Calling All Bird Nerds

[Drífa]

Ah, poor pigeons. Now they will have to start over again. Though that may not feel that to be a bad thing, hahaha.

I caught this little downy woodpecker in the trees. I believe it's female, and it may be a young one. I say this because its feathers appear fluffed.

[Pele Alarion]

Ah, little woodpecker!

I got pics of young white storks (they still have dark beaks), probably getting ready to fly off south. *pout* Birds are already leaving.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Bird nerds or not, here are some lovely pictures. Awesome to view.

[Pele Alarion]

Some more birds have come within the reach of my phone camera lately (was too lazy to set up the spotting scope in attempt of better pics). @Lail and @Drifa I wonder if these would brighten your day:

1) A tiny goldcrest flew into my window and sat for a while resting before taking off again. Such a little cutie!



2) There is one white heron who visits the reeds right within easy view from my window each day to fish. Wonder if he will leave for south or not...



3) Also, caught this funny sight of two hooded crows. A crow kiss?

[Lail]

ooooo that goldcrest is so adorable!! it reminds me of a golden-crowned kinglet and they are nothing but delightful and fill me with much happiness.

could the crows be a parent and juvenile and the juvenile is still trying to beg food off the parentals?

I had a family of goldfinches at my feeder this summer and the juveniles were a hoot to watch as they got older. one of them chased mom around and around trying to get food but she wouldn't give in. I think she was over it. meanwhile, dad was perched on the feeder and stuffing his other baby with food.

[Drífa]

Kissing crows is very surreal. They always appear to me so aloof. I miss seeing cranes. Not many in the city. And what a cute little bird. It is the smallest bird in Europe, I read. So you see them often, Pele?

I haven't been bird-watching lately. I have been busy, and it has gotten hard to see them now that the cold weather is upon us. I did capture these in August. Now, generally, I do not feed birds people food. But I had a few bread ends after my breakfast, and it was a lovely summer morning, so I sat outside and threw the bread on the lawn. I had two visitors. We have crows and ravens in our area. I am sure this was a raven; it had the familiar voice I heard before landing on the road in front of the house. And, of course, there are gulls all over the city.

[Pele Alarion]

There have been many reports of goldcrests running into windows lately, perhaps they are migrating and get confused by reflections of sun on window panes. I had never seen one so up close before, just seen them in flocks flittering through bushes and chirping merrily.

Hmm, Lail, it might be a juvenile and parent crows - I think the crows in the nest across the street had 2 or 3 chicks this year. I do not know enough to identify which are youngsters.

Drifa, those pics are lovely! I'm considering setting up the feeder soon, for now just feeding pigeons occasionally (only wish they would not return the favour by pooping on my balcony).

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Hello, absolutely not a bird nerd but coming in peace. Wondering specifically for your thoughts, no doubt more charitable to the birds than mine, of birds and glass.

Specifics. Five or more sparrows - very small brown birds - must have hopped - on legs - through the door looking for crumbs. When I step inside they all rise up with their wings and ping from closed window to closed window till sooner or later, unless I get windows and doors open in time and use a broom for direction - they will fall stunned on the floor and into the mouth of a dog or cat.

These birds cannot do glass. No generalizing. But this lot certainly have no clue. I have no patience. I want them out not because I care about them but only because the cat/dog ending gets messy and is more work.

Honestly would be happy to hear it from their point of view, or at least yours.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Now I feel uncomforable. Like my bad name with eggs has preceded me. Honestly, it was a genuine question. Actually, I'd even considered posting some pics of the great birds that migrate through here in the winters. But now I'm offended and think I'll keep my bird pics to myself.

[Pele Alarion]

@Chrysophylax Dives Now, now. You are hasty and not giving the slow folks time to appear!

Though I am not sure what to say beyond "poor birdies". I can't help wonder what they have discovered that is luring them into your premises... Must be something tasty!

I once found a dead crow under my bed... Grandma was at home and she said that a crow had come in, and she thought she had managed to chase it back out. Apparently not.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Thank you for that, @Pele Alarion. The answer to your question is easy: a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old stalk the ground floor in the morning, moving bits of breakfast from one place to another at will and leaving bits of it in random places for no good reason that I can see. So there are lots of cornflake crumbs and the like.

On the crow, dead and under the bed - that almost sounds like an evil spell. I have had not unrrelated experiences, but not with a crow. And this does seem to arrive at a first real question, that being whether and how you 'bird nerds' distinguish the different birds - are some evil and others, like pidgeons, not of interest? Or do you open your hearts to all birds of whatever kind? (I would hope the former.)

[Pele Alarion]

Ah, the birds must have found a free-for-all table then, even at the danger of death.

I enjoy all sorts of birds, though would prefer them alive and outdoors rather than dead and under my bed. Have to be careful with keeping the balcony door open in summer though - I've caught pigeons wanting to enter a few times. My own fault, though - I did try to get them to eat from my hand.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I am afraid to say that pigeons are largely responsible for my negative feelings towards birds. I have a neighbour who rescued a chick and actually walked around with a little pigeon on her shoulder. Yuk! I have an upstairs balcony where I was trying to grow plants this summer while two pigeons maintained a campaign to set up home. I am sorry to say, but I threw out their nests - along with the little eggs. And I lost count of how many times I did so. Their was no communication with them. I hung up shiny things and bigger shiny things but it was a waste of time. Eventually they stopped, but I think it was only because their nesting season was at an end. I guess that some years back when the balcony was unused for a summer they raised some chicks and now the place is hardwired into their brains.

It is this inability to learn that gets on my nerves. I had a pet hamster once who was incredibly stupid. These pigeons and starlings have even less brains.

However, I do not extend this hostility much beyond these two types. Sometimes walking I see what I think are eagles, which fly in their hunting circles and often circle quite low. I don't care if they are stupid because I really don't wish to talk to one close up. But I have only admiration from a distance.

[Hanasian]

It's been nine months since I moved away from my magpie friends, but have been accepted by the local raven clan.

This is Maw, the matriarch of a clan of four. She will get really close to me for bird treats, but isn't as bold as Muffin the Magpie was and won't hop on me (yet). She had an unfortunate run-in with a dog and got munched, but has come back though her left leg had been broken and she has a patch of raw breast. This pic was her being all prim and proper for the phone camera. I wanted to get a picture of her wounds but she quickly turned around and hid her breast and bad leg.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Wow again there are really some awesome shots posted in here. Thanks for sharing these bird images!

[Hanasian]

An update on Maw. Not long after I took the last photo in December, she quit showing up. So did her mate Crowley. I got a bit worried as the only raven activity was brief flyovers by others. I sort of wrote her off as succumbing to secondary infection of her breast wound and the other ravens didn't want to have anything to do with us.

Then, last week, I look out the window and standing on the brick wall and peering in the window was Maw! I went outside with a few treats and she came down to the ground after I sat down and warily walked around me. She has a serious 'pirate-walk with her mangled leg, but has worked it into her routine. She has a 'skip' instead of a two-feet hop, and if she is going to stand somewhere for a while she drops to her belly. Good news is her breast has completely healed. There is just a small dent in her feathers to mark where her wound was.

Here she is on our back patio. You can see her bad leg really well in this first photo...



She was getting really close to me to get her treats. In this 2nd photo she is contemplating an ant while she determines the best way to get the treat I dropped right in front of me. She was thinking it was too close, but she did eventually get it. I am so happy my favorite Raven is ok.



Today, Maw and Crowley came by and perched in our Cypress tree in the front yard and they had their extended clan visiting. They were foraging the front yard of the neighbors....



There were eighteen counting Maw and Crowley up in the tree. Two had wandered out of frame to the right, and one had wandered left out of frame in this picture. The two closest in the pic are 'Zoom' and 'Bolt' the fledglings that Maw and Crowley had brought over back in November. They have lost their red gum-line and the last of their juvenile grey feathers.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Hi Hanasian, those are some beautiful pictures you have posted.

[Pele Alarion]

@Hanasian Oh, I love your birds! So nice that they trust you.

[Pele Alarion]

I've only been able to get a shot at random hooded crows while out on my walks or running. They are not that skittish and don't mind posing sometimes. Here, from three different times at different locations:

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Pele: Those are very nice!

[Chrysophylax Dives]

A tree in our garden, this morning. The apple is stolen from another tree.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Chrys: Oh kakatoo, how lovely. Cute bird to see.

[Pele Alarion]

Such pretty bright colours. :)

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Those parrots are pests - an invasive species, they only appeared a few years ago and now are multiplying. They do look amazing, but they are bad news. On a purely local level they drive me crazy because two or three of them gather in that big tree, then each flies to the apple tree and brings an apple back. then in the big tree they take one or two bites and then drop the apple. so underneath the big tree is a sea of discarded two-pecked apples.

What do people think of birds and omens?

We have a closed fireplace, as in it is a cast iron box with a heat-proof glass front that closes and locks. it has not been in use for a while. one of my children saw something moving behind the (dirty) glass. we opened it up and a small bird flew out - about the size of a finch and with a yellow breast. it flew around the room a while, settled on some flowers in a vase, and then flew out the front door and into the blue sky.

[Drífa]

I enjoyed the photos of your birds, Hanasian and your hooded crows, Pele.

Ah, pest aside, it is a lovely bird, the green parrot. Too bad about the fruit. We have the same problem with Canadian Geese, with droppings being the issue. They are everywhere in the city, shat behind them. We are also having problems with wild pigs, but that is a rant for another thread.

I suspect the small bird in the firebox came down the chimney. We have had this happen too. That is a lovely tree with flowers. What is it?

I captured a pileated woodpecker a week or so ago. It is the first time I have seen one in the city. He was having fun pecking at the wooden fence.

[Turien Took]

look at that little cutie!

[Pele Alarion]

Love the woodpecker!

[Drífa]

Thanks, Turien and Pele! He is quite a colourful character. He is a male, and you can tell by the size of his crest and the red facial markings. Females have a shorter crest and no facial markings. So I have read.

I captured this young Robin sitting out in the rain today. The adult Robin was with it at one point, feeding it, but I was too late to grab my camera.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Drifa: Aww nice new tweeties, how cute. I don't see woodpeckers in my neigbourhood, but I do see robins now and then. More in winter than in summer.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I suspect the small bird in the firebox came down the chimney. We have had this happen too. That is a lovely tree with flowers. What is it?

Never seen a pileated woodpecker! The tree is called a jacaranda; the point of it is to grow big and give shade, the blossom is an added bonus for a few weeks each year.

Yeah. Two more birds. Two of them. Maybe I should go up on the roof and look at the top of the chimney? I hate doing that - as a Hobbit, I am none too good with heights.

[Hanasian]

An update on Maw (looking) and Crowley (eating something off the Jade) .... Maw is actually Paw, and Crowley is his wife.
They decided to have bird-sex outside my office window and there was no doubt who was doing the pouncing. So they are Paw and Crowley!

Another update on them is they don't pay me any mind if I come out and walk around the back yard anymore.
If I get close they usually just look up at me and sometimes give me a light caw. They used to fly off to the safety of the cypress tree.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

On the omens: dog just deposited a mangled, mainly dead, yet still moving pigeon on the ground in the garden a few feet from where I was drinking my morning cup of tea. Not good.

Edit. But on return with a shovel to remove still twitching corpse it was gone. So either it was not so dead as it looked soon to be, the dog took it elsewhere, or it has crawled under somewhere I did not look and will start to smell in the August heat. Or none of the above and a genuine pigeon resurrection of flesh and feathers went down even as I was writing on the omen above. I guess, the third option will declare itself - other than that, I am in the realm of the Unknown.

Edit to the edit. The pigeon is dead. At last sighting, there had been no pigeon resurrection.

[VelvetineZone]

Hello all from a newbie. I have a tiny front garden and put a bird feeder up a few years ago as part of gardening for wildlife with my kids, and so we all became bird mad. We get sparrows, occasional robins, and an occasional blue tit, but our most regular and favourite visitors are the jackdaws. They visit most days, amazing bright eyed intelligent birds with a fantastically gothic aesthetic. It's just a tiny mid terrace house and garden here, but it's like our own mini wildlife watching zone.

[Pele Alarion]

@Chrysophylax Dives Eww! I will not lend my pigeon to your dog. lol...

@VelvetineZone Those birds sound so familiar, like what I see around here. Where are you from.

[VelvetineZone]

@Pele Alarion I'm in Wales. ‍

[Hanasian]

Dead Pigeons you say?? One of the neighborhood cats caught and killed a pigeon in our backyard, and our Bombay, old man Scooter found the carcass and proceeded to eat a good chunk of the breast. He now has one hell of a case of worms we're trying to eradicate.

The Ravens are all doing well. Maw and Crowley own the backyard, and Zoom and Bolt own the front yard.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Pigeons are very horrible birds, at least from a human point of view. It would be hard to find a good word to say about them.

However, I have always been a little confused about the relationship between pigeons and doves. The dove is this great symbol of peace and a rainbow and all that, and a dove flying is a thing to see. Only sometimes I wonder if doves are just a type of pigeon (or pigeon a type of dove).

Clarification of the relationship by those who know birds better would be welcome.

[Pele Alarion]

Aye, @Chrysophylax Dives , pigeons and doves are of the same family. There are a plenty of rock pigeons (the normal city ones, so to say) here, but I have also seen quite a few wood pigeons and collared doves. Haven't seen any stock doves and turtle doves though - they are very rare and dwell somewhere in the forest.
My pigeon has definitely lost all sense of shame - he simply comes in through the balcony door in the mornings, though luckily he doesn't come in too far. Soon it will be too cold to keep the doors ajar at night, so I expect knocks on the window instead.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

For pigeon and dove is just one word in Dutch "Duif". Pigeon or dove is the same to me. I had a couple grey doves in my front garden in the cherry tree, breeding and raising youngs, but that is over now. I guess the parent couple are deceased now. After three years there was no nest this spring 2024 in the cherrytree. I had last year 2023 magpies in the birchtree who raised their young over the front lawn of the neighbours, their nest blew out some weeks ago from the tree during a storm and landed in my garden on the ground. I dumped it in the green vegetation container I have. That was big and heavy nest old nest. I didn't make any pictures of it.

[Drífa]

Maw Paw and Crowley are pretty birds, @Hanasian. Twitterpated, were they?

There seem to be only crows left in the neighbourhood. I capture these two croaking outside. They must have spotted something good to eat on the ground and were waiting to dine.

[Hanasian]

Maw Paw and Crowley are pretty birds, @Hanasian. Twitterpated, were they?

'Twitterpated'?

[Drífa]

@Hanasian

Twitterpated

[Pele Alarion]

I observed 6 white herons fishing by one of the islands in the lake. Not sure if they are going to leave for warmer climes. There was at least one staying for the most of the winter until the lake froze over.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Some nice pictures indeed of the crows.

[Hanasian]

Hadn't seen Maw and Crowley for a number of weeks. Guess they decided to move a couple blocks to hang out, because when my wife and I were taking a walk yesterday, we came across two Ravens (there is a whole clan (Murder?) around us). One started clicking and the other was standing in the middle of the sidewalk in front of us as we approached. He started ambling off the sidewalk and we knew immediately it was Maw with the bum leg. Said 'Hi Maw.' and he stopped an dlooked up at us and alook of recognition was in its eyes. He then flew across the street to join Crowley.

Today, they decided to come by the back yard for the first time in a long while. They came to visit and were very friendly as they got close.

Here is a couple pix.

↓ This is Maw. You can see his crooked left leg.




↓ This is Crowley. She was being camera-shy and every time I cued up a photo, she'd hop off. She did pause long enought for this shot.

[Hanasian]

Just a quick update to say that yesterday, Maw for the first time took a treat off my hand!

[Pele Alarion]

Love those crows! I think there's a certain kind of satisfaction when a bird finally dares to take some food from hand. Took me a while to get my resident pigeon to do that, and he's still skittish sometimes.

[VelvetineZone]

I got a birdfeeder for our tiny front garden a few years ago and I'm very pleased at how interested my kids became in birds because of it. We get jackdaws, sparrows and occasional blue tits and robins, mainly, but if I'm out walking with them, they notice birds everywhere now. My oldest pointed out jackdaws on chimneys whilst we were out in a more urban environment earlier, and we spotted a blackbird too.
Like Tolkien, I also really love trees, and they look amazing at the moment, all golden as its Autumn here.
The nature writing was one of my favourite bits of re reading LOTR recently.

[VelvetineZone]

Also, I am a bird, a roadrunner, at present, on the board.
Really, if I was a bird, I'd probably be a mix of peacock and jackdaw.
What bird would you all be?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Around 18 months ago I was allowed to choose my own tribute icon for a spell. I chose the thrush (from The Hobbit). The result was not good. I had to go to the admins and beg them to let me have my old icon back.

I think there is a problem with dragons and birds. Both have wings and fly so they appear similar and compatible. As a matter of fact, however, dragons are just great - wild and stupendous and pretty much perfect, while birds are flighty, flock together, and poo on your head from a great height.