Birds Show Birds

[BillN]

Really wet and windy here in SW France

Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)

I always see them at this time of year for about a week as they move south or is it west, (anyway away from the cold)?. They appear in the field below our house as it always floods this time of year.
They are beautiful birds and don’t really make too much sound but when they do they are pleasing to hear. It’s called a lapwing because of the way it fly’s and a Peewit because of it’s call.
I remember seeing many as a boy in Yorkshire especially on the plowed fields. They are ground nesters.
In the UK they are classified as RED status, (Red is the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action), as their numbers have suffered significant decline.
In the rest of Europe they are graded as “of least concern” as there are supposed to be 7 million birds in Europe, (excluding Russia – no one seems to know accurately what’s around there – or maybe they won’t tell anyone!!). They are certainly getting less and less in France and it is estimated that 500,000 birds are shot or trapped each year by the French, Spanish and Italians, mostly for fun, (sorry sport).
End of rant!!
The images are not great because they were taken from a distance and are crops.

The odd starling is with them and of course there is a solitary Grey Heron

Paul. not heard from Barrie of a couple of weeks??

 

[pdh]

"plowed", Bill? American all of a sudden are we?

Lapwings are such a great sadness to me.

When I lived in Surrey and East Anglia, 'til about 2002 that is, I would see the most enormous flocks of them in the winter; occasionally the sky would be black with them in the way one still sees Starlings.

I think I've seen at most a few dozen this past couple of years.

 

[davect01]

A couple of shots of American Coots.They move ceaselessly, and I've been trying to get some usable shots for a couple of weeks. This afternoon, finally, I got some keepers.

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I would love to have gotten the entire reflection of the head in, but with 600mm on an E-M5, this old coot had a hard enough time chasing the coot.

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Wood Duck, Female

Great, nice work!

 

[BillN]

"plowed", Bill? American all of a sudden are we?

You have to help the "natives"

but they have seeded all computer programs with predictive text and "key words" that the NSA can home in on

Lapwings - last year the field was full - the flock is only half the size this year, but maybe more will come!!

 

[pdh]

Paul. not heard from Barrie of a couple of weeks??

Oh he goes off from time to time. I suspect he may do other things than just sit in front of the puter blathering on like the rest of us

 

[BillN]

Oh he goes off from time to time. I suspect he may do other things than just sit in front of the puter blathering on like the rest of us

what a pity

I have spend a couple of hours this morning reading the following


http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/wildbirds/hunting/docs/Lapwing EU_MP.pdf

I wish that they would do something positive here in France rather than letting ten fiddle the rules, (but it's legal to shoot and kill Lapwings in France)

if you want to waste an hour browse it

 

[BBW]

I hope Barrie isn't flooded out where he lives. I'll drop him an email.

 

[pdh]

Where he lives it's more likely he'd have been blown away on the breeze, BB

 

[BBW]

OK, good but I know he loves the sea!

 

[grebeman]

Best I could do to show I'm still around

Muscovy Duck, rather ugly things, but tame, hence an uncropped shot from my new DP3M


Barrie

 

[BillN]

Just for amusement - I shall have to tell my French neighbours - he will eat almost anything that's "meat"

Extract from the internet - of course …….. must have been written by one of our Colonial friends!!

"Muscovy ducks

First choice for small farms and backyards. "For really efficient meat production in the tropics we should be looking at Muscovy ducks," says ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization). Not just in the tropics.

"We started with a drake and two ducks. After eight months we've had about 25 eggs to eat and 45 ducks of various sizes to eat."

Muscovy ducks can lay up to 195 eggs a year over a 40-week season. They'll nest three or four times during the season, hatching up to 20 ducklings a time. That leaves plenty of eggs for you, and LOTS of great meat!

If you've never eaten Muscovy, you should know that it's really something. Muscovy is not at all greasy like other duck meat, it's more like extra-special veal, with a fine texture, very little fat, and a unique and delicious flavour. It's the finest duck there is, and maybe one of the finest of all meats.

Muscovies are unique, the only domestic ducks that aren't derived from mallards. They come from South America and they're tree birds rather than water birds. So they don't need a pond to swim in (they do need water, but a large basin will do). And they fly. They're bigger and heavier than other ducks, and flying gives them large and powerful breast muscles, and strong, meaty legs. Muscovy breast looks like a fair-sized steak, you wouldn't guess it was duck.


Muscovy ducks are good mothers -- the little brown ones are Khaki Campbells hatched by the Muscovy (Keith Addison) For the producer they're cheap and troublefree: Muscovies more or less produce themselves. They're self-dependent, better foragers than other ducks, they grow fast and they seldom get sick. They clean up after your other livestock, eating what the others spill or leave.

They're personable and intelligent, great to have around, and they're quiet: they don't quack, the ducks chirp softly and the drakes hiss, and only when they have to -- they're not chatterers like geese, or showmen like roosters. Calm birds. And though they fly, they fly around, not away"


I reckon BB should get a few of these and invite us all around for a Bar-B-Q

 

[pdh]

I was at Studland today, but only had the 17mm for my E-P2.
Accordingly I have some amusing video of very confiding Sanderling scuttling about in usual clockwork fashion, squeaking cutely, but not worth posting here.
I also managed to forget to pack bins, so I couldn't strain my eyes enough to see if the greeb 100M offshore was a Slav or a winter-plumage Great-crested. The latter I expect, though Slav are fairly regular down there.
There was a definite Med to be seen, though, when all the dawgs were not putting it to flight :rollleyes:

 

[grebeman]

Muscovy is not at all greasy like other duck meat, it's more like extra-special veal, with a fine texture, very little fat, and a unique and delicious flavour. It's the finest duck there is, and maybe one of the finest of all meats.
[/B]

Now you tell me, and to think I could have grabbed one of them, bother.

Barrie

 

[BBW]

No a thousand times no, Bill, I shall not be gathering, raising and killing these unusual looking ducks for a BBQ!

 

[Lawrence A.]

A couple of shots of a very gregarious roadrunner, taken on a Bessa R with a Leitz 90mm Elmar on Tmax 400 film. Every time I have my E-M5 with a long lens, the beasts run away. Today one came over quite close at times. Scanned, not printed negatives.

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[grebeman]

Bessa R with a Leitz 90mm Elmar

A much less threatening combination.

Barrie

 

[davect01]

A couple of shots of a very gregarious roadrunner, taken on a Bessa R with a Leitz 90mm Elmar on Tmax 400 film. Every time I have my E-M5 with a long lens, the beasts run away. Today one came over quite close at times. Scanned, not printed negatives.

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Looks like a youngling.

I see them every once in a while, but never close enough to take a shot.

 

[BillN]

Day_1 of the trip - up in the mountains, back from the Coast - hoping to do the Swartberg Pass tomorrow

Arrived at 16:00 and all I really saw were

Cape Wagtails, (Motacilla carpensis) - described as a "common garden bird" in the SA bird guides
(Juveniles - browner upper parts than a, with a pale yellow wash below)

I was hoping for the odd Mountain Wagtail, (M. clara) ..... maybe later in the week

this evening Ostrich salad followed by a Kudu steak and (chips)

 

[BBW]

They look a bit like our Mockingbirds. Bill you're really quite the birder!

 

[BillN]

Day_2 Bird

Male Pale Chanting-Goshawk (Melierax canorus)

Not too bad a day - although I had trouble focusing on the bird and the images are big crops – I think that the light was far too bright – full sun, over 40 degrees – just after mid day
Saw it at the side of the dirt track coming down the Swartzberg Pass not far from Price Albert
Perched on top of a Telegraph post which is it’s favoured hunting perch.
Seems to only exist in Southern Africa, in dry areas.
Sexes alike but female 30% bigger than male

Feeds on
Small vertebrates, especially lizards and rodents, but also birds up to the size of francolin or small bustard and even more exceptionally Spotted Eagle-owl (Bubo africanus) and a stunned Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), as well as small tortoises, insects (including dung-beetles, grasshoppers and termites) and carrion (especially roadkills).

I thought I saw the Mountain Wagtail that I was looking out for, longer tail and a cleaner coloured bird than the Cape Wagtail but I never got an image so I cannot be sure as I only saw it with my naked eye, (i.e. not thru Bins)