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| 1 | 2 |  » Stats |
Members: 50,126
Threads: 82,272
Posts: 852,658
Top Poster: glsammy (15,069)
| | Welcome to our newest member, Kathy P | |  | | 
25-09-2005, 11:29 AM
|  | Administrator and Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: On the Malvern Hills
Posts: 3,907
| | | Hi John,
Thanks for the info. If you like we can set you up with the facility to write some guides to twitching in the Reference Section, where it may be easier to add more info about how the pager system works and maybe put together a diary of your travels etc.
I'm sure there are quite a few people who regularly see groups of twitchers standing on a roadside somewhere in the middle of Britain and just drive past, but still wonder what they were looking at.
The advantage of the reference section is that the topic won't slide down off the 'most recent posts' list and yet you can easily notify page updates on the forums. Just a thought.
Stuart |
25-09-2005, 11:41 AM
|  | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Coventry
Posts: 7,228
| | Quote: |
Originally Posted by StuartDH Hi John,
Thanks for the info. If you like we can set you up with the facility to write some guides to twitching in the Reference Section, where it may be easier to add more info about how the pager system works and maybe put together a diary of your travels etc.
I'm sure there are quite a few people who regularly see groups of twitchers standing on a roadside somewhere in the middle of Britain and just drive past, but still wonder what they were looking at.
The advantage of the reference section is that the topic won't slide down off the 'most recent posts' list and yet you can easily notify page updates on the forums. Just a thought.
Stuart | It's a thought but I'm not sure how well received it would be. I have basically written this thread to see the reaction. If it isn't used then I know it doesn't really fit into the scheme of things.
It's a bit specialist but I was hopeful that members might like to see photos of birds they probably haven't even heard of before.
Let's see what the reaction is to this thread before we think about doing something in the reference section.  |
25-09-2005, 01:00 PM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cambridgeshire
Posts: 3,239
| | Hi John
I certainly would like to see pictures of rare vagrants. Not all of us can afford either time or fuel to go chasing around the country twitching. I was a little surprised at some of the birds on your list such as Waxwing, Smew and Great-grey Shrike which are seen in Briain every year. Soon you will need to add White Stork and Common Crane which are being seen in Britain on quite a regular basis. Also Bee Eater which has nested in parts of Britain two of the past three years. I certainly would like to see a Gallery for such birds and would be interested to see how soon they drop out by being usual sightings.
Regards
__________________
A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
W.H.Davies |
25-09-2005, 01:03 PM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cambridgeshire
Posts: 3,239
| | P.S.
I think the Gallery would have to exclude escapes from collections etc.
__________________
A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
W.H.Davies |
25-09-2005, 01:23 PM
| | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Coventry
Posts: 7,228
| | Quote: |
Originally Posted by wildone Hi John
I certainly would like to see pictures of rare vagrants. Not all of us can afford either time or fuel to go chasing around the country twitching. I was a little surprised at some of the birds on your list such as Waxwing, Smew and Great-grey Shrike which are seen in Briain every year. Soon you will need to add White Stork and Common Crane which are being seen in Britain on quite a regular basis. Also Bee Eater which has nested in parts of Britain two of the past three years. I certainly would like to see a Gallery for such birds and would be interested to see how soon they drop out by being usual sightings.
Regards | Hi Wildone
I have added the three birds you mentioned due to the fact that they do visit Britain but are usually localised, instead of well distributed, birds. That it to say that you might not have any of those any where near you at any given time.
We have been fairly lucky with the Waxwings over the last couple of years with heavy influx's of birds but I still know of many parts of Britain that didn't get them. In any case Waxwings are an eruption style bird that visit in numbers if their berry crop fails. If the crop is ok you might not get any (or very few) that will visit Britain that year.
Great grey Shrikes, even though they are regular visitors, are not numerous and I doubt that most people outside of the birding world (and including some birders in it) will not have seen these birds.
Smew can be very difficult to find if you haven't the right habitat for them. We are fairly lucky here in the Midlands with all the pits we have but even here we will probably only get the odd Drake visit, more than likely it will be the female Redhead that is found. Again if you are not a regular birder I doubt if you will ever see one outside of a collection.
I am also aiming this thread at probably those that don't do birdwatching, or only have a passing interest or are either fairly recent to birdwatching or birders that haven't really challenged themselves as they don't really know these birds exist.
The others, such as Stork etc are very, very localised and I doubt if they will become so regular that they lose their relative rarity status for a long while yet. The Common Crane is mainly in Norfolk (by Horsey Mill) with the odd one or two turning up at far flung areas of Britain.
It would be great if the Bee-Eater were to colonise Britain for they are a magnificent bird to watch.
I fully agree with your captive bird stance. I would never knowingly photograph a captive bird. I can't see the point. If this is a wild forum then the images should be of wild birds. |
25-09-2005, 03:23 PM
|  | Officer of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Guildford Surrey
Posts: 581
| | | Fantastic photos John. |
25-09-2005, 03:35 PM
|  | Officer of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 959
| | | John, I for one am very interested in your Twitching info. Whilst up Ben-y-Vrackie near Pitlochry last week, I saw a bird emerge from the heather which then just sat around for a while, but I had no idea what it was. No photo and little use to describe, but one of your pics might just give the answer I'm looking for and it's interesting to hear what is going on around the country, even if as wildone says, we cannot all join in. |
25-09-2005, 03:58 PM
| | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Coventry
Posts: 7,228
| | Quote: |
Originally Posted by Tinkerbell John, I for one am very interested in your Twitching info. Whilst up Ben-y-Vrackie near Pitlochry last week, I saw a bird emerge from the heather which then just sat around for a while, but I had no idea what it was. No photo and little use to describe, but one of your pics might just give the answer I'm looking for and it's interesting to hear what is going on around the country, even if as wildone says, we cannot all join in. | Hi tinkerbell
Can you give me a bit of a description of the bird please.
I'm glad you like the Twitching Info and if it helps you ID a bird so much the better. I fear though that 99.99% of the time the bird found is a relatively common one but perhaps not one that you would see that often away from certain types of habitat. |
25-09-2005, 04:57 PM
| | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cambridgeshire
Posts: 3,239
| | | Hello John. Thank you for your very full explanation. I quess I must be very lucky having been birding only since 2002 I have manage to see Waxwings, Smew both Redhead and a male. Stork (even flying as well as feeding) and Crane. The Great Grey Shrike that was fairly near-by was inaccessible to me. (Well you cannot win them all!). Yes I understand your reasons for including those species and if pictures of them, as well as many others, will be a help to those who do not know of what visits these shores then I am all for it. The more education there is it can only be a good thing. Hopefully I also will learn from it. Regards. wildone | | | |
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