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]

"Spotted flycatcher. FMOB Merlin has been trying to tell me all morning and I thought ""Nah"". Now a confirmed eyeball. Best Spring I can remember for birding in a long time. All I'm missing is my woodpecker but maybe I've not been available to watch the garden early enough or just been unlucky with timing. Also: a jay and many baby bluetits."

[Hammer and Pickle]

"My Merlin app has recorded a single Nightingale and, interestingly, a Golden Oriel at the same time. Playing it back there is a single liquid trill, which seems to have been attributed to both. Could it be Merlin is as reliable as an over-keen ornithologist?"

[Aalborg Hammer]

The local bird warden says it's possibly a lone male on his way through to Sussex..he'd not heard one for ages..my Merlin app confirmed the 'spotting ' hope to try again tonight

[Aalborg Hammer]

"Currently staying in a 500 year old brew house on the Isle of Wight...we're somewhat out in the sticks here with water meadows and some lakes..so far we've seen a barn owl fly over the lake (with fieldmouse) chiff chaff ,Jay's, wren ,long tailed tits, buzzards, red kite , moorhen , grey heron , loads of red squirrels and a fox..my Merlin app has been very busy recording a bearded tit, Reed warbler and tree creeper..last night, the icing on the cake was a nightingale giving it rice in the nearby wood..I haven't heard one since I was a teenager..Happy days"

[Nurse Ratched]

Swifts screaming their heads off in the air over my garden and a hovering red kite who most obligingly slowed and circled long enough to give me a good view of his underpinnings via my bins. FMOB.

[Nurse Ratched]

"I became a little tearful earlier. Brilliant day in my garden. Not only are the coal tits back after a 3(?) year absence, but twice one came in to my sitting room to take worms. On top of that for the first time ever I've seen long-tailed tits on my feeders! I got to watch a parent feeding bits of suet ball to its fledgie. I love these little tsee-tsee-tsee-tsee feckers, but until today they've eluded me. God bless these mild winters."

[Nutsin]

"I live next to a park, there is a family of birds that are the size of a sparrow only they are blue. Beautiful looking birds. It’s called an Indigo Bunting. Nice looking bird."

[Tomsdad]

Went to see a Frigate bird sanctuary on the isle of Barbuda yesterday. They are massive with a 1.8 metre wingspan. Also see some humming birds.

[Tomsdad]

Went to see a Frigate bird sanctuary on the isle of Barbuda yesterday. They are massive with a 1.8 metre wingspan. Also see some humming birds.

[Nurse Ratched]

"Three lovely spots, chaps. Been a good spring so far."

[Hammer and Pickle]

First swifts sighted just now :)

[Jasnik]

Just had a hummingbird outside my window.

[Tomshardware]

"Saw a cuckoo today, heard it and then located it to top of a dead tree."

[Nurse Ratched]

Arf! Gen X-ers...

[WHU(Exeter)]

4 days of beautiful weather. I keep thinking there's a trick lying just round the corner.

[WHU(Exeter)]

4 days of beautiful weather. I keep thinking there's a trick lying just round the corner.

[lab]

Less and less swifts and swallows each year .

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Yay, just seen the first swallows. Yes, it’s their feeding that keeps the blackfly in check, or at least seems to. They follow the insects so tend to fly low when air pressure is falling and it’s about to rain."

[Nurse Ratched]

"That sounds horrible, but I'm not a gardener so can't give suggestions. Swifts don't feed off plants. They eat insects that are airborne at height. They don't land on plants or hover near them to feed. In fact the only time their feet touch something other than air is when they enter and exit their nests during the breeding season. The rest of their lives (feeding, sleeping, mating) they are flying, usually at a height significantly higher than rooftops, because that's where the insects are that they feed on."

[Hammer and Pickle]

"Oh maybe it’s a coincidence but every year there is a time, just before the swifts and swallow arrive, when the blackfly get especially aggressive. It’s terrible for the cattle and horses; some actually die. So we really do tend to scan the skies for swifts and swallows this time of year."

[Nurse Ratched]

"Sorry about your blackfly, but I don't think swifts would help with that."

[Hammer and Pickle]

Damnit! None here yet and the blackfly really could do with a proper cull

[Nurse Ratched]

Swifts!

[Tomshardware]

"Nice one, we had Goldfinches in the garden today eating the seedheads of dandelions, house sparrows were on the roses eating aphids."

[zebthecat]

I had a Barn Owl fly over the garden this evening. It cheered me up a lot after today's remorseless deluge.