Birds in the garden Part 3

It's hardly 1°C over here and heavy frost predicted for the coming nights! Brrrrrrrrrr...

Just discovered the new bird forum about an hour ago just by accident. That's great news!!
I've already uploaded some pictures.
But I have plenty of birds I have no clue what name they have so I'll have to find help in the bird ID forum!

That looks a very big seagull, I have seen this type before but have no idea of the specie.
Edited to say that I probably was wrong in thinking I had seen this one before. I have a bird ID book but didn't find any type that matches yours.



This message was edited Dec 26, 2008 4:37 PM

Yes WALLABY, a much more warmer and sunny summer. Yes it is very chilly here, and grey... grey, I WANT sund, it is soooo dark everyday.

BONITIN
I hope for all that: an extraordinary spring and a very long true summer, a mild autumn and a VERY short next winter. That would be great.

Very pretty picture of the Seagull

BUT NOW, when the christmas has end and soon New Year. I really looking forward to a long nice spring. And begin to think about all seeds to sow. Very Nice.

Took this picture this morning I think it was beauty.

Bonitin's gull: Black-headed Gull, first-winter
Wallaby's gull: Great Black-backed Gull

Resin

Well thanks Resin! I'll load up in Bird files..

Thanks Resin!

Thanks for the correction Resin.

I was too quick with the send button, more concerned about bonding with a new camera! LOL

Here's a Starling at the feeder.

A very sweet Starling too a5!

I love starlings :o)

...and they make charming sounds, I have them once in a while visiting my garden in large flocks specially when the berries of the Parthenocissus are ripe :)

Yes they have very charming sounds, we ha no ones in our garden we live now, but earlier we had pair, which live in an nesting box every summer. I have heard that they imitate the noise they hear in there neighborhood always.

Starlings are very good mimics Sylvia, I have heard the telephone ringing but not, lol! I have them under the roof tiles, my house is an old Victorian one which is not sealed off as modern ones are with just air vents. It also houses bats!

I have had Starlings in the Horse Chestnut tree lately, they make a very nice, but almost mournful churling sound.

We have your 1C today bonitin, lol, I knew it was coming as the winds are coming from the east.

It felt much less than 1°C today, wallaby ! It was horribly cold ! Sunny yes but that nasty Eastern wind kind of spoiled it, felt so sorry for the poor Robin in my father's garden. In Flemish/ Dutch : 'Roodborstje' (translated= 'little redbreast') Don't know if these should also be added to the common names in the newly born Bird Files ? How do you call them Sylvia? Europe is not like the US. It has such a variety of languages! And if the site wants to be truly global perhaps it should add the common names of all countries where the specie occurs? lol..

Lol, bonitin, are you trying to make more trouble for me???? As long as Wiki shows it, that can be accepted, but I don't think it does! Do you want to write a Wiki article? :)))

I didn't see any sun today... :((

Oh no I wouldn't do that (I'm missing now the green smiley from the WAB site, lol)
I was only half serious because I realise that would be a hell of a job for a moderator(s), also the reason why I didn't bring this up in the Dave's Garden thread.
And fact is that English is the main world language which is good!
There is already an article about the 'Roodborstje' in Wikipedia! :)

I cannot copy the link to it as my mouse has a defect. I have to install the new one I bought.
I've typed it and hope it will work

Too bad you even didn't get any sun! :(


http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roodborst

Bonitin
Europese roodborst, we called it Rödhake in Swedish (translated - it will be Red hook)
Today sunny but very cold -5C not windy today, but very frosty. Our house is in shelter for west winds.
Sylvia

Lol, I know you were half serious bonitin, so was I, but if the name is used there and it is on a Wiki article (I can't read it though!) there is no reason why it should not be added. Do you want to do the asking? LOL.

I think my thermometer was 3C outside which was higher than yesterday but the winds, although not very strong, made it feel even colder than yesterday. It's often difficult to see where the line is on my thermometer as cold weather takes away the red colouring!

Brrr Sylvia, at least you have sun, which can be better at times than higher temps without sun.

Sunny again today, but I only ventured out very briefly into the garden to have a little inspection on how everyone was doing.
Everything was solid frozen; the pond, made a hole for the oxygen for the creatures in there, the soil frozen but still not deeply, even the plants in pots in my garden shed have a thin frozen top layer.
At midday the thermometer showed -2°C. But there was less wind..
So almost as cold as where you are Sylvia!

3°C feels 'warm' in comparison, wallaby,lol!

We get a little bit warmer this evening only -1,8°C. Long for summer, but it will come as always.
Today a Blackbird, Koltrast in Swedish (Turdus merula) came to our garden alone, around all other birds, I give him apples, he likes that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird

Sylvia

4° to 5° here last night and all day today . . . the value of a blanket of low cloud and (slightly!) warmer air drifting in off the North Sea. Forecast for the cloud to break and get frosty tonight though.

Had a nice flock of 64 Waxwings [sv: Sidensvans, nl: Pestvogel] today, and a Short-eared Owl [sv: Jorduggla, nl: Velduil]. No photo ops, unfortunately.

Resin

Wow resin that's warm! The thermometer in the greenhouse was down to near -5C last night, outside up to 1C today. I saw a tiny bit of blue between shifting clouds!

My Blackbirds get apples too Sylvia, I have a tree and don't use many cooking apples but don't get a lot. The neighbour's have old apple trees too, there's always a few around.

I don't suppose I would be lucky enough to get Waxwings here resin, although I see they come to the eastern side so I might be lucky. I see the Short-eared Owl breeds far north, overwinters far south but I'm near the edge of that. I hear Owls often, but at night of course they are not easy to see!

Yep, it's weather like this that gives me the confidence to put 'zone 9' on my tag. When the south suffers horribly from east winds out of Siberia, that's when the extra width (over 500km) and depth (60m deep, just 30m deep where you are) of the North Sea up here pays big dividends - it's that much larger a radiator getting to work on the frigid air.

No reason you shouldn't get any Waxwings; with lots of apples around, I'd say your chances are actually quite good as there's been quite a large invasion this winter.

The owls you hear at night will be Tawny Owls; Short-eareds are largely silent. Look for Short-eareds on rough grassland, there should be a few around down towards the coast; they hunt during the day much more than most other owls.

Resin

My blackbirds also get apples. I get plenty of the apple trees in my brother's garden. They love them! Yesterday and today I have the visit of Starlings. It's nice that they always announce themselves with their cute little noices. But its very hard to take decent pictures. Even when there is sun (its sunny again today) it doesn't reach my wall-surrounded garden, so it stays dark there. Its horribly cold again today, just checked the thermometer : -2°C! My starlings are a bit clumsy, they have difficulty to eat from the hanging fat balls.
To make it more easy for them I've put one of these now in a container on top of my pergola. The water in the birdbaths is solid frozen so once in a while I have to pour in warm water for my birds to drink..

.........

Colder here today, but still above freezing (3°); the frost forecast last night didn't materialise.

Resin

I put my fat balls on the end of a thin branch on the Paulownia where the Starlings can stand to eat it, they used to last two days but when I put one out now it's gone by the following day. Long-tailed Tits like fat balls, I had 4 at once on it a few days ago but it was of course very dull.

I'm putting out finely broken crusts of a seeded bread each day too, today there was a variety of birds eating it, Chaffinch, Pied Wagtail, Doves, Robin, funnily no Sparrows but they are devouring the peanuts. A Blackbird of course came along to scare them all off!

It was down to -4C at least in the greenhouse last night, today the outside thermometer was at 0C but the ground wasn't frozen. The bath tub has some ice, there is water in the drain along the front of my garden which they drink.

Your cold day will come tomorrow resin!

We had nearly up to -2C yesterday! Very dull and slight mist/fog. Previous night was a good -5C in the greenhouse, so at least -7C outside and the ground did feel frozen in the day.

Last night -2C in greenhouse, -4C or so out. Today nearly reached 0C, didn't see this morning, lol rarely do now, but same dull with light mist/fog. No noticeable wind.

That was alot of birds! Any new ones?

All new for my 2009 list! But nothing out of the ordinary. Missed out on several common species too, but that's what happens when there's only 7½ hours of decent light, and only a bike to get around with.

Resin

Here's the full list, in order I got them:
Magpie
Blackbird
Common Gull
Carrion Crow
Robin
Wood Pigeon
Wren
Moorhen
Mallard
Goldcrest
Stock Dove
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Grey Wagtail
Song Thrush
Kingfisher
Coal Tit
Chaffinch
Treecreeper
Dipper
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Black-headed Gull
Feral Pigeon
Long-tailed Tit
Nuthatch
Dunnock
Mistle Thrush
Jackdaw
Mute Swan
Tufted Duck
Herring Gull
Water Rail
Teal
Wigeon
Coot
Grey Heron
Jay
Reed Bunting
Starling
Collared Dove
House Sparrow
Canada Goose
Goosander
Cormorant
Goldeneye
Pochard
Rook
Goldfinch
Greenfinch
Kestrel
Snipe
Jack Snipe
Lapwing
Pied Wagtail
Golden Plover
Oystercatcher
Redshank
Curlew
Great Black-backed Gull
Brent Goose
Stonechat
Dunlin
Sanderling
Ringed Plover
Rock Pipit
Turnstone
Eider
Shoveler
Ruddy Duck
Pheasant

Still a very impressive list! And free! :) All that cycling saved you on heating and is healthy for you too!

And got rid of some of the post-christmas bloat ;-)

Hello Birdlovers
it´s cold now, here in Sweden tonight we have -17 degree Celsius. (1,4 degree Farenheit) burr burr.
Earlier in this week, before the snow come, I took a picture, not very good it is hard to get a good pic on birds, but we had some sweetis around the house.
This is an Nötskrika in Swedish, an Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)

Nice one!

Today I saw a flock of 107 Waxwings (Sidensvans, Pestvogel)

Fortunately, the temperatures are not so nasty here, +1°C this morning, rising to +4°C. Raining now, but it is forecast to turn to snow later in the night.

Resin

This Green woodpecker is a regular visitor to my Garden seen in the spring 2009

Very beautiful actinidia
Thanks for sharing.
Sylvia

Beautiful bird actinidia! Never seen that one, so colorful! :-)

Rannveig

GRÖNGÖLING / GREEN WOODPECKER
(Picus viridis)
We called it Gröngöling in Sweden, we dont see it so often but sometimes it´s here in the garden.

Sylvia

Wow! A beauty!!

Good one to get - see them occasionally in the woods here, but never in gardens.

Resin

Resin my garden reach out a little in the wild bushes. A pine covered slope/hillock behind our house and a grazing land beside which also belong to our domains with many many big trees, some big dead trees, oak and bushes. There is many many birds here around. But I never manage to catch them on my camera. But I have seen it near to my house.
Sylvia

Watched this thread for the first time. I have an English friend who is astounded by American robins having that name. I explained about 'homesick' settlers. After all, they were never going back. Way back at the beginning of this tread--about the fish being caught by birds. A friend had the problem of herons fishing in his pond & spred netting over the very small pond to discourage them.