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Wow, Mz Terry, you have seen a lot of tits lately.  I'm not sure if I have ever seen a tit before....unless it is a bird by a different name.:cool:

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Yes, unfortunately a whole family of little birds here are called tits.  No way round it sadly, except for the bearded tit which some people call bearded reedlings.

I have mentioned elsewhere seeing the kingfisher.  That was unexpected and quite magical as it flitted across a small lake several times, perching and flying like a streak of blue light.

 

Not my picture - I should be so lucky, I only had my phone camera which is no good for pictures of such a little bird - but this maybe captures the brilliance of the plumage on the back, which is what you see as it flies low over the water.

 

Image result for Common Kingfisher UK

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Lovely bird watching morning at a local reserve where Egyptian geese were seen.  This is an escapee from collections that has become feral, but is a harmless addition to our birds.  Not my photo, but shows how handsome they are.

Image result for egyptian geese in england

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<creeps in softly so as not to disturb the wildlife or the equally beautiful snowy stillness>

 

I have moved back to the place where I belong and now live slap bang on one of the major flyways down through continental Europe.  I should really have known this before, but it only properly hit me this autumn when I started getting flocks of black kites sailing past the window...  They are way down south now and I look forward to seeing them again in the spring.  In the meantime we have hundreds or maybe thousands of starlings roosting in the trees planted along the roadsides and in the parks.  I go down to the airfield around sunset to watch them swirling about before they settle down for the night, I love the flowing shapes they make. 

 

 

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*hasn't been in here in a while* I need to look through the photos that were shared!! I'm going to share some I took a few days ago. : ) *copies and pastes from the Photo Thread in JFF*

 

Wintry bird photo shoot I did a couple days ago. : ) Dad set up a wreath on our back porch near the bird feeders, and he put peanut butter and bird seeds on it to attract them! I snapped away. I have more that I haven't edited yet, though. 

 

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She didn't stay on the wreath...she just took the peanut butter lol!

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9 hours ago, kelico said:

*hasn't been in here in a while* I need to look through the photos that were shared!! I'm going to share some I took a few days ago. : ) *copies and pastes from the Photo Thread in JFF*

 

Wintry bird photo shoot I did a couple days ago. : ) Dad set up a wreath on our back porch near the bird feeders, and he put peanut butter and bird seeds on it to attract them! I snapped away. I have more that I haven't edited yet, though. 

 

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She didn't stay on the wreath...she just took the peanut butter lol!

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Wow, those pictures are amazing.  They would make fantastic Christmas cards as @daveb says.  I am inspired to get a birdfeeder wreath like that, but I won't get photos like that.  

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Thanks, guys!! : ) Yes, maybe next year I'll use them! We haven't gotten any snow (besides that tiny bit in the pics), but hopefully we will and I can take more photos like that. You should totally do it, @Mistletoe!

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I walked past an orchard yesterday that was full of fieldfares.  They are winter visitors here from Scandinavia.  The fallen apples provide them with a feast.  Fieldfares and redwings, which they often flock with, are so wary even one person walking by makes them set off and land further away, but I did get good views of one of them.  Didn't have binoculars with me which made it harder.

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straightouttamordor

Took a trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee a couple of months ago. Got disgusted with the crowds and tourist traps. So I drove over into Georgia off the beaten path. Found a state park called Cloudland Canyon. Awesome place. One of the deepest canyons east of the Mississippi. Plenty of wildlife and caves. Don't know the elevation, didn't have my hiking GPS with me. Ended up hiking about 6 miles. Beautiful place. I want to go back. Next time rent a cabin. 

Worth the trip if you're in the Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama area.

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I finally filled the bird feeders the other day. I've had seven different species visit so far. There were six blue jays yesterday. 

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On 24/12/2016 at 0:19 PM, Mz Terry said:

I walked past an orchard yesterday that was full of fieldfares.  They are winter visitors here from Scandinavia.  The fallen apples provide them with a feast.  Fieldfares and redwings, which they often flock with, are so wary even one person walking by makes them set off and land further away, but I did get good views of one of them.  Didn't have binoculars with me which made it harder.

:wub::wub::wub: <-- this is me dissolving from unrequited love of fieldfares. 

 

I haven't seen a single one this winter so am going to try and console myself with a kite roost at the weekend.  About half the European population winters in Spain, the other half just sits around in the foothills of the Pyrenees my side and the local bird group are off to survey them before they start moving northwards again for the spring.  It will be my first time counting raptors (or indeed anything else feathered) ...

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Hiya vervain :)

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I had to Google what a fieldfare looks like, as I have never seen one.

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Nor had I :P

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Hiya friendly nature-loving ace people !  (It's good to be back).

 

We counted 86 kites flying in to roost in our bit of oak wood, some of the other survey sites got up to 200 or more.  I'd never seen so many in one day. 

 

While waiting for the kites we got great views of the mountains, plus a flock of mixed finches (chaffinches, greenfinches and at least one serin), tree sparrows and a stonechat.  It was very cold but so worth it.

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Hi @vervain, the best views I have had of red kites were in Wales.  When you were high up in the mountains, you could look down on kites riding the thermals in the valleys below.  You can see lots coming in to feed at a farm where they put out meat for them regularly.  Your 86 flying in to roost must have been a fantastic sight.

 

I have been out in winter to see corvids and starlings coming in to roost.  I have not seen a starling murmuration yet, so that will be on my bucket list for 2017 maybe.

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Getting a lot of bird visitors to the garden at the moment with the colder weather - blackbirds, starlings, great-tits, long-tailed tits, and my favourite the Robin.  All ready for the Big Garden Birdwatch in a couple of weeks :)

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I love the Big Garden Birdwatch (though in all the years it's been a traditional activity for my mum and me to do together, that weekend has always been the one we see fewest birds on :D).  I found out this week that my local BirdLife thing does a count on the same weekend !  so going to pick a local park and see what I can find.

 

The kites were great, but also quite a surprise to me.  I'm used to seeing them drifting and furling like leaves or shreds of paper on the wind, I pick them up by the weightless languid quality of their flight way before I can see any properly identifying shape or colour.  Not a bit of that here -- just a steady sequence of very purposeful kites flying vigorously in down a straight line, one after the other, the nearest thing it resembled was planes coming in to an airstrip, then a gap as the light really failed, and suddenly a flock of 30 zipping in from a pre-roost in a goose-type formation.  They settled down in the treetops much like a flock of ordinary songbirds...  fascinating and incongruous.

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..."the weightless languid quality of their flight"...   @vervain, you have a lovely way with words!

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Vervain - that is so true - there are a couple of goldfinches that visit my garden, but never when I am doing the Birdwatch :D

I am hoping the starlings are going to make an appearance as I am seeing more this year and they are a species that the RSPB is concerned about.

 

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40 minutes ago, Blackthorn said:

Vervain - that is so true - there are a couple of goldfinches that visit my garden, but never when I am doing the Birdwatch :D

I am hoping the starlings are going to make an appearance as I am seeing more this year and they are a species that the RSPB is concerned about.

 

I think the birds see us peering out for our hour and stay away. :P  I never see many when doing the Big Birdwatch count.  I had a goldfinch on the feeders the other day, a pair of moorhens have been landing on the roof of the bird table to reach a suet block, the jay has been visiting.   I can guarantee none of those will appear the weekend after next in the significant hour.  I never see starlings here now.

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I haven't seen any jays for ages, but they generally only visit my garden in the spring - they love peanuts :)

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