Birds in the Garden

Cius said:
So my mom has always been a huge birdwatcher. While living at home as a kid I actively joined in but then kind of lost it as a hobby once I left home. Recently it has been interesting me a lot again and I finally for my last birthday asked for a better set of binoculars which I got and money towards a decent birding app as half the issue is I never have a bird book on me or a way to record sightings (a key part of the enjoyment for me for some reason).

Anyways I am using Roberts Birds 2 app on Android. Not a perfect app but decent and it seems to be recording my sightings correctly. Cost R500 which was steep but if you are semi serious about the hobby I think it is worth it. Still figuring out how it all works. What it seems to lack which would be a really great feature is a custom bird list that you can set to limit to birds that are possible to see in that area, or say within 100km to be safe using your location. Having to individually click on each bird map to see if it is even an option is painful and the map does not even include any province or city lines so hard to even tell sometimes if the bird is in the area you are. Still a lot better than the physical book by virtue of just being available and searchable.

I am also having to get used to the new naming conventions. I see a lot of birds have changed names since I was a kid. I asked my mom about that and she said the USA has by far the biggest birding community so at some point SA aligned our naming conventions with them. So no more crowned or blacksmith plover, its now a lapwing as an example. The Olive thrush that regularly visits my garden is now called a Karoo thrush, despite us being nowhere near the Karoo.
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I have used books for years, mainly an older Sasol version. I got the app for the calls. I find that feature very useful. I find navigating around the app cumbersome and not intuitive, perhaps because I haven't put in the time. I still prefer a book. The new Roberts is also a lot more user friendly, by the way.

I was using the app to record the birds I had seen. Then the app crashed and I had to start again with a reload, losing my list. I was happy that I have noted most of what I have seen, date and location, in my Sasol book. The listing of sightings can be helpful in identifying the same bird again as well as new sightings.

Loading the app is tortuous and slow and with me, it bombed out more than once just as it seemed about to fully load!

What I have picked up from knowledgeable birds is that identifying a bird is a multifaceted process. Unknowledgeable people, like myself, tend to focus on one or 2 aspects, like colouring and beak. An expert looks more holistically. The type of vegetation the bird is in, tree, bush or on the ground, how it is moving around or not, what the body movements, say the head and tail. What the call is, time of year.

If you are interested in calls, there's a woman from Grahamstown, Lynette Rudman who has a YouTube channel focusing on calls. I find it very interesting.
 
Londo said:
I have used books for years, mainly an older Sasol version. I got the app for the calls. I find that feature very useful. I find navigating around the app cumbersome and not intuitive, perhaps because I haven't put in the time. I still prefer a book. The new Roberts is also a lot more user friendly, by the way.

I was using the app to record the birds I had seen. Then the app crashed and I had to start again with a reload, losing my list. I was happy that I have noted most of what I have seen, date and location, in my Sasol book. The listing of sightings can be helpful in identifying the same bird again as well as new sightings.

Loading the app is tortuous and slow and with me, it bombed out more than once just as it seemed about to fully load!

What I have picked up from knowledgeable birds is that identifying a bird is a multifaceted process. Unknowledgeable people, like myself, tend to focus on one or 2 aspects, like colouring and beak. An expert looks more holistically. The type of vegetation the bird is in, tree, bush or on the ground, how it is moving around or not, what the body movements, say the head and tail. What the call is, time of year.

If you are interested in calls, there's a woman from Grahamstown, Lynette Rudman who has a YouTube channel focusing on calls. I find it very interesting.
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You need to look at the feet and legs ,colour of legs ,feathering on legs or not ,beak colour and shape ,colour around eyes and colour of eyes and you will identify very quickly ,plumage changes during the year and plumage colour changes with habitat .if in flight memorise the under carriage and colours ,veey accurate .
 
Anybody else getting a lot f hadedas coming in the morning? Those bloody squakers wake me up like clockwork at 6am now. For some reason I still love them though and feed them daily.
 
Aghori said:
Anybody else getting a lot f hadedas coming in the morning? Those bloody squakers wake me up like clockwork at 6am now. For some reason I still love them though and feed them daily.
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Yes I have three that seem to live here.
 
Aghori said:
Anybody else getting a lot f hadedas coming in the morning? Those bloody squakers wake me up like clockwork at 6am now. For some reason I still love them though and feed them daily.
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We also have three coming in daily, they are nesting nearby as we have no big trees.

What do you feed them, if I may ask?
 
Stokstert said:
We also have three coming in daily, they are nesting nearby as we have no big trees.

What do you feed them, if I may ask?
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Earthworms from my brothers fishing supply.

I chuck a fist sized portion when I hear them at 5:30-6am and they haaahaa haaa at me in delight. Now it's a routine, and they brings their babies too.
 
Aghori said:
Earthworms from my brothers fishing supply.

I chuck a fist sized portion when I hear them at 5:30-6am and they haaahaa haaa at me in delight. Now it's a routine, and they brings their babies too.
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How much do the worms cost?
 
Does anyone have a plan on how to rat proof your bird feeders? I have tried to space them out further from the tree but as you know rats are pretty acrobatic IMG_20240912_180015.jpg
 
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