Keep looking, they’re close!
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The fem. N Bullfinch was still at Tresta today and has been joined by a couple of Mealy (Common) Redpolls. There are masses of seed-laden weeds in that garden so I expect they could be feeding here for a while yet.
The plumage differences in some of these Redpolls is quite striking,
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Very good, but I can’t help wondering if it is 2 images superimposed. Or maybe it’s just me being sceptical…
Do you know if it’s genuine?
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'Fraid not - came from a non-birding source. Damn shame that people cheat with stuff like this so often…
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The same (100% certain) Mealy Redpoll from above (2nd pic) Photographed today in different light and front-on (obvs)
Nobody said it would be easy, but fuck me…
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Angry birds ftw
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Not really bird related, although the tawny owl pipes in and adds to the racket…
But I’ve just witnessed carnage in the garden with an animal in the hedges screaming and running around causing my dogs to lose it.
I can’t place the noise. Like a duck crossed with screaming.
Possibles from stuff I have seen are a muntjac, or a fox.
I’ve got a receding but can’t post the sound clip.
It wasn’t a mating fox. It was more distressed ans a noise, coupled with running about frantically.
Rabbit?
Don’t know. It was loud!! Just played it back and the dogs have lost their shit again. Might be a rabbit, certainly moved fast from the disturbance I could hear (could t see it for plant cover).
Rabbits scream like a stuck banshee when attacked
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I don’t suppose it could be a Water Rail?
Really don’t know. But both those are close to what it was sound wise. Literally the whole street would have picked up the din.
Peregrines are pretty scarce here, maybe 2 or 3 records per year. Hopefully this one will find enough prey for it to stick around for a while.
Distant, heavily cropped record shot
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Vixen on heat, almost certainly. Injured animals cry out in pain when attacked, but shock hits hard and fast and they go quiet soon after, dead or alive…
When I lived in Rotherhithe we had a vixen who used to go batshit insane when she came on heat, and would run multiple circuits around our flatblock screaming like a fucking banshee, running over parked cars and scaling the 8’ high walls like they weren’t there - round-and-round-and-round-and-round, screeching like a fucking demon.
Curiously, out here in the sticks, foxes are WAY more discrete.
FWIW, Muntjacs have a curious hoarse bark that sounds like people think a fox sounds, but never actually does.
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Interesting article 
Don’t get too used to the name though, it will be getting changed to something like Yellow-bellied Streaked Warbler before too long…
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Not that sort of scream. We get that mating noise every year. It’s always repetative screams. This was very different.
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That sounds like muntjac FWIW, they can be screechy or even yappy, but they are definitely repetitive. Foxes are way more variable and creative - often described as “…if it sounds like someone brutally murdering a series of feisty toddlers - that’s a fox…”. Naturally every generalisation has an exception…
Muntjac bark and I have a video of one next door making a racket.
Foxes screaming aren’t what I heard. Rabbit is making the most sense, and may explain why I didn’t see the animal despite it being under 5m away.
I’ve seen neighbours waking up asking who had been stabbed when foxes are mating. This was a different noise.