Apr 2020
11:05am, 22 Apr 2020
2,718 posts
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phal
Hooray Steve!
Amazing what you can see when you’ve not got the dogs with you - apart from the usual there were whitethroat (fabulous little shoe put on!), blackcap, goldcrest 👑, nuthatch, kestrel, little egret 😀
Dave was right, if I’d actually taken my binoculars I wouldn’t have seen anything!
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Apr 2020
11:23am, 22 Apr 2020
2,999 posts
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jacdaw
That's true about the binoculars. Never see anything on the days you take them with you.
My breeding swallows are back, investigating the barn next to my house and twittering joyfully. Well it sounds joyful to me, it's probably some sort of aggressive threat to other swallows in swallow.
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Apr 2020
11:51am, 22 Apr 2020
2,719 posts
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phal
That should have been show obvs, not shoe. I know that birds don't wear shoes. Even penguins, their feet Really Are that big
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Apr 2020
8:45pm, 22 Apr 2020
19,104 posts
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flanker
Blackcap singing on the hill behind the house. Might have to have a wander at some point with the bins and big lens. Given nobody else ever goes there I won't feel too guilty.
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Apr 2020
9:24pm, 22 Apr 2020
2,727 posts
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J2R
First swallow of the year for me today, followed, 30 seconds later, by the first whitethroat (3 more heard shortly after). As others have observed, oodles of singing blackcap. First sedge warbler of the year a few days ago, and what I'm pretty sure was a grasshopper warbler. No cuckoos or willow warblers yet.
WS, really envying your wood warbler! That's not a bird we get round here.
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Apr 2020
9:51pm, 22 Apr 2020
1,586 posts
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flyingfinn
It does seem like a very good year for both Blackcap and Chiffchaff. I found a Blackcap within 30m of the house today, never seen one that close and I think there might have been another one a short distance in the opposite direction. The first one definitely seemed to be defending his territory and I strongly suspect there might be a nest in the big hedge along that boundary, so I shall be keeping an eye out for the appearance of junior Blackcaps in due course. Conveniently it's somewhere I can wander with a coffee and just sit in the sun and watch (and it's even legal as it's within the bounds of what counts as my property and it's surrounds )
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Apr 2020
10:02pm, 22 Apr 2020
40,354 posts
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Derby Tup
I heard a blackcap tonight somewhere I’ve not heard one before. There was a dipper in sight too
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Apr 2020
8:46am, 23 Apr 2020
2,721 posts
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phal
Ducklings on the pond 😀 about 8 or 9 😀
Moorhen building it’s ‘downstairs’ nest by the pond edge.
They also have an ‘upstairs’ nest in a tree. We think that’s where it’s hatching the eggs and then the chicks will do a leap / get pushed off into the pond. We’ve watched the other moorhen do quite a long climb up another tree and across some branches to get to where we can hear the squeaky noises coming from.
I don’t blame them, historically the chicks have not done well on the pond. There are rats about and last year they had a terrapin (quite large) in the pond to contend with as well until it was found and removed. Survival rates definitely down last year.
(This is where Dave turns up and it was actually two years ago and my time memory is wrong again 🤣)
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Apr 2020
9:41am, 23 Apr 2020
2,728 posts
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J2R
phal, do terrapins eat chicks?
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Apr 2020
9:52am, 23 Apr 2020
2,184 posts
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um
J2R - I'd read that it was adults vs kids .... Large terrapins will eat ducklings (and other fledgling birds), ducks will eat baby terrapins.
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