Re: Wildlife November 2009

[Gwenblack]

It was Sir Adrian Boult who christened Malcolm Sargent '.Flash Harry'     Beecham was great fan of MS but did respond Flash in Japan to news of  MS's first guest conducting in Tokyo.   Leopold Stokowski, cockney born and bred affected a mid european accent and claimed to have been born in Krakow rather than Marylebone. His first wife was a Texan pianist born Lucie Hickenlooper who called herself Olga Samaroff.  All this delicious scandal comes from an entertaining paperback entitled The Maestro Myth  by Norman Lebrecht  published by Simon and Schuster. Do these guys count as wildlife?

[Anthony Darby]

Do these guys count as wildlife?

Sounds like it to me.

[Lesley Cox]

Sir T must have had a wonderful time getting on the offside of just about everyone. Thnak goodness he took the time to drop in at recording sessions.

[Tony Willis]

thought this land crab which  was crossing the road near Egridir might be of interest.

It looks a bit angry because I gave it a little prod to get it to pose for the camera

[Lesley Cox]

Ahhh, what a relief to return to the subject.

[Anthony Darby]

I'd be surprised if it was a land crab? I think they are all tropical?

[mark smyth]

Yes Lesley.

I hear waxwings have arrived in Aberdeen

[Maggi Young]

Yes Lesley.

I hear waxwings have arrived in Aberdeen

 Have they? Not seen them yet.

[angie]

We had a flock of little birds in the last few days , they were chirping quite loud today , what do they look like.
Angie

[Maggi Young]

Little parrot, almost, Angie! Cute crest and they chatter all the time as they sit in trees... very cheerful, chatty little birds, noramlly not very scared of people, happy to sit there is you come up quietly.  here's Mark's photo
......my mistake, The photo belongs to Annette Cutts http://www.psiloswildlifephotography.co.uk/ .... he told us that, I missed it........
 from this page:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=19.msg356;topicseen#msg356

[angie]

Thanks Maggi, they are really cute I shall try and get a look at what the flock is tomorrow.
Angie

[Maggi Young]

They are my favourite of the winter visiting birds, Angie. They're about the size of starlings, but fatter looking and shorter in the leg , if you know what I mean . They are quite tame and the way they chatter all the time amongst themselves make them seem very cheery little birds. You'll find them on Rowans, cotoneasters ofr any other hips and berry bushes around. If you find them in your garden and you have no cats about, they will come down to the ground for chopped friuit.... that is how the British Trust For Orntihology bird ringers  tempted the flocks that were around here a couple of years ago to come down on a friont lawn , where they netted the birds to ring them . It was very interesting... they got waste fruit for ma supermarket and laid it out on th grass, all chopped up slmall and the Waxwings came down from the nearby cotoneaster tress to eat the posher fruit! Then the BTO folks had set up a spring net to ping over the birds on the ground and they were able to ring them, weigh them and so on. I thought that once they had fooled the first lot, the others would make off, but they did it for a couple of days and netted them about four or five times and were able to ring hundreds. The Waxwings weren't bothered a bit... I was astonished.... and all this happening down my street!! It used up a HUGE amount of fruit , though! The girl whose garden it was was helping by choppingthe fruit... poor soul had terrible blisters!

The noise they make is a sort of chirrrrring chirpy sound..... really nice.

[angie]

Hi Maggie found that really interesting. We always get a pair of Jays looking for food this time of year and boy what a noise they make, they love grapes.
I bought my mum a nest box which had a camera in it and a pair of blue tits made a home and my mum watched day and night, they only had three babies but they were all reared successfully, the only thing was we were left with a burn mark on our TV screen of the nest box but it was worth it to see my mums face when the eggs hatched. She is already looking forward to spring and her new  family arriving.
Angie

[Maggi Young]

What a great gift for your Mum, Angie.... pity about the TV   , but worth it ,as you say, for her pleasure. Mark has cameras in his Swift nest boxes and puts bits of film of them on Youtube . I think if I had a camera in a blue tit box, or even the sparrows, I'd never get anything done at all.

[Rodger Whitlock]

I bought my mum a nest box which had a camera in it and a pair of blue tits made a home and my mum watched day and night,

I spent a great deal of time last spring and summer watching bald eagles in their nest near about 10 miles from here.

Endless excitement: how many eggs have been laid? Has any of the eggs hatched? Oh, goody, three chicks this year! Oh, dear, the littlest one is having a hard time; will he(she) survive? Two chicks fell out of the nest, but both returned in due course.

Finally in August the last of the three headed off to meet his destiny, to the infinite relief of me and any number of other watchers.

It's addictive, no question about it, this business of watching birds at their private lives. And oddly enough, even though bald eagles are very large, very fierce birds, one becomes attached to them in a funny way.