Do you like birds?i

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Yeah. That's what I said. That both countries have a mix of migrating and nonmigrating species of birds.

But the US has at least two birds that were recently introduced from England. And both are now considered to be pests. One is the English sparrow, and the other is the starling.

A small club of people released about 100 starlings into Central Park in New York City in the 1890s.

There were no starlings here before that.

The birds thrived, and then multiplied, and then spread beyond the Big Apple, and today...there are millions of them everywhere in the US east of the Rockies.

The reason that those folks released the original starlings in Central Park?

They were a club of folks who had as a mission to introduce into America every bird that is mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare!

Seems a bit "bird brained" to me. But I suppose that folks have found even dumber reasons to do things.

I remember having a conversation with someone regarding the flight patterns of birds. What prompted this conversation was the fact that I'd previously looked out of a window; and remarked on a couple of bats that passed by in the distance. The person I was talking to quickly asked me how I knew that they were bats instead of birds. It was still twilight but quite close to fading into complete darkness. There were still some birds flying about alongside the bats.

When I was asked this, I was surprised. Admittedly I was under the assumption that it was obvious. Personally, when I see a bat out of the corner of my eye, I know that it is a bat simply by how it moves through the sky.

I have a general interest in learning about the traits of animals, but no particular attachment to birds. So, for instance, I like to think about how wings work and why the claws or talons of a certain bird developed in that way.

Personally, seagulls amuse me somewhat. The way they move about whilst walking always makes them look like they're trying to remain inconspicuous on a secret mission, and failing miserably at it. Well, to me at least. I'm not fully sure why, but they remind me of criminal gangs from old movies. The rather over the top kind. Perhaps it is partly how they turn on each other when a seagull finds a source of food, but does not signal to the others, trying to deceive them into thinking that there is nothing there so they can have it to themselves. The other seagulls tend to notice and act outraged. I tend to get odd looks when I make this comparison, but my imagination likes to make it for whatever reason.

Whilst most of the British and Irish population of Robins are sedentary, some individuals, mostly females, do in fact migrate. Some birds head south for the winter to Spain and Portugal. Other birds from Scandinavia and Russia migrate to Britain and Ireland for the winter. Others will just be passing through in spring and autumn as they migrate between Scandinavia, Russia and southern Europe.

Actually I like birds a lot. I know from observation the the dominant birds in Las Vegas are mocking birds, grackles and mourning doves. There were also large ravens near the mountains.

In the Seattle area the birds I see the most are seagulls, crows and robins. Along with ducks and Canada geese. Occasionally I see bald eagles, osprey (seahawks) and red tail hawks. And woodpeckers and owls when in the woods.

I love birds! Grew up with them ... in large aviaries in Aus. Cockatoos, peach faces(love birds), wedge-tailed eagles in the Army aviary), rosellas, parrots, kookaburras, maggies(magpies), bats, finches, budgies, doves, emus, penguins(especially the fairy penguins on Phillip Island. Love the robins and doves here in England. Not so keen on the swans ... lol I have multiple feeders here to feed the wild birds here in England, and do the same when in the US. I loved seeing the hummingbirds at Bar Harbor, Maine. Enjoy photographing them, and the pheasants that wander into the yard here. Bush turkeys used to wander into the yard on the Sunshine Coast in Aus. I grew up with chickens(which are also birds), and my local town mascot is a cockerel, so I drive past a giant tin chicken most days lol...

You mention starlings. What a fascinating bird. They copy sounds.
Where we used to live, the row of houses opposite were one by one having new roofs fitted. They no longer wanted old fasion slate and wanted to modernize them and fit concrete style tyles. Our house was old and had been modernized about 80 to 200 years before and the old thatch had been removed and lovely light blue Pembrokeshire tiles. The houses opposite had the duller purple North Wales slates which could have lasted many years more but they wanted modern so were changing.
Now naturally the roofing people were hammering on the rooves. Taking the old slates and chucking them in skips (There was not the market for keeping the slates intact in those days.. 20+ years later slates have become expensive)... Then hammering on the new tiles. Some of the roofs sagged under the weight as the slates were lighter then the new tiles but they were not to know, and the roofers didn't know because they had no long changed to the tiles, and were all out busy when the fasion to change had caught.... Knock knock knock... We lives on a bank higher then the houses opposite so we were looking down on them in a way. The sound of knocking was amplified due to the way the accoustics hit us. The traffic on the road used to rattle our windows! So the sound of knocking went on and on. Uhmm. On and on. The weeks turned into months. Surely the roofers had long finnished changing the rooves? They had. Months later the starlings were repeating the sound with such accuracy!
We had fun when cars started to be fitted with alarma. These birds would copy and whole towns had alarms going off!
The funny one... We would hear a siren of an anbulance, police car, fire engine or the coastguard and we would look at the road to see what was passing.... Nothing. It was those birds again!

We've had some interesting birds. We had a chicken reach 16 years old and she crowed like the cockrel.. The cockrel died and she took over but didn't quite get the right time of day to crow... She laid an egg a day right to the day she died. She stopped laying after that. She would run at the cats or if a fox came she would shoe it off! She took no nonsence in her old age! Surprizing it was old age that took her as most went with foxes. She was too tough!
We had a budgie that was pure white and he lived to be 18 years old. He died when I was 16. He was the first thing my parents had when they were married. Budge just after marriage.. Dog the next year (Sealyham terrier). Then me on the second year.... "Bark, bark woof woof.".. No.. I'm not a dog! They then had another child... My brother who is three years younger... They probably had him to show me that I wasn't a pet. Hahahaha!

Anyway. Not too far away we used to visit a Mrs Harry. She had a parrot... And she had a husband. Her husband died when I was young. He used to work down the mines...
Anyway, after her husband had died, her parrot had developed quite a cough. It was coughing away. She took it back and fore to the vet. The months went on. Nothing the poor vet could do was any good. The parrot would still be coughing away.
Then one day the vet twigged or she twigged what had been going on. Her husband had died of lung issues from the years of working down coal mines. The parrot was copying his cough! The parrot didn't have a cold at all.

I suppose I do, my favorite birds are certainly Birds of prey, Corvidae or birds of the crow family which apparently includes magpies. I like the sounds the ravens make most though, though it kind of sucks if they start cawing early in the morning before I'm ready to get up which happens sometimes. As for the birds of prey I mostly see hawks and falcons but the other day I saw a very large bald eagle just sitting in a tree right in the suburban area.

I also really like the cassowary, also I wouldn't want to run into a wild one.

I am not the most fond of pigeons. I kind of like the eurasian doves, but they are kind of invasive (which are pigeons since doves and pigeons are the same thing) not sure they have actually done a ton of harm to the other bird populations. They do kinda bully other birds though which might push them out of some areas. They can be hunted, I don't think I would do that myself but if I somehow got the opportunity I'd certainly eat some.

I think the seagulls are the most annoying though, I don't even know why they are here, there is no sea here.

Then there are the canadian geese, some of them have taken to just staying here all year around. I like that they like to poop all over the lawns I suspect if there was less space taken up by lawns where natural plants and grasses could grow then there would probably be less geese. But no everything that's not a nature reserve/open space/state park ect is has to be covered by lawn it seems. Whole summer is just lawnmowers constantly mowing seeing sprinklers leaking all over the sidewalk and not understanding why everyone is going along with what looks to me like absolute insanity. Replace it with more natural terrain and vegetation and all that wouldn't be necessary. enough about that though don't want to derail this.

/\True,my pet geese won’t go into the wooded area.Its hard for them to waddle so they stay on the lawn.

I never forget when younger we had a little bantum hen. She was small even for being a bantum! She had chicks. I think about 12 of them? One day while she was on the lawn, she saw a kestrel in a straight down dive heading for her chicks. She flew 90 degrees straight up and fought it in the air. The kestrel lost the fight. She had it! We never even knew that bird could fly! That little bantum... I never forget my Dad saw the dog looking suspicious. My Dad said "Drop" and the dogopened its mouth and one of the chicks ran out. When the bantum saw the dog nad her chick she flew at the dog! My Dad didn't have to tell the dog off! And don't forget. That little dog ripped open two getman shepheards who set upon her. They had big vets bills as their stomachs were ripped open. They had killed and terrarized other dogs in the village. The german shepheard owner used to let them loose. He came to demand my Dad paid the vets bills when other villages came out and said "No". They had seen the way his dogs had set upon their dogs as they tried to take them for walks. It was an accident that the milkman had not shut our gate and our dog got out.
But when it came to that bantum. She had no fear whatsoever when she had chicks.

"Seagull" is a bit of a meaningless term and is generally not used by ornithologists, who tend to just use the family name of "gull". There are about 50-60 species of gull worldwide (the number keeps changing due to taxonomic changes). Only a few of them are true seabirds that only ever come to land to breed. The rest are primarily coastal birds though they are great opportunists and very adaptable so they readily take to all sorts of habitats, including those inland.

Gulls compete with crows as opportunists and scavengers. They make every dumpster in America a "study in black and white".

But if you go to Salt Lake City you will see a big statue of a flock of gulls.

When the Mormons fled to Utah back in the 1800's , and tried to survive in the Utah desert they had a "plague of locusts" that almost wiped out their crops and would have wiped the Mormons out by starvation. But then....a flock of gulls appeared over the horizon just in time...and the gulls swooped down and ate all of the locusts, saving the Mormon settlers. The Mormons deemed the gull attack to be a miracle sent by God. And the event is still honored in Mormon Utah legend.

My patronus is an osprey

What do you call a baby swallow?
A sip.

Birds ARE descended from dinosaurs, right? So, since I like dinosaurs, I like birds, too.

They also like them because open spaces without a lot of trees or tall brush/grass makes it easier for them to see any incoming predators.