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Bountiful nature

2

2ManyBoxes

pfm Member
Just seen 11 juvenile blackbirds on my back lawn, all pecking away and squabbling like mad.

As they were still some way short of the pie requirement I let them be :)

I thought that boys didn't go in for birding any more so I'm puzzled why our absence should have any effect.

Any other examples of nature's bounty this year?
 
A couple of robins taken over in my garden like we aren’t there.
In previous years they’ve been very furtive.
 
Very mild winter - blackcaps calling almost everywhere, even audible though an open car window I drive around, around here. If they break into actual song...……………..mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

The first blackie chicks were out and about here around a week ago. The parents will have REALLY struggled as it has been so very dry.

Jack's have been visiting the birdbath for a drink with very full gular pouches for over a week.

Yet to hear the first swift - maybe another 7-10 days as yet.
 
Bat in my garden...he's there most years at dusk. Plenty of blackbirds, blue tits, starlings raiding the cat snacks, a couple of ring neck doves and the hedgehog. There are usually a load of frogs as well though I've not seen them this year.
 
Saw a Woodcock last week whilst out on my mountain bike, haven’t seen one in years.

plenty of blackbirds on my back garden, I could sit and listen to the male blackbird all day
 
I've seen blackbird families before now of 3 - 4 juveniles plus Mum and Dad trying to teach them how to eat the rubber bands.

I've never seen 11 teenagers by themselves though. Maybe my back garden has become the equivalent of a shopping mall.
 
Swifts arrived round here last weekend or thereabouts. Not as many in the last couple of years, but still here.

I've recently noticed an unfamiliar bird calling. Wondered if the pfm massive might be able to suggest any likely culprits. We are a typical suburban area, we regularly get Blue Tits, Great Tits, Goldfinches, Blackbirds, Robins, the occasional Chaffinch, and dozens of sodding Pigeons and Magpies.

This one has a short and distinctive call: a short (c 1 second) slightly metallic 'trill' which diminishes in amplitude over about a second. It isn't repeated, but happens on an occasional basis every few minutes or so. I can't associate it with any of the usual suspects, so it's either an unfamiliar call from something a bit shy, or I'm beginning to wonder whether it might be something like a Blackbird imitating a noise (ringtone, maybe) it has heard elsewhere, as that's almost what it sounds like. Remember the old BT Trimphone? Well, it's a bit like a single 'ring' of one of those, but higher in pitch and cleaner in sound.
 
Vinny said:
Fieldfare? I think not, unless it couldn't fly.
Click to expand...
Someone else said they were rare at this time of year,but not unknown. It looked like a smaller mistlethrush with a blue-grey head. I’m a novice at all this, relying on a book someone gave me a few years ago.
 
I've always considered myself reasonable at identifying most of the common birds around us and some of the not so common, however with the odd exception birdsong eludes me
 
bigjonny said:
It looked like a smaller mistlethrush with a blue-grey head
Click to expand...

Blue-grey head would be right but they are about the size, maybe marginally bigger than, a mistle thrush, either way not much in it. Substantially bigger and more robust than a song thrush.

Take a look at online photo's - very striking birds, fieldfares.

fegs said:
with the odd exception birdsong eludes me
Click to expand...

I ain't that far behind.

Anoter useful site - what is bigger than what, where is this common, how many are there in the UK etc. -

https://www.bto.org/understanding-birds/birdfacts/british-list
 
Red kite the other day. Unusual this side of Leeds. 10 a penny in NW Leeds and up towards Harrogate. Other than that 2 coal tits in the nesting box and the world's supply of magpies strutting round and kicking the living daylights out of everything smaller than a Labrador.
 
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