking cookies.

[gradus]

Pheasant chicks with mother scuttling into the wheat on a remote Suffolk farm lane today. Not rare but charming.

[Lat-Literal]

The puffins are doing badly worldwide except in Pembrokeshire.

A lot of experts on the case.