Something out of Hitchcock's..

[John Parry]

"The Birds"

Hi All

Every morning, as I look out of my weekday accommodation skylight, there is a free-for-all fight between the local crow population and the seagulls for possession of the best spots on the beach. Currently, the crows are winning.

These are from test rolls taken with recent acquisitions.

The first is from the Fujica ST605. Bit disappointing, as the meter is reading high, so it isn’t making best use of the light available. That will teach me to do comparisons beforehand, and compensate from the start.

Not a good scan, but you can probably make out that there is a crow perched on everything available.



The next two are with the Yashica 230AF. I have been really impressed with this. The autofocussing is so fast, it really is tracking continuously (compared to the Eos 1000FN which can hunt for 5 seconds before locking)





I’ll post some more from the 230AF in the critique section later.

Regards - John

[Randy]

Here we call them critters 'sky rats' John! We've got crows here as big as bowling balls!

[John Parry]

Funny thing Randy,

We call those ravens over here - these are just hooded crows. Here we call the seagulls the skyrats! Read an article once that said that the average weight of a seagull was between 8 and 12 ounces. Ha! Our herring and black-backed gulls must have interbred with turkeys back in their lineage!!

John

[litesong]

Hi John...In the U.S. we have both ravens & crows(several types). Our raven is much bigger than the crow(bigger than a number of hawks), has a bill that curves, & has a deep deep cronk of a voice. Grace & peace to you, John & all readers...litesong

[Randy]

On the subject of crows, back in the '70s, I used to frequent a salvage yard. (cheap parts for cars) Hadbergs was the name. Mr. Hadberg had a crow that could talk via a cut tongue. Blackie had a shrill voice and a rather colored vocabulary. I ended up with Blackie, and you haven't lived until you've lived with a crow. He used to steal my wrist watch, silverware, anything shiny, and he had a hiding place behind the sofa. He would ride with me in the Semi when I was trucking. One day at a truck stop, I went in to eat, and when I came back out he was gone. I knew somebody saw him in my truck and took him. He was a great co-driver.

[John Parry]

We have another member of the crow family here called magpies - don't know if they occur anywhere else. Some new neighbours moved in behind our house, and they had a young boy. Previously, they had lived in South Africa, so the young lad had never seen a magpie before. They are quite vicious birds - attack other birds, eat their eggs and so on.

This young lad saw one perched on his roof. Seeing the birds rather exotic colouring (Pied - black and white) he thought it was an escaped parrot of some description. He stretched out his hand and called it down. To my amazement, the magpie flew down and landed on his hand. I was stood ready to jump in at the first sign of trouble (you really wouldn't want one of these things within striking distance of your eyes), but there was no problem. The young lad stood there talking to the bird, and it sat there, cocking it's head from side to side as though it was listening.

Whether the bird had at some stage been domesticated and subsequently released, or escaped, I don't know. But I've never seen anything like that in my life. Somewhere ( ! ) I have a snap of it. I'll try to dig it out.

Regards - John

[Microdad]

Growing up on a farm in Montana, we had a lot of magpies which were considered a pest. They would get into the farm animals food, ravage the nests of other birds etc. When I was a kid, my dad (like many local farmers) would pay a quarter each for me to shoot them so I made some extra cash in the summer time. They were really smart though, and very skiddish which made them difficult to get close to.

They did have one real weakness, they absolutely LOVE dog food. Especially the soft canned type of dog food so I often used it for bait. Sometimes when we fed our dogs, we would have to stand out and watch because the magpies would actually scare the dogs away from their food.

John, cool photos! Your mention of Hitchcock makes me want to run and hide in a phone booth.

[litesong]

John ....A friend of mine(my email name, Litesong was derived from her email name, Litenotes) is a believer of interspecies communication. She would more readily believe that the young boy & bird were in sympathetic communion, as Litenotes herself did with several animals. I personally noted that birds were nearer us when we walked the outdoors together, than when I was in the outdoors by myself. She said she could feel sensitivity to trees too.

Steve....My grandma remembered in the early 1900's that we had magpies in Western Washington. During the 1970's thru the '90's, I became fairly aware of birds & my friend was alert to wild birds much longer than I. We never saw a wild magpie in Western Washington. We saw one magpie, but discovered it had been a domesticated magpie that had escaped. Plenty of magpies in eastern Washington tho. Grace & peace to you, John & Steve & all readers

[herron]

floppydog said:

Growing up on a farm in Montana, we had a lot of magpies which were considered a pest. They would get into the farm animals food, ravage the nests of other birds etc. When I was a kid, my dad (like many local farmers) would pay a quarter each for me to shoot them so I made some extra cash in the summer time. They were really smart though, and very skiddish which made them difficult to get close to.

Steve:
My grandfather lived on a farm in Tennessee and, as a little kid in the 50s, I can remember him taking out this huge old shotgun (my father has it now, a double-barrel 8-gauge) to shoot at the crows in his corn field.

He seldom hit any (when he did, there was not much left) but the blast did manage to scare them away for hours! Good thing Cheney was using something more civilized, or his "old friend" would have been toast!

[Rachel]

litesong said:

My grandma remembered in the early 1900's that we had magpies in Western Washington. During the 1970's thru the '90's, I became fairly aware of birds & my friend was alert to wild birds much longer than I. We never saw a wild magpie in Western Washington. We saw one magpie, but discovered it had been a domesticated magpie that had escaped. Plenty of magpies in eastern Washington tho.

We live on the edge of a city and there are plenty of Magpies around these days. I don't recall seeing them till recent years. They are considered vermin in the countryside.

Nice to see your face Litesong Peace to you too.