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Your Best Birding Moment? (1 Viewer)

Chickadeedeedee

Chickadeedeedee

Well-known member
Or at least one of the most memorable... or two.

Waaaay long ago Mike and I were moving from Dominica to St.Kitts. We stayed at a hotel while looking for a home to rent. It was Christmas Day. Glorius sunshine. No snow. (Who knew?) The balcony door was open and we had ordered breakfast room service.

After eating a wee mostly yellow bird flies into the room and hops across the table and perches on a glass with orange juice. He looked at us and had himself a drink! After a while he took a few more swigs. Then he left. About 10 minutes later he returned for more. We needed to go out so we left his OJ in a more shallow container on the balcony in case he would topple into the tall glass.

Best Christmas *gift* ever! Such an unexpected nice visit. He wasn't shy so we suspect he is a serial OJ snatcher. Not sure of his ID though.

We continued entertaining our guest as long as we were there.

Any birdy adventures you want to share?
 
Standing, transfixed, for nearly half an hour watching a Barn Owl quarter a field in front of us. It was a bitterly cold January day, there has been a heavy frost overnight and the owl was obviously having trouble locating its prey. It came within arm's length of us several times, all the more amazing as we had our Border Collie dog with us! Needless to say, no camera, it was in the days before I was really into birds and now I tend to carry a camera almost everywhere!
 
Owls are awesome!!! That's a great experience!

As far as the camera goes ... I usually see the greatest things when :

a. No camera.
b. Battery in camera died.
c. No more room on the card for pics.
d. On the road and can't stop for a pic and that moment is gone. :-/
 
Proberly mine is seeing 2 Kingfishers sitting on a branch then flying around the tree no more than 3 meters away from me!!! Amazing moment.
 
I couldn't say which is the best but short eared owl encounters have been up there. My first one had the owl fly within a couple of feet of me as it evaded some magpies. I'll always remember the bright yellow eyes as it looked at me.
 
The Dipper pair on our river. I watched them for ages, building the nest, or rather the female did, at least I think it was the female, the male stood on a rock & 'sung' to her.
Later in that year I went back & saw 4 baby Dippers being fed by both parents. I have never forgotten that.
 
wildlifelove said:
Proberly mine is seeing 2 Kingfishers sitting on a branch then flying around the tree no more than 3 meters away from me!!! Amazing moment.
Click to expand...

Kingfishers are really amazing birds! I think my Mike only photographed one. We have only seen them rarely.

Lucky you to have them so close!
 
Chris-Leeds said:
I couldn't say which is the best but short eared owl encounters have been up there. My first one had the owl fly within a couple of feet of me as it evaded some magpies. I'll always remember the bright yellow eyes as it looked at me.
Click to expand...

Like I said earlier ... owls are awesome!

The magpies were going after the owl? I guess power in numbers. I have seen cute little robins chase off hawks. Sometimes mutliple species will join in to drive the hawk away.
 
palval147 said:
The Dipper pair on our river. I watched them for ages, building the nest, or rather the female did, at least I think it was the female, the male stood on a rock & 'sung' to her.
Later in that year I went back & saw 4 baby Dippers being fed by both parents. I have never forgotten that.
Click to expand...

Awww ... How cute! You got to see their home being built and raising the kids.
 
One fun incident I saw on the way to work. There were Turkey Vultures perched on a barn roof in the morning. One Vulture slid down the roof and then walked back up and slid down again! He was having fun and soon another Vulture joined in. I don't know if they were having a race but they were apparently playing. Vultures playing! Who knew?
 
I think mine was the time a Red Kite landed in my front garden a few months ago. Naturally he flew away just as I grabbed the camera.
 
Wendy Morris said:
Standing, transfixed, for nearly half an hour watching a Barn Owl quarter a field in front of us. It was a bitterly cold January day, there has been a heavy frost overnight and the owl was obviously having trouble locating its prey. It came within arm's length of us several times, all the more amazing as we had our Border Collie dog with us! Needless to say, no camera, it was in the days before I was really into birds and now I tend to carry a camera almost everywhere!
Click to expand...

Superb Wendy, that must have been wonderful! They're beautiful birds and watching them is always a magical experience.

I keep thinking of different experiences I've had and am finding it very difficult to pick just one that stands out above the others, though one was walking the sea wall between Blakeney and Cley in Norfolk one winter and watching a vast flock of thousands of Golden Plover feeding on the salt marsh in the distance take to the air and swirl around my head, filling the sky with birds. I'd never seen so many birds in one place and had only seen a few Golden Plovers once before so it was mind-boggling to see so many in one place. Seeing three Barn Owls hunting along the path shortly before that added a lot to the memorableness of the day.
 
Over the years and I suspect like many of you I have many wonderful memories of various birds , here are just 3 that spring readily to mind.
We were invited as a group to do a bird survey at memorial arboretum, we didn't see a lot, but on a bit of a straggly bush that over hung the river sat two baby Kingfishers, I was so enthralled that when I turned to go I wasn't paying attention caught my foot in a tussock and went base over apex another reason for that particular memory.
The second was standing the half light in Grantown woods, with just enough light to make out a Woodcock, and there we were neither of us moving a muscle.
And finally on the western isles, in a mini bus one of women said she could see a large bird being mobbed by a smaller one, the smaller of the two turned out to be a Buzzard and youv'e guessed it the other a Golden Eagle, they both flew down to a valley and out of our sight, but doing so made the whole valley erupt there were ducks geese and goodness knows what else everywhere a truly magical moment.

George
 
Several years ago I drove down to Hinkley, Ohio for their Buzzard Day. A day when tradition has it the Buzzards return to the town. After searching the skies for a little over an hour... I was the first to see the first one! But it isn't official until the Buzzard Guy called it so I got his attention and pointed
He then announced their arrival. Within moments the skies seemed to whirl with more and more buzzards. AWESOME!

They are actually TURKEY VULTURES but I guess buzzard sounds better?
 
One of mine was also about Buzzards, our European specie.

My friend & I were riding her horses on Dartmoor, when we spotted some Buzzards in front of us, low flying, we looked around & even more Buzzards were behind & above us. Reined in the horses & just sat & watched them. We counted 42 all told. Our Buzzards are not known to flock together like this & it was the most awesome sight.

I later asked our RSPB group at a meeting, why they would do this, but no one seemed to know why, though several members had seen similar. My thought was they were showing off their young to others so they could chose mates. :t: It was around September time we had seen this.
 
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