Our Hawthorns are prolific with berries in autumn. (old 100+ yr) hedges. They become parrot food for some quiet rare ones called Gang Gangs. They spend hours quietly denuding the berries and spitting the chips. Beautiful pics of yr winter birds. Have put one on screen to remind me there is cool weather somewhere in the world. 43 C today Liz
Nice deciduous tree shapes, something that says right away that's not around here as on the west coast of Canada evergreens predominate though we do plant everything else wherever we live and in our parks. I've been wondering how you are all doing over there lately, having a winter like the one we had last year. D
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/6947586/Snow-covers-Britain-from-head-to-toe.html Amazing! The epitome of COLD.
Unfortunately, I don't have a backyard. Wish I did. Here's one from southeast Oregon in early July, Gallinago gallinago, aka the common snipe.
Thanks for the photo of the day now on my front screen to remind me there is winter. Just had the hottest Jan. night recorded. 32C It was a stinker. One of this morning's chores is to make sure wild birds and animals have access to water along with my domestic mob. At least it is still green so they have food. We have been promised rain after another burst of 40C before cool change. Liz (keep warm)
Liz, I understand it's important to keep your feet cool at those temperatures. These guys have the right idea (sorry, I don't know what kind of gull they are).
In Oregon (or anywhere in N America), now classified as Wilson's Snipe Gallinago delicata, recently split from Common Snipe (which is restricted to Europe & Asia). Glaucous-winged Gull Larus glaucescens.
Beautiful thrush eating the dogwood berries. I only get them here rarely, when we get snow storms mostly. In our beach-side park the crows have been out in huge murders lately, poking into the soil making us all wonder what it is that is hatching in the fields and the starlings doing the same on home lawns now too. (when they're not busy raiding the suet) This week I spotted a flicker on my back lawn poking around and when I checked the film later, found that it was 'quaking' the earth so that a grub came poking out of the soil for the flicker to grab and poke at to lick it up or take little pieces as I did not see it grabbed and swallowed. The grub was grabbed as it emerged and laid on top of the soil, then stabbed repeatedly it seemed. This was a paler grub than that of the crane fly, though as large as one and perhaps a little longer. I have been poking around at the lawn next door lately when the ground is not too wet or frozen and noticed that there are indeed those fat, segmented, many legged grubs in the soil now. And this is what it looked like to me in the film tho it is too far to be any good. In each pic the white right at the beak tip is the grub.
Hi Lorax Great pictures Lorax! I believe your snowy egret is actually a Great Egret, going by the all black legs and feet and the yellow bill. It also looks very large, though there is really nothing to compare it with. A Great Egret is 39 inches and a Snowy is 24 inches.
As long as the child was around 3 feet tall, that would make it a Great Egret. :) Bird Identification is often difficult and I am far from an expert. I had to look it up to be sure. LOL
3 feet is a small child in that city - people get really tall there. Must be the good salt air and seafood diet.
