If you live in the UK or northern Europe, do you ever see any exotic birds in your garden or general area ?

[IndigoSpritz]

I'm in Leeds and I'm told there are wild parakeets living in nearby Bradford. I've yet to see any where I am; in fact, I was surprised to learn they lived this far north. The most colourful bird I've seen (and heard) recently is a greenfinch - not many of those round here. And a greater spotted woodpecker in the country park nearby. I've heard the green woodpeckers call but never seen one. I would like to see a parakeet - I appreciate they're not native and potentially harmful.

North Herts here. We get all the normal garden birds, but also have a heron who visits our netted pond regularly.
Know it's not in our garden, but we now have flocks of swifts swooping about just above roof top level calling each other feeding on the wing. Love watching them early evening.

I saw something large that looked like a black eagle with a white tail a bit back and have wondered for ages what it was as was pretty substantial. Just googled White tail Eagle and found this article :

www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/17391704.rare-sighting-of-white-tailed-eagle-in-the-new-forest/

It was not hugely far from one of the places mentioned though I don’t think timing fits. Unlikely I know but does make me wonder. I originally thought it might have been an escapee from the place in the New Forest,

Sea eagles are going to be reintroduced to the Isle of Wight, if that goes well you may find more appearing in the New Forest area!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-47792380

Saw that when I found the article, Errol. I actually thought I might have been losing the plot at the time when I looked up and thought how big and eagle like it was! But it does seem it might have been.

yellowhammers and woodpeckers

There is a large cherry tree just a few yards from my front door, which you think would be of interest to Mr and Mrs Bullfinch. And yet, I haven't seen a single one in there in nearly twenty years. Lord and Lady Wood-Pigeon, on the other hand, take full advantage when the cherries begin to ripen. The Bullfinch gang are elusive round here, but plenty of their Gold and Chaff chums. And one Green last week.

Re the finches, it used to be the greens and chaffs which were common in my garden, with golds a lovely rarity to be tempted with nyjer seed. Now it's the other way round (goldfinches will very happily eat husked sunflower seed along with the rabble by the way). Greenfinches, I believe, suffered a massive decline due to a disease, but just in the last year they seem to be making a comeback hereabouts.

I've only ever had one bullfinch on my feeder though.

I love this thread!

So my parents in Lancashire have a few owl boxes in their garden, and we always have a tawny owl nesting. When the babies get big enough, they crawl out of the boxes and drop to the floor, then they're meant to climb up a nearby tree while they get their proper feathers. Unfortunately though, we've had years where they fall and it's raining and they get completely waterlogged before they can climb again and they get cold and die - so my Dad has saved numerous babies by making a "baby owl" box part-way up a tree where he'll put them if he finds them on the ground so their mum can keep feeding them while they grow. I have a photo of him somewhere sitting with a very wet baby tawny owl wrapped in a teatowel trying to warm it up. He said it stank!

One year, a wild wood duck decided to nest in the owl box instead.

He's also heard a cuckoo - he and his friend both heard it while they were out walking separately and both thought it was the other playing a joke, hiding in the tree shouting 'cuckoo'!

They also have a pair of great spotted woodpeckers and a peregrine falcon. Bullfinches, starlings (so many starlings!), chaffinches, robins, wrens, pigeons, etc are all very common.

I'm in the Lake District and we just have the typical "city" birds - pigeons, magpies, crows, etc...and hundreds of starlings currently living in the roof of the house opposite.

Big flocks of parakeets in W and S W London. Haven't seen them here, 60 miles further south. Lots of different birds of prey around here, maybe that keeps them away.

I was hanging the washing out in the garden yesterday. Most birds don't come down to feed in our garden, while someone is out there, but a parakeet came to feed on the peanuts - apparently, it did not care about me there!

I love to see the red kites, I believe they were hunted to extinction in this country and were reintroduced in the Chiltern Hills about 25 years ago. Amazingly successful, there are lots now.

Flock of parakeets living in my trees here (north Kent coast). Haven’t had a single cherry off our trees since they arrived a few years ago as they always get to them first. You can get to within a few feet before they bother to fly off, they’re not bothered. Every year the flock gets a little bigger. I wouldn’t mind but they’re going to drive the woodpeckers out eventually because they nest in the same tree holes but they lay earlier in the year so by the time the woodpeckers want to nest a lot of sites are taken. Still seeing the woodpeckers but I dread the day they no longer turn up.

It will be interesting to see how the British and European birdscape changes in the coming years. Climate change may encourage more 'warm weather' birds to settle (turtle doves, perhaps) and lead to less winter migration. The next batch of exotic escapees might make it too. As long as none of this is at the expense of the natives.

As long as none of this is at the expense of the natives.

Unfortunately, some of the more specialised creatures may well be displaced geographically or outcompeted.

We have two peacocks. Two more just appeared in the garden and I can hear more close by. Apparently someone is shooting them locally so I suspect a flock has been displaced.
We have all the little wild birds, kites buzzards and other birds of prey. We live very rurally.

I saw a bird a few weeks ago that I couldn't identify. I've spent HOURS trying to ID this bird and cant find anything similar. Any experts here..?

A black bird a little bigger than a blackbird. A fairly long black beak, very slender. Longish legs, but not like a wader. Dark red markings down either side of the chest (or wings - not certain now). I disturbed it in the hedge, possibly off a nest. We stared at each other for a few moments, then I backed off and haven't seen it since.

I forgot to mention the albino blackbird we had near our family home about forty years ago. We called it 'the white blackbird'. I haven't seen one since.

Indigo
For years we had a blackbird with a few white tail feathers in our garden,

Peacocking - the only bird I've seen like that (only bright not dark red) was a red winged blackbird. But they were in the US. Apparently there has been one sighted in the orkneys but that was a female so as with our blackbirds it was brown.

I have seen a hoopoe at the roundabout before the Tay bridge (on the Fife side) when I still lived in Dundee (before 2006). If I would have had any idea how rare sightings of them are in the UK I would have alerted someone like the Bird Watching magazine.

There's a roundabout in the middle of an A road near me where over a period of about 3 years there was often an Oystercatcher. We are nowhere near the sea and about 5 miles from the nearest river/lake.

Not seen it for ages now. But it would disappear for months and then appear again.

My bird book tells me that oystercatchers are widespread and can breed far inland.
I think they can happily dig out worms etc with that fabulous beak.
I'm a fair way from the sea, see them in the fields near the canal, I'm not sure the presence of water in that case is anything other than coincidental.

Bruffin, that's probably the same bird, part-way through its instalment plan for new feathers.