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Nov 2017
3:13pm, 14 Nov 2017
2,101 posts
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steve45
it might bonners but it's almost out of what is the usual slot now! It was what would have been "perfect weather" yesterday but no showing!
Haven't seen a Fieldfare yet.
Saw a Kestrel in a locality where they were once a daily occurrence but now rare thanks to the sanitisation of local wild areas.
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Nov 2017
4:06pm, 14 Nov 2017
15,677 posts
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Chrisity
Not sure whether this goes in Senior Moments or here, but anyway.
I had just woken up this morning, when outside the bedroom window i heard a noise, apparently coming from a walkie-talkie type device. Fairly quietly i heard "left, ... left, ... left, .... stop." This was repeated a couple of times, followed by what appeared to be a burst of static, then the whole thing started again. I was wondering what on earth was going on, who was sneaking around my house and why? Then i realised.........it was a magpie perched on the gutter outside my window muttering away.
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Nov 2017
5:28pm, 14 Nov 2017
11 posts
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phidip
Thanks for the welcome, Steve. Discovered we have a resident common blackbird in our small courtyard of our apt bldg. Should be nice to hear his song on warm days next year.
Christy, yrs ago there was a great spotted woodpecker who would drum on our streetlamp cover in the early morning hours creating quite a racket.
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Nov 2017
5:51pm, 14 Nov 2017
29,762 posts
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alpenrose
Chrisity, I have magpies that chatter and it sounds like they play football on the roof, but they don't talk. 
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Nov 2017
8:26pm, 14 Nov 2017
15,678 posts
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Chrisity
It might not have actually said left, but that was the nearest word to what i heard and once that was in my mind it really sounded like it.
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Nov 2017
8:59pm, 14 Nov 2017
844 posts
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J2R
steve45, interesting what you say about kestrels. My experience has been rather the opposite recently. There was something a couple of years ago on Springwatch about the concern over dropping kestrel numbers, and asking viewers to keep an eye out, and I definitely noticed that there were fewer around. But over the last few months I've seen loads of them. I wonder whether the very mild winter might have boosted their numbers, as presumably there's lots more prey around (fewer rodents dying off in the cold)? Pure conjecture on my part, I should say.
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Nov 2017
10:12am, 15 Nov 2017
2,105 posts
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steve45
interesting possibility J2R..it would be good if this Kestrel is the first of many...but it's also local habitat loss that's a factor with my observations. There were once wild areas which covered a swathe of land and where species such as Skylark, Linnet, Whitethroat, Green Woodpecker and Kestrel were regular. Now the area is a retail park, football stadium, athletic stadium and several lane highway. Progress on the edge of the city!
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Nov 2017
1:00pm, 15 Nov 2017
845 posts
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J2R
I know what you mean, steve45! Norwich and various nearby towns and villages are also swelling uncontrollably and countryside is disappearing under housing. It's most dismaying. I'm lucky in that the nearby river valley, my regular running and birding haunt, is unsuitable for building on because it's a flood plain, which floods from time to time. I wouldn't be surprised if they find a solution for that 'problem' before too long, though.
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Nov 2017
3:20pm, 15 Nov 2017
16,961 posts
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Wriggling Snake
I thought the original rise in Kestrel numbers was motorway embankments? Those embankments atre still there. Perhaps more of them...is something else going on. We see kestrels regularly across the local farmland.
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Nov 2017
5:12pm, 15 Nov 2017
330 posts
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bonners
Well, got a£25 pair of binoculars from the second hand shop in town, unbranded but seem to be at least as good as the pair I broke.
Spotted a redwing on the way home and a song thrush, first of the season. Have to say thanks again to Derby Tup as his advice on recognition is still helpful 12 months later.
Anyway, finished up with a beautiful brambling.
The trees are all full of berries now, so lots more to be seen soon hopefully.
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