Wednesday 6 November 2013

Blasphemy

I am considering not doing a patch year list next year.

Bad, huh? I mean, could this in fact be blasphemy? Is Lee going to issue a fatwa, especially as I'm not even second division in that other facet of birding, twitching? It's not that I am bored of the patch, not at all. I love it, but I simply cannot do it justice, and it really annoys me that I can't get out there anywhere near as much as it needs. Time is at a premium, work is ridiculous, I travel a little bit, and the bottom line is that I don't have time. Can a patch be done just at weekends? I don't think it can. Although this year has been a record-breaking year for me, actually mostly other people have found the birds and I have simply popped out to see them. Counting them up, of the 17 what I would consider less-than-annual birds on my list for 2013, I've found just six of them and twitched the rest. Maybe this isn't so bad in the grand scheme of things, a relatively lively ratio in fact considering how little I went out there in comparison to some of the others. Nonetheless it still irritates me, and my response is to maybe give up. Now that I put it like that, sounds pretty crap. Oh dear.

Maybe it's all Nick's fault? He is fortunate enough to be able to do the patch all morning every day. This means that I have lost count of the number of times that I've had to leave to go to work, and he has turned up something good either as I've been on a train, or at my desk. As you can imagine, this is very painful. Once, fine. Twice, OK, I'll cope. All the bloody time? Gah! Especially when the bird in question was probably there the whole time, but as is the habit with small birds, inactive/still asleep when I went through early on my way to Canary Wharf.

But that's not the sum of it. Far from it. The patch is way too busy, even early in the morning. The seemingly exponential increase in usage from all quarters is driving me insane. Stunningly arrogant and loud dog-walkers, all out at the crack of dawn. The litter left everywhere, from innumerable all-night drinking clubs, from the mass scattering of water and sports drink bottles after football, the devotions of rice and so on left on the edges of ponds, to the absurd quantities of rotting bread left out for birds. The joggers who run in front of my lens, the man who listens to air traffic control from the Wheatear log of all places, the radio-controlled planes that ruin weekend afternoons. And of course the gay cruisers that hang around Long Wood, and what they leave behind. The fact anybody finds any birds at all is astonishing, and the overall effect is spoiling it for me. The dog walkers are the worst of course, but quite a few of the others aren't all that far behind. Mind you, I'm rather tense at the moment, and it takes ever smaller indiscretions to annoy the crap out of me.

So what to do? Not bother? Seems weak, but it may be the answer. If I can't go round it very often, and when I do I can't move for other people and half the birds are asleep, then it lessens the pleasure I get from it. And that is if course the whole point. But is being miserable about not doing the patch worse than a lesser amount of happiness, and fair amount of annoyance, from doing it a small amount with a lot of disturbance? One to ponder. I would definitely miss it, but equally maybe a rest from it would refresh it for me? Then again, what would I do instead if birding was restricted to the weekend only, as seems likely. Would I be desperate to get out there, or would I be keener to go further afield?

10 comments:

  1. Jonathan, you've posted about your frustration with 'non-birders' on your patch before. Especially dog walkers. An open public space is exactly that - open to everyone to do on it what they want (within local by-laws). Yes, litter is anti-social, but jogging, walking a dog or being loud are not. To those that do those things they most probably dislike that bloke who hangs around furtively with a big camera lens.That's life. I do not bird those sort of places because I find them not to be conducive to comfortable birding. You can either choose to carry on birding there (and accept the things that annoy you), or don't go at all. You are representative of a very small section of the park users - most of the others are not wrong and have as much right to be there doing what they do. Having said that, letting steam off in a post is most probably the cheapest form of therapy that you can have!

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  2. That sounds like the life of most birders Jono, and you take life as it comes, or you make it. Think of the time when the kids can go out on their own, (it takes time) think of the time when you retire (46), give up work again etc. These things do happen. Dave.

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  3. Very much the frustration of birding anywhere public! As for only getting there at weekends I think that applies for many of us - I am very envious of those that can get to the patch more than once a week. It just means that you have to make the most of it! Don't give up your patch, even if I could only get down once a month "my patch" will always remain just that.
    Great blog by the way, always entertaining, even when grumpy.....and my experience is that the older you are the grumpier you get (so my children tell me).

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  4. Weekends is all I can manage on my patch for over six months of the year, and I usually only mange twice a week even in summer. Admittedly it is a reserve, so I don't get the regular dog-walkers, joggers, etc. (although we have had a few over the years) but it's my, and several dozen others, local patch. Yes, sometimes (well quite often) I get p*ssed off with other people rocking up once in a blue moon and finding Wilson's Phalaropes and Bee-eaters. Sometimes I even think about not doing the patch any more 'cos I'm fed up counting Green Sandpipers, but I always go back even if I do spend some time doing another, closer, area occasionally

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  5. Weekends is all I can manage on my patch for over six months of the year, and I usually only mange twice a week even in summer. Admittedly it is a reserve, so I don't get the regular dog-walkers, joggers, etc. (although we have had a few over the years) but it's my, and several dozen others, local patch. Yes, sometimes (well quite often) I get p*ssed off with other people rocking up once in a blue moon and finding Wilson's Phalaropes and Bee-eaters. Sometimes I even think about not doing the patch any more 'cos I'm fed up counting Green Sandpipers, but I always go back even if I do spend some time doing another, closer, area occasionally

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  6. This is just some dubious attempt to skew the percentages in your favour for the Golden Mallard when you resurrect your patch eh? Well it won't wash matey! Seriously tho, I doubt you could give it up, not that this is a challenge to try to do so! Imagine a lovely spring saturday morning, you're lounging at home with the kids (always a good reason to get out on patch I'd say!) when the phone goes. Its Nick, or Tony, or whoever and they've found a patch mega on the patch. Its not a proper rarity, but some real gank which just happens to be really rare for Wanstead. "Oh thats nice" you think, and switch attention back to the paper...

    Me arse! You'd be out there in a flash, still in yer pyjamas cos you neeeeeeed it! The patch is in your blood! And the Golden Mallard - it's not so far away! Reg is due a shit year next year, and the proclaimers can't keep this pace up for long! Its as good as in the bag! All it takes is one more attempt! Just one! And then you can take a year off, while it resides on your mantelpiece, forever at risk of an overly zealous duster pushing it off the edge to oblivion! 50 quid down the tubes!

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  7. Hmm, Steve Gale, I think it boils down to what's considerate to others or not. Shouting loudly all the time or running in front of someone's camera lens unnecessarily, when there is plenty of room to go around/behind them, is just not so nice because it affects others negatively. Someone taking photos quietly probably won't intrude on anyone else's free time much, but someone bellowing loudly affects everyone else for hundreds of metres around. So it may all be legal, but people should still try to be considerate. I wouldn't walk in front of the tourists I see (all the time) taking photos, I'd just wait a few seconds for them to press the shutter. It doesn't hurt to be considerate, we're not talking about forcing everyone else to be silent, but just some sensible behaviour and thoughtfulness for others, so I can see why sometimes JL gets frustrated. A lot of things are legal but we have to share our limited space in cities and try not to spoil it for others who don't have the luxury of being able to simply go elsewhere.

    On my patch most dog walkers are OK and 95% of them are responsible (and the dogs are usually nice), although there are inevitably a few shouty types and even one or two insane and antisocial types but luckily these are relatively rare!

    Maybe JL should just continue to go on his travels, and just sit back and wait for another Wanstead patch worker to let him know when there's something worth going for locally - let them have the day-to-day irritations and he can just stroll across and enjoy it!

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  8. Joe, in ref to your last para, that's mostly exactly what happens, much to my chagrin.....

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