[Misc] The Official NSC Bird Spotting Thread.

[mikeyjh]

Nice selection but I’m very surprised that you saw a Siskin which would be a very interesting record - they are Winter Visitors to most of UK and back on their breeding grounds by now - there is a breeding population in UK but in the far north of Scotland

Not sure if I'm being whooshed here but their breeding range covers much of the UK, not much of SE England but widely elsewhere.

 

[Zeberdi]

The plumage of the bird suggests that it is very young. So it may well be wild. What I didn't know was that it navigates by the stars. Poor thing. Feel really sorry for it.

I agree it is sad. Birds, also use the Earth’s magnetic fields to navigate too and I did wonder a few weeks ago (and mentioned it as much) whether the particularly strong solar storm would impact migration in an unusual way.

That might explain why there is a Killer Whale off the Northern Irish coast and an Indigo Bunting in Durham

 

[mikeyjh]

You make it sound like a casual wander around the local park

I don’t use birding identification apps - they are often unreliable. I’m not great on birdsong now as I have lost the top range of my hearing but always did prefer to try and get onto any birds I hear anyway (which is good way of learning their calls btw)

I have been birding for over 40 years including doing bird surveys for various organisations which helps and used to lead public guided birding walks. I have good optics too. My current place of work sits on it’s own quite extensive nature reserve of mixed habitat (some public but most private access for scientific study), so to get that number of birds in an hour isn’t unusual - the only birds identified by song were Cuckoo and Chiffchaff.

I go around our reserve 2 or 3 times a week in a scooter - mostly lunch breaks but early mornings too - went in my lunch break yesterday but gave up half way through as a thunderstorm hit

I am astounded by people's ability to recognise, by sight and sound, birds, bravo! I spend at least a day a week surrounded by 'experts', (RSPB wardens etc) and am routinely mocked for my complete lack or recognition. Give me a Chiffchaff, a Grasshopper Warbler or a Pied Fly though and I'm your man

Funnily enough, I've had to teach 2 people over the last month or so how we undertake nest box surveys, one of which was a new warden - Took about the blind leading the blind

 

[Eeyore]

I am astounded by people's ability to recognise, by sight and sound, birds, bravo! I spend at least a day a week surrounded by 'experts', (RSPB wardens etc) and am routinely mocked for my complete lack or recognition. Give me a Chiffchaff, a Grasshopper Warbler or a Pied Fly though and I'm your man

Funnily enough, I've had to teach 2 people over the last month or so how we undertake nest box surveys, one of which was a new warden - Took about the blind leading the blind

There will be many, many twitchers who have knowledge that would humble that of any reserve warden. Some have made a lifetime of bird spotting.

 

[Zeberdi]

There will be many, many twitchers who have knowledge that would humble that of any reserve warden. Some have made a lifetime of bird spotting.

I’m not a reserve warden - never have been.

Started birding and twitching rare birds in my teens. Have travelled all over the UK, Europe and North America on birdwatching trips - the best one I did was a two week migration survey in Greece at lake Kirkini - an amazing 175 species seen! Gave up twitching about 20 years ago - couldn’t justify the cost and would rather see rare birds on their own habitats ( for the reason you mention above). It also has become quite hard for me in the past few years to lug a scope round let alone walk the miles I use to on public transport so do less UK general birding than I used to too sadly.

 

[Titanic]

We see the odd red kite locally, but when the farmer took his first cut of grass for silage yesterday, we had 9 circling and swooping - so impressive.

 

[DavePage]

I am reasonably confident of spotting one of these little beauties at lunch time today...



View attachment 137599

Beautiful, completely knocked the stuffing out of me

 

[Diablo]

First Cygnets I`ve seen this year. There are eight.

 

[Eeyore]

There's been a massive fall of migrants in the last 24 hours, record numbers of marsh warblers, icterne warbs, bluethroats etc red backed shrikes. Hearing that the north east coast is a good place at the moment.

 

[MJsGhost]

Just walking past a gang of about five of these little beauties...

 

[hans kraay fan club]

There's been a massive fall of migrants in the last 24 hours, record numbers of marsh warblers, icterne warbs, bluethroats etc red backed shrikes. Hearing that the north east coast is a good place at the moment.

Nigel Farage is on a train North with a film crew, as we speak.

 

[Eeyore]

Nigel Farage is on a train North with a film crew, as we speak.

Rwandan Blue. Beautiful plumage.

 

[Eeyore]

One of my funniest moments in the last few months was when a colleague had gone on a field trip in Norway and returned showing us all a presentation of the work that had been done around the lakes up there.

He spoke of all the different birds he had seen. I asked in the chat if he had seen a Norwegian Blue. He commented in passing that he hadn't seen one.

Most of the younger folks just continued to watch the presentation. Most folks over 50 in the room spat their coffee out giggling.

 

[Zeberdi]

There's been a massive fall of migrants in the last 24 hours, record numbers of marsh warblers, icterne warbs, bluethroats etc red backed shrikes. Hearing that the north east coast is a good place at the moment.

The NE Coast is always good for scarce passage migrants and vagrants this time of year especially if there have been strong North Easterlies - Unusual amount of RB Shrikes coming in. One of the reasons I moved to Norfolk - many arriving work their way down the coast and Norfolk gets a very good share of the UK landfall of rarities.

A few years ago, I’d have been up on the coast like a shot- not so mobile now.