• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Recent content by MrToad

  1. M

    Bird song id please?

    I haven't heard a Screech Owl whinny like that - the phrases are quite short with separated, pretty musical notes - but I suppose if a Screech Owl has taken up residence in the UK, perhaps it's developed a British accent. On the other hand, I've heard a Cardinal here in the eastern US give the...
  2. M

    Odd looking Spider N.East London…and it jumped!

    They can, but like almost all spiders, rarely do. Usually bites are the result of a situation where the spider is being injured and unable to flee. S. nobilis can give a bite with a little more zip to it than most other Theridiids, but it’s still nothing to be concerned about, and like all the...
  3. M

    Southern US bird sound

    Listening to a Yellowhammer song recording, I was struck by how much it sounds similar to a slow Prairie Warbler song. They tend to be persistent singers on warm summer days in scrubby, piny fields in the east; maybe it's the same out in Arkansas.
  4. M

    Help identifying Bird Call- Northwest Pennsylvania

    I've always heard that as an alarm call. Were you sitting near a nest by chance?
  5. M

    ID bird call, Colorado Front Range

    Sounds like a Blue Jay bell call to me too, but I don't know if they are around the area there. Do Steller's Jays make a similar call?
  6. M

    Hello, I am Liz, I have just joined this evening. I have joined to let you know that this morning for the first time I saw a Wryneck

    Hi Liz! Congratulations! I've never seen one, myself, but that first identification of something is such a great feeling - in my case I sometimes manage to get it several times per new bird, as I go back and think about it later on..
  7. M

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Here in Baltimore we used to have mainly American Crows in the summer and big flocks of (usually very quiet) Fish Crows in the winter, but when the West Nile Virus hammered the American Crows about 15 years ago, the Fish Crows largely replaced them as nesters. The "regular" Crows recovered over...
  8. M

    A flying* visit to Edinburgh next week!

    * "pun" very much intended. My wife and I will be in Edinburgh for my son's wedding, but hope to get some birding in when we don't absolutely have to do family things. She is particularly fond of waterfowl, so I had hoped to get out the shore, perhaps up to Aberlady, but it looks like this...
  9. M

    What birds this mockingbird mimics?

    While it wouldn't be the first time I had heard a Mockingbird apparently repeating songs or calls from birds well outside his nesting area, it does seem unlikely. I had put the Titmouse-sounding vocalization down to some sort of west coast bird, but the Catbird "Raow" call (I thought) was...
  10. M

    What birds this mockingbird mimics?

    Oh, Blue Jays are outstanding at doing Buteos, if not other kinds of hawks. Here in Maryland, I've heard them doing pitch-perfect imitations of the nesting Buteos - Red-shouldered, Red-tailed and Broad-winged - in the central part of the state. In each case, if I hadn't actually seen the bird...
  11. M

    What birds this mockingbird mimics?

    I've wanted to do this sort of thing for ages, but never got around to it! I've noticed more than once that Mockingbirds in our area may have calls/songs by birds that aren't found around here, and I sometimes think it would make a good research paper to actually do a survey like that...
  12. M

    Greetings!

    Hi all, I got this link from The Edinburgh Birdwatcher's website, for which I am duly appreciative! The reason I was on that site is that I will find myself in Edinburgh during the last week of May, and I was hoping that I could get a day or two to visit some of the places in the area that look...
See more
Back
Top