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Sparrows

Rod

Rod

Old Oak
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Winchester, Hampshire
Our local House Sparrows have produced a very good brood of youngsters this year - generally have a flock of about 2dozen eating at my bird table.
Just as well as our local Sparrowhawk is picking one off each day!

Here's a pic I posted before of one eating a collared dove.

ja3yrupu.jpg


Rod
 
We've noticed a marked reduction in spadgers feeding in our garden over the last few years.

Mainly replaced by bluddy pigeons although we deffo don't feed them apart from when they attack the veg patch. - Air rifle kept at the ready!!

Bob
 
I can't remember the last time I saw a sparrow in the garden here. Commonest bird around when I was a kid but none here now. A couple of hundred Ring necked parakeets yes, sparrows no.

The demise of seeing sparrows seemed to coincide with seeing a lot more magpies around. Still plenty of them squabbling in the trees.
 
Yes House Sparrows and Starlings are in decline but we get loads of both around here - big flocks of Starlings in the Autumn doing their spiral flights at sunset and then roosting in a neighbours enormous beech tree.
Blackbirds and thrushes seem to do well and I have a resident robin and wren that breed successfully each year.
Tits, Chaffinches, Goldfinches, Bull Finches, Greenfinches and Dunnocks are daily visitors
But I do spend a lot of money on bird food! :)

Rod
 
Rod":2zuagibm said:
Yes House Sparrows and Starlings are in decline but we get loads of both around here - big flocks of Starlings in the Autumn doing their spiral flights at sunset and then roosting in a neighbours enormous beech tree.
Blackbirds and thrushes seem to do well and I have a resident robin and wren that breed successfully each year.
*, Chaffinches, Goldfinches, Bull Finches, Greenfinches and Dunnocks are daily visitors
But I do spend a lot of money on bird food! :)

Rod
Click to expand...

The first bird on your list triggered the "profanni-filter" - I had to think for a while before in dawned on my why the asterisk. T-its would have triggered it. :text-lol:
 
Our black stormtroopers aka blackbirds keep our garden slug and snail free, bless 'em. Mind you, fair play as we do feed them up over the winter. Robins, wrens, hedge sparrows, house sparrows, house martins, swallows, buzzards, peregrine, kestrel, goldfinch, chaffinch, blue tits, greenfinch, dunnock, fieldfare, green woodpecker, jay, lesser woodpecker. Plus about 6 or so that I haven't got round to identifying.

Spawn-of-Satan-free zone helps (ie no cats around)

Too many bloody magpies...too skittish so slightest hint of the window opening and they're off. Pigeons as well..wretched things.
 
We get House Martins, Swifts, Swallows, Buzzards flying over frequently. Lots of Rooks, Magpies, Jays, Jackdaws, Crows around but rarely land in the garden. We occasionally get Grey Squirrels and Green Woodpeckers who try to raid the feeders without success. Lapwings and Skylarks in the fields around.
Wood pigeons and Collared Doves are given short shrift.
Bats in the ancient Ox Drove opposite in the evenings
T*ts of the Blue, Great and Longtailed are very frequent visitors too.
Blackbirds and Song Thrushes aplenty.
In winter we get a pair of Blackcaps and visits from Fieldfares and Redwings eating the berries.
There's a family of Wood mice who nip out for bits of dropped bird food, but any Rat who shows up is dealt with by my air rifle.
Used to hear Cuckoos a few years back but not anymore?

Roger the new correct name for Hedge Sparrow is Dunnock.

Rod
 
A couple of years ago a hawk picked off a pigeon and ate it in my yard. While cleaning up the remains I noticed a band on the leg with an ID and phone number on it. It turns out it was a homing pigeon. When I called him, the owner said "OK, I guess I'll cross that one off the list." :)

Kirk
where the main pest bird is the mourning dove, followed by Canadian geese...
 
If it's a garden list you are after here's ours
Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue tit, Brambling, Buzzard, Chafffinch, Collared dove, Cormorant, Goldfinch, Greater spotted woodpecker, Great tit, Green woodpecker, Greenfinch, Heron, House sparrow, Kestrel, Long tailed tit, Magpie, Marsh tit, Nuthatch,Robin, Sparrowhawk, Starling, Swallow, Tawny owl, Thrush, Treecreeper, Woodcock, Wood pigeon, Wren.

Sparrow we have nesting every year in a gap in the tiles on the side or our dormer windows.
 
We've a few nesting pairs of Buzzards here, in fact I'm sat watching a pair circling about 100ft up on a thermal, very slowly.

Occasionally they get bullied out of the sky by 3 or 4 crows or Magpie's (difficult to tell and I'm no twitcher).

Love hearing the skylarks out flirting around and always stop to watch them playing.

Also love our local Kestrel who regularly perches on a fencepost about 50ft away from my door, but every time I load up the DSLR with the long lens, as soon as I open the door it's off, so I can never get a really good shot.

He's a top class vermin deterrent. many's the time I've seen him flash into a flight of pigeons and come out the other side, if a cloud of feathers, with one in his mouth. Then proceed to chow down on my lawn! :twisted:

Cheers
Mark
 
Magpies - long thin tails and black and white.

A pigeon is a very big prize for a Kestrel who are quite small and they catch things in their claws - generally small mammals (mice and voles).
Are you sure it's not something bigger like a Peregrine? Kestrels are generally recognisable as they Hover in the air in one place looking for prey.

Our Sparrowhawk was out of luck today as the garden was empty when she swooped in. Hung around hidden in a tree for a while then flew off.

Rod
 
You could be right Rod, we definitely have a Kestrel, but I have seen a bigger fella and I think he is the one that takes out the pigeons. Will try my hardest to get a snap next time…

Not sure we have peregrines around North Cheshire, but a look at a bird map might tell you what it might be...

Cheers
Mark
 
According to my Bird Recognition App, Peregrines are shown throughout England.
I have a friend who races Pigeons - he hates them with a vengeance

Rod
 
Rod":1tccrlma said:
Peregrines are shown throughout England.

Rod
Click to expand...
I was told recently by a falconer that the Peregrine is the fastest creature that's ever inhabited the planet, about 220mph :shock: final velocity when he hits his prey - Rob
 
Woodbloke":1asrruhi said:
Rod":1asrruhi said:
Peregrines are shown throughout England.

Rod
Click to expand...
I was told recently by a falconer that the Peregrine is the fastest creature that's ever inhabited the planet, about 220mph :shock: final velocity when he hits his prey - Rob
Click to expand...

Maybe that's what it is then. The feathers fair fly when he impacts! POOF!

Just had a look at some pics and while ours seems browned on the chest that the pics (most seem quite pale to white) the markings on the chest and wings look right.

Cheers
Mark
 
SWMBO gave me a super Xmas present one year. A day out with the falconers at Newent Bird of Prey Centre (one of the original ones in the country). Having an eagle perched on the end of your arm looking at you with his beady eye and hooked beak is magical. Umm..actually no, pretty scary !
 
TrimTheKing":2d4psasf said:
Maybe that's what it is then. The feathers fair fly when he impacts! POOF!

Cheers
Mark
Click to expand...

Earlier on in the year, SWIMBO and I had a 'Tower Tour' around Salisbury Cathedral. You can't get up the inside of the spire (for obvious reasons and I was a bit Victorish that I couldn't) when you step outside to see the views of the city, the place is littered with white feathers. Apparently, there's a pair of peregrines nesting on the tower that have been dining out on the local pigeon populace - Rob
 
One of our local hotels has a resident Falconer who often does a "show" on Sunday lunch times.
Last time we went his large bird of prey ( some foreign one?) did a runner after a pheasant! He was wearing a radio collar and was "captured" several hours later.
Don't know if he was successful with the pheasant though?

I did a technical visit a few yrs back to Salisbury Cathedral when they were doing restoration works to the tower and spire. They allowed us up into the wooden framework section to a hatch within it - a very hairy view. Also walking on the ribbed vaulting only a few inches thick above the nave was a bit hairy
too?

Rod
 
Rod":3tbzsbdq said:
Also walking on the ribbed vaulting only a few inches thick above the nave was a bit hairy
too?

Rod
Click to expand...
When you're walking on top of that ribbed vaulting above the knave, there are little tiny 'spy holes' and if you're careful you can look down through them and see the floor of the cathedral…a bit scary :shock: when you realise how high you are - Rob
 
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