Starlings are wonderful birds – take a look at one and they just look superb. But they sing too, often while waving their wings in a motion similar to a butterfly-stroke swimmer. Can you sing and wave your arms about? Maybe, now try it perched on a telephone wire! It’s a strange song, in some…
Category: VERY BIRDY: birdwatching and birding nattering
Bird song (20) – Cuckoo
Surely you know what a Cuckoo sounds like? But how often do you hear them these days, I wonder? They are much rare now, particularly in southern England and I hear them less often than formerly. I’ve only once heard a Cuckoo from my garden and that was in May 2014. Maybe I’m in with…
Bird song (19) – Willow Warbler
The Willow Warbler looks very much like a Chiffchaff – they can be a bit tricky to tell apart at times, and are closely related species, but their songs are completely and utterly different. Whereas the Chiffchaff’s song is simple and cuts through the early Spring air like a knife, the Willow Warbler has a…
Bird song (18) – the pictures
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Here are three Great Tit songs (from the excellent xenocanto website). I’ve chosen Great Tit because I like Great Tits but also because their songs are quite simple. But these three songs not only sound different but, when displayed in the accompanying sonograms, they also look different. Have a listen and a look. The sonograms…
Blast from the past
Sent from a readr of this blog.
Bird song (17) – Blackcap
There was a Blackcap in our garden through December and into early-March – in fact, my last record was of one singing on Tuesday 10 March (just as I was was packing the car to go to the races). I’d never previously heard a Blackcap sing in our garden in March (or through the winter)…
Bird song (16) – Skylark
Hail to the Skylark – one of the finest songsters of all? Don’t you agree? You won’t find this species very often in your garden but if you live near farmland you may hear its song cascading over everything. This is a pretty unmistakable song – it goes on for ages, it’s loud, it’s musical…
Bird song (15) – Wren
Wrens are tiny – you’d get 45 Wrens to the lb and 100 to the kg – and yet they have a hell of a song. If a Robin sounds as though it is singing to another Robin about 10 feet away then a Wren sounds as though it is trying to reach the whole…
Bird song (14) – Chaffinch
Now that April is here I can write about the Chaffinch singing on the orchard bough, although I’ve been hearing Chaffinch song , sometimes from our small apple tree, since February. This one was recorded in Brandenburg today! Whereas this one is from Yorkshire… And this one is from Lincolnshire… It’s a song that is…
#COTF20 my garden birdwatch (6)
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Four years ago I was a team member rushing around the Negev desert and the area around Eilat in Israel spotting birds in an international bird race. What a daft thing to do! But we raised a lot of money for conservation of migrant birds in Greece (and, quite honestly, had a lot of fun)….