Summer's arrived ...

[sunnybob]

That lazy bstd installer is just that, for a month after the arial was installed bits and pieces of wire were being blown off the roof. Aint no nature lover there, uh uh. :roll:

And dont forget, my pool water isnt natural, you should see my chemical bill for the year! :shock: let alone the electric for the pump and fliters :shock:
But at least I would be recycling all the plastic water bottles left everywhere by the lazy bstd (oops, environmentally aware) tourists.

 

[Jonzjob]

The 'hunters' in France always amused me. In the first couple of months of the 'hunting season' the first thing on the 'to shoot' list is other hunters and their dogs!

The odd lady sunbathing in her garden was good too. That one was when a 'hunter' heard a noise through a hedge that he thought was a deer shot it. Unfortunately the 'dear' lady died.

Something that really helps then to hunt is the brandy breakfast they have before they start and the odd bottle of vin with their lunch. The few thousand of them monopolies the country from October through to about Feb. You dare not walk anywhere off of the roads for fear of being shot!

We have only seen a few swallows and no swifts here. We have only been here for 6 months so I don't know what the norm is? We have a surplus of jackdoors and pigeons though and if it wasn't for a garden full of solar thermal tubes they would get good shooting for my catapult! The last thing I shot with it was a pheasant in our garden in France. 2 of them were hoovering up all the bird food and scaring the small birds away so I whacked it in the back of the head with a stone. 4 days hanging in my workshop and it didn't 'arf taste nice :twisted:

 

[sunnybob]

John, you killed a living thing with a projectile, that makes you a ......
HUNTER! =D> =D> =D> #-o #-o
kettle? pot? black? :roll:

 

[Jonzjob]

YEHHHHHHHH :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Dats me man 8) But I only killed it a likkle bit mortally :? And it did taste really tastey :mrgreen:

A mate of mine was visiting at the time when I decided it was on the menu and he was more than a little surprised when he saw it drop down mortally dead :twisted:

 

[sunnybob]

Wait, you killed it, and then you ATE it?
Shock horror, that makes you a carnivore hunter! :shock: :shock: :shock:

Dont let any of them vegan greenies get to hear about this :roll: :roll:
8) 8) 8)

I shot a rabbit once, with a shotgun, at 10 yards. Werent enough left to eat so thats alright then :roll: :roll: :roll:

 

[hammer n nails]

When I lived in cyprus in the 1970s you would see pickled sparrows(as we called them) in restarants in limmersol never tried one though

 

[sunnybob]

They werent sparrows, they were blackcaps. Tiny songbirds that are still a major source of income for poachers since they got banned from hunting them a long time ago. Nowadays you have to "know" someone who "knows" someone who can take you to a late night lock in restaurant to "enjoy" them. And make sure your wallet is fat on the way in becuase it wont be on the way out.

Our swallows are gathering, I think the first party has left on its long journey, there are a lot less around and they all look younger than the other ones. I suspect the're on their last main feeding spree before moving on.

 

[Jonzjob]

Sounds a bit like the French and their 'ortolans'. That ***** that was kicked off top gear, the stupid so called motoring programme, was filmed eating them at one stage. You have to put a black cloth to cover your head and plate to eat them.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrin ... -menu.html

Then they will wonder why they have disappeared, just like all of the other lovely animals that are being wiped out by these idiots?

Back on track. Summer showed well here with 1/2" of rain followed by it pending and like a bathroom on a hot sweaty bath night. Stopped our new bedroom build in its tracks!

 

[Steve Maskery]

Round 2:

I've moved the bucket of water away...

 

[Steve Maskery]

Well those three eggs are now little birds and have been coming on nicely for a week or two. Today, my mate Charlie and I were enjoying a beer in the late afternoon sunshine outside the workshop when we hear a right to-do. When we looked up we saw a sparrowhawk trying (unsuccessfully) to get into the log pile. The blackbird parents were doing their best to fight him off, but we decided to intervene.

Now I am in two minds about this, as Sparrowhawks have a right to live too, but I'm quite surprised at how protective I've become of my lodgers.

But I've bungied a board across the front of the firewood stack. The blackbirds can still come and go as they please, round the sides of the board, but I'm hoping that it will be even more of a challenge for the sparrowhawk. I hope he lives well, just not on my baby blackbirds.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Two nights ago there was a kafuffle in the chicken coop, and I went out to be faced with an upside down eagle owl hanging off the inside of the wire roof of a chicken coop. Dogs trying to eat owl (which is HUGE), owl trying to eat dogs and/or chickens - all a bit chaotic. He eventually left, but not before staring me down - astonishing orange eyes. Very, very impressive, but I wish he wouldn't eat my chickens. Looked like this: https://www.peregrinefund.org/explore-r ... _Eagle-owl

 

[sunnybob]

Now I'm confused.. We have a large owl that comes by regularly at night, flaps over one garden wall and disappears into the olive grove behind the other garden wall. One night it almost landed on my daughter in law's lap as she was still laying on a sun bed (oh how we laughed , but she didnt =D> =D> )
We have always called it a screech owl because of the single screech type call we hear a lot late at night. But now youve mentioned eagle owl I'm not sure anymore.
I've just looked up screech owl and its supposed to be only in america, so odds are now that its an eagle owl.
This one must have a 3 ft span, but definitely not the 6ft that wiki claims for the eagle owl.

 

[sunnybob]

well over 20 years ago we lived in Somerset, and a family of birds had a nest in the gap of the tiles on the side of our roof (dont know what birds, I'm not big on identifying them but bigger than sparrows though). we used to sit in the garden and watch the parents tooing and froing and happy to leave them be.
One summers afternoon I'm sitting in the garden when a lot of noise broke out above me. There was a crow, still flapping its wings while its head was buried inside the space, taking the eggs / young from the next. the parents could only fly around and watch. I couldnt believe the crow managed to stay there for that many seconds without having any foothold. It obviously cleaned out the nest as the birds never returned.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Now I'm confused.. We have a large owl that comes by regularly at night, flaps over one garden wall and disappears into the olive grove behind the other garden wall. One night it almost landed on my daughter in law's lap as she was still laying on a sun bed (oh how we laughed , but she didnt =D> =D> )
We have always called it a screech owl because of the single screech type call we hear a lot late at night. But now youve mentioned eagle owl I'm not sure anymore.
I've just looked up screech owl and its supposed to be only in america, so odds are now that its an eagle owl.
This one must have a 3 ft span, but definitely not the 6ft that wiki claims for the eagle owl.

I've always known a screech owl as being another name for a little owl or Athena's Owl. They make the most appalling racket, especially when the young have just been hoofed out of the nest. There are plenty of other owls to choose from: a barn owl has the distinctive round, white face, and then there is the scops owls which is small and non-discript.

As I am not an expert, I asked Wikipedia,and apparently this is a list of all the owls on the island of Cyprus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_Cyprus

Order: Strigiformes Family: Strigidae
Eurasian scops owl, Otus scops (O. s. scops PM, O. s. cycladum PM)
Cyprus scops owl, Otus cyprius MB breeding endemic species
Little owl, Athene noctua RB (A. n. lillith SRB)
Long-eared owl, Asio otus RB PM
Short-eared owl, Asio flammeus SPM

If you were that way disposed, you could try ticking them all off the list. I see that the eagle owl is not on the list. I can also tell you that an eagle owl is bleddy yuge! (That's Cornish for really quite large indeed).

 

[sunnybob]

Seems like we have a large barn owl. I just checked the call of it and thats similar to what we hear of an evening and the 3 ft wing span is around what we see.

When we first moved here we had a 40ft chicago aeromotor well pump next to the house
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aermotor_Windmill_Company

I mean NEXT to the house, from our bedroom window it was about 30 ft away. That owl used to sit on the vane and screech every night. Even the double glazing couldnt deaden the noise. But after a few years the farmer sold it because he wasnt using it anymore. we missed it (for a while )

 

[Phil Pascoe]

https://www.visitcornwall.com/things-to ... -sanctuary

 

[Suffolkboy]

In this country I have heard Tawny owls called screech owls as they have a screeching cry. Among other vocalistaions.

Barn owls have also loads of vocalisations, probably more than Tawny's and are awesome to see.

There was an ex policeman attacked by an eagle owl in the Trough of Bowland a few years back as him and his wife got too close to the nest site. It grabbed the top of his head and near scalped him and his wife had to fend it off with an umbrella. incredible birds. I'd suggest your dogs may have got more than they bargained for if they got ahold of it.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

For a few years when at school I walked home in the early evening past a row of posts that a magnificent barn owl used to perch on to hunt, until one day some moron shot him.

We were on the Coromandel in N.Z. years ago when we heard a morepork. I waited for a minute, cupped my hands together and blew over my knuckles imitating an owl call. My nephew was about six and he looked at me wide eyed and asked if I could really speak to owls - I replied that I wasn't sure - I could speak to Cornish owls, but I wasn't sure NZ owls would understand. The morepork answered. I called again, and a minute later it flew down and landed on the post at the end of the deck, about 10' 12' away. It stayed and watched for a few minutes then flew away. Everyone was amazed and delighted as none of them had ever seen one close up before. My nephew was convinced for years that I could speak owl.

 

[Steve Maskery]

There was a local news story a few years ago of a bloke who called to the owls in just the way you describe. He stood in the garden, called the owl and the owl called back. He never actually saw the owl, but they sort of had this thing going.

After a while, his wife was having coffee with one of her friends and she relayed this story of how her husband was making friends with the local owl and was hoping that one day the owl would actually show up.
To her astonishment, her friend told her that her husband was doing exactly the same thing.
It turned out that their husbands had been calling to each other and there was nary a proper owl within earshot.
True story, the bloke on the telly looked suitably sheepish. Or should that be owlish?

 

[Suffolkboy]

There was a local news story a few years ago of a bloke who called to the owls in just the way you describe. He stood in the garden, called the owl and the owl called back. He never actually saw the owl, but they sort of had this thing going.

After a while, his wife was having coffee with one of her friends and she relayed this story of how her husband was making friends with the local owl and was hoping that one day the owl would actually show up.
To her astonishment, her friend told her that her husband was doing exactly the same thing.
It turned out that their husbands had been calling to each other and there was nary a proper owl within earshot.
True story, the bloke on the telly looked suitably sheepish. Or should that be owlish?

That's brilliant!