RSPB Badge Game

[thewarn]

I presume @shucks is banned from this?

[anon89873996]

On what grounds is he disqualified?

[anon89873996]

[froglet]

Kestrel? Or something bigger?

[anon89873996]

Nope, I think it is bigger but I am not sure.

[thewarn]

Insider knowledge

[froglet]

Buzzard?

[anon89873996]

Correct!

[anon89873996]

Last two, posting together because one is a bit easy:

[Unlucky]

Was very close to keeping that 2nd one for myself, such a beaut.

[anon89873996]

It is a gorgeous [REDACTED]. I can send it back if you are having second thoughts about giving it up?

[colinfilth]

Last year one of my walks through St James’s Park (London) I spotted a pair of great crested grebes doing the bit of their mating ritual where they give each other twigs and stuff. Nobody else seemed that arsed, but I stood there and watched for quite a while. There’s also a little grebe on the lake a lot at the moment, but it’s hard to spot because it’s underwater so much.

[anon89873996]

That sounds very cool, so memorable that it is no surprise you correctly identified bird no. 2

[Unlucky]

Ah no its fiiine.

[colinfilth]

Main lesson of birdwatching isn’t it: wait and watch and then wait some more.

I’ve been very interested in the Egyptian geese on the lake for the last few years, specifically what happens to all their chicks. Took until this year for me to find out, when I watched a mother take her very small chicks out onto the lake (much smaller than I’ve ever seen them in the water before). She confidently swam them up to a black-backed gull, who promptly took off, grabbed one of the chicks and then flew off with it. So the reason that Egyptian geese have so many chicks and the reason not many of them survive very long is that Egyptian geese are pretty damned stupid.

[Unlucky]

This deserves a bit more love imo.

[Unlucky]

[imipolex]

Sandpiper?

[Unlucky]

Nup don’t think so

[anon89873996]

I want to say some sort of thrush, but I wouldn’t be confident enough to say which kind.