AA Birdpix, Birds, Travel and More

Our Geese are cooked Traveling around North Norfolk recently the picture has changed-instead of large numbers of Pinkfeet and White-fronted Geese we seem to have mainly Greylags. The two are probably not connected, since numbers of geese vary according to weather and food availability, but the fact is that we are seemingly being overrun with feral geese, which must affect food supply and habitat for genuinely wild birds. Canada Geese have always been with us, and do not seem to have increased greatly, but there is quite a large population of Barnacle Geese in Suffolk, Egyptian Geese are far commoner than they were ten years ago, there is a tiny population of Red-breasted Geese in East Anglia, and Snow Geese in Oxfordshire, a population in Argyll being down to single figures now. But it is mainly Greylags that are annoying, being noisy, messy and worst of all habituated to humans. Every reserve with any water has them. Unfortunately they cannot be culled, supposedly because they are a B...

  Artificial Birding? Very little divides communities like AI. I have nothing against AI, but unfortunately much of it is poorly programmed to keep costs down. A perfect example is its use by customer service departments- "Hi I'm Gorgonzola, How can I help today?" "I have a complaint" "Sorry I do not understand. Can you put that another way?" "Complaint" "Thank you for reaching out to me, but I need to know what your complaint is about" "Poor customer service"  "Sorry I do not understand". "I need to speak to a human" "Hi I'm Gorgonzola, How can I help today?" "I want to speak to a human being"   (I perhaps should have put agent) "Sorry, I do not understand, can you put it another way please?" "Human (Homo sapiens)" " That's not a very nice thing to say " Whilst most of that is made up, although entirely typical, the last two lines are not. So, s...

  Happy New Year I'm writing this on New year's day, and my year list currently stands at about five. Happily the first bird on my list was Greenfinch (it's usually Wood Pigeon or Black-headed Gull seen in flight), followed by Blue Tit, Robin and Great Tit. Things are quiet in the garden, but the birds are around, just not using the feeders much. There could be a number of reasons, the local Sparrowhawks, a cat which I haven't yet been able to dissuade from entering our garden (poor shot with the half-brick)* or the likely reason being there are still insects around. Despite the cold nights I have been seeing bees (or hover-flies?) recently on the winter honeysuckle outside my window. The inside of the shrubs behind the feeder must be warmer and still providing food, why would birds come to the feeders?  I rarely do a New Year's Day list, for various reasons, but good luck to those who are, especially if connected to charity. To me it's a bit like playing footba...