There are many habitat restoration projects where I live. You can visit hundreds of hectares of fens and woodland within a few K's of my home, and many more are created each year. It's not all doom. I was a birdwatcher for decades before I picked up a camera to photograph wildlife. It was a way to remember some of the beautiful things I had seen, photography for me doesn't replace the bird watching, it's an addendum.
It was about this time I bought my Nikon D850 which, for many reasons, has much superior noise control than the Nikon D7200 I took this with. However, image processing technology has moved on so much that I find myself less concerned with noise now than ever before. I think, if I was taking this shot today, I would probably shoot at ISO 2000 on the D850 to give me the extra shutter speed. What I really need is f/4 500mm 😁
We get goldfinches but no chaffinches or greenfinches. I don't think there is enough woodland for them, mostly farmland, but there are a lot of teasles, which the goldfinches love for their seeds.
I would love to see any pictures you have of the greenfinches, they are such beautiful birds.
The picture is called Waiting for her love. They pair for life and she looked like she was waiting for her mate to arrive after being out at sea since the last breeding season.
I have also seen two species of them in Rome, the rose-ringed and the monks (of which I have some poor quality photos) Climate wise, this is probably less surprising than northern Europe.
Exotic bird markets have long been a thing, so it may be that there have been many small introductions over the last millennia and perhaps further back, I found some references to Ancient Rome. Perhaps only more lately with warmer winters they have been able to establish proper breeding colonies. As an indicator species their movements might be quite telling.
Awesome! I love the fact that someone has taken the time to write this history and that the Hendrix mythology has made it into the book. Thanks for letting us know this exists 😀
London is 51.5° North and Düsseldorf is 51.2° so basically the same, but your winters are a lot colder than ours I imagine, meaning our parakeets can live in places further North, like Durham.
There are many rumours about how they got loose in the UK. One is a music video/film with Jimmy Hendrix at Elstree studios in Borehamwood where they were released as part of the production. There are quite a lot of them in that area so it may be true 🫨
Wow, those parakeets get everywhere! How far North in Europe are you? We get them occasionally in East Anglia but with greater frequency. In London I can show you dozens in some of the parks. They have even been seen as far North as Durham.
Any other questions let me know 👍