What birds or bird have you seen today – communal thread, I hope!

I've only seen and photographed some of them but won't be able to put anything up until I get home.
At the Eilat bird sanctuary waiting as ever for the spring migration.
Seen but not photographed:
Hoopoe, lapwing, various cranes and cormarants.
Photographed:
Bluethroat, osprey, swallows and best of all a pied kingfisher which fishes by hovering kestrel style and then diving.
Frustrating just looking at them on the ipad but will have to wait until I get home!
 
A nuthatch. Someone put this handy log on one of the feeding tables...

nuthatch-5695.jpg
 
happened to look out of the window and see this land on the hedge. raced upstairs and grabbed a couple of shots straight away but before I could get to a better vantage point, it flew off. Obviously heard the Sparrows in the hedge as it did hop around on it looking down into it -

Sparrowhawk-1 by rackhs, on Flickr
 
I didn't manage a photo at all (unfortunately) but I saw an odd bird this morning on the neighbours lawn, as I left for work. It looked to me generally pretty much like a starling but had large white patches more or less at random over both body & wings - more or less a black & white piebald appearance. Unlike a pied flycatcher it had quite a bit of black on the underside too.

I'm sure many of the residents on this thread are much more knowledgeable about bird recognition than me, can anyone suggest an ID?
 
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I didn't manage a photo at all (unfortunately) but I saw an odd bird this morning on the neighbours lawn, as I left for work. It looked to me generally pretty much like a starling but had large white patches more or less at random over both body & wings - more or less a black & white piebald appearance. Unlike a pied flycatcher it had quite a bit of black on the underside too.

I'm sure many of the residents on this thread are much more knowledgeable about bird recognition than me, can anyone suggest an ID?

Could simply be a case of 'leucism' ... reported to be increasing amongst Blackbirds, Starlings and some other garden birds.
 
The first proper visit and sighting of a Robin this year, last year this guy was in and out of the garden daily but this winter no sign [of him or his partner in crime] I bought some "high energy suet pellets with berries" in Dealz the other day and he seems to like it, seeing more blue tits and Green finches start to appear too.
Return of Sir Robin by K G, on Flickr
 
The first proper visit and sighting of a Robin this year, last year this guy was in and out of the garden daily but this winter no sign [of him or his partner in crime] I bought some "high energy suet pellets with berries" in Dealz the other day and he seems to like it, seeing more blue tits and Green finches start to appear too.

Can't beat a Robin to warm your heart.... Taken most of my feeders down as we're moving. Just have one sunflower seed and one niger seed feeder up. Starlings aren't visiting as they only come in for fat balls or mealworms, so it's just the tits and the Goldies at the moment.
 
Can't beat a Robin to warm your heart.... Taken most of my feeders down as we're moving. Just have one sunflower seed and one niger seed feeder up. Starlings aren't visiting as they only come in for fat balls or mealworms, so it's just the tits and the Goldies at the moment.

I love them, I always get a couple of nice wintery shots of them but not this year, no idea why. We did have 2 cats, and that made it tough to invite them in but at times the garden used to be like a bird sanctuary! One of our cats died a little while back so I decided I'll try again leaving some feed out. The Robins only like when I put feed down lower, they won't touch the hanging feeders, so I set up this log on a thick mat that was abandoned in the garden atop one of the bins :D I positioned it near the feeders, where the light lasts longest in the evening.

We used to get a hoarde of starling too, but they too have been absent a while now. I remember having to chase them off many times because they were taking over and pushing the finches/robins/sparrows etc out with their greed, they had the numbers to do so but again, not seen any recently.
 
A rubbish shot(from too far away(didn't want to scare it), in a strong breeze and heavily cropped) compared to many in this thread. We do see a few bramblings in this bit of north west Scotland but they are not at all common in the garden so it is always good to see one. Wondered if this one was ill or injured as it did not move much but also wondered if it was resting while on its way back to Scandinavia or beyond.

Dave

 
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