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."

[arsegrapes]

In Devon btw Devonhammer?

[arsegrapes]

Ok own up.....In 1996 an avid bird watcher spent the whole year hooting at owls and recording their responses unaware that it was one of his neighbours pretending to be an owl and hooting back.

[the exile]

HMJ - where are you?

[Crassus]

"Bees are active, and pleasingly still so after the sharp frost And noticed a pair of woodies have taken up nest building in ivy on a fence under a large eucalyptus, which whilst lovely to see has put paid to the aggressive pruning plans of both Oh well such as it is, I hope they evade the attention of the magpies"

[Nurse Ratched]

"What a striking bird, HMJ."

[Hello Mrs. Jones]

My hooded orioles are back as they are every year at this time...

[Hello Mrs. Jones]

My hooded orioles are back as they are every year at this time...

[Nurse Ratched]

Here is a clip of a hooded crow cockblocking a tom cat. Made me guffaw. https://youtu.be/sKh63xVFllM

[the exile]

"Just seen my first swallows and house martins of the season - Wye Valley. Must have been at least 30 of them, all flying around above a sewage works near the river. Plenty of bugs for them there I suppose. Hope the weather warms up for them soon."

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Saw a bumblebee yesterday, another couple of skylarks and a redstart today."

[WHU(Exeter)]

"This question might have been asked on here before, but what's happened to ladybirds? Saw one in my garden today but it's a long time since noticing one before. Seemed to be far more commonplace when I was a kid. Ditto caterpillars now I come to think of it. And those little red dot things..."

[WHU(Exeter)]

"had one flower from one geranium last all winter, red one. I think things like that are brilliant. Geraniums have now become my second favourite flower after cornflowers."

[zebthecat]

"The Jackdaws have decided to nest in my disused chimney again at last. There was a very vocal fight between three of them to take posession. Watching them fledge last year was such a pleasure and I hope that they make it that far again. It is quite fun as there is an air brick at the back of the living room that ventilates the chimney and I can here them. They also have to put up with my music taste, guitar, synth and sax playing. Not sure that is a fair deal but it worked last yearfor us all."

[zebthecat]

gph 2:52 Sun Mar 21 Drakes are far from the comical characters they appear to be. I remember the gay nechrophiliac duck story. Also look carefully at the male/female Mallard ratio as the years ticks on into Autumn. That tells its own story.

[gph]

"I ran over a squirrel with my bike. I was crawling along in my car when a drake (probably too busy contemplating his next rape*) stepped out in front of me. Probably didn't even go under the wheel (no blood left on it when I got home), just knocked over and got up again. *see the literature on duck sex."

[Tomshardware]

I've been divebombed by wrens before now that had a nest inside a shed above the door.

[Nurse Ratched]

"York University doesn't have a problem with ducks, however, since you murdered them all with your bicycle."

[gph]

"York University has got a problem with geese. One year, a student who lives in a ground-floor room likes geese, and feeds them bread and stuff. The next year, a student who is terrified of geese lives in the same room, and they come knocking, after they've been to Canada and back."

[Tomshardware]

"WHU Exeter, I have also seen that weird dance they do, at the time I wasn't sure if it was a cock bird trying to impress a female or as you say a war dance, either way it's one of funniest things I've seen."

[Aalborg Hammer]

"My Mum would put raisins and sultanas out at the same time every day and a pair of blackbirds would appear..one morning she was late putting them out and they were pecking on the kitchen window,cheeky bastards!"

[WHU(Exeter)]

"Crassus, almost got to that point years back, there was a robin where if I was putting food into the feeder it would stay just a a very few inches from me without any concern whatsoever. Couple more weeks and reckon I'd have been able to do that feeding from my hand, but then the season changed and his visits stopped."

[Crassus]

"My wife does the facebook thing, she is continually showing me clips from a site she follows about robins feeding from hand Apparently they get used to you feeding them and the method is to put the seed in the hand of an extended arm and they come down to feed End up waiting and then just jumping on like a budgie - easy to train them they say"

[zebthecat]

I have loads and loads of sparrows. They wash in the gutters of my house and are the background noise outside as they are so chatty all the time. They also have very little fear of me now unlike the other birds especially just in the back garden. There is a hedge on the left as soon as I step out and as long as I am about 6 feet away they are quite happy to do their thing without flying off in a panic. It is definitelay Robin argument season - there was one perched on last year's bamboo tomato wall support singing his head off at another in an a apple tree and he was about three feet away from me and not remotely bothered. Probably too rapt insulting the other Robin.

[WHU(Exeter)]

*food in parts of the garden*

[WHU(Exeter)]

"Tomshardware....a few years ago we had a robin visit our arden everyday and I'd leave it parts of the garden near the kitchen that the other birds wouldn't venture to, he used to come pretty much the exact time every day (a lot of birds seem to do that, can set your watch to them) Another robin came along one day and the resident one did this little war dance, spinning around like he was powered by clockwork, it was cartoonish but really lovely to watch."