Britain's best birds.

IdleRich

IdleRich
I wish - I've only seen the picture in the news article which I have shamelessly lifted from their site and posted here. Even if I had seen one and taken a photo it would be a blurry, out of focus mess...
I understood it wasn't your pic but I thought maybe you had seen it. I've been to a few places where they've said "Oh you're lucky, we have a rare migratory X passing through at the moment" but really you have fuck all chance of seeing it nine times out of ten.
Well that's been my experience mainly. We did have one holiday where it kinda all came together to make up for a lifetime of birding disappointments. We were in the Hebrides and there a gyrfalcon there that had been blown off course and we saw something that must have been it. Also there was a golden Eagle which was an infrequent visitor but not as unique to spot. We were driving down a super narrow windy lane through fields and dad saw this huge bird just sitting in the field, stopped the car to look at it. The car behind us was a load or builders or roofers or whatever and the comes up and says what the fuck you doing? When we said we thought it was a golden Eagle the whole load of them piled out the van with binoculars and were more enthusiastic than we were i think.
Also that trip we saw a corncrake which pretty much only nests on Coll and on the way home we saw an osprey for the first time - though since then I have seen a few in Portugal.
 

william_kent

Well-known member
I understood it wasn't your pic but I thought maybe you had seen it. I've been to a few places where they've said "Oh you're lucky, we have a rare migratory X passing through at the moment" but really you have fuck all chance of seeing it nine times out of ten.
Well that's been my experience mainly. We did have one holiday where it kinda all came together to make up for a lifetime of birding disappointments. We were in the Hebrides and there a gyrfalcon there that had been blown off course and we saw something that must have been it. Also there was a golden Eagle which was an infrequent visitor but not as unique to spot. We were driving down a super narrow windy lane through fields and dad saw this huge bird just sitting in the field, stopped the car to look at it. The car behind us was a load or builders or roofers or whatever and the comes up and says what the fuck you doing? When we said we thought it was a golden Eagle the whole load of them piled out the van with binoculars and were more enthusiastic than we were i think.
Also that trip we saw a corncrake which pretty much only nests on Coll and on the way home we saw an osprey for the first time - though since then I have seen a few in Portugal.

I'm nowhere near Norfolk, so zero chance of me seeing the white tailed eagle... the best we get in Manchester is a chance of spotting the peregrines which sometimes nest on top of tall buildings in the city centre - they've nested on top of the CIS building ( home to what was known as the Co-op bank HQ before the Crystal Methodist debacle, and rumoured to be the entrance to an underground city / nuclear bunker ) and last year they were spotted on the Town Hall

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here's one flying by the Cathedral, probably when they were on the co-op bank building ( it's only a few hundred feet away )

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again I've stolen the images...but I can claim to have seen a fuzzy shape above the CIS building that I maintain was a peregrine
 

jenks

thread death
I'm nowhere near Norfolk, so zero chance of me seeing the white tailed eagle... the best we get in Manchester is a chance of spotting the peregrines which sometimes nest on top of tall buildings in the city centre - they've nested on top of the CIS building ( home to what was known as the Co-op bank HQ before the Crystal Methodist debacle, and rumoured to be the entrance to an underground city / nuclear bunker ) and last year they were spotted on the Town Hall

View attachment 7208

here's one flying by the Cathedral, probably when they were on the co-op bank building ( it's only a few hundred feet away )

View attachment 7209

again I've stolen the images...but I can claim to have seen a fuzzy shape above the CIS building that I maintain was a peregrine
I’m lucky enough to cycle near the Blackwater where J A Baker lived and wrote The Peregrine - mostly I just see remnants of their kills in the roadside but every so often I catch sight of one and it absolutely makes my day.
My favourite sight recently was watching two crows taking in a buzzard who was clearly too much interest in a nest. Proper mid air scrap. The buzzard eventually retreated.
 

jenks

thread death
And as @luka isnt here I can post this - regularly cycle along this path but yet to see the Peregrine he talks about
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
The humble robin and hedge-sparrows

Pigeon proofed a bird feeder (place a meshed dome over the top) and these little creatures are loving it. My youngest son is obsessed mow too
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Loved it when they were reintroduced, such big and impressive birds. Pretty wimpy though I believe relative to their size, should be easy enough to fight one off.
 
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