Wild Birds of Europe

A herring gull in flight:
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Another species hard to get due to them being high up in the tree between the branches (in my neighborhood at least). I could hear it all the time, and based on the sound of the pecking I knew it which tree it had to be, but it was hard to discover. A great spotted woodpecker.
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Jan1977 said:
Another species hard to get due to them being high up in the tree between the branches (in my neighborhood at least). I could hear it all the time, and based on the sound of the pecking I knew it which tree it had to be, but it was hard to discover. A great spotted woodpecker.
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I hear them often but it’s wicked hard to get decent shots of for the reasons you mention, Jan. I had one opportunity for a super shot once, when I was on my way home from the park and one landed on a tree right in front of me, 2 meter away, in full view. And my battery was drained so I couldn’t shoot him. It was years ago but I still feel the pain. :banghead:
 
Levina said:
That is truly amazing footage, Sid. I now understand the difficulty in shooting them. Especially since there are so many of them, flying around and diving.

I wonder though, that's an awful lot of kites in one area. Where do they come from? They can't all be resident birds, can they?
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They come from miles and miles around and you'd be surprised at how quickly they all disappear again once the feeding is over. They will come en masse for not very much at all, I've been putting 15 or so tiny pieces of chicken out, the buzzards have a couple of them, the magpies crows and sometimes the raven all have a bit but then there are up to 30 kites all swooping for the other few bits and most of them get nothing at all. With yesterdays 13 kites I think only 3 or 4 got any food the rest went with the buzzards and corvids.

incoming raven
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outgoing raven with more than his fair share :lolz:
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sidknee said:
They come from miles and miles around and you'd be surprised at how quickly they all disappear again once the feeding is over. They will come en masse for not very much at all, I've been putting 15 or so tiny pieces of chicken out, the buzzards have a couple of them, the magpies crows and sometimes the raven all have a bit but then there are up to 30 kites all swooping for the other few bits and most of them get nothing at all. With yesterdays 13 kites I think only 3 or 4 got any food the rest went with the buzzards and corvids.
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I see. Seems like a waste of energy though, to fly for miles and come away with nothing. But so many of them flying and diving sure is something to see!

Good for the raven though, getting more than his fair share. :D
 
Blackbird said:
I loved the video.
I'm curious, how do you tell a raven from a crow?
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With difficulty. The Raven is almost the size of a Buzzard or a Red-tailed Hawk, although this is often impossible to judge. The easiest way to distinguish them is by their calls: the crow caws; the raven has a gutteral croak which is very distinctive once learnt. When flying the Raven has a diamond-shaped tail; the crow's is more rounded. Also, the Raven's wings are more centrally placed (the neck and head are almost as long as the tail), whereas the crow's head is much shorter. The wing-tips are much more 'fingered' too. The Raven's bill is thick and massive compared to the crow's with the end of the upper mandible much more strongly curved. This is a lousy photo, but it shows the Raven's features well.
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