Birds You Have Seen Thanks to Other Birds (1 Viewer)

[Andy Lakin]

My first was the Snowy Owl on Anglesey a few years back. I arrived about a hour before dusk with knowing news that it had dissappear not knowing where it had gone I was running around like an headless chicken. I was trudging back to the car having given up hope knowing it was going to be dark soon.Suddenly a Kestrel was making a racket so myself and the only other birder left went to investigate. After approaching closer there was the owl sat on a rock! After about a minute it got up and flew a great distance before being lost to view.I think this then disappeared for a few days before relocating to South Stack.

 

[Farnboro John]

I guess quite a lot of these stories are going to be about alarm calls causing one to focus on something, so here's a slightly different one:

I was watching a Gyrfalcon sitting on a cliff at Carn Gloose in Cornwall when its attention suddenly sharpened and it looked intently at the slope next to the little crag on which it was perched. I pointed my bins where it was looking and found a Stoat running up the slope. Nice!

John

 

[jurek]

Check this thread:

What bird alarm calls do you use for finding predators?

Because covid restrictions make it impossible to actually bird more, I use it to improve my techniques. Do you use (and which ones) calls of birds to find predators like hawks, owls or carnivores? The obvious is alarm of large gulls against a flying Goshawk or a fox in colony: 'Gao!' 'Gao!' As...

www.birdforum.net

I saw innumberable birds of prey thanks to alarm calls. In fact yesterday I saw a Buzzard by alarm calls of crows.

To gently tease others: keeping an eye on magpies is now known among naturalists in Spain as a way to see the Iberian Lynx. I saw twice an Eurasian Lynx by investingating especially intense alarm calls of a Roe Deer buck.

 

[Euan Buchan]

This happened in February at my local patch I was watching a couple of Blue Tits when a blue flash zipped past I followed the direction and it was a Nuthatch.

 

[Mysticete]

I guess quite a lot of these stories are going to be about alarm calls causing one to focus on something, so here's a slightly different one:

I was watching a Gyrfalcon sitting on a cliff at Carn Gloose in Cornwall when its attention suddenly sharpened and it looked intently at the slope next to the little crag on which it was perched. I pointed my bins where it was looking and found a Stoat running up the slope. Nice!

John

If we are talking non-birds, than my lifer Southern Pacific Rattlesnake was brought to my attention by a mob of scolding Juncos that were following it.

My lifer Tawny Owl, seen with the esteemed Farnboro John, was discovered thanks to some songbirds mobbing it.

 

[Stonefaction]

Walking home in July 2020 and heard a warbler singing - either a Blackcap or a Garden Warbler, I couldn't quite decide. I went to investigate and spotted the bird flitting around high in the branches of a large tree when movement caught my eye on the trunk. I looked up and it was a Nuthatch. A bird that I'd only seen once in Dundee before (a bird that was around for 3 or 4 months 8 or 9 years ago). Where the Nuthatch I'd stumbled upon had come from I've no idea - but was probably a dispersing youngster from somewhere not too far away (nearest known birds were at Scone), but a second bird was found a few months later and they successfully bred last year at the same place, and attempts are being made this year as well....

I've had a variety of raptors from my living room window in Dundee thanks to the local Feral Pigeons alarm flights and the local gulls making a racket including a Buzzard, which I was watching when 2 larger birds arrived and began circling - 2 White Tailed Eagles (from Fife). Watched them soaring for about 5 minutes before they drifted off westwards over the city. Other raptors seen thanks to the pigeons and gulls - Peregrine, Osprey, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel and a Saker Falcon (falconer's escapee). I see Ospreys regularly at Riverside Nature Park thanks to the gulls taking flight, including today.

Photographing a Mallard at local ponds, noticed it tilting its head to look at something above. Had a look - a very high flying Buzzard that I would have been oblivious to, but for the duck.

 

[Jos Stratford]

I guess quite a lot of these stories are going to be about alarm calls causing one to focus on something, so here's a slightly different one:

I was watching a Gyrfalcon sitting on a cliff at Carn Gloose in Cornwall when its attention suddenly sharpened and it looked intently at the slope next to the little crag on which it was perched. I pointed my bins where it was looking and found a Stoat running up the slope. Nice!

John

On a similar vein, had Jays alarming on my land some years back ... usually they seem to alarm about nothing, but wandered over to have a quick look anyhow, maybe an owl if lucky I thought.

Nearing, the Jays seemed intent on something on the ground, 'ahh, okay, it's nothing' I muttered to myself ...until a Lynx sprinted from underneath them. Well that was sure not what I was expecting!

 

[dandsblair]

On a business trip to New Mexico I was given a spot near Santa Fe for Greater Roadrunner when walking up a nearby trail a Mountain Lion walked right across in front of me, I also got the Roadrunner but poor views. It seems that the lions had been moved by some nearby fires.

 

[Ross McGregor]

I was birding was along the Irtysh River in eastern Kazakstan, near the border with China one evening in 1997. I was standing under a poplar tree and I was getting hit on the head with bits of bark. I looked up and saw a black woodpecker ripping the poor tree to bits. It then started alarm calling. Then two birds in a nearby reedbed started alarm calling too. They turned out to be Pallas's grasshopper warblers. They were alarm calling at a European mink that jumped out of the reed bed and ran across the path in front of me. It was late summer (end of August I think), and birding the area around Lake Zaysan and Lake Alaqol was probably some of the best birding in my life, even though I was too late to see relict gulls on Lake Alaqol.

 

[Andy Lakin]

I managed 3 Sandwich Terns over the garden (South Yorkshire) by having a scan through a flock of B.H .Gulls catching flying ants. It appeared that the Terns were also feeding on the ants which I didn't realise they caught flying insects. Also there was a Night Heron in a West Midlands park a few years ago that had flown deep into a willow tree out of view just before I got there. A Wood Pigeon started to do that crashing about thing they do regularly and flushed it out to the outer branches then showed well.

 

[01101001]

The other day after I'd finished birding on my local patch, I was walking home along a small river embanked on both sides. The grass on the levees was freshly mown, which afforded good views. Suddenly, I glimpsed a flash of blue right above the surface of the water near the other bank. I hadn't seen a kingfisher in the lower course of the river before (it has scant suitable habitat, as nothing directly overhangs it), and I stopped to log it in. After waiting five minutes to secure a complete checklist, I looked into the sky and noticed a sparrowhawk mobbed by a crow. Not a big deal, but I enjoyed the double encounter.

 

[KenM]

Watching a “big” fisher at my local lake this pm. got me a King! 😮

 

[Andy Adcock]

In Belarus, watching a red-backed Shrike when a Barred Warbled popped up to join it.

 

[Jacana]

I life ticked Yellow-legged Buttonquail in India when a Black-winged Kite flushed one in a failed attempt to catch it.

 

[Andy Adcock]

Watching a Siberian Thrush on Scilly when the Short-toed Eagle flew by.

 

[davercox]

More than once I've been put on to a Bonelli's Eagle (in Spain) by Ravens furiously kronking at something above them.

 

[MikeInPA]

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away called Yorkshire a group of Leicester wannabe twitchers were in the ravine at South Landing hoping to bag a first for everyone, a reported Radde’s Warbler. Sitting on my arse watching the brambles on the opposite bank got boring after a hour or more so I walked up the ravine a bit further and noticed a Phyllosc disappearing back into the brambles. Now I may not have a mental copy of field guides in my tiny brain but I do know when I see some different. I coaxed the rest of them away from the non existent Radde‘s and eventually the mystery Phyllosc popped out. It turned out to be a Bonelli’s Warbler. As this was sometime in 70’s it was pre Western/Eastern split so who knows what it was. I also got my first Little Auk. We never did find the Radde’s.