h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's September and the birds are gathering to fly away for the winter. Sometimes they make a heck of a racket.

Seeing skeins of birds in the sky, flying south for the winter around the start of winter school term, is one of my most vivid childhood memories. Later in life, when I was living much further into the great metripolos of London I never seemed to see them doing that. I'm glad I grew up where I did, in the far outer suburbs close to the countryside.

I haven't seen any migrating birds yet. The only ones I see are geese that are flying from one part of the floodplain to another . They don't do it quietly.

In a couple weeks I plan to plant some daffodil and crocus bulbs.

The noise round here, apart from the roadworks, is the grey squirrel who keeps giving incessant alarm calls to everything, even the birds have stopped taking notice.
Yesterday evening there was lots of bird noise, from a southern invader, a flock of green parakeets passed over on their way back to roost, pretty to look at but damn noisy and you don't want to park your car anywhere near trees they roost in.

I'm going to miss the nightly starling murmuration this autumn, now I take a different route to and from work. Pity - it was always one of the things that cheered me up when it started getting dark earlier and I'd meet them on the way home.

I went outside during the Perseid Meteor Shower, and was fascinated by the noise of the birds roosting in a tree under a street light. I'm lucky that there is one particular tree that is a haven for birds, so the tweeting in the morning and evening has been impressive all year

(But I know I am now in the 21st Century, as my first thought on reading the thread title was, "Is someone commenting about Twitter?" )

I used to hear the mourning dove every morning. There was a telephone wire over my house. Now there isn't.

I remember one time when a parakeet got loose, and it took its place on a wire with other kinds of birds.

Well the squirrel had something to complain about today...
It was being chased across the car park next door by one of the local cats.
However the cat is rather barrel shaped and the squirrel is rather fitter so it was no contest really, it was up the fence and in the tree while the cat was still looking round the fence posts to see where it went.
Paul H
Ae mourning doves the same as we call collared doves, quite nice looking birds, there are two pairs in and out of my garden regularly.

The parakeets were once escapee's but are now resident, there is a large flock not far away road at Hampton Court.
An australian neighbour is of the opinion that "Ring neck" parakeet is an instruction, not a species. as they are considered a pest down under.

Mourning doves are the most-hunted birds in North America. Collared doves are Eurasian, not native to the Americas at all, but recently introduced, so we'll see how they do.

We don't have feral parakeets in the U.S. Northeast, but there are Quaker Parrots in Brooklyn, Chicago, and Montreal. I guess the residents need to lay in a supply of crackers.

There used to be passenger pigeons in huge numbers in North America but they were hunted to extinction.

I've seen a passenger pigeon

Stuffed, admittedly, but "beautiful plumage…"

This is an ex-pigeon!

Their story is truly bizarre. Anyone do an Entry yet?

A13645785 But of course. Good old Skanky.