Any cuckoos out there? ... and other BirdWatch/NatureWatch news

[Harwel]

I was in the cathedral close in Norwich this afternoon, and the noise of the Falcons was amazing. Amazing sight too!

[Anon2]

The two remaining Norwich peregrine chicks have been taken into protective care due to aggressive behaviour of female according to this morning's local news.

[Jan McNulty]

The two remaining Norwich peregrine chicks have been taken into protective care due to aggressive behaviour of female according to this morning's local news.

 

 

Here's the press release from the Hawk and Owl Trust:

 

http://hawkandowl.org/norwich-cathedral-peregrines-update-tuesday-14th-june-2016/

 

I know it's life, but sometimes life sucks!  I do hope the 2 little ones flourish in rehabilitation.

[Anon2]

Wondered what was spooking the cats this morning - it would be the buzzard sat on the telegraph pole in the corner of the garden.

[Anna C]

Speaking of Cuckoos, I haven't heard any in our part of Hertfordshire for a couple of years. However we were in Snowdonia the week before last and could clearly hear a Cuckoo. :-)

[aileen]

There was a fascinating programme about cuckoos on Radio 4 this morning as part of The Life Scientific series fronted by Jim Al Khalili. His interviewee was someone who had made a study of cuckoos.

 

The programme is probably available on Catch-Up.

[LinMM]

Yes it was really very interesting and some fascinating facts learned Aileen!

 

Last time I went to Wicken Fen didn't hear a single cuckoo but was July maybe getting a bit late to hear them.

[alison]

At one time the only birds I used to see locally were pigeons and sparrows.  The sparrows have disappeared to be replaced by magpies, but I now  hear the cooing of wood pigeons, see a jay occasionally and far more rarely. tits.  One rare event was when a pheasant sat in next door's garden for half an hour.

 

Foxes proliferate locally and I wonder if more wildlife is moving into town.

If I didn't know better, MAB, I'd be thinking you must live in my road! I don't think I've seen goldfinches, though.

There were a whole load of wood pigeons I startled the other day when I went along the road, and I went "Huh? Those are *wood* pigeons! What are they doing here?"

[Quintus]

spotted these two love-birds though the kitchen window just now, going through a quite chatty courtship ritual!

 

 

[Anon2]

That is a lovely photo.

 

I'm trying to tidy shelves in the study but distracted by the sparrows nest that is built into a hole in the garage fascia board. I can see the three little chicks heads and their wide mouths every time a parent bird appears. Parents very busy despite the downpour.

[Quintus]

I'm advised by a more knowledgeable friend that it was a young one begging for food, not an amorous pair!

[Anon2]

I'm advised by a more knowledgeable friend that it was a young one begging for food, not an amorous pair!

I did wonder if one was a fledgling but no photos of young in our bird book only adult pictures of both gender.

[taxi4ballet]

DH asked me a question the other morning - which was the first bird I thought he saw that morning? Bearing in mind we are in the middle of the countryside and nowhere near water, and assuming it was probably slightly out of the ordinary and not a sparrow, blackbird, blue tit, starling etc otherwise he wouldn't have asked, I had a few guesses based on what we have seen on other occasions.

 

Green woodpecker? No.

Pheasant on next-door's doorstep? No.

Red kite, buzzard, sparrowhawk? No.

Any other kind of hawk? No.

Duck-billed platypus? No!

Heron? No.

Cuckoo? No.

Homing pigeons? No.

Goldcrest? No.

Little egret? No.

A swan waddling up the middle of the road? No.

Flock of long-tailed tits? No.

 

It was a cormorant apparently. It must have been a bit lost.

[Anon2]

Not a bird that would first come to mind Taxi.

 

There had been no activity all day from the sparrows nest so I thought the heavy rain yesterday evening had done for the nest. But in the last hour the parents are back feeding the two chicks. Not as frequently as yesterday and rather than returning straight back to the nest they are sitting on the garage roof above it obviously trying to coax the chicks out. After a few minutes they give in and feed the chicks in the nest.

 

I'm desperate for the house martins to fledge. Walking out of the back door is hazardous as they drop their parcels to keep the nest clean.

[LinMM]

First Quintus thanks for the lovely Piccie!! They are gorgeous. Usually birds with either lots of spots or stripes tend to be the chicks!!

 

Taxi loved your post .....it is very strange sometimes what birds you see where.

 

We occasionally have passing chiff Chaffs fire crests and blackcaps which are not particularly prevalent in this area but great if they hang around for a couple of days.

 

The sparrows in our box Jane are on their second brood! The first brood took ages to come out but I think the weather has been a little obstructive this year so far. The second brood have now hatched and very vocal outside the kitchen window which is where the boxes are......it's a sort of three in one affair as sparrows are supposed to be communal nesters .....but we think only one of the three joined boxes has been used!!

We are very happy to see this good result this year as sparrows here had disappeared altogether for a while so glad to see are back in abundance!!

[Quintus]

sadly, we found this little fellow expired outside the door this morning - a brown long nosed bat.  a face only a mother could love, but an amazing feat of evolution.. look at those ears - apparently they can hear a ladybird walking across a leaf!

 

Edited July 16, 2016 by Quintus

[Fiz]

That's very sad, Quintus. I love bats although when I was seventeen and on a dusk walk with some friends, I wasn't keen on how low they were swooping. I was a bit concerned that they might get tangled in my hair and so was the other young woman who was there. They also carry some pretty nasty diseases. Don't touch it!

[John Mallinson]

Seems that the fear of bats getting tangled in long hair is unfounded - another urban (or rural?) myth. If you google "do bats get tangled in your hair" you'll get 2,200,000 hits! Haven't read them all. They may fly close to humans because we attract flying insects which the bats like to eat, but their echo-location is good enough to stop them getting tangled in tresses.

[Jan McNulty]

When we went to see a bat cave on holiday in Indonesia many years ago I took a hat especially to go there ... just in case!

 

They are wonderful creatures.

[taxi4ballet]

I remember seeing a David Attenborough documentary once, and just as he was explaining to camera that bats don't fly into your head...

Edited July 16, 2016 by taxi4ballet

[FrankH]

I swear birds have personalities sometimes!

 

Do birds have personality? I am convinced that they do.

 

I would like to use this forum to record some of my observations over the past years. I do belong to a leading birding forum, but am reluctant to post some of my thoughts on there, as I would probably be accused by some of being "unscientific", especially of "anthropomorphism" (attributing human feelings to non-human animals). But I believe that such emotions as love, hate, jealousy, grief, enjoyment, suffering, etc. are not confined to human beings.

 

I also believe that birds are more intelligent than they are often given credit for. There is growing scientific evidence that, after human beings, the next most intelligent animals are certain psittaciform (parrots, cockatoos, macaws etc.) and corvid (crows, ravens, jays etc.) birds.

 

As a volunteer at a local Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) Centre, I get frequent opportunities to observe birds and other wildlife. Especially members of the Anseriformes (swans, geese, and ducks), which are one of my favourite groups of birds, not least because they are comparatively large and easy to identify. Many are also very beautiful. No one would claim that these are among the most intelligent of birds - although a recent study seems to show that ducklings are capable of abstract thought! Anyway, I have often found myself intrigued, puzzled, amused, and even moved by some of the behaviour I have witnessed.

 

If there are no objections, which I would understand, I will from time to time post a record of some of my observations and encounters with what I truly think of as "feathered friends".

[LinMM]

Look forward to it!

[Anon2]

I live in a very rural spot so am used to being woken by a variety of wildlife going about their business at all hours. However not impressed with my neighbour who over the last few weeks has decided to put out scrap bread for the birds. Initially a small amount of bread and a few small birds, quantity of bread has increased and with it the size and number of birds. Past few days it has attracted crows which I thought were very noisy but from sunrise today we have had a flock of seagulls, no sleeping through them squabbling about the bread.

[LinMM]

It's amazing how quickly birds find sources of food!!

[taxi4ballet]

I bet the food will be attracting some cute furry nocturnal visitors rats as well...

[ballettwoshoes]

I've been watching a family of Buzzards for the last few days, I presume it's a family without me being an expert. There seems to be two parents and three young birds, I find it very relaxing watching them come fairly low, then just soaring up on the thermals with hardly a flap of their wings.

[Anon2]

I bet the food will be attracting some cute furry nocturnal visitors rats as well...

We have had problems with rats before, I know there are plenty around but hate it if I see them in the day as know they are getting bold. Previous neighbour tried blaming our hedgehog house as the root cause but having had the council out as we had them running up the garage wall - (I've never moved so fast!!) was assured they won't go into something with only one obvious exit which hedgehog house does. Turned out they were nesting in neighbour's roof! Can see an awkward conversation with the neighbours looming regarding the masses of bread they are putting out. It is after all the countryside awash with berries and insects for the local bird population, don't think they need stale white bread. And nor do we need to attract the crows and seagulls disturbing the balance of the usual varied feathered residents.

[FrankH]

I'm so glad my long and rather pompous post didn't put a death to this thread!

 

I am going to describe an episode which, more than any other I have witnessed, demonstrated to me that ducks have personality, self-consciousness, and not inconsiderable intelligence. The events took place over two days. It is unusual in that I was not just an observer, but became involved in the drama. Not because I decided to, but because a bird made the decision to involve me.

 

Time: late spring/early summer 2014

 

Place: Bluegate Gravel Pit. This is one of a number of large ponds/small lakes on Wimbledon Common.

 

Birds: one female Mallard, several males.

 

"Ornithological" notes: Late spring/early summer is an especially trying time for female Mallards. The temporary pair bond she will have had, breaks up as soon as she starts incubating her eggs. Before this, her temporary male partner will have practised "mate guarding", preventing her from being harassed by other males.This clearly makes it more certain that he will be the father of her ducklings, while enabling her to feed in relative peace. This is important because she has to produce a large clutch of eggs with very nutritious yolks.

She has now lost this protection. And Mallard society at this period has the problem of large numbers of unattached sex starved males roaming around, looking for a chance with a female. Rape is commonplace, gang rape all too frequent. Sadly this sometimes results in the death of the female, which also means the death of her offspring, as the eggs will not be incubated.

 

Day 1. Late afternoon. I had been birdwatching at my usual site on the Common, Queensmere. On this day, I went home via Bluegate Gravel Pit, a detour I used to do every few weeks.

 

On this day, I stopped on the west bank of the narrow, central, part of the lake.

 

A gang of male Mallard was swimming steadily southward. Two individuals, the gang "leaders" as I came to think of them, were at the head. Four or five "followers" tagged along behind. A solitary male Tufted Duck was swimming in the opposite direction. He looked rather jaunty and unconcerned that he was coming in close proximity to these Mallards, which are rather larger birds. And actually, neither species is particularly aggressive. However birds don't always play by the rules - they aren't just creatures of "instinct" - so when the Mallards and the Tufty passed with no hint of aggression, I muttered "well done, lads". However the lads were about to show the darker side of their character.

 

Just as they were passing the Tufted Duck, the male Mallards suddenly became excited. They had spotted a lone female Mallard. She was amongst loose vegetation on the opposite bank to where I was standing. She must have had a nest nearby, and was taking a break from incubation to stretch her legs, and was on her way to the pond to find some food. Unfortunately for her, this coincided with the arrival of this marauding mob of maleficent males (sorry - I have a love of alliteration).

 

The two gang leaders immediately got out of the water and started to chase her. The followers didn't. Instead, they stayed in the water and congregated around the point where she was heading for. Seemingly they were waiting to ambush her, and get at her before the leaders could.

 

Caught between ambushers and pursuers, her situation looked desperate. While I was thinking of ways to help her, she took matters into her own hands - or, rather, wings. She took flight across the pond, and alighted right beside me.

 

This was surely no coincidence. She had decided that I could be some protection for her, as indeed I wanted to be.

 

The followers took no further part. They remained on the water. But the two leaders took off immediately and joined her and myself. They cleverly positioned themselves on the other side of her. There was no way I could threaten them without appearing to threaten her as well. I could almost imagine that they had arrogant smirks. Stalemate. For what seemed quite a long time, but was only a few seconds, I tried to think of ways to resolve the situation. Not only was I concerned for her safety, but I didn't want to be outwitted by a pair of ducks!

 

She put an end to this by suddenly taking to the air. The two males immediately took off after her. The last I saw of them that day was the three flying high over the trees in a westward direction - further into the Common, and away from her nest area. She was quacking very loudly and angrily. I couldn't help interpreting her vocalisations along the lines of ".... off, you .......s!"

 

I waited a while, but she didn't return. I left the Common annoyed and rather disheartened that I had failed to do much to rescue this particular damsel in distress. I hoped that she would have avoided the fate the two males clearly intended for her. And that if she couldn't escape them, that it would just be the two, and not also some extras joining in the "fun".

 

Day 2.

I wouldn't normally have returned to Bluegate Gravel Pit for a couple of weeks. But I did go the very next day. I went without much hope of seeing the heroine of the day before. Not because she would have been killed, that is still a rare outcome. But it would have been likely that she would have been incubating her eggs, and I certainly didn't want to disturb her by looking for her nest. So I went and stood at the spot I had stood at the previous day.

 

The scene was quieter than the day before. No sign of the Mallard gang, indeed few birds of any sort around.

 

I focussed my binoculars on the bank opposite, at the area where I had first seen her the day before. Nothing there, but then there was a moving brown blur with a hint of wings, something much closer than the focus point. I lowered my binoculars.

 

The female Mallard had landed right beside me. This time it was not through desperation. She wasn't being harassed. She had voluntarily broken cover from where she was (her nest?) to make contact with me. Moreover she was quacking away vigorously, not in the very loud and angry tones of the day before, but in a more "conversational" tone. It seemed that she was trying to communicate something to me

 

At this point I rather wished I were a Doctor Doolittle. Was she perhaps complaining that I hadn't been more help the previous day? Was she merely telling me what had or had not happened to her? Or, as I hoped, was she thanking me that, ineffective as I had been, I had been around, and had come back to see how she was? But perhaps this is being too "anthropomorphic" - or perhaps not.

 

A final strange thing about this whole episode is that I have no clear recollection about how it ended. Up to the point that she landed on the second day, and started to quack at me, everything is very clear. I can still see, in my mind, very clearly most of the main events on the two days. But as to how it ended, I have no picture. I know that I would not have left while she was still beside me. She must have departed at some stage - probably flying back to her nest.

 

From time to time, there are stories in the media, and on youtube etc., which claim that a mother duck has approached humans for help when their ducklings have got into trouble. I have usually taken these stories as unjustified "anthropomorphism".

 

I am no longer certain that such scepticism is always justified.

 

Many thanks to anyone who has bothered to read all this. I hope I haven't bored you excessively!

[Jan McNulty]

What an amazing experience Frank.  Thanks for telling us about it.  I can't wait for more of your bird tales.

 

The most amusing thing I have seen on the lake near where I live was a flotilla of cormorants swimming around the edge of the lake - about 15 of them.  Occasionally a couple would go under to see if there was anything down there but always came back up in their own place in the flotilla.  I saw the flotilla several times at the start of this year.

[LinMM]

I am convinced that at times birds in distress ( swans for example) do ask for help from humans. They may not be very grateful after the help has been given and they are okay but I do think they realise on some level that a human may be able to help.

 

I once saw a video of this with a swan caught up in fishing wire.

He waited patiently whilst the human (a man) untangled him and although he got a peck or two the swan then went off presumably very happy.

It would have been interesting if they had met again whether the swan would have acknowledged his "saviour"

[Anon2]

I've lived in the same part of rural Suffolk for 27 years. About 18 years ago we saw our first local buzzard. It was so unusual we contacted the birds of prey centre in case they had lost a bird. This winter I rarely go out without seeing a buzzard or two. There are plenty of kestrels and hobbys this year too.

[Quintus]

I've lived in the same part of rural Suffolk for 27 years. About 18 years ago we saw our first local buzzard. It was so unusual we contacted the birds of prey centre in case they had lost a bird. This winter I rarely go out without seeing a buzzard or two. There are plenty of kestrels and hobbys this year too.

 

 

I'm in rural Suffolk too. In the summer we often get six or seven buzzards at a time wheeling high over our field, making those eerie cries that remind me of the ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings.  I've seen nothing of them in the cold weather however, and wondered where they went off to - clearly over to you!  

[Anon2]

I'm in rural Suffolk too. In the summer we often get six or seven buzzards at a time wheeling high over our field, making those eerie cries that remind me of the ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings. I've seen nothing of them in the cold weather however, and wondered where they went off to - clearly over to you!

If they disappear I will let you know and you can see if they turn up again. Only bird I've noticed a decrease in is woodpigeons. Have they done an exchange with the buzzards?