continued............

[El Annie]

......what a strange carry on that was, I pressed the backspace and the compi went bonkers, posting the thread which I hadn't completed and sending me off to another page - weird.

Anyway, what I was going to say was that we didn't ring today due to the dratted weather, the forcast wasn't good so we went in and did the feeders and then assessed possibilities of ringing. It looked pretty bad, raining, windy, misty and no signs of it clearing so we decided to call it a day. As I am heading home (about 30 mins drive) I can see the sky clearing, within and hour it was lovely and has remained so all afternoon - ain't that just typical!!!!

I'm trying to learn bird sounds and whilst filling up the feeders managed to correctly ID a Long-Tailed Tit by it's call - so I was quite pleased about that at least!!

El Annie:t:

[IanF]

You can't win them all El Annie. It was a dreary morning ,but it got out lovely this afternoon over this way too, though I was at work anyway.

Good luck with the bird sound id's - I still find it a lot easier to identify them by sight ;)

[Reader]

We were lucky with the weather today but still I didn't get out until late afternoon. Sorry your day didn't go too well. Funnily enough we came into contact with Long tailed Tits by sound first then they appeared right in front of us.

[LMG]

I found the 'Teach yourself bird sounds' tapes excellent. They helped me learn the calls, songs etc. I used to play them in the car on my way to work everyday. They are so well explained with comparisons between similar birds.

[monkeyman]

I must admit to pangs of jealousy, Annie! I would love to get that close to the birds!

I bought myself the Collins Field Guide 'Bird Call Identification' a couple of years ago and find it invaluable. There's a lot more to bird id than just "seeing" 'em. I find now that I can identify most of our local birds, even differentiating between tits, before I see them! The bird's jizz is also very important to accurate id. Knowing how a bird behaves, feeds, flies etc makes bird watching that more interesting and rewarding. I know this makes me sound a bit bigheaded, but over the years it becomes second nature to be able to identify our more common birds and helps you concentrate on looking for the "unusual"! Having said that, I still get immense pleasure from watching our local gang of sparrows in our back garden, especially when they take their bath in our "pond"! (A small Japanese-style 'scrape' in a gravel bed!) Earlier this year there were a dozen of them having a bath; quite a sight! Of course, I didn't have the camera to hand! Sods law strikes again!

Having feeders and a garden with "bird-friendly" plants is a great way to educate yourself in bird behaviour, jizz and their calls!

BTW: is there facility for including birdsounds on this site? Might be quite helpful . . .

Al