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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

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  1. M

    Something like a blackbird in Salt Lake City?

    I'm from the UK, but spent a few days in Salt Lake City last week (16 Feb or so), staying at the Courtyard Marriott in Sandy. I hadn't brought binoculars and my eyesight isn't that great, but I could see birds of roughly the size and shape of a european blackbird on trees from the window of the...
  2. M

    Birds of Wiltshire

    Birds of Wiltshire (ISBN 978-0-9555270-0-5) This is a big book; its last page is #848, while that of "Birds in England" is #694. The bulk of this is the per-species accounts. Typically you get a page for a species, with a summary of the abundance from as far back as they can go (typically...
  3. M

    Scanning for birds with binoculars

    Here are my own rules for scanning for birds with binoculars. I hope that this will inspire others to add suggestions that will be useful to me, and to others. It's based on my local patch, which is mostly paths and lanes through farmland. 1) I can identify birds through binoculars that I...
  4. M

    Regatta Barbrook / good service from Outdoor Megastore

    Just bought a Regatta Barbrook from www.outdoormegastore.co.uk, despite a stupid mistake on my part in which I ordered something else and had to email them to correct it - so good service for them and I reckon I owe them a mention. It arrived two days after I'd first ordered the wrong thing, so...
  5. M

    (Music) Catalogue d'Oiseaux

    This is piano music by Messiaen inspired by birdsong. I'd heard references to it for some time, but only just noticed that an outfit who used to be called selections was offering it as a reasonably priced 3-CD set (Regis RRC 3008). Nice pictures on the front, and good programme notes...
  6. M

    Cat staking out nestbox

    I have a woodcrete nestbox with Great Tits in it, and obvious sounds of nestlings coming from it. It is on the garage wall, just above head height. For about the last week I have come back home and found next door's cat sitting underneath it. Is this common? How worried should I be? I don't know...
  7. M

    Different ducks in different ponds

    I'm not claiming that you'll see anything exotic, but you can't predict which of the common birds you'll see or not see, just from knowing its a duck pond. I decided to note down what turned up in three local duck ponds (well, two of them are actually rivers, but it's still ducks in built up...
  8. M

    Counts of birds seen with four different binoculars

    For a while now I have been organising some of my birdwatching so as to compare 4 different mid-price binoculars: 7x42, 8x30, 8.5x44, and 10x40. After all this I find that there isn't that much difference between the number of different birds seen with each, but I also find that if there had...
  9. M

    British Birds DVD: £20 well spent

    I know these have been out for a good while, but I've only just viewed all of mine! I bought the Bird-Images "British Birds" 3-DVD set from WWT Slimbridge a month or so ago and have been working my way through it in odd moments. You get a few minutes per bird, for loads of birds (the back tells...
  10. M

    Baby swift found - South of France

    Somebody at work (UK) asked me about what is believed to be a baby Swift somebody he knows found on the ground at the South of France somewhere. They are trying to feed it insects, and it is apparently still alive but showing no signs of flying. Here in the UK I'd go look for the nearest...
  11. M

    Morning vs Afternoon

    A while ago I had a theory that mornings were best spent birdwatching inland, and afternoons at the waterside, because water birds were less likely to make themselves scarces later in the day. I put this to the test as best I can in Wiltshire, and 16 sessions later I find I was wrong: the water...
  12. M

    Can you ID these tracks for me?

    Can anybody identify these two sets of bird tracks? They were found in (very) soft mud in the middle of farm tracks near the Thames. To give a sense of scale, the pen is 14.4 centimeters long from tip to tail, and its clip is 4.2cm long. Rooks and Pheasants were seen in nearby fields, so I guess...
  13. M

    Similar locations but different birds

    The canal at Devizes runs down a hill, and there is a line of almost identical pools beside each lock. Despite the similarity between pools, they don't attract the same birds, with pools near the town attracting Swans and Mallards, and pools further away attracting Tufted Duck, Pochard, and...
  14. M

    How not to recognise birdsong

    Any advice would be appreciated - but by all means have a good laugh anyway! I was walking back from a good morning's birding/walk, past a hedgerow dotted with trees, when I heard a high repeated whistling, on the same note "Wheep, Wheep, Wheep, Wheep". Despite the fact that I usally can't...
  15. M

    Is it worth pulling up my Leylandii Hedge?

    I have a 24-foot long and overtall conifer hedge that needs at least to be trimmed. I would not have planted it myself, but it came with the house and does a job: it means that I can look out my window to the garden without people looking in, and it seems to be providing some sort of cover...
  16. M

    Book: Dunnock Behaviour and Social Evolution

    Dunnock Behaviour and Social Evolution N.B.Davies This is "The Dunnock Book" often referenced in connection with the unusual sexual behaviour of Dunnocks. I have never seen it in bookstores, but it is easy to get hold of on the internet - when I checked for it at Amazon, they diverted me to a...
  17. M

    The Economist - Ultra-Violet vision would help

    In Nov 20-26th issue of the Economist (big yellow NO on the cover) there is an article P100 "Invisible Threads" reporting that two species of Mountain Tanagers can be distinguished very accurately if you see in the Ultra-Violet (as birds do) but not at all accurately with unaided human vision. -...
  18. M

    Whistling Mute Swans?

    At Devizes canal this morning, I heard something between a squeak and a rather breathy whistle. As far as I can tell, it seemed to be coming from one of a group of juvenile (still some brown plumage) Mute Swans. A little later on I heard the same sound, again apparently from a juvenile Mute...
  19. M

    Duelling Swallows?

    I was pleased to see a lot of swallows this morning, including some which had to detour to avoid me as they flew down the path at head height!. I noticed a number of incidents in which two birds flew on converging courses, almost colliding. The two birds were typically climbing from their usual...
  20. M

    Do lettered rings on Swans mean anything?

    This morning I saw a Swan with lettered leg ring SJH (orange background) at Caen hill locks, Devizes (just downhill from Trust Lock, on the opposite side of the canal to the pub). It was about six foot from me, almost snoozing on the grass (bill buried in its feathers, but eyes just clear). I...
  21. M

    Why are hedgerow and farm birds so wary?

    I walk down a cycle path, beside a hedge and with fields on both sides. As I turn a corner, I scan the new vista with binoculars, because birds will take flight as soon as they notice me: they fly from the path, or out of the opposite side of the hedges. Why all this effort and disruption to...
  22. M

    Any advice on hand-held GPS?

    Moderator - please move if this is in the wrong forum - this was the best I could find. I would like to be able to go to an Ordnance survey grid reference - not necessarily connected with any obvious landmark - to look for birds, and to note down the grid reference of points I have walked to...
  23. M

    Collins Complete British Birds - Photoguide

    Noticed this at my local bookshop. It's paperback size, with a clear plastic jacket, and costs £14.99. You get one decent-sized colour photograph of every British Species, with usually 1-3 small inset pictures showing different plumages, and half a page of text. At the very least, it gives you a...
  24. M

    Looe Estuary

    I'll be spending the week of the 19th of April near the Looe Estuary (in a rented flat, which I think is in Tredinnick, near Duloe, if you know the area). I don't have a great deal of say over where we go and what we do, but is there any bird site near there we just must not miss?
  25. M

    Urban Gulls

    Just heard a very interesting talk on gulls - here are some snippets (mostly from memory so they may not be 100% accurate) Studies around Bristol suggest the population there is currently growing at something over 20% a year, and that many gull deterence measures are a waste of time and money...
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