BB FANS

Hoo are you looking at? Owl poses for the cameras
By KATHERINE FAULKNER Mail

‘Get the food in mum, we still can’t fly’: Amazing pictures of warbler chicks at feeding time

By Richard Hartley-parkinson Mail

Wow! They are brilliant photos.

That's one way to pluck a pheasant: Incredible pictures show a bald eagle swooping to grab its next meal Mail

WOW!! What amazing pictures. That's one HUGE bird!! As the eagles don't usually eat pheasants, it was probably taken by surprise. The photographer was in the right place at the right time and the poor pheasant was in the wrong place at the wrong time!!

Just a couple for the collection.
Click the thumbnails for full picture.

Great pics What kind of bird is that at the top of the tree? Is it a Mistle or a Song Thrush? Most of my photos aren't very good, because I take them through a window. This was taken through Venetian Blinds!!

This one was taken outside in May last year.

I think it's a Song Thrush it certainly sings well.

Saw a pair of Sparrow Hawks circling on thermals this morning but didn't have a camera with me.

The Blackbirds seems quite tame as there are sitting and landing within about 10ft of where you stand but they soon make off if you start to move towards them ,where as if you sit or stnad still they just ignore you.

Yes blackbirds are very tame. They will often come and sit right beside me when I am putting the bird food out. They usually pretend that they are not looking at me, but if I throw some food in their direction, they will soon about turn and eat it! One ate something right at my foot once and they will come and eat food off the bird table while I am standing right next to it. They fly very low as well. One just caught the side of my face once! They are the only birds that don't fly away when I go into the garden.

They are also the first and last birds I see in the day. They seem to be the first birds awake and the last to go to sleep!

We had a sparrowhawk in the garden the other day eating a starling it had caught. It was there for ages. I did take some photos actually. I will have to try to find them.

I couldn't find the ones I took the other day, but this is one I took in September. Not a pretty sight!

There was a commotion the other day when I guess one of them went after a nest and there are a Starling and a hawk going at each other with the Starling squawking loudly. I was surprised the Startling didn't end-up the meal !

On another occasion there were at least a couple of Starlings having a go at one of the Hawks in mid-air. Again none of them end as the meal.

One day I'll get a picture of them ,but it's the first time I've seen more than one at a time. They were circling on thermals for at least 5 minutes. I guess they might have been doing so before I saw them as well. But I didn't think a phone would have recorded them too well.

Was it a female or male sparrowhawk? Because it is usually only the females that go after starlings. The males tend to get the smaller birds and the females get the starlings, doves, woodpigeons etc. The female sparrowhawks near us always seem to get starlings. The numbers of starlings this year near us seem a lot down on last year, despite all the babies they had last year. That may be due to the sparrowhawks also having babies last year! I did once see a carrion crow fighting with a female sparrowhawk. I read that carrion crows will fight sparrowhawks off their territory if they know they are not hungry, but if they seem hungry, they will keep out of their way!!

I think it must be quite a hard life for a bird of prey really, because their timing has to be just right. It's no good them catching a bird when they are full up and no good waiting until they are too weak with hunger to be able to catch one.

Don't know the gender of the Hawk but it was quite a sight considering how much smaller the Starling is to see it going for such a large bird.

There are trees about 1/2 mile away with I think Crows nesting in the tops. Think there have been pictures in the past on here of them as they often came up this way raiding the nests in next doors trees ,though since a Magpies nested there they haven't been seen as much.