Wildlife -January 2010

[Ragged Robin]

The birds are so active at the moment and enjoying the sun - this one blackbird looked so handsome in the fir tree with his orange beak glowing like an amber traffic light - had me singing the Blackbird song

[Stephenb]

Beautiful picture - and thank you for the confirmation that the sun is still up there; hopefully will see it again next weekend for the first time in a couple of months!

We should have a facility on this site for posting sound files - would have been interesting to hear a Robin mimicking a Blackbird

[Ragged Robin]

We should have a facility on this site for posting sound files - would have been interesting to hear a Robin mimicking a Blackbird

Stephen, I agree and had thought about trying to do this using the HD video on my camera to record the sounds....

[Anthony Darby]

For three years in the early 1980s we had a blackbird that sung the first five notes of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer". Naturally, we called him Rudolph.

[Richard Green]

The Starlings around us mimick everything so well that I sometimes do not believe it and have to stop and listen to make sure it really is them doing it.  They do Buzzard, Swallow, Curlew, Seagull, Spotted Woodpecker, and even a mobile phone and ambulance siren.

[Anthony Darby]

Anthony, I noticed that a spiders web was attached to the side topside of the hole - would the Wren have been after anything in caught in do you think?  I stood for some while watching for it to exit the hole but it didn't.  Will keep an eye on this spot in future in the hope of seeing it again - it was indeed late afternoon low light when I saw it hopping about.

More likely to be looking for the spiders and any egg batches?

[jomowi]

Re wrens: I love their furtive habits.  We can look out of our upstairs windows (dormer bungalow) and watch them in the gutter looking for food.  They then disappear up the scrolls of the tiles and emerge some time later further along.  Am I right in thinking that wrens will only feed on what they catch "on the Hoof?" Certainly they don't feed on the bird table.  If this is correct, then "wren food" sold in garden centres is a con.

[mark smyth]

I've never seen wren food but would think they wouldnt take it because they dont know yet to come to bird tables. They might take it if it contains mini meal worms.  Long-tailed tits have just learnt to come to feed on peanuts. Last winter I saw so many long-tails on a feeder the peanuts couldnt be seen.

I'm so jealous. A neighbour just phoned to tell me she had two treecreepers in the garden. I think to myself she hasnt got a tree or bush in the garden so ask if they were working along the fence. The answer was they were on the ground poking in the grass. The Belfast Telegraph had a bird poster in the paper yesterday and she identified them 

[mark smyth]

Do you want to guess what they were? Her description was excellent. Long beak, brown, long legs, eating grass

[Lesley Cox]

Could be kiwis, looking for insects among the grass.

[Paddy Tobin]

Curlews?

[mark smyth]

small garden in a housing estate. Darker than a curlew and shorter legs

[mark smyth]

Two woodcock or snipe. Just shows how hungry they are

[Stephenb]

Just going through some old pictures. I thought that this was a magpie moth, but googling it I see it isn't. So, therefore I'm asking here. Should be an easy one...

The second also needs a name - dig those thigh muslces...

[Stephenb]

Two woodcock or snipe. Just shows how hungry they are

I should think the chances are it was a Woodcock - a woodland species that I've seen a couple of times in my garden. Snipe is more an open country bird.

...and here's the evidence. See the following link for the Irish Garden Bird Survey. Click on the 2008/2009 survey report and you'll see there were 5 sitings in gardens last winter presumably pressed into gardens by cold weather(at the bottom). Likely to be more than that this winter!

http://www.birdwatchireland.ie/Default.aspx?tabid=121