Musings of an aging fan

Thats quite alot of birds! The only thing I have around me is seagulls! Do they count?! Will try and get my sisters to do it back home, its always worth leaning more about the birds in the back garden. I never learnt all the names of the common ones and in some way i feel like I have missed out on something.

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Everything counts! We like watching the bids in our garden - we put out quite a bit of food for them, and we had blue tits nesting in our nestbox last year.

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awww I used to love watching blue tits when we had them in our garden. My dad then spent years cutting down most of the trees (naughty) so we dont get so many any more. :(

Kinda hard to count a flock of seagulls...!

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Count the legs and divide by two ;-)

(Or, count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 ... 200 300 400 500 ... )

The RSPB might expect you to know the difference between common, black backed, herring, glaucous etc though ;-(

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lmao!

I cant do it according to the website: "There is no need to record birds that you see flying over your survey area" so thats me out. All seagulls look the same don't they?! :S

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;-)

So how's life with you this fine morning?

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I'm great cheers, no flu, no hangover of the alcoholic sort, generally content with life. Have a friend comming to visit me so I can further put off writing my Diss which is due in two weeks! Might wanna start writing that soon....

What else have you been up to besides bird watching?

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Sending lots of emails (although I've still got more to send), getting hassle at work, and reading lots. Feeling pretty good basically, although Monday and Tuesday are going to be a pain.

Good luck with the dissertation!

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Good luck with work *hugs*

Im gonna get up out of bed and go do my laundry *sighs* oh the excitment!

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hyalma.livejournal.com

Great!
In winter we have here in Moscow only pigeons, sparrows, titmouses and crows. Well, also bullfinches sometimes.

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It is ages since I've seen a bullfinch; it's the one species I would really like to attract to our garden.

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ladyofastolat.livejournal.com

My Mum does that one every year. I was there once at the start of the count, and I found it quite amusing that she was only interested in the highest numbers of a species seen at the same time. I imagined a team of 7 great tits doing some Olympic standard synchronised gymnastics over on one of the feeders, but my Mum saying, "Nope. Not interested. I've already got an 8 on great tits today." I imagined that the birds would be quite depressed at being dismissed as mere numbers, and that they'd resort to ever more dramatic ways to get her attention as the month progressed.

And, no, don't say it. ;-) I have an over-active imagination. ;-D

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ajat.livejournal.com

Awwwwww !

:)

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the-marquis.livejournal.com

Doh! We forgot to do ours seeing as we were heading

pellegrinawards

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mrkinch.livejournal.com

That's a very cool event! Your island's got the cutest tits.*g* All those species in your yard, too.

I wish their Top 20 descriptions gave a bit more information, though, such as the Latin name, but maybe they thought that would scare people away. It tickles me that your blackbird is a thrush and your robin isn't.

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romancinger.livejournal.com

Good for you having the patience! My garden would probably get around the same results, except that there would be more pigeons (too many!) We get lots of tits, including long-tailed, and bullfinches when it's cold (they come off the farmland nearby). But I envy you the goldcrests!

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You've got until the end of the weekend ...

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Only goldfinches, alas - no goldcrests! But they are very attractive birds.

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I think we've had a total of 20 different species in our garden in the six years we've been here.

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romancinger.livejournal.com

Sorry - slip of the brain! We have had goldfinches, but none for at elast the last year.

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Birds seen in our back garden since we've been here:

All the ones you saw in your hour, plus:

Bullfinches
Nuthatches
Great tits
Coal tits
Long tailed tits
Goldcrests (very occasionally)
Greenfinches
Siskins
Redstart (once)
Song thrushes
Buzzards (circling above, rather than actually in the garden, so that doesn't really count)
Some form of escaped rare breed hen
Peacock (really - Henning was very bemused).

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I'll dig out our full list sometime. We've never had a buzzard, but we have had sparrowhawk leavings a couple of times.

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The pigeon that flew straight into the (glazed) door got our attention - for a long time, in fact, until it was cleaned of the dusty pigeon-shaped mark. You could see the individual feathers.

And we had a stunned chiffchaff inside our conservatory once. It must have flown in through the open door, then tried to fly out through the closed one. It recovered, though.

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Oh, and wrens.

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Buzzards are very common here. Still spectacular though.

Other birds seen within a couple of miles:
Cuckoos
Stonechats
Skylarks.
Barn owl (only seen once).
Tawny owl (never seen, but you hear them most nights).

Bit further away, but my personal favourite:
Little egrets. Very rare in Britain until about ten years ago. Now common enough that if you take the train between Exeter and Plymouth and look out of the window on the seaward side, I can pretty much guarantee you'll see some. And really beautiful birds.

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We've seen both buzzards and kestrels near our house, but not in our (small) garden.

We're on the end of the Chilterns, so I keep hoping for a red kite.

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