Ice Cubes. Richard Shilling
But I had an excellent chance to do some searching through 'This and that' including - as a brief diversion from the birds - finding that RS has been out and about into the great unknown and come up with some more stunning and creative landart. I think this guy gets better as he goes along, click on his name below his 'Ice Disc's' - being Norwegian Maple at the top, Red Oak on the left, and Rowan on the right - and see for yourself how amazing he really is. Thanks for this Richard, brilliant as ever. I also dug out my 'Bird Behavior and other oddities' book and thought the following - chosen at random - might be of interest....
At Leighton Moss on 10 October 1998 I saw a female Ruddy Duck with four downy young, nothing spectacular about that if you didn't note the date.
A few years ago at Out Rawcliffe I observed and took note of a Yellowhammer singing for twenty minutes at the rate of eight times per minute, this individual sang a truly amazing 160 times in the twenty minutes I spent with it....some songster which I'd guess probably holds some sort of record at such vocals.
Two species I've encountered over the years doing mimicry have been, a Whinchat - a particular master at mimicry - at Borrowdale in June 2005 which fooled me into thinking I'd heard a Whitethroat. And a Starling - another master at mimicry - was once outside our house on telephone wires and 'did' the Curlew to perfection.
At Barbondale on 7 May 2004 I observed the only female Redstart I ever heard in song, something it is only ocassionally known to do in the breeding season.
This is an excellent and interesting sound recording of Twite singing in the snow by Hugh Harrop....the higher your volume the better it sounds.
Love the Twite recording Pete. Reminds me of the one in song I had at Hseketh in the spring (when all those White Wags were there). It really had me puzzled for a few seconds as I never associate singing male Twite with the Ribble!
ReplyDeleteCB
The singing bird which had me puzzled more than any other was a Dipper one day, the only Dipper I ever heard in song in my 'short' birding life, but I'll leave the rest of that story for another post.
ReplyDeleteThanks for looking in and comments, much appreciated Colin.