Spitting because  the bird world in my garden is in chaos. Normally filled with birds because of the facilities and handouts my garden is bereft of birds for the most part just when one has little else to do but invade their privacy for a bird gawp.

I had read of this elsewhere but now it has happened here. I saw the culprit..... not the local mogs who are nearly all to fat to catch anything that can fly/hop/swim. We now have a resident sparrow hawk. It flies low and gets into bushes and perches close to the house. I am tryimg to devise something to make it think twice about this which does not  need gunpowder.

People have long had an affinity to hawks. and keeping birds as pets. Bird spotting suffices here.... but not sparrowhawk spotting. Spitting over.

Priscilla, you urban dictionary girl...

Had to look for "spitting"
I first thought that you meant "spitting"...we say in Dutch "spuwend" (spuwen) and in our dialect "spekend" (speken)
But then I found out also:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spit
"to say or shout words quickly and angrily"
I translate it in Dutch with "toesnauwen"?
https://www.interglot.nl/woordenboek/nl/en/vertaal/toesnauwen

And then "hawking"...even more difficult...and as it was about "hawks"...
After a lot of searching at the end I found this:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hawking
"to clear the throat noisely"

"mogs" I already know from the Moggie thread...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_sparrowhawk



Kind regards from Paul.

Don't be too hard on the sparrowhawk, P, it's only doing what it needs to do and you have to admit they are impressive birds, not particularly for their size or plummage, but for their speed and sheer panache as they swoop through the trees in top gear. There are one or two here and while they do take a few spuggins and tits from the garden, they don't seem to make much dint on the numbers overall. Indeed a sparrowhawk frequenting your garden rather suggests that you live in a rich, balanced and wildlife-friendly environment.

Meanwhile here, after dusting of late snow yesterday, the wild cherries and blackthorn are all heavy with an avalanche of white blosson; the celendines are just starting to shyly peek out from under the drifts of old leaves; and in deep coverts hidden from the gaze of sparrowhawks, the nightingales are singing free-form jazz while the blackbirds accompany them with a flutey tenor counter-point. It's a lovely bright spring morning, so time I think to take the dog for a wander up the lane to see what else is springing into life.

Remember to stay at least two metres from any Belgian cats you might meet!

I live beside a rather large suburban park which in the last few weeks has been relatively devoid of people and is slowly growing more unkempt as the council has suspended that area of operations. Spring has arrived with a vengeance also, so we're seeing smaller mammals and rhodents - who we knew were there but in much smaller numbers - gratefully seizing the territory while they can. Which has also attracted quite a lot of avian interest, including the Sparrowhawk who, only last year, I was reading here was presumed completely absent from Norway, or at least from urban areas.

Every cloud, as they say while contemplating an ill wind.

It's difficult for me to stay away from Belgian cats: my eldest, Zwartje, came with the house when we bought from a Belgian couple although I assume my other two, being strays, are French.  But I do need to remember to take my passport and legal 'attestation' in case I'm stopped by the gendarmes - although that's highly unlikely as I don't recall ever seeing a gendarme in the village and certainly never down the wooded track that leads to to me. Still, them's the rules.

As you say, every cloud has a silver lining: last night's French TV news reported that with most of the Parisian parks closed, and with little road or pedestrian traffic, ducks, rabbits, foxes, even deer, have started to be seen out in daylight, even in some of the grand avenues in the city centre. It's surprising how quickly wildlife will take advantage of changed circumstances.

One of my friends, who still has rather suspect hippy tendencies, tells me that the earth is healing herself, and that nature is joyfully claiming back her own. I remain cynical, but rather hope she's right. Here is Slough town centre this morning:

Come blessed bugs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for human's now,
But soon there'll be grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Poor Slough.

His daughter publicly apologised to the town council in 2006 and presented them with a copy of Betjeman's poem and a letter from her father in which he said he was sorry he ever wrote it.

The council were delighted with the publicity, and the mayor added: "Slough council points out that - contrary to its grey image - the town has 42 parks and open spaces plus an ice skating arena where Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean once trained. Mars Bars are made here, Thunderbirds was filmed here, and the Beatles began their British tour here in 1963."

He never mentioned the sheep.

Thank you, MM and nord: you two always cheer me up.

Meles meles wrote:

Don't be too hard on the sparrowhawk, P, it's only doing what it needs to do and you have to admit they are impressive birds, not particularly for their size or plummage, but for their speed and sheer panache as they swoop through the trees in top gear. There are one or two here and while they do take a few spuggins and tits from the garden, they don't seem to make much dint on the numbers overall. Indeed a sparrowhawk frequenting your garden rather suggests that you live in a rich, balanced and wildlife-friendly environment.

Meanwhile here, after dusting of late snow yesterday, the wild cherries and blackthorn are all heavy with an avalanche of white blosson; the celendines are just starting to shyly peek out from under the drifts of old leaves; and in deep coverts hidden from the gaze of sparrowhawks, the nightingales are singing free-form jazz while the blackbirds accompany them with a flutey tenor counter-point. It's a lovely bright spring morning, so time I think to take the dog for a wander up the lane to see what else is springing into life.

MM, its nearly a poem. Thanks for the description. Here also sun, but not that splendid surroundings as I read your poem...

I had to look for:
"spuggin"
https://slangdefine.org/s/spuggin-14294.html  ?
"tit"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tit  that was easy...
"dint"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dint can it be in this case "impact"?

Kind regards from Paul.

No dictionary links needed Paul. We all know how to use online dictionaries these days

And by dint of that comment, let's do a picture link (they're allowed) ...

How many of us had one of these in the house growing up? Our one actually specified "British" birds, so failure to spot one (about 99% of the named species between its covers) we could always put down to the birds in question being particularly nationalistic and refusing to make the short hop across the Northern Ireland border.



The graphics were beautiful - no photographs back then but very high quality colour plates drawn by excellent naturalist artists. The birds' distinctive eggs were also included, equally beautifully drawn, and I assume included to assist those who still wished to test the Protection of Birds Act 1954 to its limits.

Our edition had a checklist at the end listing all the birds with a column to indicate which one you'd spotted, when, where, and then a "comments" field. My sister had written the only entry, and if I remember it was for a crow.

"Crow", "24th March 1965, 9.27am" "Outside front door on the main street" "Pretty flat by the time I saw it".

Thanks nordmann for your enlightenment and interesting comment about birds.

Regards, Paul.

Yes, that (and the companion on birds eggs) are about 1 meter away from me in the book case.

Paul "dint" - here from the carol "Good King Wenceslas"

in his master's steps he trod
where the snow lay dinted

We also have a sparrowhawk who flies up and down the hedges, to the consternation of our hens, and frequently there is the evidence of success in the form of piles of pigeon feathers. Once a young starling flew into our garage, followed by the spughawk. I followed the pair, and when the hawk came flying towards me, if swerved aside into the house as the side door was open> I couldn't see where it had gone for some time till I found it perched on the shower rail. A good gardening glove and an open window allowed me to evict her.

This was very evocative! https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07xhbdk

My sparrow hawk did not look like the spotted pic on this thread...… mark you how ever good the plate they very often do not match. Because I could recognise a fair number of subcontinental birds - well over 100, anyway, I was once asked to test some Girl guides for  her observers badge. There were several clauses - fortunately - because one ambitious and pushy girl who wanted this one and had tricked other testers  failed to get past me. When asked to describe 11 birds she recognised 0f her eleven were ostrich, penguin,..... you get the idea. So I asked which of the several penguins she meant and she flummoxed. …… and then I suggested she named 11 locally common birds and she fled the room. Any GG worth her stuff there ought to know a Red Vented Bul Bul, for starters.

Excuse me, Priscilla, as I am not that good in distinguishing most kind of birds. Only the very common and inland species I can spot. 

Although I live in a neighbourhood with much green surfaces and wood, including my garden and a big triangle at the side of my house along the street I don't know that much about nature. I have even the impression that English people as you, MM and GG know a lot more than overhere.

While we are on the subjec, I have the impression that in comparison wiht my childhood, I see nearly no sparrows anymore



But in the past I nearly never saw magpies, there are many times now some 15 on the triangle land that I just mentioned.



And more and more also "wild doves?"



What is your experience with all that there in your neck of the woods?

Kind regards, Paul.

Well, over the roughly 40 years I've lived here, the number of sparrows has seemed reasonably constant. There was a period about a decade ago when we were seeing magpies regularly, and our resident blackbirds regularly lost the whole brood of nestlings to them, but they have much diminished, and been replaced by jackdaws. Your wild doves - which I would call "wood pigeons" are another that has been here all along, but they have had a great disappointment this year - the girl Siduri has ruthlessly hacked the bay tree where they have nested for the last couple of years. We also had a period when collared doves were frequently to be seen, but they are much fewer in number of late. One other species which has declined quite severely are the starlings. The old flock of 30 - 40 birds is now down to 8. We have a kestrel who visits (the tiercel), and in recent years it is rare to look up on a sunny day and not see a buzzard or two riding the thermals over the industial estate a mile down the road.

Thanks for your survey of your neighbourhood, Gil.
As I see it, the girl Siduri seems to have some "manly" capacities, as I thought in my old fashioned manner (  from the "manpower" era), that hacking ruthlessly trees was a "man" task...

Kind regards from Paul.

I am surprised that no one has put in a picture of the bird I mentioned earlier, a red vented Bul Bul..... a cheeky bird with a musical song, white cheeks and a red bum. There is a Yellow vented Bul Buls also but not so attractive. They do not cross breed, so I think, as there are no Orange vented Bul Buls - or come to thet Polka dotted bum bird, either.

Am I running low on subjects to discuss here? MMmmm, possibly..

Not sure of his vent colour but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6vyZ_q-TjA

PaulRyckier wrote:

Thanks for your survey of your neighbourhood, Gil.
As I see it, the girl Siduri seems to have some "manly" capacities, as I thought in my old fashioned manner (  from the "manpower" era), that hacking ruthlessly trees was a "man" task...

Kind regards from Paul.

Well, Paul, there's a limit to the size she will tackle, anything more than about 5cm is reserved for me.

Now to other matters.
Re sparrowhawks - from wikimisleadya "Adult male Eurasian sparrowhawks have bluish grey upperparts and orange-barred underparts; females and juveniles are brown above with brown barring below.". That could be why the picture didn't really match your memory.

Is this the bulbul you referred to?

Thanks Gil for the "quantification".

As I mentioned my green triangle near my house. I saw as said no sparrows anymore, but nevetheless once or twice a "koolmees" it seems to be "great tit" in English.



I have the impression that it is not that much bigger than a sparrow.

Kind regards, Paul.

One of the most exciting things I've ever experienced was here:


North Devon Falconry


When all the present misery is over, I shall definitely go back for another day. Having a Peregrine Falcon swooping towards you is quite an experience. Glad I am not a mouse.

Many terms originally used in falconry are now part of our language - without our knowledge of their origin. Here are some:


As Falconry has been around in the UK for nearly 2,000 years, words and phrases that falconers use for their birds have crept into everyday language.


Fed up: A hawk is termed fed up when it has a full crop (storage pouch) and therefore would not be interested in food or flying. If you are fed-up you sit around doing nothing or bored.


Mantle: To cover or shield the food by dropping their wings over. The cover over a fireplace is now called a mantlepiece.


Cadge: A wooden frame that falcons were traditionally carried out into the hunting field on. The person carrying the cadge became known as the cadger. At the end of the day the cadger would go to the local tavern and recount the tales of how the birds had flown and in turn expect money. To cadge, now means to scrounge or beg for.


Hoodwink: To cover the bird's eyes to keep it calm and relaxed. It now means to fool someone into doing something.


Mews: Nowadays this is something cottages or street names are called: "something mews". A real mews is the home to hawks and falcons, the Royal Mews in London was set up to house the monarch's birds. The name comes from the french word "muer" which means to moult. In James I's reign the Royal Mews stood where the National Gallery stands today and extended across Trafalgar Square down Whitehall. Many stately homes also have a mews associated with them.

There's also haggard to mean dishevelled or exhausted, which derives from 'a haggard' which was the proper name for a wild hawk that had been recently caught: wild birds usually refused to eat, at least initially, and so they often appeared in poor condition until they eventually settled down.

Temp's post contd. Many hawks have a mewing sound in their repertoire. Cheeel is the onomatopoeic name in the subcontinent for Red Kites which are everywhere. In the evening of a hot day thousands can be seen mucking about circling in the thermals and clearly enjoying it. Close to, they are very large. A pair nested  every year on a shambles of sticks on a window shade outside my bedroom window.,,, no cam needed just open the blind and watch from the bed; this is best far the best way  if you have a choice. Red kits are on the increase in UK - if you are at all interested you can tell it from all other hawks by its slightly forked tail..... yer, I know I am a fund of useless information. Somehow the important stuff never stuck for long.

Are you sure your sub-continental kites were not black kites rather than red? My sister in Berkshire quite often sees red kites over her house as there's now a breeding population there since they were reintroduced a couple of decades ago. She's also bizarrely seen a white-tailed sea eagle: apparently it's one that was released on the Isle of Wight last year to try and re-establish them on the South Coast, but this one got lost and is now quite happily settled in the home counties, presumably fishing from reservoirs and the Thames rather than from the sea.

When it has almost moved in with you then you probably guess right, they were red kites....as for sea eagles we had one on at our Arabian sea bay. We had a small beach hut/house with veranda and sun beds. Here I could bird watch in comfort. With no one else about - apart from ring net fisherman who looked like Holman Hunt Jesus and who the bird did not seem to mind because his overnight net trapped stuff for it to pounce into the water for. It had a perch about 60yds from us on the dunes..... it was a Pallas' Sea Eagle, by the by. Sometimes Osprey would dive down in our little bay but their perch rock was further inland. While all this was going on, me with a G and T, of course, there were shore birds , larks and some black and white jobs that we all argued about but were probably wheatear (or stone chat). As they were not people shy, bird spotting was easy..... they did not actually turn the pages for you but almost. It suite my style no end.