Summer visitors

[jackarmy]

Heard my first ChifChaff of the year today on the lotty, any of you guys heard one earlier or any other early summer visitors ?.

♫ Chiffchaff - song / call / voice / sound.

Certainly the earliest ive heard one for a few years.

[Scarlet]

I'm not sure if in would be able to pick it out from the other birds in the garden, though I heard my owl last night. I hope it nest in the garden again this year

[jackarmy]

Oh that would be brill Scarlet.
We used to have Tawny Owls in the church opposite our house untill they turned it into flats, miss my owls .

[Scarlet]

Ive sat here for the last half hour listening to the birds while having a coffee...I can tell a blackbird but after that I'm lost, lovely birdsong all day today, would love to be able to name each one.

[burnie]

We still have winter migrants up here, Pink Footed Geese seem to be moving north, so maybe spring is springing after all

[dogsbody]

If you want to brush up on your play list then try this site Bird songs and bird calls - the sounds of 253 UK bird species.

[Jay22]

I've never even seen one let alone heard one!

[burnie]

Anyone heard a Cuckoo? used to be so common "when I were a lad".

[Nicos]

Not heard one yet.
Seem a few March hares though

We had a tawny owl perched in the garden at dusk the other evening.

I too am a frustrated bird listener.
Not very good on visual ID either- apart from the most common ones...wish I could spend time applying myself to learning them!

[burnie]

My wife and I have been out cycling, looking for Hares and any other signs of spring, lovely hearing the Skylarks and Corn Buntings, the gulls sort of spoil it along with the corvids cackling away though.

[burnie]

Not heard one yet.
Seem a few March hares though

We had a tawny owl perched in the garden at dusk the other evening.

I too am a frustrated bird listener.
Not very good on visual ID either- apart from the most common ones...wish I could spend time applying myself to learning them!

I bought a cassette(it was a long time ago) and sat down listening to it with headphones, totally overwhelmed me. I think it's best to bite size the learning. I go by time of year, then habitat and time of day. Try to work out what might or should be around and then listen to those few and try to memorise those. If the song is loud enough, you might be able to record it on a smart phone and check it when you get home. Do the same for visually checking the birds, though even after 60 years I still make mistakes with LBJ's(little brown jobs). I specialise in birds of prey and try to learn as much as I can about those, even flew a Saker falcon for 8 years a few years ago. It was by knowing the call of the juvenile Peregrines, that I was able to study a nest last year from a safe distance(safe for the birds not me)
Peregrine2 by R MAURINS, on Flickr
If you look on the left you can see the head of one of the chicks after the adult had just delivered a pigeon to the nest

[jackarmy]

Exactly what i did Burnie exept mine were on vinyl when i was about 8 or 9, "garden birds" was one and " woodland birds the other".
I used to get up as a youngster ( 13/14 ish) at 4 am to walk around the fields/woods just to hear the birdsong, a love that has never left me. I love your pics of the Raptors .

In fact i loved all your wildlife fotos, just checked them all out, not on a phone i take it ?

[burnie]

In fact i loved all your wildlife fotos, just checked them all out, not on a phone i take it ?

My kit is listed on my flickr site, I'm trying to convince my wife "we" need a new lens, sadly it's £8500, so up till now not very convincing lol.

[jackarmy]

Jeez, i wonder why ?

[vivienz]

We saw our first swallow of the year in north Dorset on Sunday and a cuckoo shortly afterwards. OH is on a mission to get swifts nesting in boxes on our house this summer.