Hello!

I was wondering if someone could please help by letting me know what I should do with this little Blackbird. We recently moved into a rural property in the U.K., and this bird comes bounding out of the bushes every time one of us enters the back garden.

I can see that the previous owner regularly fed the birds here as there are feeders all over (will be topping them up), so I am assuming that it’s comfort around people may be due to that? I could be wrong (I’m not very knowledgable) and it could be an indicator that something is amiss.

It has a bald spot at the back of its head. It can fly, Moves about freely and forages for insects under the leaves in the garden. I did try to search for advice online but it seems that the balding could be due to multiple reasons; fledgling, parasites, injury, etc. Could anyone please suggest the most likely cause and what I should be doing? Currently, I’m feeding it suet and high fat things as per online advice. I can sit next to it and it doesn’t flinch!

Thank you in advance!

I know the image is extreme blurry but it was taken in north western ontario today and i’m trying to figure out what kinda bird it might be! I figure the white streak might help hopefully! 🤞

Hey everyone with Christmas coming up I was going to put some binoculars on my list as I have gotten more into birding and so I was looking to get a pair on the cheaper side to make it more affordable for whoever might buy them for me. If you have any suggestions or advice for what to look for in a pair of binoculars please let me know. I think I’d prefer lighter weight ones are they are easier to carry but if bigger pairs are better I’m open to anything. Let me know what you think and thank you for the help and advice.

Today I walked out my back door and saw black bird with a yellow beak. It was the size and shape of a large Robin. It really seems to be a non-native bird, maybe a Eurasian Blackbird? Hoping to get a picture if I see it again.

Here is there website:

https://www.mrbo.org

You can ask them anything! Submit your question early here and I will repost them tomorrow, or you can ask your question live tomorrow. You can help us by upvoting this announcement and the AMA tomorrow.

Topics are expected to be:

Missouri birds
Native plants
Conservation
Human impacts and challenges
Environmental loss
The politics and law of bird conservation
About their non-profit
Interaction between birds, humans, plants, and other wildlife

East Harbor State Park Beach.

Most of us look at bird song as a spectrogram — frequency going up,

time going right. I wanted to see what it looks like if you let it

become a structure instead of a flat image.

Each point is a frequency the bird is actually producing at that

moment. The lines connect them in different ways: when a note slides

up or down, when overtones stack into a harmonic, and — the part I

find most interesting — when two moments in the song sound alike even

though they're seconds apart.

That last one ends up being a repeated-phrase detector. Birds repeat

themselves constantly, and those connections light up every time a

motif comes back.

This is [SPECIES], recorded by [vos / xeno-canto + autor + link].

To be clear about what it is and isn't: it does NOT identify species.

It measures and draws, nothing more. Merlin already does ID far better

than anything I could build. What this gives you is a way to see the

structure of a song — how repetitive it is, how tonal or noisy, how

the phrases relate to each other.

It runs on a phone, and you can feed it your own recordings. Free and

open source if anyone wants to try it with their own:

https://github.com/gustaavoq94/birdgraph

I'd genuinely like to see what it does with a mimic — a mockingbird or

a lyrebird. If anyone has a decent recording of one, I'd love to run it.

I’m afraid the last one is for the next holiday, however.

i put out a platter of peanuts, it’s a circular metal mesh tray. i would fill it up every once in a while, and suddenly daily it’s being emptied. zero shells or evidence. i would always hear jays but rarely see one. 😂

i'd love to get like pictures of birds and have to identify like a set. or match pictures of birds to their calls and things like that. as much as i love Merlin i'd love to not be so relient on it

Belcamp MD

Also, do you think that pheasant moved out of the way? Nope!

Quick morning circuit around Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary last week. The forest was buzzing post-monsoon. OC.

All shot on Canon R7 + RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L

Comment on your favourite.

1. Oriental Magpie-Robin

   1. Small Minivet (male)
   2. Jungle Babbler
   3. Red Spurfowl (female) - lifer for me!

Sat still for like 10 seconds in the grass before disappearing

1. Spotted Dove

2. White-cheeked Barbet

Tiny murder birb

Missing the summer birds already 😭

Just bought a bird anatomy book I can't wait to use

So pretty!

NE Wisconsin

As a not-great photographer, I appreciate black and white warblers - some of the only birds that'll pose long enough and close enough for me to get a good picture. This one was in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY, USA.

The babies are snuggling into momma for tonight. Dad just chased a hawk out of the area, thankfully the bubbas hid along a fence line to camouflage. Unfortunately, there's only two left out of three, I think the hawk took one a few days ago because I haven't seen them since. I've named the parents cheddar and cheese, still dont have a name for the little ones. There's also cats that roam the street freely so I'm a bit worried about that. I think I'm making acquaintances with them, they scream at me less than they used to so that's a win :)