Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[kinboshi]

"Owls don't have ears"



Re-raise all-in!

[Junior Senior]

Quite by chance, sitting on the M1 in a traffic jam yesterday, I spotted the unmistakeable "hover" of a kestrel some 200 yards ahead, & just off the hard shoulder, hovering over some grassland.

He did his hovery thing for what seemed like 45 or 50 seconds, "head down" holding station, then flew to one of the lamp-standards on the central reservation & landed on top of it, right above me.

Very weird how such things mean so much, but I was thrilled to bits, & thought of nothing else for the rest of the journey.

I got to DTD, & kestrel sightings rarely oils the wheels of table convo, so I could not really discuss it, but then I bumped into Junior, who is a bit of a bird freak, & I bored him senseless with my tale, poor lad.

After every day, I make a little entry in a private diary, & despite a wonderful day in which all sorts happened, & I set fire to £500, my entry last night simply read "saw kestrel on M1". I'll peruse that in a year or two, & will snap recollect every minute detail.  

Here's the photo I took, though I'll fold to any raise.

Click to see full-size image.

Also bored me with tales of how i looked old enough to be my own granddad and gave me a little belly tap suggesting i'd recently added some timber. It really was my pleasure to bump into you :-) maybe i'll cross the room next time :-). Nice photo by the way, its remarkably similar to one on google images....

[tikay]

Rod - the short-eared owl. Wow, just wow, I'm so jealous!

Amazingly, despite my tender years, it was not until I visited a bird sanctuary in Yorkshire quite recently, which had an owl collection, did I realise that owls don't even have ears! Not sure what those two sticky-up things do, but it's so hard not to "see them" as ears.

Do you have any idea what function those "ears" (which seem to be just feathers) serve? Seems very odd.

Not sure if that's a level - owls have ears - but the tufts on eared owls are nothing to do with their ears. Owls have ears placed asymmetrically on their head to allow them to better use their ears to pinpoint their prey.

As for the ear tufts there are a few theories, but the one that stacks up best in my view is as an aid to camouflage for woodland day roosting owls. THe ear tufts help break up the shape of the bird when sleeping during the day. Almost all tufted owls are day roosters & woodland dwellers, the exception I know of being the one I saw yesterday - the short-eared. But since the tufts are so small as to be impossible to see from a distance their use as camouflage is negligible, so my theory is that they were descended from the long eared & the tufts have become vestigial as they were not needed.

Thanks Rod. What was I thinking?! Yes, Owls have ears, but my point was that their "ears" are not ears at all, which is all rather odd.

Thanks for the explany.

[tikay]

Quite by chance, sitting on the M1 in a traffic jam yesterday, I spotted the unmistakeable "hover" of a kestrel some 200 yards ahead, & just off the hard shoulder, hovering over some grassland.

He did his hovery thing for what seemed like 45 or 50 seconds, "head down" holding station, then flew to one of the lamp-standards on the central reservation & landed on top of it, right above me.

Very weird how such things mean so much, but I was thrilled to bits, & thought of nothing else for the rest of the journey.

I got to DTD, & kestrel sightings rarely oils the wheels of table convo, so I could not really discuss it, but then I bumped into Junior, who is a bit of a bird freak, & I bored him senseless with my tale, poor lad.

After every day, I make a little entry in a private diary, & despite a wonderful day in which all sorts happened, & I set fire to £500, my entry last night simply read "saw kestrel on M1". I'll peruse that in a year or two, & will snap recollect every minute detail.  

Here's the photo I took, though I'll fold to any raise.

Click to see full-size image.

Also bored me with tales of how i looked old enough to be my own granddad and gave me a little belly tap suggesting i'd recently added some timber. It really was my pleasure to bump into you :-) maybe i'll cross the room next time :-). Nice photo by the way, its remarkably similar to one on google images....

Fold. But you do look older, & of greater girth.  From a distance, you look like a cross between Geoff, & Mr Giblin.

[RED-DOG]

Quite by chance, sitting on the M1 in a traffic jam yesterday, I spotted the unmistakeable "hover" of a kestrel some 200 yards ahead, & just off the hard shoulder, hovering over some grassland.

He did his hovery thing for what seemed like 45 or 50 seconds, "head down" holding station, then flew to one of the lamp-standards on the central reservation & landed on top of it, right above me.

Very weird how such things mean so much, but I was thrilled to bits, & thought of nothing else for the rest of the journey.

I got to DTD, & kestrel sightings rarely oils the wheels of table convo, so I could not really discuss it, but then I bumped into Junior, who is a bit of a bird freak, & I bored him senseless with my tale, poor lad.

After every day, I make a little entry in a private diary, & despite a wonderful day in which all sorts happened, & I set fire to £500, my entry last night simply read "saw kestrel on M1". I'll peruse that in a year or two, & will snap recollect every minute detail.  

Here's the photo I took, though I'll fold to any raise.

Click to see full-size image.

For some reason I can see that pic now.

[kinboshi]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17949808

[RED-DOG]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17949808

Love the commentary.

[millidonk]

Might sound weird to none photo/bird people but I have been working really hard on my action shots. Here are a couple from yesterday, certainly getting there, think I have settings about right, although I could work on my tracking and focussing on multiple objects a bit.

Off out now, hopefully I will see something decent. Seem to see everything when i don't have my camera to hand.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

Fill my feeders on a Sun morn and they are empty by Weds. Not filling them midweek though as i don't want them to get fat like the rest of the household. One point we had 7 sparrows, 2 starling and 2 pigeons in and around the feeder. 11 is the most I have seen at once. Goldfinch has taken over the bluetit as my fav now.

[RED-DOG]

Wow!

What an improvement Milly.  They're excellent.

[Rod Paradise]

Fill my feeders on a Sun morn and they are empty by Weds. Not filling them midweek though as i don't want them to get fat like the rest of the household. One point we had 7 sparrows, 2 starling and 2 pigeons in and around the feeder. 11 is the most I have seen at once. Goldfinch has taken over the bluetit as my fav now.

I'd have thought that keeping them filled was the best way to get and keep a core population which attracts the odd visitor in (to much excitement if you're like us). I know if we're away and the feeders empty it takes a few days to get the numbers of birds feeding back up.

Re Visitors, we've had a bullfinch about recently, a bird I've never seen. [X] Neighbour saw it, [ ] so did I. Bugger.

[millidonk]

Fill my feeders on a Sun morn and they are empty by Weds. Not filling them midweek though as i don't want them to get fat like the rest of the household. One point we had 7 sparrows, 2 starling and 2 pigeons in and around the feeder. 11 is the most I have seen at once. Goldfinch has taken over the bluetit as my fav now.

I'd have thought that keeping them filled was the best way to get and keep a core population which attracts the odd visitor in (to much excitement if you're like us). I know if we're away and the feeders empty it takes a few days to get the numbers of birds feeding back up.

Re Visitors, we've had a bullfinch about recently, a bird I've never seen. [X] Neighbour saw it, [ ] so did I. Bugger.

Could be onto something their Rod. Have read your side of the argument and also the side which says keep it full in the winter when food is more scarce. But if its a case of its not going to do any damage but keep them on it with more coming in then i'm sure i can stretch to it.

Red - Walk was cut short today. Came across a hunting party, about 40 dogs came bounding towards me and my 7 month preggo missus, she got a bit nervous to say the least and wanted to snap come home. Tbf they were a bit scary looking, I knew they certainly weren't beagles and didn't look much like bloodhounds to me either. After a quick google I found out the ones i saw face to face were English Pointers. Quite intimidating when they are charging at you with blood thirsty eyes.
Like an idiot I hadn't charged my battery from all the shots I took yesterday and for some reason didn't have my spare battery in my case, so camera was of no use 30mins into the walk.. In case anyone doesn't know what they look like here is a pic:

   

It is fair to say I am still very much a complete amateur when it comes to being properly prepared!

I met a guy who had a bag full of lenses, spare camera on a shoulder strap, pair of binoculars and he had even brought his own fold up chair. He said to me "had any birds today" I replied "not the feathered kind, but got some nice close ups of some ladybirds" *long awkward pause* he says "I don't know what to say to that really.." I try and rescue the convo with "you had any nice shots this morning" really excitedly he said to me " I saw a lesser whitethroat for the first time ever, but apart from that not a thing" for some reason i really wanted to say "oh you get a lot of them around here" no idea why, but instead of random fabrications I departed with "ooooh very nice, well good luck with the rest of your day.." I probably also have a bit to learn about photography/bird watching small talk... I will be posting the aforementioned ladybird shots on the camera thread.

[RED-DOG]

Mrs Red with the modern version of a storybook.

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

Did a training ride with the lads yesterday. 50 miles. I found it quite hard.

Only 6 weeks to go now. Need to up the work rate.

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Scouse_Git

Great track. Great lyrics. Great band. Great song title. Great miming piss-take in the vid.

[Woodsey]

Did a training ride with the lads yesterday. 50 miles. I found it quite hard.

Only 6 weeks to go now. Need to up the work rate.

Click to see full-size image.

What ride u doing?