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Anyone else like birds and cricket? Birds seen at cricket grounds. (1 Viewer)

Paul Chapman

Well-known member
Heading to Cardiff. A few tickets for the summer so I'm going to try and keep a list of birds seen from inside the cricket grounds.

We've all seen the pictures of Silver Gulls on the playing surfaces down under or Black Kites circling in the sub-continent. I've never followed cricket abroad but did tour Sri Lanka as an average school cricketer in the 80's and recall my first Brahminy Kites and a flock of Pacific Golden Plovers one lunchtime.

There must be birders who follow cricket who've seen a great deal from inside grounds. (Indeed there's at least one cricket journalist.) Anything really memorable?

In this country, I remember news of a Black Stork once over the Oval but I have only seen the quite ordinary with perhaps the most memorable personally being a wheatear during migration.

I reckon 15 species will be a decent haul for the day....

All the best
 
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Heading to Cardiff. A few tickets for the summer so I'm going to try and keep a list of birds seen from inside the cricket grounds.

We've all seen the pictures of Silver Gulls on the playing surfaces down under or Black Kites circling in the sub-continent. I've never followed cricket abroad but did tour Sri Lanka as an average school cricketer in the 80's and recall my first Brahminy Kites and a flock of Pacific Golden Plovers one lunchtime.

There must be birders who follow cricket who've seen a great deal from inside grounds. (Indeed there's at least one cricket journalist.) Anything really memorable?

In this country, I remember news of a Black Stork once over the Oval but I have only seen the quite ordinary with perhaps the most memorable personally being a wheatear during migration.

I reckon 15 species will be a decent haul for the day....

All the best

Not exactly a cricket ground, but we were playing a form of cricket at lunchtime on the grass in front of the BTO over 20 years ago when a Hobby appeared over the trees, dipped down quite close to us and flicked up and over the large tree that provided a useful 'four runs for a natural obstruction' and disappeared.

Richard Gregory (now at RSPB Research Centre), who bowled a mean fast ball from a smooth action had seen the bird out of the corner of his eye while on his run-up, and skidded to a stop, uttering a strangled call of 'Hobby '. Everyone, including bystanders just eating sandwiches, swivelled round immediately to latch on to the fast-moving falcon. It would have made a viral YouTube video!
MJB
 
not a cricketing rare or scarce, but here's a sketchette from a little while ago of a juv Pied Wag flycatching in the outfield at Lords

I haven't noted a date on it, but Kevin Pietersen was in the process of scoring a century against India so a quick google suggests it was July 2007
 

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Blowers has seen a seagull.
In fact, he sees them at every test match, along with pigeons (and buses).
In fact, he says he was recently sh*t upon by one (or several).
This was corroborated by Swann.:t:

Peter
 
I used to see a lot of ducks watching a poor Lancashire side in the early 80's.
I did like cricket before the players became walking billboards advertising Tetley Ale.
Couldn't quite get used to the modern bats, the size of railway sleepers, biffing every other ball for 6 in a 20/20 slog.And those garish pyjamas they wear-how does that make the game more exciting?
The last time I went to a County match the players were sporting HUGE numbers on the back thus treating the spectators as fools.You can't work out the names of the players yourself?
Oh my Cowdrey and Graveney of long ago;with their elegant cover drives.Real gentlemen who played to the spirit of the game.
The sledging and win at all costs mentality of the modern day player was the end for me so I took up bird watching instead and never looked back.
I saw a clip on the news the other night.Some bonehead Aussie bowler had just dismissed an English batsmen and was aggressively making a 'hush' sign to him.It just never happened like that in the days of yore-when it was a game played by gentlemen.
It WAS a great game before it was ruined by the Marketing men with spreadsheets.
 
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Can someone explain something to me? Why is an England test match being played in Wales?

To me that's like the US national team playing a home game in Toronto.
 
Can someone explain something to me? Why is an England test match being played in Wales?

To me that's like the US national team playing a home game in Toronto.

I also wonder why there have been so many South Africans in the England team in the past,especially when South Africa have their own Test team.
I could understand Basil D'Olivera,perhaps, but why included players like KP.
 
Can someone explain something to me? Why is an England test match being played in Wales?

To me that's like the US national team playing a home game in Toronto.

The governing body for cricket over here is the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board). The SWALEC stadiun in Cardiff is home to Glamorgan, a county side, and so eligible to host a Test Match. I agree it does seem strange, but that's cricket! ;)

Cheers
 
Similarly Swansea play in the "English Premier League"....

A good but shorter day than anticipated with 12 species recorded - Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Wren (heard), Feral Pigeon, Cormorant, Swift, House Martin, Carrion Crow, Woodpigeon, Black-headed Gull, Peregrine and Magpie.

The Peregrine was the highlight being a large female that flew quite slowly south attracting the attention of some gulls which were sufficiently obvious throughout the day to attract Blowers' attention (as pointed out by Peter)....

St Johns' Wood next Saturday - where a decade or so ago I ticked August Thorn in the men's toilet. No doubt it had been produced from the substantial oak directly outside.

(Just looked it up 12 July 2003. Final of Natwest Series. England v South Africa.)

All the best
 
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It just never happened like that in the days of yore-when it was a game played by gentlemen.

Do you include Harold Larwood as a gentleman?

Oh my Cowdrey and Graveney of long ago;with their elegant cover drives.

I also wonder why there have been so many South Africans in the England team in the past,especially when South Africa have their own Test team.
I could understand Basil D'Olivera,perhaps, but why included players like KP.

Same can be said of India of course - more of them:-

http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/1773400-how-many-england-test-cricketers-have-been-born-abroad

Cowdrey was born in India as was his father. KP's mother was born in England. (For the avoidance of doubt KP should never wear an English shirt again. I've read his awful self-obsessed appalling book.)

All the best
 
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Citing Larwood as an isolated example doesn't prove much.His dubious tactics were a one-off to curb Bradman.They were hardly indicative of the it's age:in fact they were frowned upon as not in the spirit of Cricket.
When I started watching the game in the 60's Cricket was a decent game played generally in the right spirit.
Yes there will be exceptions but it was wonderful more elegant game pre helmets,pygamas,20/20 slogs,railway sleeper size bats,sledging,and the Marketing men with spreadsheets.
Only a pedant would cite Cowdrey as an exception:English parentage,raised for most of his life in England and a thorough gentleman too.
Mike Denness was Scottish but nobody would deny him the right to play for England as opposed to South Africans who could easily represent their own country.
Denness,Cowdrey and their ilk didn't feel it necessary to stoop so low by swearing and cursing at opposing batsmen to unsettle them.They would let their players' skill do the talking.
After reading KP's appalling whining book I wish he had never bothered qualifying for England.
I can't imagine Colin Cowdrey writing such a litany of moaning self justification.
 
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If you do not like the citation of Larwood, and you are referring to the 60's as a halcyon age of sport, I refer you to any of the cricketing references on the role of 'gentlemen' within the game and the treatment of professionals, the 'gentlemen' v 'players' fixtures, the snobbishness that resulted in Trueman's exclusion from England sides, etc.....

On KP, your comments on his book echo mine. Indeed you even use one of the same words! But he had an English mother. I would allow automatic qualification for anyone with at least one English (or Welsh) parent. Not to do so denies them the nationality of their parentage.

The reference to me pointing out the accident of birth around the world in comparison to nationality as pedantry is noted. It also seems offensive. I'll choose not to sledge you back. 'Only a pedant'? Really? I can assure you that I am not 'only' anything.

Perhaps consider the facts and indeed the link I provided detailing the 61 players born overseas. That was the point rather than the one you chose to respond to offensively. That number has since increased of course.

The thread was intended to be about birds and cricket.
 
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There is, of course, the house sparrow kill by a cricket ball at Lord's.

Growing up as a passionate young cricketer in the era of Trueman and Statham, I remember a gull (probably a black-headed) suffering the same fate in a Roses match at Old Trafford (c. 1959). The details evade me but I recall a fielder gently picking up the deceased bird and laying it with similar gentleness beyond the boundary.

Despite many years passion for cricket and birding, I can't recall any unusual sightings (despite keeping an eye open at the Rose Bowl for eagles). :t:

Peter
 
St Johns' Wood next Saturday - where a decade or so ago I ticked August Thorn in the men's toilet. No doubt it had been produced from the substantial oak directly outside.

For a moment there, I wondered who August Thorn was....and which county he had played for...:eek!::eek!::eek!:
MJB
 
For a moment there, I wondered who August Thorn was....and which county he had played for...:eek!::eek!::eek!:
MJB

Indeed a line deliberately delivered with a little bit of a wry smile 3:)3:)

On the moth front, it was interesting to see ohridella so prevalent in the horse chestnuts around Sofia Gardens.

A friend over coffee just pointed out that he's sure I could never have been accused of playing like a gentleman! He's right. Indeed, I had an exchange with Aggers at Trent Bridge in the last Ashes series over his criticism of Broad standing his ground. His response to me - 'I'm glad I never played against you!' I took it as a reference to my hard-hitting batting and occasional offspin. Another friend was more convinced that he thought I would not have played the game in the right spirit. So Pratincol is probably right.

All the best
 
Paul. I know you were provoked. But really?

"I feel I am but a man." -Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. ;)

John

I know. I know. Short fuse but it just seemed such a.....

It presses a few buttons for me on all sorts of broader issues - rose-tinted nostalgia, the confusion between playing hard and lack of sportsmanship, ingrained prejudice and privilege, hackneyed stereotypes, etc.

Though I am but a twitcher so what do you expect. I spent a little while this morning watching a pair of dunnocks with a fledged juvenile and the male engaged in cloaca-pecking so presumably planning a second brood?

All the best
 
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I can only add a dip - I unsuccessfully twitched a Hoopoe at a cricket ground in Cambridge years ago - the gen was old and there was a game of cricket going on when I got there...
 
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