birding

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A community for people who like birds, birdwatching and birding in general!

Feel free to share your photos and other birding-related content here. If a photo you post isn't yours, please credit the original creator! Additionally, it would be appreciated if the location of the sighting and a date were given when a photo or question is posted. You do not have to give the precise location, something like "Northern Idaho, June 2023" or even "North-Western US, June 2023" suffices.

founded 1 year ago
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It seems like our birding community here has reached 1 thousand subscribers! I am very glad that there's this many birding enthusiasts here on Lemmy already :-)

I just want to take this time to welcome everyone to this community (do you still say "sub" even here on Lemmy?) and hope you enjoy your time here :-) Been seeing a lot of interesting bird posts here lately already.

Now, this is the first time I've ever moderated a community like this so I've no idea if there's anything that's missing. If you have any suggestions, feel free to tell me!

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Species of goose endemic to Hawaii and also the state bird

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Just to go over the rules again...

  • Sit near the ground, not at the top of a mature Horse Chestnut Tree
  • Sit at the Front, not at the back of the tree
  • Choose a sunny day to come out to a shoot
  • Don't hide behind twigs
  • Don't hide your head
  • Don't fidget

But do you Goldfinches listen? No you don't!

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Reading, UK

What can I say? It creeps round trees, I rarely see it, and just look at those claws!

Canon R6 + RF800mm, ISO10000 (c.f. creeps round trees!), 1/1250s, F9

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Absolutely delighted to see the parents and brood of pretty much adults on a town park pond. I'd not seen any of them for a while, and feared for their safety.

Reading, UK

Canon R6 + 311mm (yay, zoom), f7.1, 1/1250s, ISO1250

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I thought this was pretty good.

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BBC Report on the award, with some stunning (and some very sad, including the very first) photos shown.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4d92n5p4do

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I took this picture through my mosquito netting and I thought it turned out neat.

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Google suggests a Duclair Duck (and so an escapee) but I'm unconvinced.

Seen on the Thames at Reading. Canon R6 + 800mm

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An alternative name for a kestrel, and definitely what this one was doing!

Reading, UK, Canon R6 + RF800mm, 1/2000s, F10, ISO1000, Exposure Bias +1 1/3

Must have knocked the dial as that should have been F9. For most of its hover, its head was in the shadow of its wing , making for less than perfect shots needing drastic post processing, e.g.

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Male Snow Owl :)

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/28855210

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19705740

In my post earlier today, I commented that I saw bird houses made of composite material (such as Trex) and was curious as to their thermal properties, since climate change is making many traditional house designs dangerous due to higher average temperatures.

After reading the articles below, it sounds as though composite lumber heats up faster, ~~retains heat longer~~ reaches higher temperatures, and also loses heat faster than traditional, unfinished softwood.

Article from Trex

Article from a deck builder

Even if the heat differential won't kill the birds, it seems to have greater potential to stunt nestling growth and to increase dehydration risk.

I didn't find any articles from birding groups about them being dangerous, but it seems very recent that they have been taking note of increased nest box death, so it may not have much research into it yet.

While the initial thought was something like this should last longer, stay prettier, and be easy to maintain sounded great, seeing it both holds more heat during the day and loses more at night sounds like a negative in both directions. It may be best to stick with unfinished wood.

I'm curious to hear anyone's thoughts on this. Don't take my hour of research as gospel. It just came up in conversation and I haven't seen this discussed.

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Looking perpetually angry 😠

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Reading, UK - today, which rather surprised me to still see a flock of Swallows around. I find them really hard to photo - they notoriously don't land, and fly fast, so this lot of photos is as good as I get.

Canon R6 + RF 800mm, 1/1250s, ISO 100 or 350 for these

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Always a delight to see flitting about, even more of a delight if they stay still long enough to photo. Reading,UK

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Image description: A great egret, neck extended high in to the air, wading through wetlands

#bird #egret #heron #birds #australianbirds #kedronBrook #wetlands

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Full story here

The eagles Parham photographed no doubt brought the Red-tail to their nest intending not to raise it, but to feed it to their own nestling. However, when it was deposited into the aerie, the hungry and disoriented fledgling immediately began begging for food alongside the eaglets. The confused parent eagles mistook the hawk as one of their own and began treating it in kind. Though surprising, such behavior can occur when the wrong species ends up in a nest. That’s because most adult birds cannot recognize their own chicks from others—a vulnerability that brood parasites exploit by laying eggs in other species’ nests.

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Red Kite, Prospect Park, Reading, UK Canon R6 + RF 800mm

I like how the colours came out, especially as this was a dark bird on a white sky, which is always needs correction when on auto-ISO.

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