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."

[Cony Tottee]

"I get house sparrows, starlings and robins and he gets owls ffs!!!!"

[Cony Tottee]

"I get house sparrows, starlings and robins and he gets owls ffs!!!!"

[Mex Martillo]

"One of these chaps, called a puput in these parts, is regularly visiting my garden to dig for grubs (I think) in the fallen pine needles. Love it, best bird around here for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_hoopoe"

[Mex Martillo]

"Nurse sorry to read that. It hit me a bit out of the blue, I assumed I was reading a happy rescue story. Very caring of you."

[Hammer and Pickle]

Some beautiful footage of the young birds in full juvenile plumage now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdezYfZdYT4&fbclid=IwAR1ZJJ-BB41s5PSlJAUyZP0rnDP_1xD1U5EDZgvuPX47lPY25SdSzNqoXxs

[Nurse Ratched]

Yeah. I wish I hadn't been looking at it for the few seconds when it died.

[zebthecat]

Nurse Ratched 9:14 Tue Jun 2 Aah! Poor little bugger.

[Nurse Ratched]

"My daughter found an injured/sick juvenile greenfinch in our street earlier today. It was standing in the middle of the pavement in the position they adopt when they're sleeping, with its head turned backwards over its wing, beak semi-buried. It roused when we tried to see if it was alive, but didn't attempt to get away. It shifted position, looked at us, then put its head back over its wing. We waited at a distance for ages, but no adults greenfinches came near. But anyway, it had clearly fledged and was a size and plumage suggesting it was almost certainly independently flying and feeding. I see them at that stage on my feeders. We took it home in a box. It didn't look like the pictures of finches with tricho parasite. Maybe it had knocked itself out flying into something. No obvious signs of injury. It ignored water and food. It started spasming and panting in the box and then died in front of me while I was on hold phoning the RSPCA. I'm gutted. Bit tearful."

[Mex Martillo]

"That is amazing Cheeses, what a lucky guy. I think they are swallows. You’re right, cannot see many details always flying and quite fast, definitely black and white. Not sure about tail shape. They fly at all heights, but mainly lowish in the village around 2-3rd storey or higher, but just outside the village where I live by a dried up stream bed (barranc) they fly lower along the stream bed a lot and below me when I sit on my 2nd floor baloney. When I was a kid, we had lots of house martins which even nested udder the eves of our house. It’s not a good comparison also much time has past, but I would say the ones here are different, they fly more and stop less, if you know what I mean and I think the ones here are bigger than house martins. However, there really are a lot of them about, perhaps they are house martins!"

[Nurse Ratched]

"Fantastic. Thanks, cheeses."

[cheeses cruyf]

Short video of a lucky Dutch bloke that has Eagle owls nesting in his window box https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ik29zMbHaY

[geoffpikey]

"""Haven't seen the cսnt since, although think we can still hear one occassionally."" A certain nighttime WHOer?"

[MaryMillingtonsGhost]

"A couple of months after moving out of London we had an owl, probably Barn, on the decking. Looked like it was just staring back at us through the patio doors. Lucky the outside lights were on as we wouldn't have seen it. I didn't really want to move out of Poplar, but did think that there may be a couple of pluses to living in the countryside after all, however minimal. Haven't seen the cսnt since, although think we can still hear one occassionally."

[geoffpikey]

"I am late to this game, but have - perhaps mightily unimpressvely - wood pigeons nesting in little courtyard. See such birds all the time, naturally, but don't think I've ever had them actually nest 6 ft away from window. Noisy, but handsome in fat bastid sort of way. Spitting image of this one. https://youtu.be/AWet9qFT15M Think mine might be its sister. All else is little Finch types that come and go. No emus."

[Hammer and Pickle]

"If air pressure is low, all three species tend to fly low as that is where the insects are to be had. The higher the pressure, the higher they fly. This is basic cricket captain’s lore as the ball will swing if the swallows are flying low."

[Hammer and Pickle]

Agreed. Can’t mistake a swift though.

[Nurse Ratched]

"Usually swifts, swallows and martins will be moving too quickly for you to get a good look at the tail, and you're unlikely to get different species close enough to make a comparison. An easier way to work it out is to notice the general height at which they are flying. Swifts - way up in the air, so much so you can't see any details on the birds. Martins - housemartins in towns will fly around the height of the 2nd-3rd storey of a building. Swallows - fly lower (e.g skimming for insects off water and fields)"

[Hammer and Pickle]

Swallows have a more pronounced tail fork. Martins are smaller with a white breast patch. Swifts are bigger and super aerodynamic.

[Mex Martillo]

"I think there are plenty of swallows about here, they come every year without fail. I say I think as I‚Äôm not sure they are swallows? When I first came here I had a top floor flat and it was a delight to drink my coffee in the morning with the swallow type birds swopping by the kind of bay window doing their stuff. Lower, I see that spectacle every autumn. So you can have both, scare them to roost in other trees and see their performance. Proper cսnt me."

[Hermit Road]

Just saw a large Jay in the garden. Beautiful bird.

[zebthecat]

"lowermarshhammer 12:06 Sat May 30 Yeah, I haven't seen any this year and we usually have quite a few. Have seen swifts though but only a few. Nothing like it was 5 years ago. I did read that the migrating flocks got caught in a couple of huge storms this year that blew them onto the continent rather than here. Fingers crossed"

[gph]

"A quick search reveals that the peregrine is the bird of prey with the widest range, but whether it's got the widest range overall need a more sophisticated search. Albatrosses seem to be the individual birds who get the most about. I guess that's why they get called ""wandering"""

[gph]

"A quick search reveals that the peregrine is the bird of prey with the widest range, but whether it's got the widest range overall need a more sophisticated search. Albatrosses seem to be the individual birds who get the most about. I guess that's why they get called ""wandering"""

[lowermarshhammer]

"Swallows are fucked, hardly any about, been neating on LMH senior's plot for centuries probably, absent for two summers now. What a cսnt."

[lowermarshhammer]

"Gph, good question, I'd say a top predator, I'm going first choice peregrine, barn owl as a wild card..."