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Robdemanc
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04 Sep 2012, 2:54 pm

For many months I have been feeding the blackbirds and doves in the garden where I live and I think I have got to know them pretty well. The blackbirds had 5 baby chicks and one of them got lost in the garden and I had to guard it from the next door cat. That was a few weeks ago and they have grown a lot now and I am feeding them well. But there is a sparrowhawk that comes often and tries to get them. I love birds of prey, they are so impressive but I want to protect the birds. Sounds crazy but I have little to do these days.

Anyway I think tonight I was inside and I saw the sparrowhawk swoop down then heard a lot of squeaking and I think it got one of them but I don't know which.

Does anyone like birds and birds of prey?



Mindsigh
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04 Sep 2012, 3:06 pm

I find them very interesting. I like to watch the birds where I work because it's in a very wooded, undeveloped area. There are a lot of crows around here and I'll never forget the first time I saw them banding together to fight off a hawk. I'd love to find a baby crow and raise it, but only if its parents couldn't be found. They seem so intelligent for birds. They have language, I think.

I also like to watch hawks, and I still like them even though I'm pretty sure a hawk made off with one of my kittens. :( But hey, that's what they do. I shouldn't have let the kittens outside, but they were from a partially feral mother cat who hated staying indoors. I saw a hawk land on a dead branch on a pine tree and the branch broke. :lol: Wish I'd had my camera on. Natures bloopers.

I had never seen a bluebird until I started working here.


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CyborgUprising
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04 Sep 2012, 5:24 pm

For some reason, my memory decided to conjure up this image:
Image

I don't mind birds of prey as long as they don't try to eat my cats (one day I was on my porch and Goliath (a muscular orange tom cat) was sitting next to me and suddenly, I felt an odd urge to look to my left, where I was met face-to-beak with an eagle. 8O At first I didn't know what to think, then it dawned on me that the eagle was likely sizing up Goliath to determine if he was worth trying to get). The eagle still resides in the forest next to my house, as do some recently-introduced Cooper's hawks.



BrokenBill
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04 Sep 2012, 7:26 pm

CyborgUprising wrote:

I felt an odd urge to look to my left, where I was met face-to-beak with an eagle. 8O .

:lmao: Oh man I would have loved to have seen that.


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MakaylaTheAspie
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04 Sep 2012, 7:40 pm

I like Hawks and Falcons. Mostly Falcons because of their speed.

Owls are cool too.


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Albirea
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04 Sep 2012, 8:43 pm

I love birds. They're one of my regular interests.

If you go on my DeviantArt account at http://phoenixcelestius.deviantart.com you can see my bird drawings. Yes, I reactivated it again just so that other people can look at my stuff. I won't be on, though.


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Robdemanc
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05 Sep 2012, 2:35 am

I saw all the baby blackbirds today so the sparrowhawk didn't get them last night. I watched some interesting videos on youtube where people had managed to catch a sparrowhawk with its prey. Very impressive creatures.

Eagles are the most amazing but I have never seen one, they don't exist where I live only hawks and kestrals. But once when I was on holiday in spain I was walking down the street at night and I walked round a corner and there on the pavement was a very cute baby owl, it looked up at me for a few seconds then darted off. It was like a cuddly toy!



Robdemanc
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05 Sep 2012, 2:35 am

Albirea wrote:
I love birds. They're one of my regular interests.

If you go on my DeviantArt account at http://phoenixcelestius.deviantart.com you can see my bird drawings. Yes, I reactivated it again just so that other people can look at my stuff. I won't be on, though.


I like your artwok Albirea, you have a good hand for it. The website is good too, did you build it yourself?



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05 Sep 2012, 2:40 am

Yeah, I like them.

I often see wedge-tailed eagles gliding in circles up in the sky over the property; usually in pairs, but sometimes one. I also hear and see powerful owls at night (they're big and they eat the possums). I saw one (eagle) drag a dead kangaroo off the road once.

I've seen some smaller eagle-like birds gliding up high too, probably falcons (couldn't ID them).

I have a "pet" kookaburra. Every time I clear brush and work outside he's there next to me (he goes for the disturbed critters). He even lets me pet him. Kookaburras are pretty big, and they eat stuff like frogs, lizards, and even snakes.

Lots of other birds around here too (I do mean lots). King parrots are quite illustrious. Funniest moment with them was a whole heap on the porch looking inside the house (kinda scary actually with their blank stares), wanting to be fed (we only "supplement" them with water and feed so as to not rely on humans).



megahertz
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05 Sep 2012, 4:37 am

I, too, love birds. This spring the tits in my garden raised seven kids. I installed a webcam in the nest box to watch and film them. The blackbirds' nest is in a shady bush, maybe next year I'll place another webcam there. Luckily, none of my neighbors has a cat...



NeXus_Blueliner
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05 Sep 2012, 5:41 am

I love watching the birds in the garden. Now seeing around the 4th generation of starlings and it's always great to see how they grow. Also love watching the sparrows at work, and how they just dive off of things xD I tend to see the two robins every winter now and have actually seen them during spring and autumn before. I love seeing the jackdaws and how they behave, sometimes they'll come over to the garden and it's nice seeing them up close, they have such amazing eyes. We get doves in our garden too and only the other day a sparrow made one move out of its way xD We get a couple of green and bluetits visit but they don't stay long. The best of the best though is the magpies. I love watching them fly, they have such a graceful look to them. We don't get many birds of prey in the area but if I was to go up the cliffs it's pretty fun to watch the kestrels. I love how every bird is different and watching how they all behave, you can easily see they all have their own personality. People who dismiss birds and think they're boring really should take a second look. It's sad the amount of kids today who don't bother with anything to do with nature :( Hearing a child of around 9-11 say 'there's a birdy' kind of winds me up. You look and you see it's a magpie and you just wonder why this child doesn't know its a magpie. It's funny really because the magpie is likely to even know itself better if it saw itself than this child.


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Mindsigh
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05 Sep 2012, 10:42 am

NeXus_Blueliner wrote:
People who dismiss birds and think they're boring really should take a second look. It's sad the amount of kids today who don't bother with anything to do with nature :( Hearing a child of around 9-11 say 'there's a birdy' kind of winds me up. You look and you see it's a magpie and you just wonder why this child doesn't know its a magpie. It's funny really because the magpie is likely to even know itself better if it saw itself than this child.


I was showing my daughter, age 2, different kinds of birds that we saw in the park. I had just pointed out a mockingbird, when suddenly I heard a woodpecker pecking. I looked up, and she said, "Mommy, is that a knocking bird?"


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05 Sep 2012, 10:55 am

Mindsigh wrote:
NeXus_Blueliner wrote:
People who dismiss birds and think they're boring really should take a second look. It's sad the amount of kids today who don't bother with anything to do with nature :( Hearing a child of around 9-11 say 'there's a birdy' kind of winds me up. You look and you see it's a magpie and you just wonder why this child doesn't know its a magpie. It's funny really because the magpie is likely to even know itself better if it saw itself than this child.


I was showing my daughter, age 2, different kinds of birds that we saw in the park. I had just pointed out a mockingbird, when suddenly I heard a woodpecker pecking. I looked up, and she said, "Mommy, is that a knocking bird?"


Good to see someone shows their child nature. Really is sad when a lot of parents would rather stick their children in front of a tv screen or xbox or something. I hope your daughter gains a lot of knowledge from being out with you :D


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05 Sep 2012, 11:11 am

[img][500:300]http://thornews.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/havc3b8rn2-photo-johnny-storvik.jpg[/img][img][300:400]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bBHzsLn1SLk/Tc2x8MLwCVI/AAAAAAAAAa4/QsoVmqFssbM/s1600/Heron.jpg[/img]

The coolest birds of prey in Norway. The white-tailed eagle and a heron.



Robdemanc
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05 Sep 2012, 4:09 pm

this is a clip from youtube, quite amazing, but contains fighting birds (hope the link works)



[youtube]http://youtu.be/oOB24oweSC8[/youtube]



DigitalDesperado
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05 Sep 2012, 4:42 pm

I like birds of prey, but I don't like them so much when they are terrorizing the birds in my yard. I know it's just the way of nature but I wish the hawks would go be natural somewhere else.

A sparrowhawk has been hanging around my yard for the last three weeks and the other day I saw it with a mockingbird that it had just killed. I was able to get a picture if it. It was a sad sight, but I guess everyone has to eat.