Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room 2011 New Year birding Challenge

Coolio!

So - birds in songs?? An idea that Ivan Basso was no doubt about to have...?

I'll open a new thread

Reached a milestone in the Challenge today

http://birdingwithpassion.blog.com

I was always going to get 80, but the mix of species I've seen to date hasn't been what I would have expected.

Firecrest. Overgrown Victorian cemetery. Sorted.

In a somewhat interesting turn of events, we have a new resident in our garden who is hogging the bird table and feeder and tree that everything is on!

Unfortunately, it's not a bird. Looking at my wife's camcorder footage, it appears to be either a Water Vole or very large rat!!

What you need, Alex, is for a few of the local raptors to discover your unwanted guest! The main problem I had in the UK was those pesky squirrels helping themselves to my bird food.

Congratulations on the Firecrest, Martin, a bird I would love to see but I know they're not exactly easy to find. Of course, they're not found at all where I live now so my chances of seeing one in this lifetime are remote to say the least.

Only 20 to go, could be a nailbiting finish!

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Was reading this earlier on the bus, in today's free Metro paper. The article in full:

"Turtle Doves only exist in Christmas carols in Britain - so when one turned up in a garden, those in the know flocked to the scene. Within 24 hours, 450 twitchers were queuing up outside Steve Aker's house to see it - after paying RSPB 'bouncers' a £5 toll (to the bird charity, we should add).
Ten enthusiasts at a time were herded into Mr Akers' kitchen in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, and given five minutes, starting when the bird was spotted. "They all being well behaved at the moment," said the 56-year-old, who first saw the Eastern Orientalis, a sub-species of oriental turtle dove, near his bird table on Saturday.
The bird has only been spotted twice before in this country. However, it only made a brief appearance yesterday and had not been seen since 8am. "We have several hundred frustrated people outside," added Mr Akers."

The article is accompanied by a fascinating wide angle photograph of a row of houses, outside which there is a long queue of men the length of the pavement and continuing beyond the picture frame.

Sorry to hijack your thread a bit Martin but you know how excited we twitchers get when something special happens. :rolleyes:

I mentioned earlier that I was hoping to see a Peregrine Falcon during our trip to Capetown next month, as they're not common in most areas of South Africa whereas the Western Cape has a large, healthy breeding population. Well, yesterday morning my attention was grabbed by an angry Black Shouldered Kite dive-bombing a bird on the electricity pylon next to our housing complex. Despite the dull, overcast and drizzly conditions I managed to get good enough photos and looks with the binoculars to identify it as the elusive Peregrine Falcon, most likely a young female. The South African sub-species is listed as 'near threatened' which makes the sighting here on the outskirts of Johannesburg even more special.

As I said, the lighting conditions weren't great but I thought you might like to see the photo as it shows the difference between the African and European races, having more barring on the breast and heavier streaking.



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Wow!! Great picture - and thanks for sharing the story. Glad you caught up with this bird.

I've been embroiled in a case of misidentifying a gull myself this weekend.
Previously ( I was a twitcher and avid birder ten years ago) I have been really into gulls, but obviously got a bit rusty the last ten years as I haven't watched a gull roost in earnest in that time.

Subsequently, I misidentified this:

http://www.goingbirding.co.uk/hants/show_photo.asp?photo_id=1608

A leucistic Herring GUll.

Never knew such a thing existed...

Hey ho

Leucism and melanism - the curse of birders! Although it only deals with Southern African birds, there are some good photos of leucistic and melanistic birds on Trevor Hardaker's Zest For Birds website. Click on the 'Bizarre Birds' link on the left.

There were three possible ID's for this Falcon too because, like leucistic and melanistic birds, juveniles can be a pain to ID. There was a possibility of this being a juvenile Lanner Falcon or even Eurasian Hobby. However, the advantage of being a member of a birding forum is that there are always plenty of people to assist in nailing the ID.

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It's now over two weeks since I got to 80. Its' getting hard

http://birdingwithpassion.blog.com/2011/03/03/southampton-east-feb-18th/

83 now, and the list of bird species I have 'missed' is in double figures.

Still, there's a nice map for you to look at, and I'll have some pictures up tomorrow

It always gets more difficult as you get closer to your target and 83 is tantalisingly close to the magic 100. Even if you don't make the 100, 83 is, in my opinion, a more than respectable total for a relatively small area in a relatively short time, should you get no further than that. However, I'm sure you'll get at least a few more before the time is up. And as you said in your blog, you never know when birds will turn up when you're not even looking for them, such as our recent visit from the Peregrine Falcon.

Our species list for South Africa now stands at 284 (having added Desert Cisticola and Long-Tailed Paradise Whydah last week in the Free State) and we're hoping to hit the magic 300 mark next week on our road trip to Capetown as the Western Cape is an area we haven't really birded yet, with lots of endemics (i.e. species not found anywhere else). We're back on the 17th so it'll be interesting to see if we hit 300 before you hit 100, since we both need roughly the same number of species to reach our respective targets. Good luck!

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