There is a huge murder of crows that flies menacingly around the local area. It mostly settles in some trees a few hundred yards away, but just recently a few bold members have started alighting on the summerhouse roof. Banging a pair of flip flops outside the front door usually dispatches all of them for the rest of that day, but there are several hundred of them, and in full flight it is scarily like a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds. Once the wheat crop is harvested, I expect the farmer will send the crow murderer out again, like he did last year, and the murder of crows will end up murdered. Here’s hoping it doesn’t start at 5.30am like last time, as we woke thinking WW3 had started right overhead.
There is also a flock of goldfinches, maybe 50 or 60 of them, who flitter about, and often alight in our old plum tree sometime around 5am. I didn’t know that goldfinches flew in groups, or, until just now, that the collective noun for goldfinches is a charm.
Mr BW rescued a tiny bird from the greenhouse the other day.
At first I thought it was a greenfinch, then I thought it might be a juvenille goldfinch that had somehow got separated from the charm. It wasn’t singing, so we couldn’t use Merlin to be sure.
Having now looked at images online, the beak doesn’t seem correct for a goldfinch.
Maybe it’s a wagtail? The beak is more wagtail-y, but the tail feathers don’t seem long or slender enough.
Anyone got any thoughts?
Blue Witch
Oh, and just to say, after a minute or so sitting on Mr BW’s palm to orientate itself, it flew off, perfectly normally and happily, into a nearby tree, and then on from there.
Gordon
A Wood Warbler? Green above, white below, not the finch beak of a greenfinch.
Long time London-based lurker via Diamond Geezer, very occasional contributor, I admire your joint stamina over the past half a decade or so.
Debster
Juvenile greenfinch?
Tim W.
I think it’s a chiffchaff.
Years ago, when I used to do pub quizzes, I learnt a whole load of collective nouns. Most of them purely artificial, invented just for the sake of it, I think.
Blue Witch
Gordon – that is a definite possibility. Thanks for decloaking to assist!
Debster – that was my first thought, but it doesn’t have the right beak. The feathers are ruffled like a juvenile’s, but it flew too well.
Tim – that is another possibility.
I found a page that does willow warbler v chiff chaff discrimation, but not wood warbler v chiff chaff. It’s one or the other I think…