Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Garden Birds chat 2011
Options
Comments
-
-
-
So then I was going through the other species that I had not seen which are at least possibles and discussing this with family
Little Egret
Little Grebe
Heron
Sparrowhawk
House Sparrow
And a Heron this morning....a bit like buses
and my 4 Goldfinches (remember it was 5) are at the nyger seed this morning.0 -
-
So Bsal, do you live in the country-side? It must be so, i've hardly heard anyone here sighting yellow hammers in urban area's....(?) Correct me. Pity you hadn't got your camera on the ready :rolleyes:I had six Yellow hammers spend most of the day in my garden, every week more and more join the group.0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
Half-cocked wrote: »Got a pic this morning, not great but good enough for comparison - tree sparrow on the left, house sparrow on the right.
:eek: God almighty! The holy grail! Tree Sparrow! I hate you too! 0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
was out feeding my birds today, when i could hear this feint "dum dum dum dum".
i have never heard a wood pecker before or seen one for that matter so was looking around to see was there one near by.
then i noticed the sound was being made by a blue tit hammering away at a coconut.
Trebor; Ye'll well know a woodpecker (drumming) when ye hear one. They make a " Tock, tock, tock, tock, tock " sound. Tends to come in bursts of two or three seconds at a time. And the tock's run together like a machine gun.
I'm sure, if ye ask Google, there'll be a site where ye can listen to a recording. Then ye'll be prepared should ye ever hear it in the wild.0 -
i saw what looked like a Mistle Thrush on an ariel cable above me. A stunning medium sized bird with a spotted breast ..... It may have been a Song Thrush. How can you know for sure within a split second to positively identify a bird at these kind of distances...is it years of experience and wearing binoculars around the neck 24/7 ....?
Sables; Ask a dozen Birders and ye'll probably get a dozen different answers on how to ID birds. Ye'll probably also find each of the dozen are at different levels of skill.
I was once in the company of Alan Davies. The man is a genius at birding. Probably one of the top ten in UK. He pointed out a spot on the horizon, coming our way. It must've been over a hundred yards away. A black speck. " Siskin. " He said.
I'm like; " F**k off! Leave my head alone! How in hell do ye know That's a siskin?! " He just shrugged. " Way it flew. " He said. :eek:
Now, that's an extremely extreme example of the 'use' of " Jizz ". Jizz is a term birders use to refer to those subtle little things that birds do or show and which help us suss out what they are, without being able to see them clearly and study their colours and markings.
Take a kestrel as an nice, simple example. Nothing hovers quite like a kestrel, does it? So, ye can be bombing down a motorway and just glance one out of the corner of ye eye. No more than a silhouette. Yet ye know damn sure that was a kestrel. That's " Jizz ".
So, now to try and apply that to ye thrush. Song Thrush is brown on the back. Mistle Thrush is gray on the back. The under wing colours give them away too. But, ye never saw your one fly.
The 'spots' on the breast are completely different. Song actually has little arrow heads. Mistle looks like spotted dick. Big, black, round spots.
But, the best jizz on those two? Song's are little, brown birds with a spotted breast. They have an air of timidity about them.
Mistles? Big, bold, upright bird. Pale with spots on his breast. Almost has something of the air of a birdy rottweiller about him. Ye wouldn't want anyone throwing one at ye. Big, solid bird.
Which do ye reckon ye saw?
(I reckon I already know which it was, actually. It's behaviour showed me its jizz
) 0 -
-
-
Will blue tits eat nyjer seed? I had one at the feeder yesterday, behaving very aggresively towards the goldfinches, but couldn't say for sure if it ate anything. It usually goes for the peanuts or suet balls. And would the tits be pairing up already? My regular visitor seems to have a buddy whereas before he/she was very territorial.
I'd love a to see yellowhammer in the garden too, I've seen them in farmland a few minutes walk from my house but they don't venture this far into the housing estate...
0 -
-
I have been watching a flock of six birds that I had some difficulty identifying. I couldn't decide whether they were serins (which have rarely been seen in this country) or siskins, so I sent photos to Ethna and Michael Viney. They thought they were serins, and suggested I report them to Birdwatch Ireland.
I just got this message back:
"Many thanks for your email. These birds can be tricky to photograph, but you've captured this one nicely. This is a Yellowhammer. And you were very lucky to have 6!
The Yellowhammer is one of Ireland's (and indeed Western Europe's) declining farmland birds. They are confined to tillage habitats, and in Ireland these days are really only seen along the east and south coasts, with a "smattering" at various small-scale patches of cropland locations elsewhere in the country.
We often receive calls about Serins as the two are very similar - but yes, Serins are extermely rare this far north and am not sure if they have been recorded in Ireland. We can never turn a blind eye to this sort of query though - Climate Change is causing all sorts of change in bird populations around the globe. These changes are subtle for now, but we expect that they will be pretty significant over the next 50 to 100 years and beyond."
0 -
Flo with a view wrote: »The Yellowhammer is one of Ireland's (and indeed Western Europe's) declining farmland birds. They are confined to tillage habitats, and in Ireland these days are really only seen along the east and south coasts, with a "smattering" at various small-scale patches of cropland locations elsewhere in the country. Yeah. That's me knackered then. Only crops round here are grass and cattle. 0
-
Advertisement
-
Not necessarily. My sister sees a single yellowhammer at her feeders quite frequently, and she's surrounded by pastures. The nearest tillage to her would be nearly a mile away, but that doesn't seem to have stopped it coming to a good source of food.
0 -
-
-
-
Whyulittle; Bullie's are no stranger to my place. In fact, I'm pretty certain they nested, down in my paddock hedge, last season. I didn't look for them ~ to record for the BTO NRS ~ because they're notoriously prone to desertion.
But, the point I actually wish to make is; I see them 'here, there and everywhere' about my ground. But, never around the feeders.
It's as if they just don't like to socialise with other birds.
Anyone else noticed this
0 -
Whyulittle; Bullie's are no stranger to my place. In fact, I'm pretty certain they nested, down in my paddock hedge, last season. I didn't look for them ~ to record for the BTO NRS ~ because they're notoriously prone to desertion.
But, the point I actually wish to make is; I see them 'here, there and everywhere' about my ground. But, never around the feeders.
It's as if they just don't like to socialise with other birds.
Anyone else noticed this
love bullfinches myself, see them regularly when out walking etc, but as you say ditch are very shy and do tend to keep to themselves and not bother anybody.0 -
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement