P&B Bird Watch

[KnightswoodBear]

32 minutes ago, Alert Mongoose said:

 

Bullfinch?

 

I did have a look at that, but it didn't have the black crown on its head that all the pictures of them have. 

Edit. like that smashing picture a few posts up. 

Edited April 25, 2017 by KnightswoodBear

[Wile E Coyote]

4 hours ago, KnightswoodBear said:

I think it might have been a Bearded Tit! Cheers for that.  It's not one that I'm familiar with.  Certainly we get loads of Blue, Coal and Great Tits in the garden.  

Are the fairly common in the West of Scotland?

Edit: since I'm sharing my birdy experiences from recently, I watched the woodpecker that lives in the woods in front of the house doing its thing the other week which was pretty cool as I can hear it in the mornings but rarely see it.

And one of the owls that lives in there too swooped down over the car as i was coming up the drive tonight.  Massive fucker when you see it with its wings out.

I would say its very, very unlikely to have been a Bearded Tit. They are very rare in Scotland with only a small population in the Tay reedbeds.

I would say it was probably a chaffinch you saw. In bird watching the most common option is usually the correct one, not always, of course there is always the possibility of something unusual but its the correct option 99.9% of the time.

As an aside I have seen Bearded Tits at RSPB Leighton Moss. They are excellent birds, one of my favourites

[KnightswoodBear]

5 minutes ago, Wile E Coyote said:

I would say its very, very unlikely to have been a Bearded Tit. They are very rare in Scotland with only a small population in the Tay reedbeds.

I would say it was probably a chaffinch you saw. In bird watching the most common option is usually the correct one, not always, of course there is always the possibility of something unusual but its the correct option 99.9% of the time.

As an aside I have seen Bearded Tits at RSPB Leighton Moss. They are excellent birds, one of my favourites

Not being very familiar with the different types, i wish I'd been able to get a photo of it.  I stood looking at it out the patio doors for a good minute or so trying to figure out what it was.  Of course as soon as it occured to me to try and get a picture, it flew off.

 

[The Mantis]

Stayed over in Sneckie on Friday night and took these yesterday in an effort to get over the result of the game. Not Loch Garten but pretty nearby.

[Ziggy]

I just watched a couple of crows bully some type of bird of prey but I don't know what it was.

It was similar in outline to a kestrel but it looked a bit bigger than that. It was more of a tan or brown colour.

[The DA]

4 hours ago, Ziggy said:

I just watched a couple of crows bully some type of bird of prey but I don't know what it was.

It was similar in outline to a kestrel but it looked a bit bigger than that. It was more of a tan or brown colour.

Probably a buzzard.  The buzzards and the crows both seem to enjoy the tussle.

[Ziggy]

4 minutes ago, The DA said:

Probably a buzzard.  The buzzards and the crows both seem to enjoy the tussle.

Yeah I've seen that quite often but this bird wasn't as big as a buzzard and looked more eh, streamlined??*. 

 

*I'm struggling to describe it. 

 

[Hillonearth]

On 07/05/2017 at 20:40, Ziggy said:

Yeah I've seen that quite often but this bird wasn't as big as a buzzard and looked more eh, streamlined??*. 

 

*I'm struggling to describe it. 

 

Possibly a red kite? There's a lot of them about these days - they're more reddish-brown than actually red, and unless you see the forked tail they could easily look like big skinny buzzards. They're defo not smaller than buzzards though - fair bit bigger - but at a distance the size of something flying can be really deceptive.

I saw a flock of sand martins prospecting for nesting holes in the big embankment wall at Cambuslang rail station yesterday. There's always loads on the banks of the Clyde near Glasgow Green, but somewhere that urban and not close to water's a new one on me.

 

Edited May 9, 2017 by Hillonearth

[itzdrk]

My flatmates new one is a roaster.  Pished in the dug bowl 

[Ziggy]

23 hours ago, Hillonearth said:

Possibly a red kite? There's a lot of them about these days - they're more reddish-brown than actually red, and unless you see the forked tail they could easily look like big skinny buzzards. They're defo not smaller than buzzards though - fair bit bigger - but at a distance the size of something flying can be really deceptive.

I saw a flock of sand martins prospecting for nesting holes in the big embankment wall at Cambuslang rail station yesterday. There's always loads on the banks of the Clyde near Glasgow Green, but somewhere that urban and not close to water's a new one on me.

 

I had a look on the RSPB website and did wonder if it was a red kite but your picture is making me doubt it as the one I seen wasn't anywhere near as terrifying as that.

[The Mantis]

18 hours ago, Ziggy said:

I had a look on the RSPB website and did wonder if it was a red kite but your picture is making me doubt it as the one I seen wasn't anywhere near as terrifying as that.

Red kites are really agile in the air compared to buzzards. Can you compare the size to the craws then? A corbie has a wingspan of about 36" or 90cm. Buzzard is not that much bigger, say 48" or 120cm. Red Kite 60" or 150cm. Kestrel a bit smaller than a craw. In my experience it's usually buzzards getting noised up by craws.

[Ziggy]

2 hours ago, The Mantis said:

Red kites are really agile in the air compared to buzzards. Can you compare the size to the craws then? A corbie has a wingspan of about 36" or 90cm. Buzzard is not that much bigger, say 48" or 120cm. Red Kite 60" or 150cm. Kestrel a bit smaller than a craw. In my experience it's usually buzzards getting noised up by craws.

I didn't get to see it for long and it was flying away from me mostly.

But it was the agility that it used to get away from the crows that first caught my eye. It immediately went into steep dive, rolling away from the crows which gave up pursuit straight away.

It was quite a bit bigger than the crows but I would have said it was similar size (if not a little smaller) than a buzzard. 

But it had narrower wings than a buzzard. It's body shape was much more like a falcon or hawk and it looked like it had evolved to hunt rather than just eat dead things found on the side of a road.

The other striking thing was its colour, it was a bright tan/brown colour (from underneath).

That's about all the info I have and I'm probably not explaining it very well but thank you all for trying to help.

 

 

[The DA]

4 minutes ago, Ziggy said:

I didn't get to see it for long and it was flying away from me mostly.

But it was the agility that it used to get away from the crows that first caught my eye. It immediately went into steep dive, rolling away from the crows which gave up pursuit straight away.

It was quite a bit bigger than the crows but I would have said it was similar size (if not a little smaller) than a buzzard. 

But it had narrower wings than a buzzard. It's body shape was much more like a falcon or hawk and it looked like it had evolved to hunt rather than just eat dead things found on the side of a road.

The other striking thing was its colour, it was a bright tan/brown colour (from underneath).

That's about all the info I have and I'm probably not explaining it very well but thank you all for trying to help.

 

 

Hen Harrier or Marsh Harrier?

Edited May 10, 2017 by The DA

[Ziggy]

26 minutes ago, The DA said:

Hen Harrier or Marsh Harrier?

Just been back on the RSPB website and I think it might have been a female or juvenile Hen Harrier. 

I'm new to this game, how many points do I get for a Hen Harrier?

[ICTJohnboy]

This story seemed to cause a bit of a stir in birdwatching circles but would now appear to have died a death.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/30/birdwatchers-charter-planes-spot-rare-american-blackbird-orkney/

Are there still planeloads of twitchers up in the Orkneys trying to find this elusive red-winged blackbird?

Anyone heard anymore?

[Hillonearth]

2 hours ago, ICTJohnboy said:

This story seemed to cause a bit of a stir in birdwatching circles but would now appear to have died a death.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/30/birdwatchers-charter-planes-spot-rare-american-blackbird-orkney/

Are there still planeloads of twitchers up in the Orkneys trying to find this elusive red-winged blackbird?

Anyone heard anymore?

I've never really understood the mentality of the twitchers tbh. They'll spend hundreds chartering planes to travel to the other end of the country to harass some wretched wee vagrant bird that's been blown thousands of miles off-course, when they could just book a decent holiday to the States for the same price and see thousands of the fuckers, and a lot more into the bargain.

The red-winged blackbird's one of the commonest birds in North America...go somewhere grassy and you'll see hunners.

 

[spud131]

Anyone have a problem with birds only eating one type of feed in their garden? I've got a feeder with fat balls, one with peanuts and one with bird seed. They seem to go mad for the fat balls (2 balls a day sometime) but the nuts and seed go untouched!! The only thing I can think of is the fat balls are in an all metal feeder whilst the peanuts and seed are in cheaper plastic ones!!

[The_Kincardine]

Listened to Farming Today the other morning which had an article on ravens ganging up to attack wee lambs.  They are absolute c***s:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08p5l3y

[DI Bruce Robertson]

Listened to Farming Today the other morning which had an article on ravens ganging up to attack wee lambs.  They are absolute c***s:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08p5l3y

As opposed to posh folks on horseback killing foxes?
I'll start reading your posts when you are consistent, oh, and sober.

[The_Kincardine]

1 minute ago, DI Bruce Robertson said:

As opposed to posh folks on horseback killing foxes?
I'll start reading your posts when you are consistent, oh, and sober.

When did I ever vaunt that?