...and bird whistles make fine gifts for a birder!

Yesterday I found a small envelope in the mail with my username on it. The envelope was stuffed with bird whistles! I had heard of them, but never knew where to buy them.

The ten(!) whistles include some of my favourite birds: kingfisher, golden oriole and blue throat. The others are blackbird, green finch, common redstart, starling, roller, blue tit and robin. Apart from the roller, I've seen them all and recognise their songs. Now I can also learn to imitate them.

Just a minute after I started practising with the blue tit whistle, a cat poked its head around the corner to see what all the racket was about. A young blue tit also showed up on my birdfeeder, but I didn't manage to get a picture of that. While I still need some practice to sound like the actual birds, they already get some attention from bird(lovers).

Thanks to my gifter, I can practice to imitate a lot of birds and maybe fool some friends with it. Santa, thank you for sending me this great gift!