These are unlikely jungle: office blocks, housing estates, city squares. These are not an idea of a wildlife paradise. But keep your eyes open – take a close look at yourself, look around and see and see high – And you will find that life can thrive here. Birds are among the most successful city residents (and certainly among the most striking). Urban bird observation has more than wild pigeons.
However, it is worthwhile to point out that pigeons have played a major role in the design of the bird landscapes of our cities. These were once “rock pigeons” before they were domesticated for races and show, and, as so often, found their way back to a different kind of wildness as city birds.
I think there is a lot to enjoy in the resistance and vitality of pigeons themselves, but pigeons are also part of a greater story. Look up the food chain a little further. An apex predator hangs in sight.
The rise and rise of the urban hiking falcon is a remarkable story. This is the fastest of all birds at its top speed, and if it is not the most impressive killer on earth, it is certainly the most impressive killer that you probably see that you zoom in on the roofs of Ridings in Central Wakefield.
Wakefield-a post-industrial city in West Yorkshire-Bin I grew up. Back then, in the 1980s, a hiker would have been a ridiculous idea here like a wild Emu or an urban penguin. On the one hand, the hiker was a bird of wild places, rocky highlands, the far away wilderness; On the other hand, it was a bird on the edge until then that was pushed in the UK by persecution and the insecticide -ddt to the edge of the extinction.
You can now see a rolling webcam from Peregrines that nest in Wakefield Cathedral. In fact, there is hardly a city in Great Britain today that does not have at least one or two couples. These are no longer wilderness birds (the New York district of Manhattan is home to the most densest hiking population in the world). Much of them lies on pigeons, the truck's staple. The pigeons are in the cities because of us and the hikers are here because of the pigeons.
Parishes with roses that have flourished in London since the 20th century, although their exact origin and how long they have lived in the capital is not known.
(Credit: Getty Images)
People are generally a key factor for the development of the city bird populations. For example, seagulls that are now freely (and hungry) are roaring in the most changed urban landscapes, mainly for our waste food. Birds such as stars like Starling enjoy the additional warmth that is generated by our humming urban centers. These bird populations are really an accident, a by -product of things that we did anyway.
Sometimes they are undesirable dahere the plastic owls, anti-Pigeon spikes and fatal networks that we often see in city buildings. But in some places the locals welcomed the urban bird species actively. 'Green' roofs, planted with flowers, offer insect eaters hunting building. The installation of Peregrine nest boxes is a profitable new micro industry for resting macks.
Leafy City Parks are of course rich in birdlife (in London Hyde Park in London, entrepreneur flew pockets with bird's foot so that tourists can feed the paramedics -another idea that would have been crazy 30 years ago). But you don't even need a park or even a grass blade so that birdlife finds a way.
Parks cheat for the hardcore city bird. Just keep your ears open from the roofs of the roofs. Pay attention to signs: white strips of bird droppings, prey springs that are scattered on a sidewalk, shabby nests in old drains, gutters and traffic lights. And look after: There could be a Starling murmas or a colony of Jackdaws, the 'Jack, Jack' or a line car tail along a ridge line or the stocky silhouette of a hiker who disperse the pigeons.
Everyday urban birds
Birds – like humans – can be routine creatures. You know what you need and if you know where to get it, you will go there. These are the regular guests, the commuters, the 9 to 5 birds who earn a constant life in cities across Great Britain.
star
Starling murmur-the spectacular, enigmatic air shows, which have become known from great star herds at the meeting for two gathering, but the fun does not stop when the birds come to earth. If you settle in your nightly quarters (the trees on a city square, you say), you cannot be seen, but you are still difficult to overlook: the deafening chatter in the heart of a starling must be heard to be believed.
The Pied Wagtail or “The Chipping Flyover” – an 'Adres of a smaller bird'.
(Credit: Getty Images)
Pied car tail
Jovial Londoner sometimes calls this bird “The Chipping Flyover”: “Chip, Chip”, it calls how he warps overhead. It is an Adoltered little bird that is just as noteworthy for its decent black and white plumage as for the long wagon tail that gives it its name. His cousin, the yellow car tail, hangs around near cattle and grabs the flies that are frightened by the cuddly hooves of the cows. The pied car tail prefers to move around the bikes of family salons and 4x4s, as this is the typical car bird, which often goes around the marked bays and has a gentle eye on flying.
gull
There are three seagull species that often frequent urban spaces: the black-headed seagull (small, yawning, red-legged), the smaller black-back and the large, bullying dad from all, the herring seagull (a beautiful bird if they are on the strong personality and focus on the silver liver, banana-yellow calculation bill and eyecatching fruits and Eyecatching calculation fruits and eyecatching-bill and eyecatching-Bill-Bill-Bill and Eyecatching-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill-Bill). Among bird observers are 'Gullers' a special breed – the only type of bird watcher that you can see sharply at a landfill location.
City specialties
Some city birds are not generalists or opportunists; These birds have found a certain niche in the British city.
A kittiwake that nests on the edge of a building in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
(Credit: Getty Images)
Putty
Newcastle-on-Tyne has far too proud: in addition to the football team, the industrial heritage and the Brown Ale, the city offers the worldwide the most gritty kittiwakes. These small, good-looking, loud seagulls, usually sea specialists, gather in large numbers per spring in order to be on and around the legendary Tyne bridge to nesting several miles upstream from the North Sea.
(Credit: Getty Images)
Blackstart
The Black Red Start is very rare in Great Britain, but takes a special place in the city ecosystem. Small, sooty, something like a robin when a Robin as a chimney as a chimney in spring had a secondary chamber, and mostly it does the urban jungle. It is the only true songbird that breeds in the city of London. It nests and sings at dilapidated strength stations, old mills and tower blocks. In contrast to a majority of the city birds, it is not an aa -eater or opportunist – everything it wants is to nest somewhere (an office block will work well) and to hunt for insects (which can find it in large numbers under the scrubbish facilities of abandoned rooms, free land and industrial places).
Chicken
Ok, this hulking forest predator – a kind of murderous, depressed Sparrowhawk, which is celebrated in books by Helen Macdonald and TH White, among other things – is not the one that you see on a trip to the shops in Norwich, Salford or reading, probably see how the hiker and the Red -Rena were subjected to a urban renaissance. The suspended chest and the flashing amber eye of the Goshawk can now be seen in Berlin, Hamburg and other cities in Central Europe