Bird kingdom - part 1

Irina’s note: The following 1,500+ words were entirely the work of Cat. All I did was some light editing. We are all aware a lot of bird species frequent our garden. All Cris and I could say about them, however, is that jays and magpies are annoyingly noisy, blue tits are cute, and woodpeckers are really beautiful birds. That’s it. Cat, on the other hand, I had to stop at around 1,500 words because she could go on. When you really love something, you need all the words in the world to talk about it.

These are all the birds I have seen in our garden most of which are passeriformes – a.k.a perching birds or passerines.

To be completely honest I know all the scientific names of the birds of prey, but not so much of the songbirds. I am looking forward to completely memorizing them too. (P.S now that I have written them twice for... a plan - I have already memorized them like 67.54%)

A bird I have seen in the farms away from the house is the common pheasant (Phasianus cholcicus). I decided not to include it in the list… I just wanted to mention it :}…Well, it is оn the list, kind of.

The links are for photos for you to quickly see the bird, if you don’t know how it looks. The links are from one site – eBird, so, yeah, credit to them for the amazing photos (I like them). The bold words in the brackets are the scientific names.

First, the bird I see every day and hear literally at midnight is the Eurasian blackbird - a species of tree thrush (Turdus merula). They probably sing at night, because they’re getting confused by the “street” lights next to our house or using the time when there aren’t any other birds to compete against.  

The house sparrow is quite recognizable by its songs or more specifically its screaming; their sounds are loud (Passer domesticus).  I find them brave, because they aren’t easily scared by whatever. I actually think I saved one from my cat’s attack. She wasn’t severely hurt – only under the left wing.

I cleaned it with warm water; she stayed in a box with grass and appropriate food that she ate for a day. We then let her go. I named her Berry just to be sweet. Unfortunately Berry lost all of her tail feathers except one – of course, because of that she couldn’t fly very high. To date, her feathers should’ve grown back.

European goldfinches may be my favorite garden bird (Carduelis carduelis). I like their appearance and songs. I’ll put them in third place on my bird-watching list here. They’re quite small but very colourful birds. I have seen a pair interested in a tree in front of my balcony, but I don’t think it is a good spot to nest in. They started cleaning a pine processionary nest, but they stopped after trying twice.

If you’re wondering about the pine processionaries - these are very, very bad boys — radio-resistant, toxic caterpillars, which always nest in the tips of pine branches. Sadly, the forest behind our house was infested with them last season, because the spraying was too late

I have heard they nest in the tips because of the sunlight, but as they mature in their little sanctuary pocket of sadness the branch or possibly the whole tree (if the nest is on the top) dies as they often do.

These caterpillars are hard to kill, and also their nests are very hard to rip – it’s like they’re made of black widow silk which is by weight as strong as steel. The toxic little fragments are very recognizable when they crawl one after the other, as if trying to encircle demon spawn. If you see their “rope”, do not step on them, because they have tiny little micro hairs containing the toxin in their base which can get on your shoes and in your lungs – they detach and fly in the air because of their low density.

But if you really want to kill some of them you have to wear gloves and beat the things with big, heavy rock. Be sure to step away after every hit, so the micro hairs don’t get on you. After you make sure that you have expended your pent up energy, leave the rocks on the corpses and throw away the gloves and wash your hands.

Cris’s note: You can also scoop them up on a shovel, pour some lighting fluid on them and set them on fire.

A greenfinch isn’t coloured in actual green as the name says (Chloris chloris). The males are kinda dark yellow, but the females are brown and only have bright yellow on the wings and tail, thus the name is very fitting. I’ve heard them more than I’ve seen them. I saw one male a while ago; I mostly see females, males fly by so fast I can’t capture and process them. I see a pair here behind the main garden which makes me happy. I hope they are planning to nest somewhere there.

Another bird I see every day is the barn swallow (Hurindo rustica). Cool story: The other day I left my balcony door open, and because of the wind suction, the mosquito screen also opened. At the time I didn’t think of it much, but I forgot about the fact that a trio of swallows were searching for a good nesting site over my balcony for the second time this month and may accidentally fly into my room. Well, one of them did fly in and hit the window lightly.

She fell on the little window doohickey, like a window shelf. I didn’t try to grab her, because she was flapping very quickly, and I also didn’t want to cause her any stress. I knew she would eventually find a way out. I tried to help her by guiding her with my hands like I do with insects - limiting the space they can use on the side where I don’t want them to fly.

That worked and she flew up and made a three-point turn to the outside. I’m a little happy that happened, because if she made a nest where I think she wanted to, it would’ve been very bad, because this year my family is going to repair the roof, add solar panels, plus clean the attic. If she built a nest it was surely going to get destroyed. I am making sure that no swallows make nests so they are safe. I basically scare them off when I see them hanging out under the roof.

Irina’s note: swallows are considered good luck birds here and people love it when they make nests under their roofs. Unless the nest is close to a handy AC on Cat’s balcony that a stray cat can use as a launch pad to get to the newly hatched babies, which is what happened a couple of years ago. We were devastated.

The next couple of birds I’ve seen during the winter, but not so much these months. One of them is the great blue tit (Parus major) and the blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus). I don’t know where they have gone, I hope they’re okay.

European robins were rare to see, but I did see some (Erithacus rubecula). Like the blue tits they are gone.

Long-tailed tits aren’t that rare, but there are definitely fewer now (Aegithalos caudatus).

Out of the woodpeckers, I’ve seen the green woodpecker (Picus virdis) once. They’re very cute and beautiful to be honest. The great-spotted woodpecker we see and hear in the summer (Dendrocopos major).

A tit I still see quite a lot is the coal tit (Periparus ater). I really like them, because they have crests. I usually refer to them as the black-crested tits, but I haven’t seen the real crested tits.

The second bird I am very happy I finally saw is the European bee-eater (Meropos apiaster). Last year I was hearing them, but I didn’t know them. Until last week I heard the sound, thought to myself “if I had seen the bird, I would’ve known everything about them at this point”.

Then all of a sudden the bird flew on the roof. I saw its slender body and tapered wings and I thought “what if it’s the bee-eater”. I quickly went to Bing to see what their call is. And the first second of the video I chose I knew it – the whole time I was hearing the European bee-eater.

I was so happy, my whole week was fixed (because it had been a dark one) and I immediately grabbed my binoculars to look at the eaters. There were 6 at least on a tree where I see most of the birds. I called my mom to see them and we had a great time. I loved the colours and the behavior – some of them were doing majestic circles around the tree. That day I’ll remember forever, just the timing of my thought and the dream was so perfect.

I have also seen a hoopoe once or twice, but I love them more than the times I see them (Upupa epops). I really enjoy their majestic flight! The first time I saw one was when it landed on my balcony. I watched it as it scratched on a piece of the wooden frame and flew away to most definitely its nest. It was a very pleasing morning.

Ravens have been around recently, but what is interesting about them is that they live in the pine forest behind the house (Corvus corax). They make low sounds instead of screaming.

A bird I just saw as I was writing this is the Eurasian bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). It was a female so it was a little hard to be sure what it was.

The bird my mom dislikes with a passion is the Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius). I have seen one being aggressive to the other birds on the same tree I told you about earlier. They’re easy to identify, because of the blue primary coverts and alula. I have one of those feathers and I love it.

 Yet another bird I have seen once and was sure what it was is the Eurasian siskin (Spinus spinus). They have an overall yellow color, with the females having darker strips in their chests.

Well, I thought I was done with the passeriformes, but I happened to see two… no, FOUR more. So, obviously, I had to add them to the list.

1. The common starling finally visited the garden (Sturnus vulgaris). It landed in the pear tree close to my window so I was able to look at it closely (it’s not the tree I see 90% of the birds). It still has its winter plumage, but I think it’ll change within the next month.

2. The masked shrike is a bird I have been seeing, but were unable to identify. Well, today a male hung out in the tree where I see most birds long enough for me to look at it closely and identify it (Lanius nubucus).

3. Another shrike – the red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio). I have seen them too, but I thought they were nuthatches with brown wings. After a look at one in the same tree, I found out it was a red-backed shrike. I think both shrikes are here to spend the summer. They do migrate for the seasons.

A day later I saw a beautiful dove:

4. The European turtle dove, which is cool (Streptopelia turtur). They’re pretty in my oπinion, because of the brown wings and striped throat feathers.

Alrighty, I think we’re actually done with the passeriformes; no more new birds have come here in the tree “station” and in the garden. Come back next time to see the birds of prey and the first-place holder!