May 2023
8:38pm, 23 May 2023
7,421 posts
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um
Lots of black and white birds with red beaks today. Walking Saunton to Barnstable, the birds in the Taw estuary Loads of Shelducks ... all along the river bank Then 100s of Oycs. Mixed in with the shelducks. Almost invisible in the mud, but the more we looked, for miles and miles, they were everywhere. And to finish, terns
Also, a cormorant. With a fish far too big to swallow. It grappled with it for 5 - 10 mins, also warding off a predatory gull. Eventually, the fish got away!
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May 2023
8:42pm, 23 May 2023
59,662 posts
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Derby Tup
Lots of willow warbler on the local hill but little else of note
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May 2023
8:47pm, 23 May 2023
2,750 posts
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paulcook
What a great pic capture.
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May 2023
11:14pm, 23 May 2023
103,855 posts
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Hanneke
Fab Um!
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May 2023
9:56am, 24 May 2023
4,652 posts
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J2R
First singing cuckoo of the year for me yesterday, at a site where I've often heard one in previous years.
Now I've tuned my ears in a bit more, I'm realising that quite a few of the assumed blackcaps I've been hearing are in fact garden warblers, they are rather more common than I had realised. I said a couple of days ago that they tended to be more continuous in their song than blackcaps but I picked one up yesterday which was only doing shortish snatches of song. It was just that the pitch was slightly lower, with more fluty warbles in there. I stopped, took out Merlin to confirm (it did) and so I stood and waited until I could get a glimpse, which isn't always easy as they are much more skulking birds than blackcaps. But patience paid off, I got a few confirmatory glimpses of the LBJ par excellence, the bird whose main identifying feature is the complete absence of any identifying features.
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May 2023
10:20am, 24 May 2023
59,666 posts
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Derby Tup
Nice one
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May 2023
10:32am, 24 May 2023
5,656 posts
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icemaiden
And here's Mrs Kite and her two chicks.
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May 2023
1:31pm, 24 May 2023
31,302 posts
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HellsBells
Being serenaded by a willow warbler which is conveniently sitting in willow tree
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May 2023
2:08pm, 24 May 2023
5,657 posts
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icemaiden
Today we have all the starlings. It's a bit like being in Arthur Dent's ear, but with extra splishy splashy from the bird bath.
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May 2023
6:56pm, 24 May 2023
4,653 posts
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J2R
HellsBells, the trees I now most associated with willow warblers are hawthorns, although they clearly don't pass up the chance to warble a willow, too, if one is available. Where I see the most of them is hawthorns on the lower slopes of upload areas like the Peak District. There are always oodles of them, which I'm envious of as I love the song of the willow warbler and don't hear them as often as I'd like to here (although this year has been better than usual so far).
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