Oh what a bird you are

Blackbird been giving it big twitterings outside for the last half hour , dark wet & windy. Another wee welcome reminder of spring approaching.

They are brilliant & a wee bit mental 🙂

They are brilliant & a wee bit mental

So Is Jeff Beck:
“Round about spring, a blackbird sings loudly up on my roof,” jeff said, and “Although I didn’t record that bird, I got a tape of a blackbird and started jamming with him. If you listen, the notes the bird is singing are almost beyond human hearing, but the actual punctuation and tonal things are there. I aped the bird as close as I could, and we all had a good laugh with that one.”
Album “YOU HAD IT COMING” (2003)

I assumed this was either a thread about the SR-71 or Concorde….

https://youtu.be/Hto_uvmLq-8 😀

Birds outside my window keep me awake at night…that and the demons.

Is this another scottish independence thread?

Blackbirds are definitely among the better birds, though. They sound nice, they look nice, they’re not too big, they don’t break your arms or steal your chips or drink bin juice, and they have nice eyes. Yay blackbirds! Marks off for not having really adorable babies like ducks, and for not eating from my hand also like ducks

The blackbird’s relative, the nightingale is the best singer but performs mostly at night. I heard one once that was so amazing that I got dressed and went outside to stand under the tree listening.

Dunnock puts in a good tune as well.

and also the Wren 🙂

Also. bizarrly the twitterings of the humble starling.

PS 15 plus starlings scrapping like mad on a piece of Lidl lard in the garden …. the noise 🙂

I should film it.

59mins 59 seconds 🙂

Globalti you weren’t in Berkeley Square that night?

Blackbirds are ace. Physically understated but they can bang out some tunes and dish out a right good twatting where they feel it’s necessary.

I noticed a collared dove performing the soar and glide down mating manoeuvre this morning.

And magpies are already collecting nesting materials.

Blackbirds are bloody mental at this time of year chasing each other/the laydeez. One of them is going to get squashed by my bike tyre on my commute soon, they just don’t GAS.

I heard a nightingale once too. It stopped 8 drunk blokes in their tracks on the way back from the pub. The most amazing sound I’ve ever heard.

It was like someome had cranked up the clearest sweetest sound system in the middle of the woods.

I’ve just got the reference. Oh Calcutta. (O quel gul tu es)

One neat thing about blackbirds is although they are around all year they can be different birds.
During the winter Scandinavian birds think sod this for a game of cricket and come here since its a bit warmer and others move southwards within the Uk. Although plenty stay in place (mainland Europe its more pronounced).
For birdsong. There is the BBC tweet of the day which is great although since its been going a while it has had to drift from its original focus.

Also. bizarrly the twitterings of the humble starling.

Nothing humble about them. They are some of the most amazingly beautiful birds when you either look at them as a murmur or up close. The colours are absolutely stunning although admittedly to see it you need something with good magnification

All songbirds are amazing but starlings trump just about every other bird IMO not because they are the best singers but because they can mimic more or less anything with incredible accuracy. My local starlings can replicate curlews, song thrush, blackbirds and car alarms with equal ease and I can’t tell the difference between them and the real thing.

Plus, the world would be a little bit duller without the murmuration. Awesome.

I’ve not heard a nightingale but blackbirds are the number one for singing. Robin is second. I saw two nuthatches today, but their strengths lie elsewhere. Good time of year for birdsong.

My garden’s come alive in a last few days with birds – it’s great! I’ve also had a Dunnock or a Wren (not sure) scouting about – would love a new visitor other than the usual crowd of tits/sparrows etc. Hope it stays.

A black bird scurrying under a hedgerow at dusk, damp in the air and a whiff of woodsmoke.

Autumn in a nutshell.

+1 for the Starling. Or should that be +100000? Fabulous bird and one of the most engaging voices, pops and wizzes and whistles on your TV aerial.

But lets not forget the sound of a thousand wading birds, drifting on the wind at low tide.

Birds are ace.

The ‘usual crowd of tits’ yesterday.

Saw one of these on Saturday.
Brought out the inner twitcher in me.

Kingfishers and ring neck pheasants both amaze when I see them. Their colours look so vibrant that you think they have escaped from a zoo.

Love this bit of fiddlin, makes me think of spring

Gigspanner

True, kingfishers and pheasants are stunning. But don’t overlook the ones that seem ordinary and common. If you get a really good look at a magpie at the right angle in bright sunlight the black plumage is actually a stunning iridescent deep purple and it’s gorgeous.

The blackbird’s relative, the nightingale

Used to be a thrush, been reclassified as a flycatcher, innit

Nuthatch and Sparrowhawk at the feeder today ; for some reason the nuthatch didn’t stay long 😁

I grew up in the dales – we saw Dippers from the window (literally, we were 10 yards from the Aire), regularly saw and heard Curlews, Oystercatchers and Lapwings, had Tawny owls in the trees on the far side of the river, had Swifts nesting in the building and resident Starlings that used to imitate the phone ringing. It’s funny how you sometimes don’t appreciate what you have until later, when you no longer have it…