What a little show off!

This lovebird takes dressing up to extremes...

Lovely birds

A bird enthusiast in England recorded his success in attracting new visitors after making changes to his garden:

A selection of some of the 39 species of birds that visit my garden. I have gradually changed my urban back garden into a wildlife friendly area by adding water features, fruit and berry bushes, trees and letting the ivy cover the fence, trees and back of the house. I have introduced a rough grass area and encouraged wild flowers such as trefoil, knapweed, nettles & teasel to grow. By year round feeding and adding nest boxes I have recorded 39 different species of birds including predators, which I suppose is a sign of a well stocked wildlife garden.



I found the video charming and very relaxing. We enjoy watching the birds that come to feed on our kitchen windowsill and admire this guy for the lovely environment he created for his feathered friends.

Chicken stability

I don't know if some commercials are broadcast all around the world, but this one is on UK television at the moment and, as I find chickens quite funny, it hit all the right spots with me. It's a very clever idea. If you haven't seen it before, enjoy:

A different kind of birdsong

View sent us a very interesting video. This is part of the author's description on youtube:

Reading the newspaper one morning, I saw this picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating.



Thanks, View, you find some fascinating stuff. As you said, it's a bird thing...

[There's an extended version of the melody in this video, filmed at a live performance. The author is on keyboards. far left.]

Another nice commercial from the UK

This ad is from the same people who gave us the tadpole ballet a few months back.

Birds everywhere!

GrannyJ sent us this spectacular video. It was filmed in Ireland and it shows a murmuration of starlings. I hope the video plays properly. If not, you may watch it HERE. Thank you, GrannyJ.

Very handsome birds

View_From_Here sent us photos of some spectacular birds. Thanks, View.

Sup - Polish Chicken

Bleeding Heart Pigeons

Flamecrest

Formosan Magpie

Golden Pheasant

Green Jay

Himalayan Monal

Lady Amherst's Pheasant

Nicobar Pigeon

Quetzal

Peacock

Posh bird

Doesn't this bird look aristocratic with his dashing moustache? I tried to find out its name, but google is playing up and won't load the page...

Our feathered friends

We have new customers at our bird restaurant since we opened a "take-out" section. The two grease and seed balls that we hung on the window shutters were nearly finished, so I broke them up and scattered the remains on the window ledge. It was an instant hit with the great tits. They had never stopped for a meal before; only the blue tits frequented our fine establishment. The new customers like to get a nice lump of food from the buffet, then fly to the neighbour's (Monsieur Soup) wall to eat their meal.

There's a tree opposite the window, about 50 or 60 ft away. We call it the "launch tree." The birds congregate there, then launch themselves towards our window, flying in an endearing bouncy fashion. They land on the two telephone cables just outside the window and take turns to help themselves to the food. Peter observed one of the blue tits hanging upside-down on the cable, with only one foot on it, the little show-off!  The great tits tend to chase the blue tits away if they dare land on the ledge at the same time, even if they're at the other end, hiding behind my herb pots...

The restaurant

Launch tree and "waiting" cables

A well behaved customer

We know that these things are pretty trivial for seasoned bird watchers, but as beginners, we're fascinated by them. The great and the blue tits are like teenagers from rival gangs; it's quite entertaining to watch their antics...


********

This great tit turned up after I had published the post. He was facing the wrong way, but he did come to the ledge for a nibble, eventually.

We had a lovely surprise this morning!

The weather continues to be disappointing. This morning we had high winds and persistent rain. The last thing we expected was the sight of these most colourful little birds! Apparently, they don't venture this far north and our friend Keith said he saw them in Italy and south of France, but never in the Correze.

There were three of them. It seems they put on a performance just for us, sitting on the electric cables, on the trees, flying around very gracefully and for a grand finale, one of them caught some large insect in mid-flight, sat on the cable just outside our window to show off its prize, then they all simply disappeared.

I had to do a lot of googling, which was very hit-and-miss, but I was rewarded with some comprehensive information in the end. They're European Bee-eaters (Merops apiaster). Lovely things, they made our day!

These are googled pictures:

Bird watching

We ordered some binoculars and they arrived a while ago, together with a little book of photos and descriptions of common garden birds.

So far, I have identified the the majority of the most frequent visitors, but a couple of them have me completely confused. I have to order a better book about the birds of Europe...

We also put a couple of fat and seed balls hanging from the window shutters in the kitchen. The number of customers has been increasing steadily.

These are photos from the internet, as I don't have a decent enough camera to attempt taking my own pictures.

Magpie

The magpies building their nest have sparked our interest in bird watching. We can't see into the nest at all, but we assume there are young birds there, judging by the movements of the parents. Now we have to wait and try to catch a glimpse of the fledglings leaving the nest.

Male and female house sparrows

House sparrows are very common and the females like the seeds we have on offer. They perch on the telephone wire just outside the window, and "piu" quite loudly before coming to the ledge to feed.

The ballet

We observed a daily continuous ballet in the distance. These birds form fairly large flocks and fly round and round, disappearing behind the trees, then re-emerging where you least expect them. I couldn't tell what they were, even with binoculars. The other day we went to Uzerche, visited the garden centre, then went to a nice bar on the church square for a couple of drinks (TW, CC and IG will remember it). We noticed the same ballet around the church. They were near enough and would land on the roof of the church every now and then, so we finally identified them. Apart from the ballet, there's nothing spectacular about feral pigeons...

Feral pigeon

Some cousins of the above are far more interesting and look more attractive:

Collared dove

The collared dove is much smaller than the feral pigeon, with a pinkish tinge to its feathers.

Male blackbird

Female blackbird

Blackbirds are terribly common, but it's nice to observe their behaviour. The females seem to spend long periods on the ground looking for grubs in Monsieur Soup's garden. The males like to use the drums Mr Soup uses to collect rainwater for long baths and a good drink.

Carrion crow

I'm not very keen on these. The name alone puts me off.

Chaffinch

Goldfinch

These finches are lovely and colourful. I was very proud of myself when I managed to identify them. It took me a while to learn to notice markings like bibs and wingbars.

Great tit

Identifying the great tit correctly was another achievement. From a distance, it's easy to take them for blue tits, but I did notice the black head, white cheeks and broad black stripe on the chest.

The blue tits are our most frequent customers and we're absolutely in love with these cheeky little birds (so is Pirouette).


We hope to see some of the more exotic species as summer approaches and they migrate from Africa. Last year I saw a hoopoe and that was quite a sight!

Hoopoe

Bird watching is great fun and for people like us, who used to think "a bird is a bird," being able to tell them apart is very gratifying. Seasoned birdwatchers may laugh at us, but you have to start somewhere...

View, this made me think of you!

Magpies

A while ago I posted a picture taken from my kitchen window and somebody spotted a nest in the large cherry tree in our back garden. Nobody could work out what creature had built the nest.

Here it is again (click to enlarge):

In the past three of weeks or so, we have observed a couple of magpies very busy building a nest in another tree, which sits directly in front of our window:

Curiosity led me to google and I found out quite a bit about the nesting habits of magpies. The monogamous couples build large nests in tall trees and mate by the end of March. We'll keep watching them and perhaps we'll manage to witness the display that precedes the actual mating! Then we'll keep an eye on the large clutch (up to 8 eggs), and if lucky, we'll be able to see the fledglings leave the nest...

I also concluded that the nest in the cherry tree was definitely built by the same couple of magpies. The one they're building now will not be visible at all, as they chose an evergreen tree. Next year we'll probably miss their nest building efforts, as both the nearest tall trees have been used up.

We find bird watching quite fascinating and will invest in two pairs of binoculars. Our old eyes are not up to the job...

A couple of googled images:

There are superstitions attached to these birds. If you see one, it signals sorrow and you should greet them loudly: "Good morning, Mr Magpie!" Apparently it wards off the bad omen. Seeing two signals mirth, so we're OK!

Magpies are not terribly common in the US and only one of the subspecies, pica hudsonia, is found in some western states:

Bird lover

This guy is a bird lover like us...

Trevor Maltby took this photo upon returning to his car after leaving it at the Cairns International Airport in Australia for six days while away on business. The photo, taken on Feb. 19, features a small bird, a nest and tiny eggs, all perilously perched atop the back window wiper blade of an Audi hatchback.

Maltby told us about the discovery. "At first I thought it was just trying to 'blend in,' then I noticed it looked like it was trying to make a nest. As I got closer it appeared it was not about to fly away. I called over a colleague who had just arrived on the same flight and got him to come have a look. ... I took a picture of it sitting there, then we both tried to give it a bit of a hurry up—we could basically pet it if we wanted too—and my colleague put his hand right up to it's face, and that's when it raised its wings and exposed those eggs."

Maltby spent an hour on the phone with wildlife officials. They confirmed that the bird was a native peaceful dove. "They are known for nesting in awkward places," Maltby said. He was told he could either ask somebody to come down and "relocate the nest" or he could leave the car there and wait for the eggs to hatch.

Being the good guy that he is, Maltby offered to leave his car and got a ride home. "The next day I got a call from the airport to say that the wildlife officials had come and removed the nest as its location was deemed to be far from ideal, and that I could come and collect my car. The eggs have been taken to an incubator and the mother was unable to be caught and taken with them, though they figured she would probably lay again in the very near future."

Gotta love them!

Mesmerizing birds

View_From_Here sent me the link to a site showing the video below. I had to go to youtube to get the embed code and found the second one, which is also fascinating. Thanks, View.

Lovely owls follow-up

I received a comment on the photo below, drawing my attention to the lack of credit for the picture. The majority of photos posted here are found on the internet and very rarely credit the authors.

I'm very happy to tell you that this photo was taken by Ellen D. Hartlmeier on behalf of O.W.L (Orphan Wildlife Rehabilitation Society). I'm glad Ellen posted that comment. We've been in touch via e-mail and she told me about their Facebook page, which has up-to-date info and loads of photos! Click HERE to visit their page.

I found out that this lovely reading bird is called Sarah and that she's one of the ambassadors for the species in the Society's educational programs.

I know many of you don't "do" Facebook, so please visit their website to find out more about the excellent work they do and to get acquainted with very attractive birds. They specialize in raptors and, as enthusiastic followers of the Decorah eagles, I'm sure many of you would be fascinated to learn a little bit more about some of the other species. There are many stories, a virtual tour and also a wish list on their homepage. Some of the items on the list are quite easy to find and post to them. They also accept donations.

Enjoy!

[Bonus: I made a new friend!]

Interesting bird

Earlier this year, we noticed that Pirouette was very excited about something outside the kitchen window. I had a look and saw this lovely bird sitting on a telephone line. It flew away before I could grab my camera. As I had no idea what the impressive bird was called, I tried googling a description, with no luck. Finally, a friend who's a bird enthusiast put me out of my misery. The name is as interesting as the bird itself: Hoopoe!