West Ham Online

"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."

"Very few couples in the UK, apparently."

*Too small for a song thrush

"I just had to make a cup of coffee, sit down and compose myself before writing this. I am fizzing with excitement. I had two redwings in my tree. They stayed and looked around for a few minutes then flew off. I've never seen them in the flesh before so had to really think about what I was looking at. ""Too small for a thrush...beak too long...what's with the eye stripe?..."". I had to look it up to be sure. My garden is very ordinary and in a build-up area of London. We're not out of February yet, but that will probably be my garden spot of the year."

Nice!

The other day I saw an avocet landing in the mud at Newhaven. As I watched it a kingfisher streaked past. Perked me right up. What a cracking double.

"Mex, that is splendid."

Have you good people seen this story? Quite amazing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXMfbY8CawY

"Crikey, look at this one. It's a Mexican standoff between a northern goshawk, a roughed legged buzzard and a common buzzard over a rabbit carcass. This bloke is brilliant."

"as you always say NR, A fether in your bed is preferred to a bird , is preferable to a bird unfed, or was that jenny shipley"

I had to look those up. What SPLENDID birds!

Just seen a pair of Chachalacas not in my garden. Im in Mexico...

"We had a chicken stew the other night and we threw the carcass down into our woods for the foxes to pick over.A while ago,on telly David Attenborough put some well rotted carcass down to prove a condor's sense of smell and it worked in about half an hour...a Rough Legged Buzzard appeared in our cherry tree ,much to the distress of our resident birds.He found the chicken and was gone."

"Had a song thrush in the garden yesterday, rare sight now. The robin we had from October to late December that was holding down a territory has gone, haven't seen or heard it for a while now. We are right on the coast and it's not an ideal habitat for robins plus all our neighbours have bastard cats."

Marvellous.

"Nurse, it's lovely to see isn't it I have a variable tit attendance but my Robin is not bothered by them, but then I have multi level feeding stations and he is generally down low, that and the fact that there are loads of them My lad just has a thing about other Robins and reserves his ire Cross species beef occurs with the blackbird couple, whilst shoeing other males, he is happy to take out a few starlings for good measure if they venture to ground level, the squawky squabbling buggers that they are Its a wonderful thing to watch all of this caper, sparrows that mysteriously vanished for a few months are back in force, pretty damn sure I have Trees too, and they are gathering nesting materials already - we position the brushed dog hair with a peg for them"

"Nurse, it's lovely to see isn't it I have a variable tit attendance but my Robin is not bothered by them, but then I have multi level feeding stations and he is generally down low, that and the fact that there are loads of them My lad just has a thing about other Robins and reserves his ire Cross species beef occurs with the blackbird couple, whilst shoeing other males, he is happy to take out a few starlings for good measure if they venture to ground level, the squawky squabbling buggers that they are Its a wonderful thing to watch all of this caper, sparrows that mysteriously vanished for a few months are back in force, pretty damn sure I have Trees too, and they are gathering nesting materials already - we position the brushed dog hair with a peg for them"

"The same robin psychodrama is being played out in my garden as I type. Paired up couple versus interloper robin, versus (also) great tits. The great tits will NOT be bullied, though, so it's usually a stand-off, strike an intimidating pose, and everybody looking a bit startled and non-committal. But it's cold outside and flying around and keeping warm requires good quality fuel, and the prize is a heap of juicy live mealworms, so when the mags are away, the little'uns will play."

"The word is out, have a growing mass of the little buggers around the large and variable foodstuffs on offer, must be tweeting each other Enjoyed the field fares, absolutely beautiful plumage when you see them at close range The territorial 'flagging' is amusing to watch, they are all at it but by far the favorite is the male robin, game little fella, has his Mrs in tow, shelter and tuck, God help any other red breast that happens by, they don't stay long ....."

Brilliant stuff.

"Rather impressive and strange weekend here. Sparrows, blackbirds, blue tits fighting on the ground, great tits, long tailed tits, robins, wrens, dunnocks, gold finches, barn owl, marsh harrier, thrushes, male pheasant, read bunting and even a moorhen even though we are at least two miles from a river"

I’ll go with birders. Sounds much better. If you can get yourself out to Epping Forest at dusk at the moment then it is well worth a visit. The birdsong is incredible with a terrific range of birds...and no parakeets drowning them out with their squawking.

Agree with that nurse. Prefer birders to twitchers.

"Mex, Agree about the hoopoe, quite common here as are the processionary caterpillars which have apparently started early this year. Hoopoe is one of the only birds that can eat them I was told by a local. Had never heard of processionary caterpillars before but by all accounts are really dangerous especially for pets. Hoopoes the boss"

"Hermit , in answer to your question, yes ."

"Hermit. Sadly, they have become a nuisance. I have no idea how they will go about culling, but native species must be protected. Meanwhile, I might be wrong, but I don't think there are any twitchers on WHO. I think we are birders. Birders: people who enjoy watching, listening to, and learning about bird behaviour, and may travel away from home to do so, but are relaxed about the sorts of birds they happen to see, and enjoy seeing them all. Twitchers: proper head-bangers who are ticking off lists of spots and are more concerned with seeing rare species than enjoying all birds equally. Highly competitive with other twitchers."