[T_B]

Climbing at Lawrencefield on Wednesday evening, I noticed a couple of small birds flirting with each other - with bright yellow under their long tails. Done a bit of research as I haven't seen anything quite like them before. Grey Wagtails? Certainly a lot of insects to eat down by the pool. They were flitting betwixt rock and branch and shaking their booties in a very distinctive way. Nice to watch.

[Andy B]

Sounds like either Grey Wagtails or Yellow Wagtails.

[lagerstarfish]

Probably grey wagtails - they are a lot more common round there. They do look very yellow for something with "grey" in their name.

Yellow wags look like fucked up canaries with a nasty twitch.

[SA Chris]

Yellow wags look like fucked up canaries with a nasty twitch.

Is that a direct quote from the Observer Book of Birds, or a turn of phrase you heard Bill Odie use on Springwatch.

[lagerstarfish]

It's part of my effort to make bird watching more accessable/appealing for the next generation of builderers

[john horscroft]

Sitting at the dining room table t'other day, saw a Sparrow Hawk try to take a pigeon out of the Cherry tree in our garden.  Great cloud of feathers from which the pigeon appeared apparently unscathed and flying for its life.  Sparrow Hawk gave up once the pigeon got going - was never going to catch it in level flight. 

Oh, and I saw 6 red deer on Totley moor on sunday.


Bloody hell, Sheffield's like the Serengeti sometimes....

jh

[Fiend]

And Serengeti's like Stanage-sodding-Popular end now they're trying to recreate Portland nearby and the quarries are the latest hip and trendy thing  ???

[magpie]

I need to know the name of a bird.  I've seen loads of them recently.  It's black with white underneath and makes quite a distinctive noise, a bit like oo-eet oo-eet mixed with cooee kind of noises (I nearly typed and flies about a lot, but I suspect that's not a telling characteristic in a bird  ). 

This is a shit post, you may all mock me now.    Ideally, tell me what the bird is first though.

[SA Chris]

Plover? One flew into the side of the car on Friday night near Tomintoul. Second time I have hit one on the same stretch of road. Must be a small sub-population in the area that can't cope with cars.

[john horscroft]

  just had a thought about my post.  Would a sparrow hawk go for a pigeon?  I assumed Sparrow Hawk as we've had them in the garden before but I'm just wondering if a pigeon's a bit of a lardy target for one of our smaller raptors. 

jh

[magpie]

Plover?

No, they're blacker on the top than that.  They've all been inland too, so I don't think they are wader types.  I think they might be quite big, like nearly crow sized, definitely not wee like a thrush or something like that.  I wonder, could I be any more vague 

[john horscroft]

Lapwing is my guess.....


FWIW!

jh

[lagerstarfish]

just had a thought about my post.  Would a sparrow hawk go for a pigeon?  I assumed Sparrow Hawk as we've had them in the garden before but I'm just wondering if a pigeon's a bit of a lardy target for one of our smaller raptors. 

jh

Female SH would for sure; males go for the smaller targets, but might hit one if it was on its regular garden run. The female SH regularly takes out pigeons and colared doves up at the farm at Graves Park.

[lagerstarfish]

Plover?

No, they're blacker on the top than that.  They've all been inland too, so I don't think they are wader types.  I think they might be quite big, like nearly crow sized, definitely not wee like a thrush or something like that.  I wonder, could I be any more vague  

I think its a Green Plover - which look black and not green and are also called Peewits or Lapwings just to confuse the issue - big lollapy wings and do lots of impressive stunt flying shit. They go on to highground up north to have sex and that.

look like this

[Johnny Brown]

Sounds like a lapwing to me too with size and colour. Pee-wit sounds similar enough to 'oo-eet mixed with coo-ee' doesn't it?

Agree with the female spar/ pigeon thing too. Only other candidate is a Goshawk and they're very rare, particularly since the local grouse moor owners exterminated them.

[magpie]

Yay!  I think it is them I mean.    The flying ones in the video look right and I google their noises and they seem very close too!

Pee-wit sounds similar enough to 'oo-eet mixed with coo-ee' doesn't it?

It does in my head    I am so glad someone knew, I thought I was going to have to resort to trying to mimic the bird for people next or try to explain what I meant when I said, it sounded a bit like a dolphin or a guinea pig.  ???

Thank you all! 

[SA Chris]

Do dolphins sound like guinea pigs? Maybe they are related in an elephant / rock hyrax (dassie) way.

[magpie]

Dolphin sonar noises sound a wee bit like panicked guinea pigs, again, this is all in my head which may be where the argument falls down.

[chummer]

And Serengeti's like Stanage-sodding-Popular end now they're trying to recreate Portland nearby and the quarries are the latest hip and trendy thing

  Totally  Fiend and a stupid post at that. Serengeti has always been popular, could it actually be because of the 2 easy trad routes and the easy to top rope harder routes perhaps....i would have changed your karma but i just d'nay have the power.

[lagerstarfish]

....i would have changed your karma but i just d'nay have the power.

If you reply to this you will have 50 posts and then will have the power. Does that make sense? Not that I'm encouraging Fiend-baiting or anything.

[chummer]

  Cheers for that Lager, and i even have a proper post too, here goes..

Saw a Red Kite on Anglesey last week, first one i've ever seen on the Island. Probably the last one too if the farmers saw it..

[Jaspersharpe]

Ha ha ha ha! "How to punter Fiend in two easy stages". Nice one there lagers. lol

[lagerstarfish]

Anyone seen an irate shaven headed techno fan recently?

Wild

[Fiend]

I've been at church, flagellating myself and paying penance for writing an off-topic post on an internet forum 

Chummer get a grip you prize scrote, it was a bit of word play humour and besides the whole area is getting more mobbed to the quarries' current trendiness. Anyway someone higher up your Off Topic Constabulary should have noticed that I posted about Red Kites in just my previous post 

[tommytwotone]

Just saw this in the press - postman gets a bit of a shock on his rounds...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/27/postman-snake-bite