Birds, birds, birds!
 

So I have recently started learning birds. Being a biologist I feel it's something I should have some level of knowledge of. Plus seeing or hearing birds you've learned to recognize is rather satisfying and fun.

So am I the only one, or do more people here enjoy bird watching? Incidentally, I have this bird watching competition coming up in Åland (or Ahvenanmaa), so if anyone would like to give me some pointers that would be cool.

You should meet my friend. She's all about birds.

In tulum I saw around 30 types of birds, all local and in the wild... some were giant.

As my name might imply, I'm all into birds. Unfortunately that's a lie, all I really know anything about is hawks, because hawks are the coolest of all birds. Discovering I had a namesake with such awesome creatures led me to do a bit of research on the subject, but I never really expanded upon it much.

My dad took me bird watching when I was much younger, but I can honestly say it was pretty boring. Incidentally, how does a bird watching compettition even work??

See, the thing about bird watching is that it sucks until you know what you're watching. And I don't mean having a parent there lecturing you about it, I mean actually knowing birds. Otherwise it's pretty much like being the proverbial girlfriend who gets dragged to a D&D game when she's still at the "that's a boardgame, isn't it" stage.

Birds are pretty fun. I'm still interested in waterfowl from the time I used to particpate in the Junior Duck Stamp art competition the Federal Wildlife Service runs.

Also, one morning I walked into my kitchen, looked out the window, and saw some kind of hawk or falcon pecking at a pigeon it caught near the bird feeder.

You divide into teams and each team goes out bird watching. To officially spot a bird so that it qualifies for the competition, atleat three of the members in your group need to see or hear it and agree on the species. Then when the day done everyone gets together. Each team mentions a species they spotted on their own turn, and the rest of the teams indicate if they spotted that species as well or not. Extra points for birds that nobody else saw or heard. Obviosly alcohol is involved: drinks all around! And some of the more hardcore bird watchers, who don't really need to be sober to win, take a drink for every few new species or so.

Incidentally, Hawk, I suck at recognizing different hawks and eagles.

I've never really gone in for just bird watching. I do a lot of nature photography, though, so I've gotten quite a few birds. Mostly geese, herons, and some swans, but I have gotten the occasional red-tail hawk.

It's the beginning of spring, so there's birds starting to move back into the Ozarks.

At my apartments I've seen Mockingbirds, Starlings, multiple types of sparrows, Pigeons, a hawk of some sort - I think it's a Cooper's or Red Shouldered*, Swallows, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, Mourning Doves, Crows, American Robins, and many others.

My grandparents are avid bird watchers and I used to do more bird-spotting - unfortunately I lost interest in that and other hobbies I used to have (bug collecting, plant identification, fossil hunting, stargazing) until I decided to come back to college and now it's just trying to find time to really go out and do this stuff.


* Yes, I know there's quite a bit of difference between the two, but I see the hawk infrequently and I can't quite recall it's appearance.

I love to watch magpies. Especially in groups. I imagine that they all have nicknames related to their specialties.

A group of magpies is called a madness. There's also murder of crows and parliment of rooks. It all sounds proper spooky and arcane until you realize all those unlikely collective nouns for animals were made up by bored nobility around the eighteenth century.

And that's all I got to say about that. :I

I was walking through a wooded area to my car after classes today when all the birds nearby started flying off. I thought I had startled them but then this hawk swoops down, stomps on a robin and then flies up into a tree to devour it.

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The most exotic wild bird I've seen is a common kestrel, I think it was.
And that one time a buzzard that swooped down in front of our door (literally ON the doorstep) with a pigeon between it's talons. Made a right mess, it did. All that pigeon feed/corn (don't quite remember) on the sidewalk.

See what I mean? Ultimate baddasses!

Have the bird watching contest tomorrow. Any last minute tips for me? I'll be officially representing NPF.

Not much, other than not to forget the booze.

Oh, no you ain't! It'll be a dis... grace to NPF's name, yeah I can see how representing us all would be okay.

"You go on out in those woods, son, and you see any kinda bird at all out there, you watch the hell outta the feller for us. Make us proud."

Yeah I dunno, it seems pretty straightforward.

Except, maybe you could make bingo cards and pass them around the other participants, make a little side contest out of it. Make sure their cards are full of things like "bald eagle", "flamingo" and "penguin." You may not watch the most birds but you're guaranteed to win that.

Cool birds I've seen.

Saw a hawk and an sea eagle fighting once that was pretty cool. The hawk would outspeed it, fly up and swoop, and just before the hawk hit the eagle would flip upside down so the hawk would impale itself. The hawk eventually flew off.

On a high school camp, I was walking with a group of friends when one of them suddenly got swooped by something that tore apart the beanie he was wearing. We looked up and it was an owl. A goddamned owl, at 11am in the morning. It took him a few minutes to realise how big it's claws were and how lucky he was to be wearing a big beanie.

Got caught in a small stampede of emus, kangaroos and ostriches(several people who farmed them have just abandoned them when the venture went under, so there's a few wild populations of ostriches scattered around Australia, we've got water buffalo and camels for the same reason) while on a biology camp down south. Kind of just hugged my back to a tree and watched them go past. That was pretty intense.

Also once saw a Wedge Tailed Eagle eating a dead ram. It made it's presence known by chasing off the hundred or so crows and hawks going after the corpse before it got there. That thing was nearly the size of the ram it was eating, wings would have been well over 2m, body probably bout a metre tall.

I've told this before but at the zoo I once saw a bunch of kids teasing a pelican, and his buddy swam up behind them, stole one kid's homework and chewed it up a little. Other birds have their work cut out for them if they want to topple those pelicans from the top of my Cool Birds list.

Always thought this was cool myself, never seen one though.

Meister, how about the disco dancing bird?

A bird wears those pants in public, you know he's not afraid of anything.

This bird is pretty high up there too. On the sheer balls of it.