"birding" fun

[Kevin WS]

Well, here are a couple of birds from the other day.

Pictures 1 & 2 - Eygptian Geese.

Picture 3 - An African Flycatcher.

[whulsey]

The Flycatcher looks like a perky little bird.

[Don Boose]

Beautiful birds!

The geese look exotic to my eye, but the flycatcher looks familiar.

Don

[whulsey]

Here's a clip I just saw on the net, the kind of shot we all hope for.

‘One-in-a-million’ shot of a kingfisher snapped by amateur photographer

[Kevin WS]

Originally Posted by Don Boose

....but the flycatcher looks familiar.

Don

A lot of different Flycatchers in North America, and I notice that a couple are very similar in appearance and colouring!

Heres a Green Wood-Hoopoe that comes to visit sometimes.

Lurks in the dense foliage and rarely seen on the ground though, so difficult to catch for a pic.

[SCEtoAUX]

whulsey, that is a very good pic of a Kingfisher. That guy was definitely in the right spot at the right time to get that shot.

Kevin, that bird sure has a colorful beak.

We have birds in the USA called Grackles that have shimmery feathers like that, but the beaks are plain looking. They also swarm in very large flocks that can get messy.

[birder]

Stunning Hoopoe, your birds are really different and therefore interesting to those of us in colder northern hemisphere ours are more like those of our latitude.... we do have quite a few mostly drab flycatchers, kingbirds are pretty, and more colorful ones nearer the Mexican border. We had the little " western " flycatcher nesting on our front deck again this year.

[Kevin WS]

Bird populations in US and Canada down 3bn in 50 years - that represents a 29% drop since 1970.

I have also noticed a severe drop in birds in the UK as well - in some areas birds are hardly seen.

Bird migration patterns here in Africa are disrupted and some species are now absent from areas. Others are also in decline.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49744435

[SCEtoAUX]

This ain't much fun but I looked through my notes from around 20 years ago and noted the current lack of some birds around my feeders during the migration window.

These birds are still seen, but not as many as there used to be:
Gold Finch
House Finch
Rose-breasted Grosbeak

These birds have not been seen at all lately:
Purple Finch
Indigo Bunting
Pine Siskin
Tufted Titmouse
Cedar Waxwing
Dickcissel
Eastern Wood-Peewee
Black-and-white Warbler
Painted Bunting
Scarlet Tanager

Loss of habitat and predation by domestic cats.

[nando]

About Flycatchers , this spring in my house in Sardinia a pair of Flycatchers made the nest and I was able to admire their acrobatics to build it and hatch the eggs that they never abandoned.



This summer we then found the fallen and abandoned nest: a masterpiece. Two little flycatchers meanwhile had left the nest.



Best, Nando