Peregrine Falcon

ChrisK said:
Tried to find there nests for years sure they used to run 100 yards before taking off as could never find there nests 😂
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Very rare now. All the eggs used to point inwards, an interesting fact.
We get nesting Curlews around here. The RSPB are all over it.
I know both the farmers that own the fields they nest it.
Fair play to both of them as they look after the habitat.
 


Jon Dough said:
Two or three years back I was walking a trail on the outskirts of Ottawa and heard a group of crows kicking off blue murder, dozens of them, I knew it was indicative of a predator, I expected a coyote or black bear, but as I crept slowly closer I saw they were mobbing a huge great gray owl.
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Witnessed a seagull chasing an owl up Amble. Owl looked petrified. Was anly small like.
 
artful splodger said:
Had a sparrow hawk swoop down & do a pigeon in the bushes under the bird feeders last week, stood at the kitchen window for an hour watching it rip it to bits, it had a few rests & went back to it. The gold finches came down on the feeders & scattered as soon as they spotted the sparrow hawk beneath them. Once the hawk was finished it flew up onto the front feeder & sat there for ages, probably just letting them all know it was his manor. Not seen one in the garden before, only over the fields out the back. Went out to check out the kill after it flew off & there wasn't much left bar a few feathers, impressive.
https://imgur.com/CYvSe2A
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Getting this Male Sparrow Hawk in the garden most days.
The Female is much bigger and that was what you had in the garden and they do take pigeons.
 
Swindon On Tour said:
I shoot the Magpies and Grey Squirrels :eek:
The Nuthatch nesting was impressive as the previous year great tits had reared chicks in it and a woodpecker had definitely pecked around the hole.
The Nuthatches had made the hole smaller with mud (common practice) and amazing watching them. Definitely luck but the next box hole needs to be just a tad larger than a Great Tit size.
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Is it worth cleaning out bird boxes now ?
I never bothered before tbh
Another good spot this year was kingfishers down by Wear river at Fatfield great to watch them 👍 only seen them once tho
 
ChrisK said:
Is it worth cleaning out bird boxes now ?
I never bothered before tbh
Another good spot this year was kingfishers down by Wear river at Fatfield great to watch them 👍 only seen them once tho
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We've started seeing Nuthatches up here near the Osprey Centre at Loch Garten - 20 years ago they were unheard of in Scotland, so they've made some amount of progress getting this far up
 
ChrisK said:
Is it worth cleaning out bird boxes now ?
I never bothered before tbh
Another good spot this year was kingfishers down by Wear river at Fatfield great to watch them 👍 only seen them once tho
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Definitely mate every year clean them out as it gets rid of the mite etc.
I have got to clear out 2 Owl boxes I put up this year, no luck with both and will put some fresh saw dust in them. Bloody Jackdaws took over one and got rid of the sticks before they were close to laying eggs.
One of the blue tit boxes had a split in the roof that needs replacing.
I have put a few around the neighbours trees as well and they appreciate it :)

A few Kingfishers on the River Cherwell here.
Cracking colours in the Sun.
 
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Swindon On Tour said:
I have to confess mate I collected eggs.
Blowing them an art. Need to get around all the next boxes I have put up and clean them out. Got a Nuthatch nesting in one this year which was great.
A few visiting the bird table every day which is lovely to see.
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Yeah agree blowing them was an art gutted if if was a dippy egg (had a chick in )
as was getting down the tree with a couple of eggs in your gob 😂 never got illness or Corana shite in them days 👍
 
Another reformed egg collector. Rarest egg was probably an Arctic Tern that was collected in Canada and give to me, we used to get loads of Lapwing eggs over the airport near Barmston Marshes, we used to call it the Lappy fields. Most unusual find for me were pure white Linnets eggs, usually they are spotted but very rarely you get pure white ones, I used to tell everyone they were from a Black Redstart :D . Looking back now I regret the number of Partridge eggs we used to collect and also the day me and some mates discovered an old wall near Boldon that had literally hundreds of sparrows nests in it. We all had our hands full of sparrows eggs, maybe 40 eggs each and somehow an egg fight broke out and we ended up smashing the eggs all over each other. That still makes me cringe all these years later.
ChrisK said:
as was getting down the tree with a couple of eggs in your gob 😂 never got illness or Corana shite in them days 👍
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I remember climbing down a tree with a crows egg in my mouth, it must have been freshly laid because I still remember the taste of the blood in my mouth 🤮 .
 
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Swindon On Tour said:
Getting a few Green Woodpeckers on my front lawn almost daily.
In addition a lesser spotted Woodpecker on the nut feeder, much smaller than the Great Spotted and we are lucky enough to get all 3.
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Brilliant that.
Flared Hicks said:
Another former egg collector here. Not ashamed as that’s just the way it was, but wouldn’t consider it now. We were always conscious to only ever take one egg and try to cause minimum disruption. Always felt really bad if you cocked up when blowing an egg as it seemed to be somehow crueler if you didn’t have the egg in your collection.
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Opposite for us we used to just look but never take them. Last 5-6 years when I got back into it, merely camera and bins now, don't disturb any nests etc. So much to see round here and I don't have to go far. Black Redstart 400 yards from the house yesterday
 
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GordonMuchallNo1Fan said:
Brilliant that.

Opposite for us we used to just look but never take them. Last 5-6 years when I got back into it, merely camera and bins now, don't disturb any nests etc. So much to see round here and I don't have to go far. Black Redstart 400 yards from the house yesterday
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Impressive.
Incredible that we live opposite ends of the Country with so many different types present.
Lovely listening to the Skylarks yesterday Morning.
 
Jon Dough said:
One bird I never heard in the North-East which I have heard a few times in Surrey are nightjars.
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A few years ago before we moved to the Highlands we were staying on holiday near Loch Laggan - my wife heard a Nightjar on 2 successive nights and reported it to a couple of the sightings forums where she was completely ridiculed by the “experts”
Lo and behold a year or so later regular sightings started to occur in that area - I’ve not heard them where we are now but they are still heard in that area
 

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