Twitchers Revisited

Almost impossible to tell from that one pic. Was it singing?

Yes it was, but I can’t recall the song pattern as it flitted away pretty quickly - spotted in the Marquenterre in the Somme Estuary. Here’s another pic which might or might not help.

Well, if it wasn’t going _chaff chiff chaf chiff… etc etc _ then it wasn’t a Chiffchaff. Second pic doesn’t help really.

The only thing I could say for certain is that it is a phylloscopus warbler of some description.

Thanks Paul, I’ll rule out Chiff Chaff and go for ‘some type of warbler’ :wink: (and aim for a better shot next time)

Sitting in the garden eating lunch and threw a bit of fat onto the lawn. Suddenly out of nowhere appeared…


please excuse the shit photo but…

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Yes, the reintroduction scheme has worked so well, they may be in danger of becoming too successful and start to become a hindrance by displacing other species. Messing about with nature is rarely straightforward.

As an Oz, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Cane Toad fiasco…

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Only too well. Although living in the southern states we weren’t infested by them.

I do love the Kites though. Truly majestic creatures who cause little or no bother locally. Although some will say otherwise.

We occasionally indulge them by throwing chicken skin or such-like out for them. They enhance the local skies.

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Indeed, spectacular in flight

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Trying to keep very still and thinking I can’t see it.

Common Snipe in the back garden

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No pics, but had the first Greater Spotted Woodpecker I’ve seen in the area in the garden this morning, picking away between the cracks in the bark of a large silver birch.

Green woodpeckers are common - heard more than seen - but the pied chaps seem scarce for some reason.

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Lesser spotted ones are now extremely rare.
I have never spotted one.

Likewise. Habitat change + loss of elms I believe. It’s more specialised than the Greater.

I printed off this today for my youngest to teach her the names of common birds and to get her interested in looking out for birds in our garden.

No sparrows because regrettably I see few of those - and the parakeet is the joker in the pack although I have seen them locally.

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Good idea is that :+1:

They’re an absolute plague where I live.

Arrk! Arrk! Eh-eeeeeeeh!

SHUT UP YOU NOISY LITTLE GREEN BASTARDS

Yep, they are noisy birds. As if being a bright lime green colour wasn’t loud and lary enough.

The largest populations are in London which have spread out to parts of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. There’s also populations in Oxford, Birmingham and Manchester and as far north as Edinburgh.

You can blame one of for this:

Humphrey Bogart, because they escaped from the film set of The African Queen in the 1950s.

Jimi Hendrix, because he released a pair on Carnaby Street in the 1960s.

The Great Storm of 1987 which liberated a pair from an aviary.

Yep - I’ve heard all the urban myths :smile:

There’s a big colony of them lives in a hornbeam at the end of the road.

One of the weirdest sights I’ve ever seen was them going completely nuts when a big raptor (no idea what, but clearly a bird of prey) came past. Dive - bombing the living daylights out of him until he gave up and went in search of easier targets!

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Come over ‘ere with their flash looks and squawkin’ like they own the place, nabbin all the best spots and I tell ya, them stealin’ the food off our tables etc

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Until recently, scientists thought the superb bird was unique among the 43 birds of paradise that comprise the family Paradisaeidae.

But in a new paper in the journal PeerJ , ornithologist Edwin Scholes and photographer Tim Laman detail a new addition: the Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise.

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