Okay, I'll pay attention to whats lying on the ground now. And visiting the crow colonies from time to time.
You sure crows aren't living in cities? We have like millions of them here and a lot of them living on some sycamore trees in the town centre. I guess it will be hard to spot the magpie colonies xD

Mallards have this pretty speculum feathers (I have to look all these words up. Thank you wikipedia @.@) but I guess it's hard to find those.

Never seen such a pigeon. We just have these flying rats here and they seem to become rarer nowadays. Maybe the crows are eating their eggs o.o
Are magpies that agressive? Always thought they are friendly birds. At least as friendly as crow birds can be.

Oh I'm not saying they don't live in the city at all :p
They just prefer rural places. :)
They appear in cities from time to time. Jackdaws however are everywhere. I used to mistake them for crows when I was younger. Maybe you see so many jackdaws? :)
Magpies don't really live in colonies though. ;D
They live in groups in mating times and the young ones gather together when they just got out of the nests, but other then that, they're pretty individual - with their partners of course. ^_^

I don't know. Their secondary wing feathers should come off in the molt too. I have no clue about the others though. I don't know anything about feathers really :(

Well most of the time they are... well not particularly friendly, they just don't care about others. xD
They can be tamed and stuff too so yeah, I'd say they're friendly.
It's just around nesting period that they become extremely defensive - and for a magpie, being defensive means being offensive. Our magpies seem to be like that only to other birds, I never heard of a European Magpie attacking a human.
In Australia however warnings have to be given out not to walk or cycle in certain areas during those periods. People have actually lost eyes due to Australian Magpie attacks. ^_^;;

By flying rats you mean Rock Pigeons? I don't know what could be happening to them. Magpies only eat eggs and young birds in very small amount and I can't imagine that they would be the guilty ones here.
Anyway, here there are still more than enough. What would Amsterdam be without pigeons? ;D
But I know what you mean. A few years ago our garden was filled with sparrows. Now they've completely disappeared. In Germany however they've never been gone. :p

So you know everything about magpies but not when they lose their feathers? How is that possible?

Oh we have jackdaws too but those on the sycamore trees are definitely crows. The trees and the crows are kinda an attraction since they are some of the oldest sycamore trees in Germany and there are nesting boxes for the crows. And around my school were so many crows it was sometimes even a bit frightening (and jackdaws aren't frightening xD)

I've heard about that somewhere you couldn't use a certain road because some crazy birds would attack you when you come to close to there nest. Was that Australia? Man, when I'm hearing that I'm happy that our domestic animals are pretty peaceful xD

Yeah rock pigeons, also called the flying rats xD And hopefully the sparrows will stay, I'd miss them
I just really would like to know where our kingfishers live, I'd love to have a feather of those.

Because I can't find anything on that particular piece of information :(
And it doesn't seem very consistent. When I bought my canary, I had read that they molt in September. So that's not a good time to buy one.
When I went past multiple pet stores of a chain in search of which red canary I wanted I came past one where all the birds looked horrible. When I mentioned it in another store, the woman said it could be because they're molting. So I was like 'They only do that in September, right?' but she answered that that didn't exactly have to be then...
So even if I could find it I don't know how reliable it would be. :p

Hahaha that's true, jackdaws are more funny and cute than frightening. <3
I didn't know you lived in Germany! Where exactly, if I may ask? :D

I don't know if that's the same case, but I'm definitely sure the Australian Magpies aren't joking around that time of the year :p
Yeah, our 'wild' birds would almost seem domestic indeed...

Yeah well I love birds and rats both so I can't mind. I do understand the reference though. :p
I'd miss them so much too... one of my favorite places in Berlin is the Starbucks at the Brandenburger Tor. The first time I was there I found myself covered in sparrows because I made the mistake to try and eat a muffin on the terrace. :D

Kingfishers... you have kingfishers in Germany? :o

Since you are taking request here some idea for the tree knuffel:

You should do a maple tree since they are not all green so we get some nice fall color (summer = warmer color= maple leaf color) and they are soooo pretty. You can also use honey as a design element since it come from the tree. The different color (yellow, orange, and red) can make it easier to make changes to knuffel.

A pine cone tree would be awesome for a female knuffel. (You don't have many) The cone can be separate into part and that can be made in a dress, pants, etc. The pine cone can be wear on the head or be smaller to be decorated item. You can also be a belt and have pine cone of them or make it an xmas pine cone theme.

Those 2 are my favorite I am looking forward too. Along with KC palm tree knuffel. I hope you decide to do a crane knuffel since you like bird I perfer whooping crane but just crane are fine) ;D

I think you mean maple syrup, not honey :)

The pine cone one you described sounds like a Knuffel indeed but not at all my style...
I would like to try either of those trees but please bear with me. I am not comfortable with trees at all - and anything in the earth element, really... So this is gonna be a hard one. It's gonna take ages, I can tell you that. But I hope I'll be able to do it eventually :)

There a difference? O_O I always assume they were the same or similar.

No rush, just throwing idea out there. If you can draw such an awesome plane I am sure you can draw trees. ;D

Let me guess your favorite element is air? I mean you like bird and plane and that is manly air element.

No, besides the taste, a big difference is that maple syrup is made by humans from sap of the sugar maple tree, while honey is made by bees from pollen? :p

Hmm I hope so, but I have a ginormous love for airplanes, while trees frankly aren't really my thing. Well I'm glad they're there, but I don't look at them like I look at birds and airplanes at all. :p
So inspiration just doesn't come as easy. But I'll try my best!

Strangely enough, as much as I love everything with wings, air isn't my favorite element I guess... Fire appeals most to me if you look purely at elements. Though water is really interesting too. Air has always felt like a weaker 'element' to me. And I've never been interested in earth much. A little 'boring', to put it that way? Not that earth is boring. It's just not my thing. ^_^

I've been visiting a crow area today and I even found some large black feathers. Unfortunately it rained right before that so they all looked horrible -.-
But that lets me hope to find some nice ones later. ... And I thought. Do you go to zoos? Thats was my favorite activity in zoos as a child. Looking for feathers. Why looking at the bird when you can look for feathers? xD And are you interested in budgie feathers? I have a friend with ... 7? budgies I could ask her to keep the feathers for me o.o

I live in Sachsen-Anhalt ... Saxony-Anhalt in English? Somewhere in the middle east ;D

I like rats, too. I hate when people try to poison them. Flying rat is just what pigeons are often called here.
There are hordes of sparrows at the Brandenburger Tor? (Haven't been there yet >.<) That's funny. Usually you have pigeons at such places, don't you? Like in Venice. Been there some years ago with our school class. We were dropped at Piazza San Marco and had some hours time for sight seeing. But all we did was feeding pigeons.

Sure we have kingfishers. They live all across Europe as far as I know. I just only see one once in my life and they are so pretty ._.

@merry: Interesting since everyone seem to make more fire knuffel than anything else. My favorite element is air even though I like earth theme more. I love flower and tree.

I don't really eat honey or maple syrup at all. I haven't eaten pancake in a year and bread is never a part of my diet. I get from like pastry I (cake etc) but I never wat it much. So I have no clue in that department.

What country are you from Merry?

@cyan: What an awesome place to live in. We have tons of sea gull and crow here. They pop everywhere D=

I been to the San Diego Zoo in Ca in and there a lot of animal from all around the world. (and insect, worm, bug, snake etc) I was shock to see reindeer since I didn't really think they exist. XD