Bird thread

I seen a sparrowhawk take a blackbird yesterday on the main road next to the woods

Red Kites and Magpies

havent seen a bird for ages here!

Lovely robin in the garden earlier.

2 cute little wrens on my rose bush yesterday

Female Woodpecker...

Shot three pigeons today

What birds am I seeing?
Margaret from Neath, and Lizzy from Carmarthen.
In the garden I have a swarm of sparrows, about 20 of them at least.
2 male blackbirds (one has lost a foot!)and one female blackbird which are nesting in the bushes in my garden.
A crowd of starlings, here one day, gone the next... proper nomads that lot.
A few crows around nesting in my trees,
A pair of robins, must be nesting close by.
Saw some blue tits a few days ago, but they must have moved on.

last winter there were a flock of waxwings in the trees behind my garden ,also seen a green woodpecker ,plenty of those ringneck parakeets also a jay used to visit my garden ,plus blue tits nesting in the nestbox ,them and great tits seem to take turns nesting in the box ,had to stop putting the bird feeders out in the garden as I clocked a big rat climbing onto the table .

lots of blue tits, great tits, a pair of green finches, a few wrens,. Best of all is a lesser spotted woodpecker which comes into the garden at roughly the same time every afternoon and feeds on the nut feeder

I know what you mean about the woodpecker bigH,I love my goldfinches but it's always a bonus to see the woodpecker. Saw one today about 3 o/c but am not normally home by then so perhaps he comes in everyday but I miss it. I'll be looking out for it tomorrow. What about magpies? I have more than my fair share and people tell me to shoot them.

goldfinches , goldfinches and more goldfinches. some woodpigeons too, although mr sparrowhawk flanged one on the drive last week, mrs m had to clean the mess up.

Goldfinch,greenfinch,chaffinch,great,blue and coal tits,dunnocks ,robin,starlings,collar doves,wood pigeons - all on bird feeders in garden. Blackbird and song thrush nesting. Huge flocks of house sparrows in the eaves. Buzzards and red kite in the sky over the fields. Plus magpies,carrion crows, and rooks in the rookery in nearby wood. Plenty of pheasants and partridge in the fields as flushed up by my Springer, as well as a pair of common snipe. Skylarks singing in the blue sky above the yellow oil seed rape fields. Beautiful out here in the countryside !

Red Kites
Hobbys
Magpies
Blue Tits
Blackbirds
Starlings Pigeons
Tawny Owls (heard, not seen)

Hobby ? - good spot !

We have them round the nature reserves near Rickmansworth :)

Sedgewobbler

The Hobby is Falco Subbuteo, like the football game. The inventor actually want to call the game "hobby" but couldnt get the patent so settled on Subbeteo.  Not many people know that

Fabulous bird, the hobby - read up on the courtship display - Like driving a Ferrari head on towards your girlfriend's car at 100mph, swerving late and handing her a burger through the open windows.

so settled on Subbuteo

Finally managed to catch a glimpse of the lesser spotted woodpecker that I ve been able to hear on numerous occasions and not see until yesterday.

Seems to be a lot of fat stock doves around here too, never used to be. Would rather see something else, being bigger I think they are out competing other species.

No robins this year so far

saw a white heron type bird by a lake ,and looked it up on google turns out its an egret! didn't think they were british !

Egrets, we've had a few.....................here in Sussex.

Apologies for stealing Richard Osman's Joke.

Few starlings, a yellow tit and a pair of Kites...........

Aplogies in advance for long post but I haven't written these down anywhere so I can copy and paste this into a word doc or something for my own ref. I haven't had the bins out so far this year, yet. When you add the very common ones it turns into a really long list.
Garden and about in fields and towns:
Goldfinches,
Blue tits,
Great tits,
Long-tailed tits,
Nuthatch,
Pied wagtails,
Robins,
Sparrers,
Magpies
Jays,
Crows,
Rooks,
Blackbirds,
Starlings,
Wrens,
Wheatear,
Song thrush,
Dunnocks,
Meadow Pipit,
Chiff-Chaff,
Kestrels,
Buzzards,
Mallards,
Herons,
Jackdaws,
Herring Gulls,
Pheasants,
Wood Pigeons,
Collared Doves,
Feral Pigeons

Coast, if not mentioned above:
Skylarks,
Little Egrets,
Black-backed gulls,
Turnstones.

Hi Clouseau, Where are you? and when did you see your Wheatears. They're a subject of mine

Hi Blackbarn, In N. Wales. Rocky moorland, farmland type area. There were two separate fleeting, fluttering glimpses. It was the white tail with the black stripe which got my attention. Bigger than goldfinches with the buffy chest area. I thought it might be a bit early for them so I stand to be corrected if I was mistaken. Have seen them several times in France in trad summer time in pastureland. Cheers.

ps. forgot to add whooper swans near Burscough WWT site in Burscough earlier on during Feb/March.

Finally, not one but a pair of robins spotted in the garden

3 blackbirds and a magpie

Sorry Clouseau - I missed your Wheatear reply. You have them spot on from your description. They arrived here in my bit of Sussex (edge of the South Downs National Park) about three weeks ago.

You may find the attached interesting as historically Sussex was amazing White A rse country.

http://www.sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/blog/2014/03/wheatear/

Saw a Northern Wheatear a couple of years ago on an Atlantic headland on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Nobody believed me.

Al Dente - Its the Northern Wheatear (or Wheatear) we are talking about.  Did you mean one of the others?

No, not one of the others it was a Northern Wheatear, I have seen them before when I lived in the UK and Ireland. No doubt about it, got a good identification through my bins while it hung about for five minutes or so.

I've always wanted to see a Dipper

On my garden list, Sultan....

a dipper in a garden? remarkable scenes.

Blackbarn - After some research it seems I saw the Northern Wheatear, Greenland version but still a Northern and v. similar. These breed in Eastern Canada and leave from Newfoundland, about 70 miles north east of here and travel on to Greenland, Ireland, Portugal, Azores and so to Africa. Been here 8 years and that is the only one that I have seen.