For WHO's birders

[Nurse Ratched]

"I thought you might like this video.



It's a compilation of different birds singing. Beautiful photography. If you expand the 'title' under the video it gives a list of species and the times they pop up in the video. Most of the species are familiar to us in the UK, but there are some 'exotics' (the cranes - wow, what a noise!) It was filmed in Belarus. The guy has a channel you can subscribe to. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it and maybe it'll take your mind off you-know-what for a few blessed minutes."

[Nurse Ratched]

"I've seen almost nothing of the breeding pair of adult robins since they fledged their last brood. One of the adults, looking really ragged and moulting, continued to visit my sitting room for mealworms, but far less frequently and not at all for the last 2 weeks or so. In their place they have left one of their fledgies. It appears this is my garden's new resident robin, because no others come close enough to be spotted. Unlike both his parents, who behaved submissively towards the great tits, this fledgie, though still a young'un, is taking NONE of their shit. He is feisty, utterly manic in his activity, and amusingly rather dim. Still growing into his powers, earlier today he managed to land on a saucer of mealworms arse-first. I have christened him Bullet."

[Nurse Ratched]

"Wow! Since when?? How marvellous, bet you're loving it ?üòÅ"

[Dandy Lyon]

Northern California Nurse

[Nurse Ratched]

?ü§®

[Dandy Lyon]

I saw a bald eagle just yesterday. A couple nest nearby

[Aalborg Hammer]

Apparently there's a colony in the New Forest so maybe it's strayed..we're only 25 miles away

[Nurse Ratched]

"Wow, you're really lucky then. Damn! ?üòÅ"

[Aalborg Hammer]

Nurse..near Winchester

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Saw a bee-eater, a hoopoe and gold finches. Flocks of gold finches and not one BIG NOSE."

[zebthecat]

A young fox has taken to sleeping among the flowers in my back garden. He/she looks very healthy and has come to an understanding with my cat (after a couple of stare outs) that sharing space is OK.

[Nurse Ratched]

A hawfinch?? Where do you live?

[Aalborg Hammer]

Delighted to see a Hawfinch in our cherry tree yesterday - I thought it was a bullfinch at first but it's got a 'kin great bill and it's a bit bigger

[Nurse Ratched]

He certainly doesn't.

[Nurse Ratched]

He certainly doesn't.

[Crassus]

"Good job nurse, apparently slugs are bad news for hogs, lung worm, consumed under sufferance of no better foodstuffs Not an issue your bloke has I'm sure"

[Nurse Ratched]

"Birds cracking snail shells is a good shout, Pickle. My garden is currently full of gastropods. The HEDGEHOG is too busy munching his special hog bickies to attend to my SLUG problem* *not really a problem. I'm not a botanical eugenicist"

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Could be a thrush, Toms. They crack snails open on rocks and mimic the sound, the beastly psychopaths."

[gph]

I've been known to bash rocks together in my garden. (To shape them for my fish tank)

[WHU(Exeter)]

Could be someone in their back garden actually banging two pebbles together! The lockdowns have done strange things to some people.

[Tomshardware]

I kept hearing the warning call of a bird yesterday and it sounded like 2 pebbles being bashed together repeatedly. Long tailed tit maybe.

[Nurse Ratched]

"Ooh, aren't YOU brave today. Did you forget to ask for your soy latte to be de-caff this morning?"

[the exile]

Nurse - are your cornflowers withering away or getting munched?

[WHU(Exeter)]

"I think they are brilliant, really subtle colours and even though they're slight flowers they,'re really hardy in winds and rain Except not in my garden"

[Nurse Ratched]

"I'm fond of cornflowers too. Isn't it mad that they grow like weeds on roadside verges, but you're struggling to grow them purposely? I'm not a gardener, so can't help. Hopefully someone else will."

[WHU(Exeter)]

"Nurse, that's lovely, love the little fellas. Got foxes living adjacent to my garden, I don't mind them at all, 3 of them 2 youngsters and their mother. They don't seem to make half as much noise as you'd expect from foxes and the two little ones tend to use the garden as a play area about an hour after dusk. Only concern is next doors kitten seems intent on climbing over, hasn't managed it yet but can see it finally getting over and then not being able to climb back....and if it coincides with rollicking fox time then there could be a 'situation'. Gardening question thrown out there... Why can I never grow corn flowers?...am Allright with practically everything else I've grown but every year struggle to get any to come through and if they do its just 3 or 4 that last only a matter of days. Bit more of a stretch but Himalayan blue poppies..anybody managed to grow these?...would love any tips, have looked at gardening sites but it all seems to descend in gobbledegook...I want to grow blue poppies, not attain a biology degree."