Wasn't there an item on Springwatch this year about city centre Peregrines that had been discovered to be taking prey at night?

I think they'd found the remains of Woodcock, etc around their nest site which only migrate at night.

An interesting video on flickr. A friend of mine set up nightvision filming to capture owls and instead caught a Sparrowhawk with a fresh kill at nightime, i did not know sparrowhawks hunted at night? interesting





http://www.flickr.com/photos/46443141@N07/7969160196/in/contacts/

Hi bill thanks for the response.
Yes I am aware of kleptoparasitism and that is certainly what it appeared to be I have just never seen the tactic employed on a house martin!it was comfortably outflying the gull and didn't appear injured in any way.it could have mistaken it for a petrel though I am not sure it would have even seen one yet!
Regarding the great crested grebe I once saw a black headed gull swimming behind an adult and getting fed.whether this was maternal instinct or a case of just feeding it to get rid is anyone's guess.
Whatever it was it tickled my fancy anyway.its always nice to see something new and I wondered if anyone had seen this behaviour before.
Cheers Chris.

I was at the Albert docks today and saw a juv herring gull chasing a house martin.I am presuming it was after a mouthful of insects but I have never seen this before.any other ideas?
Cheers Chris.

I had the same with two Common Terns at Pennington flash a few weeks ago. There's a couple of photos of it on my Flickr page.
I noted at the time that they were both adult birds and did find it a little strange.

Over Brown Low (Ludworth) a Peregrine repeatedly swooped (not stooped) at a Kestrel. When it tired of this it swooped over the treetops whilst hanging its legs and deliberately brushed the top foliage with its talons. This was repeated about 6x. Could it be a tactic to drive out prey?

Cheers, John

Steve Suttill wrote:

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There's a big debate about open access to academic research going on at the moment - I await the result with interest.

Steve

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Wonder how much they'll charge for the results then?

Hi Steve,

Many thanks for that. I wasn't aware of those two options you mention. As you say, there appears to be some potentially interesting papers on the subject but most do seem to come at a cost. I don't know what it is with these academics? - they're just not satisfied enough with being blessed with high IQs but they also want wealth as well! ...........whilst I have to try and get along with neither!

Cheers,

Bill.

Have recently returned from a weeks holiday in North Wales - I stayed in Glan Conwy in a flat directly overlooking the River Conwy estuary - so had fantastic views of all the birds on and around the inter-tidal area. One species I haven't observed at close quarters during the breeding season is Shelduck and it was really fascinating to watch a good number of family parties and crèches and enjoy and marvel at their behaviour. Since my return I have tried to look through books and the internet to see how these crèches are formed but come up with conflicting information and nothing really definitive. Are these crèches formed passively by adults willingly handing over the care of their young to other adults? Is it therefore a case of "Would you be kind enough to just look after our little Shelley and Sheldon for a few months whilst we jet off for a few months for our annual moult holiday on the Wadden Sea"? Or do the parents just clear off and leave the young ducklings "home alone" and then these get "mopped up" by other willing foster parents? Or are the crèches formed aggressively? The reason I ask is that I observed one pair with 9 very small ducklings in not particularly close proximity to another pair with a single approx. 2/3rds sized duckling. The male from the larger family made a longish walk but in a deliberate beeline for the other male, with an aggressive neck extended, head down, hunched shoulder posture and tried to chase it away and despite managing to pull out a few tail feathers failed. In the same brief whirr of activity it then appeared to target the single juvenile and my impression gained was of an attempt to try and dislodge it from its parents but this too failed. I wondered if there might be some benefit to this pair to try and "capture" an older duckling? If anyone has any knowledge or pointers on where to look for further info on this subject I'd be interested to hear. Maybe there isn't one simple answer and all three methods are involved in crèche formation?

Another thing that crossed my mind is I wonder what factors are involved in which of the breeding adults stay and look after the crèches and which decide to leave on their moult migration? Presumably the successful adults that do remain behind still undergo moult - so why don't all breeding adults remain? Particularly so, given that I have just read that the survival rates for young is apparently lower in crèches than it is in family groups? It seems possibly a bit odd to me to invest so much time and effort into bringing young into the world to then have a strategy that then might appear to lessen their chances of making it to fledging. Or maybe I'm just missing something blindingly obvious!! Had a quick look at the excellent BTO Birdfacts website at http://www.bto.org/about-birds/birdfacts/find-species This suggests that for juvenile Shelduck survival rates sees approximately 17 out of every 100 birds making it to age 2. For another sea duck that crèches its young such as Eider - 33 out of every 100 survive the first year of life but for Tufted Duck and Mallard the figures for a similar period are 63 and 52 respectively.

Just a few other incidental bits whilst waffling on - it was nice to see for once a male duck taking some interest in rearing young, although from my limited observations much the strongest bond appeared to be between the female and their young. The young were almost always closest to the female, whilst she regularly barked out instructions and the young called back. When they came in to rest at high water time and the adults settled on the shoreline the 9 young firstly all tried to get underneath her for warmth and safety, the few that couldn't make it, as it was too overcrowded, then squeezed underneath the male. The male and very occasionally both adults were incredibly aggressive - sometimes both attacking potential threats and perhaps unwisely leaving any young unattended for a short while. I actually watched one male Shelduck attack a nearby Cormorant who was a bit sluggish in getting away and it actually managed to bring it down in the water!

Cheers,


Bill.

At the water's edge on Sale WP today, I watched a Crow juggle with, and then swallow head first, a small fish. I presume the fish was already deceased, and washed up on the shore, rather than the Crow developing Kingfisher- type
fishing techniques.

Dave Thacker wrote:

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A Magpie was catching and eating young froglets which were hiding in the grass next to my garden pond this evening.

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The Magpies were eating tadpoles from our pond a few weeks back and often help themselves to frogs too.

I have on several occasions observed young magpies chase each other up and down the branches of a tree in what can described as a playful manner.

Mike

I was out yesterday looking at a local piece of water, when a Grey Heron emerged from under the water. The Heron had been completely submerged and came out with a fish, part of which it dropped, before it flew onto a fishing platform. The water in question is still.

The Heron was a foot to 18 inches away from the bank when it emerged.

-- Edited by Karen Foulkes on Tuesday 19th of June 2012 07:49:42 PM

Fascinating observation - worthy of submitting to British Birds?

Do the grebes have chicks of their own? And the other Oystercachers - could they be the Brun Clough pair whose chicks seem to have been killed?

Steve

I was out today in Derbyshire watching Redstarts at their nest (babies pulling through the wet spell OK!) and was pretty confident that there were 3 adults feeding one brood; 2 males and a female. At the same site last year I saw pied flys doing the same thing, but has anyone seen this arrangement in Redstarts?
Thanks,
Joe

A friend of mine was working on his stepdad's farm in Yorkshire during lambing and witnessed Starlings picking wool directly off the back of sheep to use as nesting material

Over the last week I have been watching a pair of Magpies build a nest in a Birch tree at the end of my garden. It is very near to completion, just part of the roof needs building to finish it off. The female bird which has unusually short tail feathers and the male have both shared in the building, though the male bird spends at lot of time chasing the Wood pigeons, Doves and Blackbirds away from the tree and surrounding gardens.

At about 5.30 this evening I noticed the male carrying something like a small piece of mirror or shiny glass into the nest. I'm not certain what the item was but it reflected light. I have heard that Magpies like shiny objects as jewelry and spoons have been found in their nests.

So I tried a little test, I tore up some strips of silver foil and formed them into 6 different shapes and placed them onto the lawn in full view of the Magpies. It only took about 10 minutes before the male bird flew down and inspected 3 of the foil shapes. It picked up one and flew back to the nest and placed it inside, it then flew down and picked a second piece up but tore this one to bits while sat on my fence. It then picked up the third shape and put it inside the nest. At this point another Magpie flew into the birch tree and caused the male to defend his territory and female, lots of noise and chasing about. When the male had calmed down he seemed to have lost interest in the other 3 foil shapes still on my lawn.

I will be interested to see if they are still there tomorrow evening when I get home from work

The local Wythenshawe magpies provided some entertainment at work recently - maybe it was a squabble over nest sites, but two pairs of magpies had a face-off which resulted in two of the magpies being down on the lawn with the other two sat on top of them - it was just like tag team wrestling!

Hi Paul

Your probably right as the Coal tit is outnumbered by at least 5 Great tits which visit my garden and one of them is bound to see whats going on.

I watched a Coal tit visit my garden feeders late this afternoon. The bird would fly to the feeder, pick up a sunflower heart and quickly fly into the large Conifer growing next to the feeders. It did this every 45 seconds or so. It was only when I got closer and watched it through my binoculars that I realised the bird was placing the hearts into the nest box which I have put in the Conifer.
When the bird flew off I used my small endoscope to see what was in the nest box. It had a couple of peanuts, 6-7 Black sunflower seeds and more than 15 sunflower hearts all mixed together in the bottom of the box.

John,

There are hatches of flying ants every year, but have never seen this before. Also, it was only 8.30 a.m. and I had witnessed no ants whilst driving or walking from my car into work. Letting my thoughts wander a little, I was inclined to believe that it was adults showing their young how to pick insects off the tops of trees in the Congo where there is dense jungle and the usual hawking methods are not as practical. Well I can dream (it's better than working too hard)!!!


Andy

I observed the same behavour in Wythenshawe Park,but my birds were Swallows.
most of the actions were done by juviniles,for a millimetre of a second they seemed to stop in mid air,and peck at the leaves.

Andy, I witnessed a very similar thing last year on my neighbours car. A dunnock would persistently 'attack' its own reflection in the wing mirror of his car. I watched it do this every day for about a week or so. Very amusing to watch!! Probably quite stressful for the bird though!!

A colleague at work reminded me of an incident last year. I was in the driving cab assessing a driver on a Crewe to Manchester train.

The train was running express at about 90mph when a small flock of woodpigeons took flight from the track in front of us. Most of the woodys flew into the adjacent fields but one individual tried to out run the train. Just before it hit the windscreen and met it's messy end, it layed an egg which smashed on the windscreen moments before said ex Woodpigeon.