ED Nature Watch

[red devil]

Is the Eurasian Jay different from the British Jay?

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[SteveT]

red devil wrote:- Is the Eurasian Jay different from the British Jay?

They have a very strong accent........you can hardly understand a squeek they're uttering.

See Tillies post above.

[red devil]

TT describes a Jay, just wondering what the difference is between a Eurasian and British Jay...

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

A few song thrushes and lots of mistle thrushes around.

[ruffers]

red devil Wrote:

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> TT describes a Jay, just wondering what the

> difference is between a Eurasian and British

> Jay...

Probably a matter of airspeed..

[BrandNewGuy]

red devil Wrote:

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> TT describes a Jay, just wondering what the

> difference is between a Eurasian and British

> Jay...

There isn't one :-) There's now an internationally agreed standardisation of English-language names for birds. There are other jay species around the world, so ours is the Eurasian one.

Some of these international names are quite different from our ordinary ones: Pied Avocet, Northern Lapwing, Mew Gull (Common Gull), Common Murre (Guillemot) etc, but I just stick with our good old vernacular names. If you want to be really old English, you can call a Wheatear a 'White-arse', which is what it was called before the prudish Victorians cleaned it up :-)

[red devil]

Yup, I'll stick with Jay too, thanks for the info :-)

[TillieTrotter]

Listen, I'm not Bill Odie (sp), I saw a pair in my garden a few years back looked it up in my Bird Encylopedia and they turned out to be Eurasian Jays:-$

[Karrie]

[Deleted] Safety reasons

[BrandNewGuy]

TillieTrotter Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Listen, I'm not Bill Odie (sp), I saw a pair in my

> garden a few years back looked it up in my Bird

> Encylopedia and they turned out to be Eurasian

> Jays:-$

As I said, that's just the posh ornithological name for a regular old jay. And the potential confusion is why most ornithologists only use the Latin names, which in the case of the (Eurasian) Jay is Garrulus glandarius, which sounds very painful...

[jimmy two times]

I saw a crow attack and kill a pigeon on the pavement the other day. I have never seen this before. The pigeon was disorientated as it had nearly been run over by a car. There was a brief struggle but the crow pinned the pigeon down and killed and started to eat it. Is this behaviour typical of crows?

[SteveT]

Tillie Trotter wrote:- Listen, I'm not Bill Odie....

Damn right Tillie, you're far more interesting than that dull boorish oaf and ex-Goodie.

Jimmyx2 I have seen crows attack pigeons and leave them flightless having broken a wing, but never seen a crow eat a pigeon

[Penguin68]

but never seen a crow eat a pigeon Crows (well carrion crows) eat dead meat - hence their name - I suppose if they have been the cause of that meat being dead they wouldn't not eat it (they don't, obviously, operate on our rules about road-kill). A crow which despatched and ate a pigeon already injured comes as no surprise, but crows don't normally hunt large birds themselves. I have often seen crows picking at the carcases of foxes etc. by the wayside - obviously they haven't killed these, although I doubt if they are too picky about waiting for the fox to be declared dead before tucking in.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I saw a crow pinch a duckling from the lake in P.Rye last year.

[Jeremy]

I once heard of a pet baby tortoise getting carried away by a crow.

[TillieTrotter]

X for Steve T

[bonniebird]

There has been a few dead birds on the fields in Peckham Rye park lately, lots of feathers like pigeon feathers on the ground and the odd leg, looks like the birds have been plucked. Would this be the bird of prey that we sometimes see doing this?

[SteveT]

If the remains look like a red indian war bonnet, it's probably a sparrowhawk.

[Moos]

Bluebells in Sydenham Wood

[Moos]

The heron larking about in the Japanese Garden in Peckham Rye Park

[Nero]

I saw about six sparrows hassling - pecking mainly - another sparrow (not sure whether they were house or tree sparrows) this morning in the road. They then all flew off. Could they have been encouraging it to fly, or were they more likely to have been beating it up?

[SteveT]

Beating it up is my guess,

because when they teach them to fly they stop feeding the youngsters and perch a couple of yards away with a tasty morsel in their beak,

whilst calling them constantly.

Hunger and greed takes over from the fear of flying then suddenly they are all off together.

[EDmummy]

Aaaah nature, got to love it. Last summer or autumn I saw about 8 crows chasing a very low flying, injured, seagull down our street. I was with children so didn't keep watching to the point where the crows bought the gull down but it did make me feel quite ill.

[SteveT]

I saw some ducklings on the lake in PRpark, they are soooo cute and cheer up a dullish day.