Garden Tickery

In addition to my brilliance at driving to Margate and seeing yet another bird that somebody else found, I've also been putting in the hard yards in the garden. Drinking tea early morning is pretty tough going, and as for sitting around in the sunshine listening to TMS, well, frankly I'm a modern-day hero. My dedication has paid off however, with two garden/house ticks in three days, one each side of the completely genetically pure Duskyish Thrush.

Friday morning was #80. I had been going great guns since about 6ish, and with thoughts of breaking my personal garden best (not that I would ever be so sad as to record that*) I noticed two ducks coming in from the north. Bins up and they looked pretty white, but disappeared behind some trees before I could nail them. In nervous excitement I swung to the other side of the trees where I predicted they would reappear, which they duly did and were Shelducks. Superb, long-awaited, and if I'm honest fairly likely. Whilst watching Shelduck from Wanstead Flats, on numerous occasions I've been struck (and annoyed by) the line they appeared to be taking. Today that promise came good, albeit in the other direction.



I don't think I took a single photo of anything on Sunday, so here is another of the Cuckoo at Reculver

So, come Sunday, and having spent the entire previous day triumphantly wandering around Kent, I felt that the best place to be was at home en famille. The test match was on, and heading towards a rather thrilling conclusion. The sun was out, a less serious version of cricket was taking place in the garden, and it was all rather pleasant. Had a rarity been reported anywhere beyond about five minutes away, I doubt I'd have moved. As it turned out I didn't need to. On Friday morning I'd thought I'd heard the final phrase of Lesser Whitethroat, you know, the rattley bit, as opposed to the starting scratchy bit. It was very distant, from the direction of Bush Wood, and I couldn't in all good conscience rule out a phrase of Chaffinch. I was still highly suspicious though, even more so when on Sunday morning Nick reported Lesser Whitethroat from Bush Wood. Anyway, at some point during the day I heard it again, but closer, and this time I was even more convinced. Typically though it was only once so I carried on bowling, and may have succumbed to the temptation of chilled Rosé. I finally nailed it about an hour later when I heard the entire song coming from about four gardens away. #81. I let Tim know, as he lives pretty close, and it later transpired that Bob got it from his house as well - so three happy local birders. It continued to sing in brief bursts for the whole rest of the day, and I'm pleased to report that the entire family, man, woman and child(ren) got to hear it. Not that they keep garden lists of course. And naturally I don't keep garden lists for them....

*32. I didn't top this - the lunch break I had been hoping for never materialised, and I remained on 27 with several notable and easy omissions.

Saving it up for the BIG ONE!

It could have been several birds. It may yet be several birds, but for now, and as far as I know now, today's Dusky Thrush is my 400th UK tick. And that, as I'm sure you'll agree, is a pretty big one to get there with. Before you all rush to congratulate me on this magnificent achievement, my only "skill" is being able to drive and read a map. Twitching is all about the thrill of the chase; some people take it a step further and turn it into a competition, but that's not for me, although obviously anyone who has only seen three hundred and something is a complete loser. If I look back at all the birds I've seen between 200 and 400, just two have been found by me at the point they were lifers for me (by found I mean actually found, a genuine surprise, rather than rocking up to Cairngorm and 'finding' a Ptarmigan). So, there are many many people out there, from selfless patch-workers to full-on rarity finders, who have contributed to this monumental total, and to each and every one of you, Thank You.

Of course this takes nothing away from my stellar performance. I now enter the lower-mid echelons of the birding elite, and I can tell you I am feeling pretty smug. The last three weekends have been very tough, poised at 399 but with no driving necessary at all. Today however it all changed. A chance late-evening look at Twitter and a twinge of excitement at noticing a mega message. Dusky Thrush? Hmm, not seen one of those. I wonder if Bradders has seen one? Nope, he hasn't. In fact, I later learned that nobody had, or at least not in recent memory. Plans were hatched that accomodated people that had been boozing all night, and the alarm was set for silly o'clock. Margate Cemetery for 5am, and we were the first people there!

Not really, several hundred were keener than we are - not a huge surprise for what is effectively a first for Britain as far as those funny people called twitchers are concerned. As usual the standing around held no interest for me, and so I started poking around elsewhere. And then, of course, you notice people running back past you. A quick look at my phone (on silent, don't want all those twitchers year-ticking Corncrake!) and two missed calls! Gah! Retracing my steps in a calm yet efficient manner, a mass of people are where the original line was. Some indecorous running around from a great many middle-aged men, and then the bird did the decent thing and perched right up in the top of a tree where everyone could see it. A collective and audible sigh went up, and I believe several people actually fainted.

From then on in it was plain sailing. I became the most relaxed person on the face of planet Earth. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could possibly have phased me. The rest of the day was spent wandering around north Kent in a semi-soporific state. A ringtail Monties and a male Red-backed Shrike at Reculver were excellent, with a nice supporting cast of summer visitors, but I could have seen anything and barely noticed. In a daze, pleased to be outside, totally knackered after a long week at work and no sleep, but running on a turdus-induced high. I managed to get it together for a Cuckoo, and the Shrike was of course magnificent, as they always are. 

As I type, I am still in a daze. It has been a long old road. On the 11th August 2007, with nothing better to do I drove to Oare Marshes and saw a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and several hundred people all going a bit nutty. Roll forward to 15th April 2009 and I was at Landguard with all three kids seeing my 300th bird, a Hoopoe. The next fifty took just over year, with number 350 being a Gull-billed Tern in Devon, a crazy day that also involved numbers 349 and 351 at opposite ends of the country. Since then progress has been slower, mainly due to my lack of appetite for dipping....

Then 2013 came around and the madness took over: Shetland, North Uist, my armchair, and finally Lincolnshire just under a month ago. 399, and the next one really counts! I mused over the top ten likeliest candidates, and got it spectacularly wrong. I'm pretty sure nobody would ever have tossed Dusky Thrush into the ring, but there you go. There have been plenty of surprises along the way, and no doubt there will be many more. Except that I might retire....

Getting it wrong

I recently decided that I would like to listen to the Zac Brown Band. I'd heard them on the wireless, they sounded pretty tight, it was my kind of music (i.e. had a banjo in it), job's a good 'un. The recommended album was called The Foundation, so I nipped onto Amazon and there it was. Click. Fairly expensive at £7.49 (most of my music is so deeply unpopular that I end up buying the CDs for a few pence) but hey, I was feeling flush, and I did really want this album. A few days later it turned up, so I eagerly unwrapped it, popped the disc into the player, and pressed play. What the?

Turning over the back of the CD case, the first track was called "Solid Rock". Not so bad surely? Second track, "Come Thou Font". Eh? The Zac Brown Band are bunch of good ol' boys from Georgia that sing about Fried Chicken and other mature themes, or so I thought. I skipped down the track listing. "What a friend we have in Jesus". "Holy Holy Holy". "O Come O Come Emmanuel".

Shit.

Here, encapsulated in one simple photo, lies the very real danger of online shopping.

In a way it's rather unfair, it's just too easy a mistake to make. Zac Brown Band, The Foundation vs The Brown Band, Foundations. Even the reviews of the ever-so-slightly religious one are in fact meant for the other one, and thus it gets five stars and glowing comments. Sucked me in I can tell you. As you can tell from the photo I now own both, and the one I actually wanted is excellent, properly good. So good that despite the fact they're a support act for Springsteen later this summer at a gig I've got a ticket for, I'm also going to see them the following evening at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. I booked it online, so let's just hope I don't turn up and find it's the God Squad...

Regressing

I'm currently looking at a large black lump that says 'Canon' on it. Poor spelling, and it doesn't even look like a cannon - I thought they were more pointy. It has lots of buttons on it as well, and a bit you appear to look though, although at the moment it's all dark. I thought cannons had a big hole in one end, and a bit you lit at the other, and that was it? I'm guessing it must have a use, though I'm buggered if I know what it is. No doubt it will all become clear in time.

Once upon a time I used to be an amateur bird photographer. Almost every morning I'd wake up early, pick up a camera, attach something called a lens to it, and go out on Wanstead Flats looking for birds to take pictures of. I can't tell you the last time I did that, I'm too busy to do anything but base functions. Sleep. Eat. And sometimes I don't even do that.... When I'm not sleeping or eating, I find myself staring at a couple of computer screens in Canary Wharf for like, ages. For this I get money, though this is no use to me as I have no time to spend it. I remember that I used to enjoy taking pictures, but I'm not sure I even have the cameras anymore. There is a suspicious-looking black lump in the corner of the room, but even if that did turn out to be a camera I doubt I'd remember how to use it. A real shame, as after many years of fruitless toil there came a point I felt I was actually getting somewhere. Nevermind, perhaps one day I'll be able to take it up again.

Mrs L told me I took this picture of a bird. I don't recall taking it, or even what the bird was called, but the photo does have my name in the top corner so I guess it must be true.

Dieting

Good old-fashioned exercise is not for me. I'm bad at it, and I don't have time. My poor dusty trainers. It's not as if I'm a complete slob though. I average out at roughly an hour per week on the sofa I think, and about a minute of television, if that. I walk a lot, typically carrying heavy and thus I assume calorie burning loads. Or maybe that's just back-breaking. Anyway, I walk far further per day than the average person walks in a week, and a gazillion times further than the pathetic government guidelines. Nonetheless, I would be the first to admit that a certain amount of excess baggage is lumped around my person. Mostly in the middle.....

Enter the new wonder diet that is the five-two diet. Five days off, two (non-consecutive) days on. I've tried the watching what you eat diets, they don't work. I assiduously watch what I eat, and then decide I would like some more of it, and so watch my myself eating that too. I just get fatter. I've no idea if this new brainwave will work for me either, but psychologically it's a lot easier. How hard can it be to get through a single day on minimal calories, knowing that a bagel is just around the corner? And then have several days off not even needing to think about it? Easy - and so it is proving. As I already said, the first five days of my new regime were incredibly easy as they were off days. Monday was my first on day, and it was a bit of a struggle. No breakfast, though mainly this was due to wall-to-wall meetings. A light lunch of pasta topped out at 260 calories, a miniature tuna sandwich can't have been anything at all, and I had plain roast beef for dinner which I estimated at around another 300 calories. The only slightly worrying fact pattern is that with a couple of coffees thrown in (can't give up the sugar, eeeugh) that left no room for anything green to pass my lips. Anyhow, I made it - and this on a work day when I had to have my thinking cap on, which I told burns the cals like nobody's business. Was I grumpy when I got home? Ever so slightly, but not so as you'd notice..... But this meant that yesterday was a complete joy! Poached eggs and hash browns for breakfast. Chicken, chips and salad for lunch. Smoked salmon, champagne (a minor celebration, more on this another time), a miniscule steak and a crème brûlée for dinner. I barely noticed I was dieting!

Today was my second on day, and it has been awful. I blew it big time at 9am with 250 calories of buttered bagel, and since then have had to suffer in silence. I've just eaten the world's smallest home-made (especially for me) turkey burger, a single cherry tomato, and a thimble of couscous. 120 calories? 150? I am starving, but this is OK as it would appear that I have at least 200 calories to go before I hit the magic 600. Fantastic, so what'll it be? Well, rather than waste this veritable bounty of as-yet unconsumed pleasure on food, I have just looked up what's in a glass bottle of wine. 550 for white, 510 for Red. I propose to push the boat out and open the white.

Happier times.....

Start of the week

Bar the Cuckoo, a slightly disappointing weekend for mid-May. Nevermind eh, always next weekend...... there are only so many weekends I can say about surely? The only tick in UK existence for me were the resident White-billed Divers up in the Moray Firth. They could have been a shoe-in, and were I more dedicated I might perhaps have gone, but a 20 hour round trip would have destroyed me. I've also grown bored of tweeting how amazing I am at birding, and so really have very little to say.

Today I was at Canary Wharf, and the major news, bar my massive dedication and another nearly 11 hour day, is that I have purchased some new sunglasses which I hope will revolutionise my birding. They differ in two critical ways from my old sunglasses. Firstly they are pretty much flat and so are extremely easy to use with bins. The old ones were the curvy ones which proved extremely problematic with bins, to the point where I gave up and just squinted. God knows how many Marsh Harriers I missed. Secondly, I know exactly where the new sunglasses are, which is something I cannot say about the old ones, and which precipated their purchase this afternoon. According to the sales assistant, I was the first customer to spend time down one end of the shop trying on sunglasses and then looking through binoculars to the other end of the shop. She took it very well to be fair, as did all the other punters. In fact not a word was spoken, nary a glance stolen. I guess this being Canary Wharf, people are far too self-absorbed to notice a nondescript yet dashingly handsome young man pissing about with optics in the corner of a shop. I am now much poorer, with a highly uncool pair of sunnies made by.....er, I don't actually remember and they are downstairs and I am upstairs. Paul somebody I think. Anyhow, they look like toy sunglasses, but during an extensive test were the ones which proved easiest to get a clear view though using my bins (with the eyecups retracted). Here's to many hours of successful and soothing skywatching.

Note I say successful skywatching. This is critical part. Unsuccessful skywatching is really dull, and I partook in something like seven hours of it on Sunday. The first three were on Hackney Marshes whilst watching my son play in a cricket match. The cricket was obviously highly absorbing (Wide. Wide. Wide. No ball. Wide.) but nonetheless I found time to gaze at a birdless sky. I continued doing this when I got home, scoring almost as many good birds. Not a single raptor in seven hours. I would descibe my performance as zeroic, a new word I have just invented. Perhaps it was due to my lack of sunnies. Wanstead CC won the match, with Muffin bowling the penultimate over when the game was in the balance. One wicket maiden later and it was all over. Bamboozled the poor kid for five deliveries, with the sixth neatly knocking off the off stump bail. Attaboy!

In other news, I've started a diet. It's called the 5-2 diet, I'm sure you've heard of it. The idea is that you eat like a pig and drink like a fish for five days out of seven, and consume practically nothing for the other two. I started last week, and the first five days were remarkably easy. A breeze, the most enjoyable diet I've ever been on. Today was more difficult....

Patch Tick!

Today I got a patch tick, as in an ever tick. These are always brilliant, no matter what the bird, and today it was the turn of the Cuckoo. Everyone has seen Cuckoo the patch apart from me, and I was secretly a little worried that I might never get one, especially as they are a bird in decline. But I've scored now, and nobody can ever take it away...

Whitethroat...

I'd actually left the house this morning with Cuckoo firmly in mind, but after a few hours of aimless wandering, and having seen very little apart from a real Garden Warbler, I was resigned to failing yet again. Until I rounded the very last corner on the very last path, and a familiar shape launched itself out of a roadside tree and scooted off across some brooms. Gah! I texted out the happy news to a few locals quickly, and then headed the way it had flown to see if I could relocate it. And if I'm honest, confirm the ID - for a moment I was worried I'd been a little hasty in my excitement, but first impressions are very often correct (cf Garden Warbler) and so when I relocated it perched on the side of some vegetation I knew it was in the bag. A quick couple of record shots from a huge distance, and then it flew through and out and was never seen again.

Not the best, but very much good enough!

So, patch tick number 136, and lifts my year list to the heady heights of 103. Now many people have been moaning about how dire this year has been bar a few concentrated bursts, but I was amazed to see that 103 is a number that in recent years I've not reached until August, and in 2010 not until September, and there are still quite a few obvious ones left to bag, such as Bullfinch, Spotted Flycatcher, Common Tern and Wryneck. At this rate it might even be a record-breaking year - 113 is the number to beat, my total in both of the last two years. Early days of course, and it could all dry up very quickly, but it's certainly lifting my enthusiasm for patch birding. Which is a good thing as my 400th UK tick remains distinctly out of reach.

While I'm here, I should also say that the Whitethroat I had specifically got up to target wasn't there, so here is a photo of a Wren instead. Roll on tomorrow!