Roosting Time

[Chasing Embers]

The wooded area that I call my backyard covers several acres. At this moment in time, birds are coming in from all over to go to roost and the sound of wings and thousands of bird calls is an almost welcome white noise that I could sleep to. At times while flocking, the sky is blackened by their silhouettes against the twilight sky. I took my dinner break early tonight to drive home just to sit and enjoy this before going back to work.

 

[beefeater33]

What kind of birds?..........
Starlings around here do that at certain times of the year.
Wonderful sight!

 

[Chasing Embers]

What kind of birds?..........
Starlings around here do that at certain times of the year.
Wonderful sight!

Mostly starlings and sparrows.

 

[ChippewaAce]

Incredible! Appreciate you sharing that photo and story. Would indeed be awesome to smoke a pipe underneath that movement -

 

[GCW]

@chasingembers

Upload a video of that when you have a moment.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Incredible! Appreciate you sharing that photo and story. Would indeed be awesome to smoke a pipe underneath that movement -

This fellow was with me.

@chasingembers

Upload a video of that when you have a moment.

That was 3 hours ago but I will next chance I get.?

 

[irishearl]

I am fortunate in living within 6-30 miles of 2 world-class refuges in Kansas. We are soon to be in the season of migration when at the closest refuge I visit I'll see 100's of thousands of blackbirds in undulating waves from one horizon to another. It's always a stirring site. That, of curse, is not to mention the many 10's of thousands of snow geese and sandhill cranes I'll see-the latter at the second refuge.

 

[olkofri]

This fellow was with me.

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That was 3 hours ago but I will next chance I get.?

Ain't you s'posed to use a shotgun for birds? ?

 

[kcghost]

Being in KC we don't many sightings of really large flocks of birds. I envy you this.

 

[olkofri]

@Servant King: I was being arch, as usual. I like (some) birds too and regularly feed crows. I was aiming at piquing the Cap'n's interest into commissioning a pipe that looked like a shotgun, seeing how he's already got a revolver-themed one. I wasn't advocating for the actual shooting of any birds... unless they're pigeons.

 

[JOHN72]

It looks like something out of a book, beautiful photo at night............

 

[Bluemonter]

It is an impressive sight to behold, all those birds flying en masse.

European Starlings..... My neighbors and I shoot them daily. Great fun with a pellet rifle! Legal to kill them all year round, here in Virginia.

Horrible birds. They force the local birds out. Take over nests and kill the chicks.

Hmm, I think I just mucked up your beautiful, peaceful-moment post. Sorry bro...

 

[autumnfog]

It's fantastic to see birds in large numbers.
I especially like crows and ravens.
Crows and their sounds, very special.

 

[Grangerous]

Trade you. The New Jersey State Bird is a Mosquito ?

 

[mso489]

On occasion I've watched those vast clouds of birds drift by in what must be flocks of millions, which I say only because I've sat or stood entranced for an hour or more and still they came. A sky full of feathered dinosaurs, if that is their lineage -- I'm intrigued but not convinced. Then I'll come home to a cocky little Carolina wren that all but perches on my nose, and two of whom built a nest in a watering can on my car port table. I occasionally chat with the crows in the morning, and listen for favorites, the mourning doves. That call imprinted on me when I was about three years old napping in the guest bedroom at my grandparents, hearing the call through the window screen.

 

[bullet08]

Once, I enjoyed watching Canadian Geese flying in formation. Once. They shit like dogs and meaner than Rottweilers.

 

[Chasing Embers]

They shit like dogs and meaner than Rottweilers.

Absolutely correct.

 

[OzPiper]

You're lucky birds are all you've got.

Here in Sydney some suburbs (luckily not in my backyard) are infested with flying foxes (large fruit bats). They come out at dusk to feed in their thousands. They are smelly and poop all over our beautiful parks and botanic gardens which are some of their favoured roosting grounds.

Unfortunately they are a protected species and the greenies in the Parks and Wildlife Dept. don't believe in culling. They spend tens of thousands of dollars netting them and relocating them to someone else's backyard.

 

[Servant King]

@Servant King: I was being arch, as usual. I like (some) birds too and regularly feed crows. I was aiming at piquing the Cap'n's interest into commissioning a pipe that looked like a shotgun, seeing how he's already got a revolver-themed one. I wasn't advocating for the actual shooting of any birds... unless they're pigeons.

I know...I was being ornithologically dramatic.

 

[OzPiper]

Incredible! Appreciate you sharing that photo and story. Would indeed be awesome to smoke a pipe underneath that movement -

Until you got pooped on from on high
I grew up in a town where flocks of sparrows would wheel around at dusk before roosting on overhead power lines. Anyone under their flight path was fair game. Quite traumatic when you are 3 or 4 years old.