This forum and the current state of affairs.

[deptfordmarmoset]

Terns! I like them. They're such elegant fliers. It seems a shame to class them alongside common gulls or, indeed, our own house gull.

 

[theclaud]

Terns! I like them. They're such elegant fliers. It seems a shame to class them alongside common gulls or, indeed, our own house gull.

The big Northumberland colonies have been hit badly by avian flu. 😢

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ch...flu-rips-through-internationally-24455827.amp

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

The big Northumberland colonies have been hit badly by avian flu. 😢

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ch...flu-rips-through-internationally-24455827.amp

I was over at Blakeney Point a couple of days ago to see the seals. On the bank where the seals were basking, they'd put nesting boxes for the terns but not a single one has been occupied. I did wonder whether it was avian flu.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Terns! I like them. They're such elegant fliers. It seems a shame to class them alongside common gulls or, indeed, our own house gull.

So kewl in fact, that spaced-out 60s rockers (and appalling spellers) 'The Byrds' made a song about them...

 

[icowden]

I find it ridiculous that you get on your high horse because someone refers to you as a bird but wouldn't care less about being called a c*nt?

Out of interest @shep do you also inform young ladies if they have "nice pair" and pinch them on the bottom to show them how attractive they are?

 

[cookiemonster]

The big Northumberland colonies have been hit badly by avian flu. 😢

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ch...flu-rips-through-internationally-24455827.amp

https://www.bto.org/community/blog/tackling-challenge-avian-influenza

I have a friend that I studied Zoology with at Uni and she's working for the BTO. From what I've heard from her, it's horrifying. Some colonies have completely collapsed and could take many years to recover.

 

[Deleted member 28]

Out of interest @shep do you also inform young ladies if they have "nice pair" and pinch them on the bottom to show them how attractive they are?

No, do you?

 

[qigong chimp]

The big Northumberland colonies have been hit badly by avian flu. 😢

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ch...flu-rips-through-internationally-24455827.amp

Before hearing of the flu outbreak I wondered at the sight of two dead gannets on the beach at Druridge Bay not so long ago, being enthusiastically re-cycled by some crows. Yet corvid colonies seem unaffected; they're bossing everything with their customary swagger and numbers.
Four jays conferring the other morning.
Yellowhammers galore in the hedgerows this year.
Last year was the dragonfly summer, constantly being chivvied along out of the territories of big dragonflies, like scenes from Dune. This is the year of the yellowhammer. And of playful and fearless young stoats. And of naive and short-lived young hares: four of them dotted along the road-side verges of an early morning, ineffectually fleeing at my stealthy approach. Young, presumably, and nudged to the marginal roadside territories by bigger, older hares. All dead now, bloody stains on the tarmac courtesy the Northumbrian driver.

 

[theclaud]

All dead now, bloody stains on the tarmac courtesy the Northumbrian driver.

I don't think I've ever since as many corpses per mile as when I rode the A6341 from Alnwick to Rothbury.

 

[qigong chimp]

Dunno what it's like in that direction, but had you said you rode the B6341 from Rothbury to Alnwick I'd've gone to the foot of my stairs, I would.

 

[theclaud]

Dunno what it's like in that direction, but had you said you rode the B6341 from Rothbury to Alnwick I'd've gone to the foot of my stairs, I would.

B it is. Such a horrible road to ride that I'd made it a major arterial in my memory.

 

[Ian H]

Down here there are a remarkable number of badger corpses at the roadside. I doubt that they were all roadkill.

 

[qigong chimp]

You're thinking badger suicides?

 

[mudsticks]

You're thinking badger suicides?

Nope
Turf wars..

 

[icowden]

No, do you?

No, but I don't go around calling women "birds".