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  1. Jack Snipe

    Putonghua for swallow

    The first one is correct: "yan zi". As pronounced in Mandarin Chinese. In Cantonese, it is pronounced "yin gee" - which is quite similar as you can see.
  2. Jack Snipe

    Strangest noise you have ever heard a starling make?!

    A couple of days ago, I heard what sounded like a seagull flying over Stockport's Hollywood Park - it wasn't, after scanning the skies carefully for the source of this unexpected call, I was surprised to see it was coming from a starling perched high up on one of the few remaining trees. I'm...
  3. Jack Snipe

    Pesky Starlings

    I do understand that it is widely regarded as heresy to even speak ill of magpies on this forum, so it's interesting to see what sort of responses this discussion about starlings has elicited! :)
  4. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    Yes, quite. It HAS been blown out of the water and most people have completely overreacted to what I firmly believe is merely an innocuous theory simply based on insubstantiated observations (if that means anything). And to be honest with you I am slightly baffled if not alarmed at the amount of...
  5. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    Well Mr Righteous Josh, today is YOUR lucky day!!!! I have news for you. I have actually just WITNESSED earlier today with my VERY OWN EYES something which might be of paramount interest to you and may well go on to further explain why the songbirds have vanished from my immediate...
  6. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    I am aware that things can easily change too - as you mention Paul, sometimes habitats may alter subtly but the species still remain in quantity. I used to live in Heaton Moor by the railway line and I regularly heard tawny owls hooting in the thick tree cover behind our shared house. It was...
  7. Jack Snipe

    Strangest noise you have ever heard a starling make?!

    Wow!! That's quite remarkable to hear about that! It's amazing what they're capable of - almost as intelligent as parrots if they can imitate human speech so well too! They're probably doing it all the time but we're not even aware of it - you think you might be hearing a common noise like an...
  8. Jack Snipe

    Long tail tit

    I can't imagine such sweet looking little birds attacking humans deliberately! Male Pied Wagtails are very territorial and have been known to attack reflections like Robins and Chaffinches do, being fooled into thinking they are confronting rival birds.
  9. Jack Snipe

    Strangest noise you have ever heard a starling make?!

    Does anyone know if Common European Starlings have a "natural" song? I am curious to know if anyone can specifically pinpoint the exact composition of a starling's song....seems to me their repertoire is so complex and multi-faceted it's impossible to determine what their true song - if any -...
  10. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    Indeed nature is strange Graham! |;| Only prior to this recent downturn in small birds visiting our yards and gardens I used to have loads of sparrows and tits and others feeding from the same cylindrical nut feeder (same food too incidentally) which I used to hang out in the very same...
  11. Jack Snipe

    Strangest noise you have ever heard a starling make?!

    Ha ha, yes, I remember reading quite frequently about them being able to do this! I also recall a friend of mine recounting something to me about hearing wolf whistles coming from a rooftop one day, and when he looked up he couldn't see anybody but there were two "blackbirds" (his words not...
  12. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    Dogs seem to outnumber cats almost by 10 to 1 in my immediate neighbourhood (probably true). In one street adjacent to my backyard almost every other third house has a dog in the household. Every morning the dawn chorus is as follows: dogs and magpies, car horns and revving engines!! It's all...
  13. Jack Snipe

    Adult Jackdaws

    Not a mating ritual between cock and hen could it? This is curious.
  14. Jack Snipe

    Strangest noise you have ever heard a starling make?!

    That's good to hear - I will keep an eye out for that one! :) As for the above post about the Starling doing the screaming call of the Swift - I too have been fooled a few times in the past by similar thing happening. Especially when you think "it's too early for Swifts to arrive in early...
  15. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    Thanks for your viewpoints also, Jane and Pete. It's given me something to think about at least. Hopefully this has convinced me that it isn't entirely the fault of the magpies. And I'm not really scapegoating them per se. I guess I was just getting [knee jerk?] anxious about what might have...
  16. Jack Snipe

    Strangest noise you have ever heard a starling make?!

    We've heard lots of stories about how these birds can mimic all sorts of sounds like dripping water, car alarms, keys rattling and other bird calls, but from your own actual first hand experience, what is in your opinion the oddest sound you have heard them make (and that was definitely...
  17. Jack Snipe

    No tail on long-tailed tit!

    We get small flocks of these endearing little balls of fluff every winter near the motorway junction (M60) in Stockport - they remind me of a squadron of little furry helicopters the way they fly together.
  18. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    Excuse me, but it's not a case of "being shallow" as you so pedantically put it, but a question of genuinely fearing for the health of our small songbird population, which, as you already know, is in some sort of perpetual decline in the cases of certain species (such as sparrows, starlings...
  19. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    Thanks for that link Jane - how coincidental is that? I haven't been on the forum for months now so I never even noticed that a similar thread existed only a few days ago. Somehow that's pretty much what I feared would have happened in my neighbourhood. Such dastardly birds they are - with...
  20. Jack Snipe

    Strange behavour of Blue tits

    I wonder if they were showing their grief at one of their party being maimed/killed or gloating ? I have a feeling it could be the former. It's fascinating to see if a kind of direct emotional interaction is involved in their behaviour here.
  21. Jack Snipe

    Dranzer's Bird related Youtube finds

    Where I frequently walk in the Etherow Goyt Valley country park, there are loads of geese there of all varieties and a family of Mute Swans too - the swans have now all become fully grown adults now (the last two years I have seen two clutches growing up - which is quite fascinating, following...
  22. Jack Snipe

    Strange behavour of Blue tits

    That sounds so bizarre - but almost touching at the same time. Could the tits be from the same brood? If so they may have behaved in that way.... it's hard to know for sure.
  23. Jack Snipe

    Virtually nothing but Magpies...... is this a sign of things to come?

    Virtually nothing but Magpies in my neighbourhood! Anyone know why? I better share this with a few of you here, but this has been bothering me for months now. Where I live in Stockport, my immediate neighbourhood is completely overrun with just ONE species of bird only (and virtually nothing...
  24. Jack Snipe

    Wild Britain - A Bird Photo Exhibition

    This is a plug for any forumers here who reside in the Greater Manchester, Cheshire or Lancashire area of the north west. Just to inform you all, if you haven't already heard about it, that there has been a great little photographic exhibition of some excellent bird pictures here at The...
  25. Jack Snipe

    Giant feet - giant shoes?

    How tall do you stand exactly? I only ask because if you're more than 6ft 4in then that is at least understandable in a few cases, but if you're any shorter than that (say, less than 6ft 2in) then proportionally, that makes you a complete freak! ;) I know a friend's mate who has similar...
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