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."

[gph]

"Just seen my first two York urban foxes, after living here for over 20 years. Much bigger, and much redder than the ones I used to see in Birmingham. Probably due to them hunting rodents and small birds (sorry) rather than the contents of black bin bags, and being less dirtied by traffic fumes. I suppose, from a fox perspective, York is much more like a village than a city like Birmingham. From a human perspective, York is only inferior to Birminghan in one way - Birmingham has better football teams (but none of them is West Ham, so that counts for fuck all)"

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Now looking at my books and am firmly discounting the Lesser Whitethroat (too grey), the Blackcap (lacks a clear black eye stripe) or Wood Warbler (too green). Saw what at first I thought was a pair of sparrows, then looked again because they were sitting too still. Definite black and white tail with ruddy back and wings as they took flight as I approached."

[Nurse Ratched]

Yup.

[lab]

Very rare .

[Nurse Ratched]

Marvellous spot. The great grey shrike is on my wishlist.

[Nurse Ratched]

Marvellous spot. The great grey shrike is on my wishlist.

[Hammer and Pickle]

Yay! Just Google-confirmed a sighting of a Red-Backed Shrike. Tiny little impaler no bigger than a sparrow!

[Nurse Ratched]

Nice!

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Just returning from a splendid weekend in the CARPATHIAN hills (calling them mountains would be unsuitable). Used Nurse’s app to record this morning’s birdsong and got Robin, Blackcap, Greater Whitethroat, Willow Tit, Marsh Tit, Wren, Chaffinch and Great Spotted Woodpecker. Highly SATISFACTORY, I’d say."

[Aalborg Hammer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_MHqW5KVds&t=34s

[Aalborg Hammer]

Trevor from 3 doors down knocked on our door this evening inviting us down to his back garden where he has a small wood. We sat with a couple of beers listening to a nightingale singing his little heart out..the only one I've heard before is the recording in s Surrey wood with a 1000 bomber raid in the background..it's on YouTube May 1942 -Nightingale and Bombers

[Mike Oxsaw]

"One of the unanswered (probably unasked) questions from my youth is/was ""How come there are/were so few Birds of Prey in London, given the number of pigeons at Trafalgar Square?"

[lab]

"Good news NR . I’m currently in Guernsey , haven’t seen anything unusual , a Little Egret and a few Oyster Catchers about all ."

[Nurse Ratched]

"Regular sightings of the red kite(s) over my street now. For the first time my daughter was available to confirm the spot and officially witness the fact I am not going senile. It stuck around for almost a minute, wheeling around languidly. A brave pigeon and a gull sticking around to make sure the kite wasn't getting too comfortable. Other spots today: dunnock and several pied wagtails. Yesterday the noisy wren decided to break cover and reveal itself on my washing line. I love their tails-up-shout-yer-head-off attitude. I was worried in the early spring that there were so few birds around and thought maybe bird flu had ravaged the local populations. My daughter has a favourite walk she likes to take and she was seeing dead ducks and gulls. But as it stands right now, I don't think I've seen this number and variety of birds for quite some years where I live in North London."

[Aalborg Hammer]

"I have to agree ,Nurse-thank for the nod on Merlin. I have it open on my table in the garden and is very handy when a certain bird sings it colours up. It showed our Goldcrest and Spotted Fly catcher along with a Chiffchaff and greenfinches ,a welcome addition after being absent for so long- it did ,however, hesitate when 'Chicken Daves' flock of Guinea Flock fired up...they're really good 'guard birds' if there's such a thing-maybe I should load the 'Serengeti pack!!'"

[JAC]

Maybe those cսnt magpies were lurking...or a poxy cat?

[Turk1]

"I think you're right Nurse. We had a family in one of our nest boxes. I thought they'd moved on a while ago but seems they didn't go far. Pity the poor parents, the little bastards never give up."

[Nurse Ratched]

They might have fledglingsƒ? with them. They make an enormous racket nagging their parents for food.

[Turk1]

"I am normally a tit fan (oooh, matron) but there is gang of great tits just beyond my garden that have been going fucking mental all day for the last three days. No idea what the trigger is but they are getting on my....err, nerves"

[Nurse Ratched]

"cheese Look, do you want this frigging microfilm, or not?"

[Hammer and Pickle]

"That's right - when you realise ""flying ant day""=""the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection"", the meaning of the thread opens up before you."

[legrandefromage]

"'""The Swifts were flying really low"" That just has to be some secret spy-based codeword. ""The Little Owl is perched on the barn"""

[Nurse Ratched]

"?üòä Saw two ant nests opened up this morning, with frantic activity from the 'workers'. They might just be opening up extra ventilation holes to cool the nests in this weather, but often this is a precursor to FLYING ANT DAY. Swifts were flying really low, too."

[zebthecat]

Thanks for the tip on Merlin Nurse. The thing it is really good at is identifying birds singing simultaneously. Bird Up was the one I used and it was good for individual birds but terrible when they are all going at once at sunset. All it could tell me was Robin and I knew that already as he/she sits in the apple tree closest to me and yells away. The sparrows have had a really successful breed this year as there are bloody loads of them now and they love perching on the house guttters for a chat. Loving the Dunnocks as well who are still about and too brave for their own seeing as I have a cat. It is weird that they seem hard wired that humans are tolerable but they scarpa when the cat appears. The only unwelcome present I have had so far is a rat.

[plankton]

"I did the next best thing for you, Nurse. Downloaded the west European ""pack"" and then played the app ten minutes of local birdsong from a YouTube video. It identified about 50% of the birds (pretty much all the ones i would have got) but then missed some notable songs by stuff that I would really thought it would identify. Perhaps it is not as good as it promised to be. Sigh. However, the results were definitely better than Smart Bird ID, which failed to identify a single species from the same video, including chiffchaff and reed bunting, That one really is useless!"