Avocets, little egrets or possibly bee-eaters. Oh, that or king-fishers. I'll take a standard kingfisher, but some of the ones I saw in Africa were fantastic. 🙂

I like the Ring Ouzel (or its unfortunate other name Turdus torquatus 😳 )

Here is one of my drawings (which are for sale) of one here.

(Others are available on request and commissions accepted. Email and blog site in profile 🙂 )

All owls and I love the local kingfisher.

Fan of the Turdus merula myself. Handsome chap he is 🙂

Mynah bird – just cause of the sheer range of noise they come up with
Ravens – massively clever, apparently, know how to use tools
That eagle owl which is on the loose and could apparently steal cats and small dogs away 😮

Nuthatch. The Tie-Fighter of the avian world.

I'm also a fan of the wren. I don't often see them but when I do I always get a lift from it. I can't believe they are really that small.

Skylarks are pretty cool also. Always know its summer. Round my way there is a walk where you can pretty much hear them all the way round (~7 miles).

I also love swallows. The way they dart and swoop about is awesome. I think because of that I'd have to put them top of the list.

😀

Oyster catchers

"Kleep kleep"

For those who like Starlings.
My favourite? Tricky, I love Swifts, their screams just say summer to me, and watching them tearing around in small groups chasing one another is a lovely summer sight. Ravens, which are starting to recolonise the countryside near me, although I've not seen any local ones yet. Peregrines, which are also coming back around my neck of the woods, I often see them perched or flying around a church in the centre of Bath. Red Kites, beautiful, beautiful bird, to see them also appearing in North Wilts is an absolute joy for me to see. There's loads of others, but those are probably my favourites.

Starlings – Funny funny birds, colourful, superb to watch as they fly in their murmerings (?sp?)
Red kites – Truly graceful, still stop and watch them everytime
Swallows – The spitfire of the skies and fantastic to watch

I love birds. Only this morning, for example, I awoke to find a gorgeous pair of tits bobbing up and down on my nuts whilst a beautiful big black bird feasted on my seed.

But if I were to pick a favourite, I'd have to say I really yearn for a swallow. You can't beat a good swallow, can you? A swallow in the morning leaves me happy all day. Really looking forward to the first swallow the year…

Hawks – pretty much any hawky type thing really in fact I was quite into falconry at one point – I'd love to have a Harris Hawk that I could take out while riding!

This (as I later found out) escaped gyrfalcon was pretty cool, it let me get really close before it flew off:

I like magpies too – very intelligent, good looking and really quite cheeky.

All birds is luvvly but I suppose my fave is the Lapwing.

Peeeeeewit…..peeeeeeeewit……peeeeeewit.

Good post, Andy, Bateleurs might be small, but they're really amazing eagles.

Robins, hard little devils liking a good scrap to protect their turf.

Those of you who are impressed by the sheer size of some birds of prey (and who isnt) should do a search for the word 'Teratorn' and patricularly 'Argentavis' and be impressed by how huge some grew to in the past.

Raven, in the winter some come down off the hill and scavenge down the shore, cool birds make the hoodies look a bit mickey mouse, hard as nails!

petesgaff – Member
Nuthatch. The Tie-Fighter of the avian world.

With you on that one.

The Hoopoe rocks!

However, I have a special place for a little Troglodytes…

They get a lot of bad press, but I'm a big fan of pigeons. I'm not a fancier, but I love watching them walk around, pecking at this and that. They're great.

Meleagris gallopavo
sans feathers?

Such a good thread 😀

Tell me about sea eagles. Remember seeing them on Springwatch and was captivated by them. Where do I have to go to see them? Anywhere closer than Scotland?

Otherwise red kites. Despite having seen thousands of them, they still fascinate me and their colouring is beautiful when viewed through binoculars. Of course we have them in Hampshire too. 8)

I love all kinds of ducks especially runners:

and I used to own chickens:

and I had some ex battery chickens. I love chickens and ducks (not to eat tho)

I love Coal Tits with there sweetoo call.

I can't believe this thread has got so far without this chap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkSxRRxvQ8E

Mannequin birds rock!

shame they're extinct

Great thread, some superb stuff.

These are local to me (in summer anyway) and always a favourite:

Avocet

Marsh harriers are also a signature East Anglian bird, and thankfully becoming more and more common

Really liked the sea eagle earlier, depressingly most of the farmers round me have big signs saying "No to sea eagles here" in their fields in response to their proposed reintroduction on the Suffolk coast. I for one would love to see them here; marsh and hen harriers are impressive, but sea eagles would be in another league altogether.

One of my favorite foreign birds are Southern Cassowaries.
People often inaccurately mention crocodiles or Komodo dragons as being 'the closest thing to a dinosaur' but if you really want to get an idea of what many theropods were actually like, a Cassowary is surprisingly close, almost like a short-armed Oviraptor.
At the other end of the scale Hummingbirds (and in the old world, Sunbirds) take the maniraptorian body plan to extremes, adapting to an ecological niche more expected of insects.
For similar reasons to the cassowary, I also love Roadrunners… MEEP! MEEP! 🙂

cinnamon_girl – Member

Such a good thread

Tell me about sea eagles. Remember seeing them on Springwatch and was captivated by them. Where do I have to go to see them? Anywhere closer than Scotland?

I think they are only in Scotland – mainly on mull. They are a reintroduction and still not many pairs – and the gamekeepers keep poisoning them.

There are some on the west coast now I think as well – but mull is the best place to see them. You know when you have seen one – they really are huge. The "flying door"

Hopefully the population will increase. When I was a kid we used to guard peregrine nests as they were so rare- just a dozen pairs IIRC. Now there are hundreds. Osprey populations have recovered as well.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/w/whitetailedeagle/index.aspx

Any gamekeeper or pigeon racer or farmer putting down poisoned bait for raptors should be tied to a chair and force-fed the bait then just left. There was a really emotive headline in a local paper this week about Sparrowhawks increased numbers decimating songbird populations, then, when you read the article it detailed research that showed out of 29 bird species examined, only four had been in any way affected by raptors, and even that number was open to interpretation. I see Peregrines more often than Sparrowhawks, I don't know where they're common, it certainly isn't North Wilts.

my favourite is the cock reed bunting seen these in norfolk, the plumage is amazing in the spring. The headlines re birds of prey and songbirds is always being done, its annoying because the amount of prey not the predator that controls numbers of predators, was at college with a falcner and he was very knowledgable ie. loads of prey =more food for predators so the predators have better breeding results, so if prey declines so do the predators

Saw a lyrebird last year. Actually heard it first, doing car alarms, chainsaws, other birds etc. Then it came out and walked down the trail in front of us. Marvellous. Also a fan of galahs (as in 'you flaming galah'), which are a beautiful pink and grey.
In the UK, got a lot of time for thrushes and sparrowhawks.

TOUCAN for me, the beak has it……