Not "on the way to the Shops" or "coming back from the shops" but.... (1 Viewer)

Mutter · Nov 28, 2005

Not "on the way to the Shops" or "coming back from the shops" but....

"Whilst in the shop!"

Hope you don't mind me borrowing your catchphrase Bill

So, I was in my local Hombase on Sunday, my wife was shopping and me and Harry were playing with the power tools (he is four afterall)!

Out of the corner of my eye I see a bird flying in the roof, I turn around and there's a beautiful male sparrow hawk flying around ! Me and Harry spent about 10 minutes following it round the store admiring it until we found the manager. apparently it had chased a Robin in the day before but the robin escaped.

the store had left the warehouse doors open for the spawk to escape but it wasn't going. They had called in the RSPCA who were going to catch it when the store closed.

Just thought I'd share this and ask a question - where's the strangest place you've seen a bird?

andy

lapwing1 · Nov 28, 2005

Hello Andy,

A couple of years ago, I was shopping in a well known supermarket giant and witnessed a female sparrowhawk chasing a feral pigeon, going at full tilt and the poor pigeon desperately trying to escape. I am afraid the pair of them disappeared into the back of the store closely followed by staff. I don't know the ending to the tale I am afraid but it is the first time I have seen a store that size brought to a virtual standstill and it drew quite a crowd!

They were flying so low, at just above head height and up an aisle at one point, the pigeon intent on surviving and the spawk focused on having dinner!

Anya.

Ruth Daniel · Nov 28, 2005

Hi Andy,
Great story......hope it got out ok?
We saw a Robin in Sainsburys once quite happily flitting about and not seeming distubed at all by all the comotion it was causing!!
But the strangest place I've seen a bird was a Wood Pigeon in my conservatory!!!!!!!!! It was huge and panicking (so was I!!!) and luckily I managed to quickly slide to the patio door to stop it from coming into the dining room amd just as luckily as I was doing that it flew straight out of the conservatory door,feathers and dust flying everywhere!!! Phew!!!!
Best wishes,

BazR · Nov 28, 2005

Hi Andy.

Maybe not a strange place, but a sad and unusal ending. A couple of years ago I was plagued with Bluebottles in my greenhouse. I couldn't understand why, until at the end of the growing season I was cleaning it out and found what was left of the corpse of a Sparrowhawk. I can only imagine that it had chased prey into the greenhouse thinking that it was a fly through, and had collided with the rear window, and had then moved right under the staging in its death throes. Since then I have hung a beaded curtain at the doorway. We live and learn I suppose.

Kind regards.
Baz.

Liebchen · Nov 28, 2005

Hi Andy, Baz and everyone

That's so sad Baz. The poor sphawk. What a tragic ending to a beautiful bird being eating by bluebottles. Yuk. Still at least it didn't go to waste giving life to flies which in turn will be eaten by birds.

At the garden centre where I like to shop we watched a robin last winter quietly singing away in a display of shrubs in pots. He didnt' seem at all bothered that we only stood 3 feet away watching him. Further away was another robin singing on the garden tool display. It's obviously a very popular garden centre and not just for people. :-O

Happy birdies, Liebchen

Franmol · Nov 28, 2005

Not quite the same, but the strangest place I've seen birds is in my bedroom. Strange because 1) I hadn't invited them in (and I have been known to invite birds in) and 2) because I got the shock of my life. It has happened quite often and amazingly they have found their own way out without fuss! More recently, say a month ago when it was still mild enough for me to have my small bedroom window open very slightly indeed, I kept on finding birds' droppings on said bedroom window sill - no sign of the offender, again it was amazing how they had squeezed in through the small gap of the open window and squeezed out again. There was no chance at all that they had flown in by mistake and I am still none the wiser why they did it!!

Kits · Nov 28, 2005

I too have seen birds in supermarkets, and the pigeons get inside our nearest towns' shopping mall. The strangest place for me was a jackdaw down the chimney. OH was away (naturally) so I got a friend's husband to come round to help. Amazingly he managed to capture the bird inside an old dustsheet and released into the garden where it flapped lots of soot away - glad that didn't happen inside my sitting room! We have since had a cowl fitted to the top of the chimney.

bill moss · Nov 28, 2005

Hi Kits,

SNAP, except that ours was a Wood Pigeon. We stopped having open fires years ago but never had the chimneys blocked (for room ventilation) and although the surrounds are still in place all the grate etc has gone. Then we have a screen and an electric fire stood in front. I'd been into the room in question and thought I heard a rustling noise but couldn't place it; about 20 mins later I went again and this time there was a soft cooing coming from the fireplace so I moved the fire and screen and there was a full-grown Wood Pigeon all crumped up where the grate used to be. I picked it up and took it outside and it simply flew away. It left a few neck-feathers behind and I was able to identify it in the garden feeding the next day by the bald patch on it's neck. A lucky bird.

Bill.

Wendy Morris · Nov 28, 2005

Franmol said:
the strangest place I've seen birds is in my bedroom.
QUOTE]

Snap! We always have our bedroom windows open, yes, even at this time of year, and when we were in our last house we had windows that opened inwards. One summer`s night we got the shock of our lives when a tawny owl flew in, did a circuit of the room and promptly flew back out again :bounce: I would have loved to have been able to hit the replay button and watch it all again.

Ivor_Frog · Nov 28, 2005

Hi Andy,
I'm not sure where the strangest place I've seen a bird is, but I did have two wrens enter my living room through an open window recently. They were so small I didn't even see them at first, and although one managed to find its way out again pretty quickly the other one kept flying into the window |^| . I could easily have picked it up but instead I just gently guided it in the right direction. I also saw a pair of blue tits nesting in a traffic light on a busy road, that was pretty dangerous.

Bea · Nov 28, 2005

When my daughter was about 18 months old she had a very bad fright from a bird. It was early morning, just light, when we heard her screaming, I jumped out of bed and rushed to see what was the matter and there was a wren, franticly flying around her bedroom. It must have come in through the window and roosted in her room overnight.

I thought I was going to have a mentally scarred daughter, she was inconsolable. Now she's grown up with a family of her own and ,thank goodness , the experience has had no lasting effect!

Sue Wright · Nov 29, 2005

Hi Andy,

Not for me, but a chap at a hide we frequent a lot on the Levels had a Barn Owl come to the open end of the hide, perch and look around for a few seconds before flying through the hide (!!) and onto the opposite open end, where again he sat a while then left to fly over the meadows. He wrote in the book that he'd remained rigid and totally spellbound all the time at such a wonderful experience. Imagine being THAT close to such a gorgeous Bird, I can't.

Renee Redstart · Nov 29, 2005

Sue & Terry said:
Hi Andy,

Not for me, but a chap at a hide we frequent a lot on the Levels had a Barn Owl come to the open end of the hide, perch and look around for a few seconds before flying through the hide (!!) and onto the opposite open end, where again he sat a while then left to fly over the meadows. He wrote in the book that he'd remained rigid and totally spellbound all the time at such a wonderful experience. Imagine being THAT close to such a gorgeous Bird, I can't.[/QUOTE

Of all the tales above, your chap at the hide makes me the most jealous. I can begin to imagine how thrilling it would be, having seen, through glass only, a Barn Owl fly over me as such, over the house. (Not, unfortunately, over my home in Northampton but the stone house on the edge of fields in France that we're renovating.) I think the Barn Owl is one of the most stunning birds in existence.

My most unusual bird sighting was also in France, a couple of years ago. We were upstairs when we heard strange noises downstairs. Flapping round the kitchen in sheer panic was the strangest bird we had ever seen. The window was only open a little way, so we don't know why it had come in. After opening the door we managed to get it out. I didn't have a bird book with me then, so we had to go to Angouleme to look it up. It was a Hoopoe. One or two come nearly every spring and summer, but they stick to the garden now!

roosmum · Nov 29, 2005

Hi Andy, some friends of mine found a swift on the floor of their kitchen one day it must have either flown in through the patio doors or the kitchen window. They checked it over, dusted it off and took it back outside. Held high in the air it took off without a backward glance!
Another lucky bird!

Kits · Nov 29, 2005

Just remembered another strange place - a green woodpecker in our kitchen. We had been out shopping and returned to find that our cat had caught and brought a green woodpecker into the kitchen. Cat was curled up asleep in his basket, Woody was standing on the kitchen window sill, gazing out at the garden, apparently totally unharmed. On this occasion OH was at home, so he caught Woody and released him in the garden.

Cathy H · Nov 29, 2005

Hi all,

The strangest sight we had was not a bird, but a bat that had somehow got into the house and hid in the cupboard housing the watertank - it has louvre doors. The cat kept going to it (the cupboard) so I opened it to find out what she was after and this little bat flew out. PANIC. I shut the door to keep the bat in and the cat out, but got it the other way round. It turned out rather well though as I let the bat out the balcony window safe and sound.

Cheers :hi:

Liebchen · Nov 29, 2005

Hi all

Does it have to be a bird?

If not then I've had a gecko on my bedroom ceiling, a cameleon in my front room and a preying mantis also in the front room. Oh and a cockroach the size of an elephant ( well just a little bit smaller but not a lot!!) in my bathroom. |:S|

That was when I was living in Cyprus a long long time ago.

Liebchen

Cathy H · Nov 29, 2005

Oooh I've just remembered. When I went on holiday to what is now Croatia, I was staying in a tent and found a baby scorpion on the flor of our tent. We caught it and showed it to our holiday rep who took it to scare some girls with. Go figure?!!!

Cheers, B

Sue Wright · Nov 30, 2005

Cathy H said:
Hi all,

The strangest sight we had was not a bird, but a bat that had somehow got into the house and hid in the cupboard housing the watertank - it has louvre doors. The cat kept going to it (the cupboard) so I opened it to find out what she was after and this little bat flew out. PANIC. I shut the door to keep the bat in and the cat out, but got it the other way round. It turned out rather well though as I let the bat out the balcony window safe and sound.

Cheers :hi:

Hi everyone,

Cathy and I have swapped Bat experiences by e-mail long ago, I thought of mine last night and since Cathy's put hers on.........................

About 24 years ago unbeknown to any of us a Bat got in to the house via open bathroom windows. Later that night, after Terry had gone to bed (he was a herdsman and had to be up at 3) the Bat somehow appeared flying around the sitting room whilst Terry's neice (who was staying with us) & I were watching tv. We were both terrified and I hadn't a clue what to do and was so scared it would get in to our hair! (It was a while ago and you hear stories) I grabbed our little boy's go-kart helmet and a baseball bat, then decided I could do nothing anyway so ran up to the bedroom and woke Terry. He opened his eyes, took a truly perplexed look at me, was momentarily worried sick, though on telling him he just went in to hysterical laughter, still does whenever he recounts it all !!

Amazing how old wives' tales, horror films/stories and so forth can lead you to be truly terrified of a poor little animal! Now of course, I love them and love standing outside on summers evenings or very early mornings and watching and listening to them, marvellous creatures - but in a room like that - not so keen!

Sue

Not "on the way to the Shops" or "coming back from the shops" but.... (1 Viewer)

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