General Chat

Just bringing washing in from line,who should fly down to bird bath near me but Fruity!! :O)) and his pal was sat on fence :O).........I'm a happy girl! lol

that's good. Sparrow hawks are magnificent birds (I think the female is the larger bird), but I dread it when one visits our garden. One year after she visited we didn't see a sparrow or blackbird for about three months.

Ann
Glos

Yes Ann the garden was quiet for a while after she left.

Mau

Mau
can always send you a few birds from my garden.

Would love some Bluetits Sue (sorry couldn't put it any other way) lol
Mau xx

PMSL

Awwww Fruity is ok!!! Have Blue Tits Mau, will send you some....and also Great Tits, whichever you prefer:-) lol BC XX

i'm not a birdy person, but my hubsta is, when we lived on the 16th floor we had kestrals nesting above and we use to sit at the window for hours watching them and the babies first flight....
last year i was with my boy in the garden, when all of a sudden this sparrow flew into my conifer tree and next was this bigger bird and it flew in grabbed the sparrow and landed on the grass.... it had the small bird in its claws and was looking at me...i froze and then after seemed ages it flew off... me and hubsta werent talking at this time... but i had to ring him to find out what it was.... he's going cant be a sparrow hawk, but he brought round his book and there it was a lovely pic of the bird i saw..... he was so jelous... he's never seen one, even now he says to me of all the people to see one it had to be you.... the most unbirdy woman he knows...lol
but just as a secret between me and everyone on here, it was a lovely sight....(dont tell me hubsta i said it..lol)
kaz xx

Send Blue BC..........I have my own Greats thank you very much..lol :O) xx

I know Kaz, Hawks are a sight to see but mixed feelings when little birds are being killed xx

If you have a sparrowhawk around it means that you have a large and healthy song bird community.

Red Kites are a sight to behold .... they can often be seen sitting atop of fence posts and telegraph poles beside country roads in West Wales.

Viv

We do have lots of songbirds around here Viv.. certainly lots of early wake up calls :O)

Mau, so glad Fruity and his pal are ok.

Lizx

So glad fruity is safe and well

xx

Aww thanks Diana and Liz and good morning to you on this beautiful day :O) xx

In Rowlands Gill, last month, I counted 27 red kites in view at one stage.

Some of them had more electronics hanging off them than the space shuttle.

Ian

Morning Ian.......Rowlands Gill not far from here...would that be at the Kite festival then? ;O)

Seeing Ann in Glos' post about Red Kites in Tring, which is not far from us.......I remember some years ago the farmer close to us saying that they had released Red Kites into the Chiltern area........and I remember being up at the farmyard and someone calling out that they had spotted a Red Kite, but I was too late to see it........we mainly get magpies and pigeons - the size of ducks - around here......

......oh, and lots of robins too.....

lol

Yeah, there were hundreds of kids flying them....:-)

But seriously folks - the last count at Rowlands Gill put the numbers in that area at over a hundred. God only knows what they are eating!

Ian

A few weeks back we had a sparrowhawk in our garden. He was there for hour and half, tucking in and resting then tucking in again. He eventually flew off with what was left of the rest of his meal. The garden was quiet for the rest of the day back to normal now though.

Apart from the sparrowhawk the most unusual bird we have had in the garden is a green woodpecker.

Whats the most unusual bird anyone has seen in their garden?


Jan in Kent

Get allsorts here.

Waxwings, redstarts, a buzzard quite frequently, every autumn a pair of Ospreys hang around for a few day. See goshawks, merlins, harriers, kestrels. Barn owls, brown owls, little owls, short eared and long eared owls within a couple of hundred yards of where I am sitting now.

In the spring I hear nightjars on the moor and corncrakes on the haugh. The blackcock are lecking now and tomorrow I am going to try to get some photos of them - have a hide built and ready.

Deer, foxes and badgers, red squirrels and voles all visit the garden regularly.

Ian