Any birdwatchers?

[SimonDoom]

Usually, when I'm birdwatching, I don't expect the birds to watch me back. Today was a little different--my most Hitchcockian birdwatching experience to date. I was in my backyard, and I noticed a crow in a tree overhead, snapping a dead twig off a tree branch. The crow took issue with my presence and started cawing at me, and then another crow joined it, took a position to the other side of me, and started berating me as loudly as the other one. I assumed it was a mating pair with a nest nearby, but I wasn't able to figure out where the nest was. But then another crow joined it, and then a fourth one arrived, and I started to wonder. I've never been so verbally abused by birds before. I think my nest-building hypothesis must be right, but if so I don't know why there would be more than two crows so concerned with my presence.

Anyway, I felt like nature was telling me something, so now I figure I have to write an erotic story--probably a voyeuristic story--that incorporates birdwatching somehow.

 

[Bamagan]

Usually, when I'm birdwatching, I don't expect the birds to watch me back. Today was a little different--my most Hitchcockian birdwatching experience to date. I was in my backyard, and I noticed a crow in a tree overhead, snapping a dead twig off a tree branch. The crow took issue with my presence and started cawing at me, and then another crow joined it, took a position to the other side of me, and started berating me as loudly as the other one. I assumed it was a mating pair with a nest nearby, but I wasn't able to figure out where the nest was. But then another crow joined it, and then a fourth one arrived, and I started to wonder. I've never been so verbally abused by birds before. I think my nest-building hypothesis must be right, but if so I don't know why there would be more than two crows so concerned with my presence.

Anyway, I felt like nature was telling me something, so now I figure I have to write an erotic story--probably a voyeuristic story--that incorporates birdwatching somehow.

Some bird species engage in group defensive behavior. It's common among a lot of seabirds, who frequently nest communally, and even things like plovers, who nest singly but have pretty limited habitat requirements, so they often have neighbors. Corvids are among the most intelligent birds, and are often observed 'mobbing' potential predators, even when they aren't nesting. Given the time of year, it's quite likely the ones you saw do have chicks somewhere, although it kind of depends on exactly where you are.

https://media.tenor.com/EqB89LYb_DcAAAAM/now-you-know-the-more-you-know.gif

 

[SimonDoom]

Some bird species engage in group defensive behavior. It's common among a lot of seabirds, who frequently nest communally, and even things like plovers, who nest singly but have pretty limited habitat requirements, so they often have neighbors. Corvids are among the most intelligent birds, and are often observed 'mobbing' potential predators, even when they aren't nesting. Given the time of year, it's quite likely the ones you saw do have chicks somewhere, although it kind of depends on exactly where you are.

https://media.tenor.com/EqB89LYb_DcAAAAM/now-you-know-the-more-you-know.gif

There are many trees in the area, some with very dense foliage, so it wouldn't be surprising if there was a nest I was unable to see and they were trying to distract me from it. Two of the birds were doing all the cawing. The others appeared to be extra "muscle."

 

[Bamagan]

There are many trees in the area, some with very dense foliage, so it wouldn't be surprising if there was a nest I was unable to see and they were trying to distract me from it. Two of the birds were doing all the cawing. The others appeared to be extra "muscle."

Yeah, the noisy ones were probably the ones with the nest, and the others showed up in case there was a problem. Not hugely different from standing out on your porch yelling, "HELP!" and attracting attention from your neighbors. Whether or not they'd actually help you is maybe a question. In the case of the crows, if they became convinced you were a threat, they'd all probably have 'attacked' you... mostly flying at your head, with defecation possible.

 

[Izanami9]

Usually, when I'm birdwatching, I don't expect the birds to watch me back. Today was a little different--my most Hitchcockian birdwatching experience to date. I was in my backyard, and I noticed a crow in a tree overhead, snapping a dead twig off a tree branch. The crow took issue with my presence and started cawing at me, and then another crow joined it, took a position to the other side of me, and started berating me as loudly as the other one. I assumed it was a mating pair with a nest nearby, but I wasn't able to figure out where the nest was. But then another crow joined it, and then a fourth one arrived, and I started to wonder. I've never been so verbally abused by birds before. I think my nest-building hypothesis must be right, but if so I don't know why there would be more than two crows so concerned with my presence.

Anyway, I felt like nature was telling me something, so now I figure I have to write an erotic story--probably a voyeuristic story--that incorporates birdwatching somehow.

Crows (& other corvids) are among the most intelligent creatures humans interact with, and they do recognize familiar humans; those they see every day or those that do something memorable to or for a crow.

Anecdotes abound of crows thanking humans for kindness and also attacking hostile humans; it’s believed they also spill the tea, good or bad, to all the other crows nearby.

They can learn to use tools to accomplish tasks or even to have fun - for example, there’s a great video of a crow sledding down an icy rooftop on a plastic lid, which is especially hilarious for a winged thing to do.

They are also known to hold crow ‘funerals’ when one of them dies. Idk if any of that will help your story along, but I do enjoy talking about them

 

[SimonDoom]

Crows (& other corvids) are among the most intelligent creatures humans interact with, and they do recognize familiar humans; those they see every day or those that do something memorable to or for a crow.

Anecdotes abound of crows thanking humans for kindness and also attacking hostile humans; it’s believed they also spill the tea, good or bad, to all the other crows nearby.

They can learn to use tools to accomplish tasks or even to have fun - for example, there’s a great video of a crow sledding down an icy rooftop on a plastic lid, which is especially hilarious for a winged thing to do.

They are also known to hold crow ‘funerals’ when one of them dies. Idk if any of that will help your story along, but I do enjoy talking about them

Corvids are probably my favorite birds. They have a lot of personality, and there are lots of them around here: jays, magpies, crows. Crows are probably the most interesting to watch but magpies are a treat because of their beauty as well.

I'm in my back yard quite often, and I take good care of my bird friends with feeders and baths, so I was a bit nonplussed to be treated as so unwelcome.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Corvids are probably my favorite birds. They have a lot of personality, and there are lots of them around here: jays, magpies, crows. Crows are probably the most interesting to watch but magpies are a treat because of their beauty as well.

I'm in my back yard quite often, and I take good care of my bird friends with feeders and baths, so I was a bit nonplussed to be treated as so unwelcome.

It was the very bad Alfred Hitchcock impersonation that did it. Corvids have long memories, and they knew you were too tall.

 

[SimonDoom]

It was the very bad Alfred Hitchcock impersonation that did it. Corvids have long memories, and they knew you were too tall.

Hmmmm. I WAS smoking a cigar while watching them. It was the bad impersonation, or these are anti-smoking crows.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Usually, when I'm birdwatching, I don't expect the birds to watch me back. Today was a little different--my most Hitchcockian birdwatching experience to date. I was in my backyard, and I noticed a crow in a tree overhead, snapping a dead twig off a tree branch. The crow took issue with my presence and started cawing at me, and then another crow joined it, took a position to the other side of me, and started berating me as loudly as the other one. I assumed it was a mating pair with a nest nearby, but I wasn't able to figure out where the nest was. But then another crow joined it, and then a fourth one arrived, and I started to wonder. I've never been so verbally abused by birds before. I think my nest-building hypothesis must be right, but if so I don't know why there would be more than two crows so concerned with my presence.

Anyway, I felt like nature was telling me something, so now I figure I have to write an erotic story--probably a voyeuristic story--that incorporates birdwatching somehow.

Crows don't nest alone, they nest in rookeries. If there is one crow nest, there are others, maybe a lot of others near by.

 

[yowser]

Anyway, I felt like nature was telling me something, so now I figure I have to write an erotic story--probably a voyeuristic story--that incorporates birdwatching somehow.

Go for it. There's a half dozen with 'Bird Watching' in the title, not that many all considered, and nine with it as a tag. You'll be in a small niche.

One of my early (and not very good) stories was Birding: A Cautionary Tale, which (inexplicably to me) underwent category reassignment to LW, thereby introducing me to the wide-eyed wonders of that particular community (also generating an indignant reader comment: Wrong category!)

 

[Chernosoth]

When I bike past marshy areas I sometimes see black birds with red patches on their wings. Hmm...they could be red-winged blackbirds.

 

[filthytrancendence]

When I bike past marshy areas I sometimes see black birds with red patches on their wings. Hmm...they could be red-winged blackbirds.

Definitely. They love marshes and have the coolest call.

Here's my angriest red winged blackbird photo.

 

[MetaBob]

Any time I see a bluejay, I lose my mind. They're so cool.

Every other bird can fuck right off.

I have a special relationship with Steller's Jays. They're corvids, so they're smart. They're also beautiful and I think they know it. One day I was writing while listening to music (Outlaws' first album -- they were big on vocal harmony. And guitars!) through headphones, I was sort of singing along. I took my headphones off and realized that someone was harmonizing with me outside. It was a Steller's Jay in the hedge outside my window. I used to feed a pair with unsalted nuts that I would crush and leave pieces for them on one side of an outdoor table while I was sitting at the other side of the table -- they preferred macadamias but would also go for almonds. They would squawk at the indignity of having to land so close to me in order to get their treats. However ...

I'm also a big fan of robins, and last month at my sister's house a Steller's Jay raided a robin's nest in a tree just off her patio. The robins were understandably furious at having one of their eggs stolen.

I now have a family of robins nesting on my balcony. They trust me enough to fly in with a worm and feed their recently hatched chicks while I'm sitting not far away. When they cry out in alarm before dawn because an owl is close by, I will go to my balcony and do my best to look threateningly at the owl until it flies away, which usually doesn't take long. That owl is huge and absolutely silent in flight, a perfect stealthy nocturnal predator.

I also grow flowers as hummingbird attractors. I learned two years ago that they are fond of arugula. I'm in a different place now and no hummingbirds have found this year's crop yet. But hey, there are still yummy leaves for me.

This isn't birdwatching, of course, but more like bird appreciation.

 

[MetaBob]

Crows don't nest alone, they nest in rookeries. If there is one crow nest, there are others, maybe a lot of others near by.

At least some crows nest in relative solitude. Every year in my neighborhood in springtime the crows get aggressive, threatening anyone who's walking near the tree where they nest, with only a few trees having a nest per block. They come up behind you and if don't see them first, they are likely to attack the top of your head. That only happened to me once, while running. Then I started carrying something that I could swing over my head at that time of year, and when I would see a crow's shadow approaching from behind, I would swing whatever that was (I often carried a small red plastic watering can) over my head before the crow got too close. Being smart corvids, they got the message and stopped trying.

When the crows aren't nesting, they flock to roost in large numbers together every evening. One example: https://www.uwb.edu/about/crows .

 

[filthytrancendence]

I don't think anybody'd call me a birdwatcher. I didn't really think or care that much about birds until I started photographing them, but they are now my favorite thing to photograph. And in doing so, I've slowly learned more about them. Not just names but personalities, because you end up getting to know them when you're hunting for them at the other end of the lens.

Most of them are small, they're all pretty twitchy, they can fly away in an instant, and even when they don't they're often jumping around wildly. Basically they're worst case scenario in every way for photography. Getting a good photo of a small bird in flight is just so goddamned hard, and I don't think that will ever stop being a fun challenge for me, because no matter how many things you learn, there's always something you didn't think of. So much of what I've learned about photography I was forced to learn as a byproduct of figuring out how to capture birds better. And I've really enjoyed learning about and paying much closer attention to every kind of bird though that process.

It feels like a kind of pokemon game to me. I hear a call I don't recognize so I go and try and find what's making it. I get a decent photo and learn what it's called. Often you can infer what it eats and a fair bit about its behavior just from what exactly you captured it doing. I put the call together with the name and try and get something better next time. There's too many to ever catch 'em all, and they're always migrating to and fro so it seems like there's always something new to see even if you stay in the same place.

This is still my favorite bird photo I've taken. And the heron has become my favorite kind of bird. I had been chasing this thing around the lake for about an hour and a half trying to get a really good photo, and I was walking back to my car and he was just chilling in the last cove before I left. The sun was basically down and the lighting was horrendous. This is at 1/6s shutter speed at 500mm, and he had that 1/6th second mercy on me to sit perfectly still...

 

[MetaBob]

Usually, when I'm birdwatching, I don't expect the birds to watch me back. Today was a little different--my most Hitchcockian birdwatching experience to date. I was in my backyard, and I noticed a crow in a tree overhead, snapping a dead twig off a tree branch. The crow took issue with my presence and started cawing at me, and then another crow joined it, took a position to the other side of me, and started berating me as loudly as the other one. I assumed it was a mating pair with a nest nearby, but I wasn't able to figure out where the nest was. But then another crow joined it, and then a fourth one arrived, and I started to wonder. I've never been so verbally abused by birds before. I think my nest-building hypothesis must be right, but if so I don't know why there would be more than two crows so concerned with my presence.

Crows will absolutely mob an animal or person they think might be a threat while they're nesting. When one cries out in alarm, others will join it. Watching a murder of crows attack an eagle in flight, trying to drive it away, is something to see. Steller's Jays will do the same in smaller numbers with cats, dogs, even humans they don't trust. The ones nesting in my back yard stopped complaining about me when I heard them harassing a cat and I retrieved that cat and returned it to it's owner's house across the street.

 

[Bamagan]

I don't think anybody'd call me a birdwatcher. I didn't really think or care that much about birds until I started photographing them, but they are now my favorite thing to photograph. And in doing so, I've slowly learned more about them. Not just names but personalities, because you end up getting to know them when you're hunting for them at the other end of the lens.

Most of them are small, they're all pretty twitchy, they can fly away in an instant, and even when they don't they're often jumping around wildly. Basically they're worst case scenario in every way for photography. Getting a good photo of a small bird in flight is just so goddamned hard, and I don't think that will ever stop being a fun challenge for me, because no matter how many things you learn, there's always something you didn't think of. So much of what I've learned about photography I was forced to learn as a byproduct of figuring out how to capture birds better. And I've really enjoyed learning about and paying much closer attention to every kind of bird though that process.

It feels like a kind of pokemon game to me. I hear a call I don't recognize so I go and try and find what's making it. I get a decent photo and learn what it's called. Often you can infer what it eats and a fair bit about its behavior just from what exactly you captured it doing. I put the call together with the name and try and get something better next time. There's too many to ever catch 'em all, and they're always migrating to and fro so it seems like there's always something new to see even if you stay in the same place.

This is still my favorite bird photo I've taken. And the heron has become my favorite kind of bird. I had been chasing this thing around the lake for about an hour and a half trying to get a really good photo, and I was walking back to my car and he was just chilling in the last cove before I left. The sun was basically down and the lighting was horrendous. This is at 1/6s shutter speed at 500mm, and he had that 1/6th second mercy on me to sit perfectly still...

View attachment 2550937

Here's one of my favorite GBH pics I took.

 

[iwatchus]

This is still my favorite bird photo I've taken. And the heron has become my favorite kind of bird. I had been chasing this thing around the lake for about an hour and a half trying to get a really good photo, and I was walking back to my car and he was just chilling in the last cove before I left. The sun was basically down and the lighting was horrendous. This is at 1/6s shutter speed at 500mm, and he had that 1/6th second mercy on me to sit perfectly still...

It is a beautiful picture. There is a large hotel in Cambridge Maryland (on the eastern short of the bay). Attached to it is the primary rookery for GBH (in the mid atlantic?) If you are there at the right time of year, They let you walk through it while the GBH are still resident. (Until the chicks are large enough, they don't allow the public in.) My SO and I spent a romantic evening there, unaware of the rookery, when we dropped my son off for a night with a close friend who had moved to MD. We timed it perfectly; we were the first people they let go in. We saw like somewhere like a thousand GBH nests with residents.

 

[iwatchus]

Since people are showing pictures, here is one of my favorites. Frigate bird from the Galapagos. We went eleven years ago. Still my favorite trip we have ever done. View attachment 2550993

 

[MelissaBaby]

Excerpted from a comment on Wild Birds of Maine

I read your opening page to my 11 year old grandson, who is a great reader, a bird lover and a very creative writer, he just loved it. He just loved the way you described such a diverse range of birds, most of whom are new to him, we are Aussie bird watchers, we know our Australian birds habits intimately, as do you with the birds of Maine!

I found that quite gratifying, but I hope that she did, in fact, stop reading to him after the first page.

 

[iwatchus]

Excerpted from a comment on Wild Birds of Maine



I found that quite gratifying, but I hope that she did, in fact, stop reading to him after the first page.

That is one of two or three favorite stories on the site. Birds and Maine are the crowning touches for me

 

[filthytrancendence]

It is a beautiful picture. There is a large hotel in Cambridge Maryland (on the eastern short of the bay). Attached to it is the primary rookery for GBH (in the mid atlantic?) If you are there at the right time of year, They let you walk through it while the GBH are still resident. (Until the chicks are large enough, they don't allow the public in.) My SO and I spent a romantic evening there, unaware of the rookery, when we dropped my son off for a night with a close friend who had moved to MD. We timed it perfectly; we were the first people they let go in. We saw like somewhere like a thousand GBH nests with residents.

Wow! I've got a buddy that lives in MD that I visit from time to time. What's the right time of year so I can plan a trip around that?

 

[iwatchus]

Wow! I've got a buddy that lives in MD that I visit from time to time. What's the right time of year so I can plan a trip around that?

It was July when we were there and it was a Hyatt. It was not cheap, as a warning.

 

[filthytrancendence]

It was July when we were there and it was a Hyatt. It was not cheap, as a warning.

Cool. I was thinking like a day trip-type situation because my friend lives just across the bay. Does it seem like something you can just walk into/buy a ticket to?

 

[MetaBob]

I now have a family of robins nesting on my balcony. They trust me enough to fly in with a worm and feed their recently hatched chicks while I'm sitting not far away. When they cry out in alarm before dawn because an owl is close by, I will go to my balcony and do my best to look threateningly at the owl until it flies away, which usually doesn't take long.

The robin chicks nesting on my balcony are now hopping into and out of their nest. I believe there are three, though only two are visible in this shot. I also believe they will fledge soon; one may have done so already. I feel like a proud uncle.