On being boring

Around that same pub table I described last week we also discussed the merits of being boring. All agreed that I was very boring indeed, true friends in other words, but that the advantages of being boring were there for all to see. As is often the case with discussions in pubs, I cannot precisely remember how this conversation came about, but it may have been to do with stability and family harmony. Whatever, though I am actually 40 now, I have been 40 since I was 20 if you see what I mean, and that has a lot going for it.

My mate Richard, whilst perhaps not meeting the same ‘boring’ baseline, an area where I truly set the bar, agreed he too was a pretty level-headed kind of guy and that he liked that. Neither of us will ever set the world on fire, neither of us will ever go on to achieve great things that are talked about for generations to come. And we’re both absolutely fine with that. Steady as she goes.

So what is good about being dull? Well, I am unlikely to ever spring any surprises on anybody, especially my family who know me best. Mrs L generally knows what I am thinking before I do, or what I am about to do. She catches me “tasting” in-progess cooking before I have even reached for the spoon for instance. My children have this talent too – this is good. Being predictable means that expectations are generally always met. Having a firm footing in an unexciting home life (by which I mean no fits, no screaming, no emotional angst) means that my kids are level-headed, sensible and nice individuals, who at this stage we feel will develop into level-headed and sensible teenagers, hormones not withstanding. This may have been the gist of the original conversation, but at this stage we can’t see where the “I hate you I wish I’d never been born!” is going to come from. Perhaps being boring also brings with it massive amounts of parental naivety? Time will tell.

In my case, being boring also means being risk averse to the point of paranoia, a trait I have happily passed on to my son. Bungy jumping? No thanks. Sky diving? Yeah right. Anything mildy exciting at all? No, I'm fine thanks. I find watching sport stressful, I don't need any additional bursts of adrenalin that come from the faint feeling that my life be in danger. It makes you feel more alive apparently. Well, being rational I feel perfectly alive already. Pulse? Yes. Another tax return to do? Yep, definitely alive.

And of course I like birds. There's a boring badge right there. One of the best you can get in my opinion, my head full of useless avian facts, latin binomials, calls and songs, and a mental archive full of what rare birds I've seen where. I've been known to wear green, and I even have a camo hat (kind of). Not forgetting my ground-breaking musical tastes....

And no, no migrants yet since you ask.

Gah, when will it end!!!?

Sorry not this blog. Did you think I might? I might indeed, but it is still helpful. No, what I mean is that the birds keep on coming. I thought I was safe this weekend. I needed to be safe, I wanted to be at home. And what happens? I'll tell you what happens! A bleedin' Ivory Gull flies past a bit of north-eastern coastline is what happens. Now before you go all "but you don't have to go", you're quite right. I don't. And I would not have done. But the thought of what is out there is irritating. I would much rather that nothing were out there until I am good and ready, which is not this weekend.

So what have I been doing? Well, it has been very exciting. Exciting and annoying. The highlight of the weekend so far, other than the 2004 St Joseph, has been the installation of a new surround sound system in the front room. This will come as a surprise as I'm not a big TV watcher. The last time I knowingly watched TV was probably the 2012 Olympics, but I do enjoy the odd DVD, or whatever the format is these days. As such I have one of those systems where you have speaker behind your left ear, and another behind your right. It died about two years ago, and replacing it has remained very low on my list of priorities since then. However about a month ago I bought a fridge blackboard. Mainly this was for Mrs L's benefit, to act as a constant reminder of all the boring things (i.e. not to do with music in any way) that she had to do, and that had remained close to the bottom of any metaphorical list she might keep. In other words, close to the top of the list that I keep for her. However any time I so much as mentioned anything on it, this had the capacity to start a chain reaction of small explosions culminating in mention of the fact that she had just been on the cusp of doing something, but now that I had mentioned it she was damned if she was doing it. Thus nothing ever gets done.

Enter the Blackboard of Unhappiness. To keep things fair, I also wrote a pile of the things I was least interested in doing on it, and one of these was to replace the speakers. You would think that most blokes would relish a task such as this, the chance to do a pile of research on electronic gadgets, and then do a spot of tinkering - screwdrivers at the ready. However I am not most blokes, and installing a home cinema system holds practically no interest for me whatsoever. As such I've happily lived without the magic of Dolby 5:1 for quite some time. But I had to go and write it on the blackboard didn't I, and there it gnawed at me, until yesterday I finally caved, and ordered some damn thing on Amazon as part of their Black Friday deals. It arrived today.

I didn't hold out much hope of being able to correctly install it, but my mood cheered when I discovered that the brackets on the old speakers had exactly the same thread as the new ones. Despite my native stupidity, the thing actually worked first time - idiot proof I think they call it, nicely referred to as plug and play. Nonetheless taking the old one out (found several spiders, a missing mitten, several nerf gun bullets and a coloured-in tennis ball) and sticking the new one in took the entire morning. The big annoyance, as eluded to above, was discovering right at the very end that the cable for the furthest-away speaker was approximately 45cm too short, and thus rather than the wire being neatly hidden by the picture rail, there is a little bit of corner cutting..... Fuck it, it works, and if I'm looking at the telly I can't see it as it's behind my head. And anyway, I spend next to no time in that room anyway so who cares? Mrs L cares, but she knows how ill-equipped I am for this sort of task and seems fairly relieved that nothing went too drastically wrong as at one point I did have a hammer out.

To end, here are two questions:

1) Can you guess what the first DVD on this afternoon was?
2) I've now rubbed out most of my tasks on the blackboard. Can you guess who hasn't? 

Another dull day.....

Another quiet day on Wanstead Flats. Just three Whinchats, two Spotted Flycatchers, two Lesser Whitethroats, a Garden Warbler, a Tree Pipit and a Wryneck. It's all getting a bit dull if the truth be told, and I got bored pretty quickly. Until it livens up a bit I don't think I'm going to bother any more, it's hardly worth it. Anyway, before I collapsed with apathy and fell asleep, I managed a photo of Wanstead's current dross bird. God I hope it improves soon, there's only so much more of this I can take....

 

As expected there were quite a few birders around this morning, many wanting a glimpse of the Wryneck. Losers. What do they think, that it's rare or something? Amazing, but there you go, it takes all sorts. I just can't get excited by something quite so mundane. Treecreeper on the other hand, now there's a bird! Can't wait 'til we get one of those - a crippling mega! Anyway, before I go, here's a photo of another crappy bird from this morning. Yawn.

 

September on the Patch....

....is so far very similar to August. In fact it involves most of the same birds, including all of yesterday's Whinchats and possibly an extra one for good measure. A couple of Redstart still knocking around as well, but quality was provided by a Green Sandpiper heading west across the Flats. I was chasing the aforementioned Whinchats around the Broom Fields, and had got within the requisite 40m before they all took flight again, when I heard a wader call, high and piercing. Looking around desperately yielded nothing, but it called again twice whilst remaining invisible. I was texting out the news of wader goodness when a text from Nick came through. I had thought he was at Long Wood, but in fact he was somewhere over towards the Alex, and had had a Green Sand over calling. He hadn't seen it either, but no matter, mystery solved, and checking my phone confirmed that the high call notes were indeed the species I had been wondering about. Happy days.



This was as close as I came, which with 1120mm of focal length tells you all you need to know.

This proved the only high note of the morning, the Whinchats were completely impossible, and a brief glimpse of a Redstart diving between cover had me scuttling home - there is only so long I want to schlep a big lens around for without actually doing anything with it. So instead I have devoted the rest of the day to sorting out my greenhouse, which before birding took over my life was a mainstay of my OCD. The scene inside was of major devastation. Even though the plants I like are mostly from arid zones, there is only so much that even they can take, and I have unfortunately managed to kill loads of them. Mainly these were seedling plants, the ones that really needed tender loving care, whereas the larger plants have more in reserve and can last longer. I am a fool. So, a massive cleaning exercise, lots of disposing of dead plants, lots of tipping soil away, and a back-breaking trip to the dump to dispose of the lot. But it looks great now! Whilst I was having my sort out, I also swept and scrubbed the floor, and scrubbed the walls (yes, my greenhouse has walls....) and the dirty bits of the frame. I've got rid of all the mould, sprayed away many of the bugs, and basically done what I ought to have done about five months ago. It almost looks pristine, and I've resolved to enjoy it again.

This Green Woodpecker landed vaguely near Bob and I whilst we were discussing which waders we hadn't seen on the patch.

The feeling of satisfaction, although tinged with sadness at the loss of rare plants, is hard to beat. It has been on successive to-do lists for absolutely ages and ages. Why I decided to start it in September, when the whole of June had been available I have no idea, call it stupidity, but it is done. I actually started last night, and in total the job has taken somewhere between seven and eight hours of non-stop work. Mostly lows when confronted with yet another death, but a huge high when with no small amount of pleasure I also discovered two bottles of Scotch down there, a reminder of a time when I wasn't just processing photos and blogging all the time. Back then I thought nothing of actually sitting down and doing very little in my special greenhouse chair, sometimes even falling asleep in the muggy warmth whilst the fans whirred and the foliage rustled. I always kept a wee something down there for precisely those times, and although covered in cobwebs and muck, liquid remained within. The label on one had been completely eaten away by snails, but I recall that if was The Glenlivet. The other is obviously a Glenfiddich, though in a brown bottle rather than green, whatever that means, as the snails and slugs have had the crucial information. Naturally I checked that both were fine, a quick swig from each one, and am pleased to confirm that several years of neglect, sub-zero temperatures and then high thirties, seem to have had no impact on their sipping qualities, so I may take a glass down there. I've just fumigated it, done a final sweep up, a final bit of house-keeping, and all is good. Time to start buying plants again I guess.....

Played for and got. And boring.

I've almost certainly used the first part of this blog post title before, and the content of whatever that post was is probably almost identical to what this post will be. But that's patch birding for you. And blogging... To cut a long story short, I went out on the patch to find a specific bird, and duly found it. Wow. Trudging back home through the snow, it occured to me that patch year-listing is basically about finding all the same birds as you did last year, but in a very slightly different order. What fun!

The bird I was after was Woodcock, and so I walked around the area that I felt was most promising for one - namely Motorcycle Wood - and sure enough one flew out. Amazing. Whilst there, I also saw my first Fieldfare for the year - fairly pitiful on the 18th of January, but they have been thin on the ground, and I've not been out much. I've seen Fieldfare on the 1st of January in every single year that I have records for, and so this has injected some spice into my yearlist, with Fieldfare at #63, whereas both last year and the year before it was at #15. This kind of variety is what patch birders live for! As I got even closer to home, I felt some stats brewing......

Because I tend to follow the same route on every New Year's Day, the birds are often seen in a very similar order - Common Gull #10 the last couple of years for example, and Gadwall is always in the mid-40s, which is generally what I'm on when I reach Alexandra Lake. Little Grebe is the low to mid-50s, indicating I've arrived in Wanstead Park..... Slightly depressingly you can actually continue well beyond the 1st of January - for the entire year in fact. The months tend to come in the same order, and so too do the migrants - everyone's (my) favourite, the Wheatear clocking in at #81 in both 2011 and 2012, Whinchat at #95, and Sedge Warbler #106. The big surprise this year was of course Great Crested Grebe on day one - unprecedented, and a real shock result. Two extremely selfish waterbirds have destroyed the careful equilibrium built up over many years, bastards.

In both 2011 and 2012, my patch list was 113 species. Convenient for statistical analysis, and amazing foresight on my part. But here's the rub. Of those 113 species, 104 - 92%, were the same. 2012 saw Osprey, Oystercatcher, Stone Curlew, LRP, Green Sand, Wood Sand, Caspian Gull, Treecreeper and Yellowhammer replaced by Mandarin, Goldeneye, Smew, Goosander, Golden Plover, Jack Snipe, Short-Eared Owl, Wryneck and Nuthatch. Don't get me wrong, these 8% really get the juices going, it's what patch-working is all about and I love it. The trouble is the other 92%.......

Quite

 

One-track

I am becoming boring, and it is annoying me. I have four things in my life - my family (important to mention that first, no end of trouble if I leave it until last!), birds, photos (of birds), and work. Nobody wants to hear about the latter, but it dominates my life so comprehensively that it leaves far less time for any of the former. Long-term acolytes may recall that when I started this blog in 2009 I got made redundant almost immediately. Surely a coincidence, but it did mean that all of sudden life became a lot more interesting. Rather than the grim darkness of Canary Wharf and the ongoing world finanical implosion, you were treated hem hem to my new struggles with washing, buying food and attempting to cook it, potty training, and other daily examples of domestic martyrdom. In between you got to know a bit about my three precious charges, and very occasionally some birding featured.

My domestic days are behind me - as was always agreed (under duress), as soon as my youngest started school, I had to go back. No life of leisure for me, so now, and indeed for the past year, I have been back in my ancestral home of E14. The consequence of this is that I now have nothing to write about, or so it seems to me. Except birds. Bo-ring birds. But hang on a minute, isn't that what I started this blog to witter about? Wanstead Birder, not Wanstead Domestic God. Indeed. It was always supposed to be about the birds, not the minutae of my life. I mean who cares about that other than me? Perhaps not even me actually. As it happens though, I found it much easier to write about various household disasters and what silly things the kids have done recently than I did to write about what birds could be found in Wanstead. In short, I felt - and feel - that writing about my ineptitude was much more interesting than writing about birds. Birds aren't funny. Birds aren't humourous. They appeal to many people for sure, but there's only so much you can say about patch Skylarks. On the other hand, my domestic foul-ups were essentially infinite, and kids will surprise you every day of the week.

At the moment I get up, I go to work and crush rocks for several hours, and I return home in a bad mood and drink wine to soothe my shattered nerves. I repeat this for five days a week, albeit with some school runs and refereeing of offspring thrown in. Then for two days, if I can, I go out and blitz our poor feathered friends with a camera. In other words, I have very little to say. In the dare I say it 'good old days', you got to hear about trying to find an oven shelf online, boozing dollies, food shopping for cretins, and Grebe porn. Today you get to hear about what ISO speed I used.

So what can be done? Well, pack it in I suppose, but all bloggers that I have known to pack it in inevitably come to regret the rash "delete all" decision of their intemperate former selves, and come slinking back, and no doubt that would happen to me too. So that's out. Blog less frequently? Perhaps - in one of my first ever posts, I counselled myself to do just that, and have steadfastly ignored this advice for almost exactly four years. I have verbal diahorrea, and there is no known cure. I enjoy it; you suffer it - a tried-and-tested formula. I know, what about seek inspiration, write about stuff I've not written about before? Eh, what? No, I couldn't do that. I need to rant about dog walkers, post Daily Mail tribute articles, moan about work, and eulogise about the patch. And Wheatears. Branch out? Madness!

Not long now.....

So I have no answers, except to think more about maintaining variety, indeed perhaps return to the minutae of life, as it is from there that all variety stems. Not necessarily mine either, which could get dull fast. I'm always hearing little snippets on the radio, noticing absurd behaviour, seeing some scene or other than gets me cogitating. I occasionally think "oh, that would make a good piece", and then do precisely nothing about it and continue dreaming about optics past, present, and - mostly - future. I have somewhat of a one-track mind, I just need to make sure I don't have too much of a one-track blog.

By the way, 1600 is my most-used speed at present.

I finally understand flash too late

I had a eureka moment earlier on today. Exciting for me, boring for you. Yes, I realised that I had finally cracked flash. Or perhaps just finally cracked? Anyhow, I have been jumping up and down very enthusiastically for most of the day - knowledge is power, as they say. Why it has taken this long, i.e. many many years, is anyone's guess, but I finally understand how it works and how to use it. Shame that this revelation only took place on the penultimate day of my holiday, and that I had already visited the rainforest - where let me tell you, that Blue-backed Manakin would have been toast - but such is life. The secret lies in manual everything. Manual flash, manual exposure. None of this fill-flash crap, manual all the way. The specific revelation was realising that if you reduce the power of the flash, what you're actually doing is reducing the duration of the flash - the actual light output remains the same. I just hadn't grasped that before. So if, say, you reduce your flash power to 1/32 of full power, it illuminates for a split second, a much faster split second than your camera shutter is capable of. Thus in a dark place, for instance a rainforest, the shutter speed you set on your camera is completely irrelevant, as the light that hits the sensor is all driven by the flash, and not from ambient light. So your shutter can be open for ages, say 1/200th of a second, but if your flash is set to 1/32nd of full power, then that lights up for only 1/20,000th of a second (or so), and the rest of the time it's just dark and nothing is recorded. With me so far? So you can safely set your camera to manual, dial in 1/200 or similar, set a nice small aperture that will ensure lots of stuff in focus, and fire away safe in the knowledge that in Aperture Priority mode you would get a black image and the flash does everything else. This also means you can handhold, and leave the pain-in-the-arse tripod at home for ever. As the distance changes between you and the bird, so the relative power of the flash increases, so you can keep your exposure constant by moving ISO down as you get closer(sensor less sensitive to light), up as you move further away (more sensitive), or your aperture down as you get closer (make hole smaller, less light hits sensor in available time), or up as you get further away (bigger hole, more light hits). The only issue with this is that, for me at least, at the beginning of this voyage of discovery, it's all a bit trial and error, with a high likelihood of either not enough or too much with the first attempt, after which the bird zooms off. Nonetheless it's a miracle, and I am really really dense for not discovering this earlier. This is how people freeze the wings of hummingbirds - by using 100% flash which gives bonkers shutter speeds far in excess of what the camera is capable of. Genius. All of the above came to me in a flash, so to speak, when I was wandering round the gardens of the hotel early this morning . There were plenty of birds, but they were impossible to photograph. I idly wondered whether the Hummingbird technique might not work on other birds, birds in dark places.....bugger me if it didn't. Look at this Barred Antshrike - perhaps not the natural-looking image we all strive for, but given the choice between impressionistic blur and pin-sharp albeit flash-lit, I'm going for the latter every time.



1/300s, f8, ISO 640, FLASH 1/32 power

  

Some Things

I just read this post by Emma Waffle. It is about nothing at all really (hope she does not me saying this) but is excellent nonetheless. That it contains a link to Peregrines helps perhaps - a closet birder if ever I saw one - but for a post that is essentially wittering on about stuff, well done. It probably helps if you have been reading the preceding waffle, which I have. Just as you have on here. So I am going to shamelessly copy the format, if not the style. Or the parts about lipstick, though I do have a skin tale to share. Oh yes.

Good things:

1. It is not raining, though this may change*. It has been raining almost non-stop for about the last week, and I am fed up with it. It was largely inevitable once Thames Water announced a hosepipe ban. The same Thames Water who lose a full 25% of all water they supply on a daily basis - this is used as a marketing tool, as in we only lose 25% of all our water every day. Before replacing however many miles of leaky pipes last year it was running at over 30%. Well done I say. Not that I need the hose now of course, as last time I looked a wader scrape was forming about half way down the garden. If the next time I look out I see a pair of courting Avocets I won't actually be that surprised. The rain has made birding all but impossible. Wanstead is sadly lacking in sea and south-west headlands. We have no alternative when the weather closes in. If I lived near the sea, I'd be down there like a shot. In fact, in good weather I'd probably be there too, but that's not the point. Constant rain equates to no birds. And to getting wet whilst not seeing them. All things being equal, I'd rather it were dry, though the downpours are helping the local ponds which are desperately low. And preventing the local youf from burning any more of the Flats.

2. This morning I saw a Ring Ouzel, or, I should say, another Ring Ouzel. That makes three this year so far, and is very pleasing. My Ring Ouzel cup overfloweth.  Verily. What great birds they are. This morning's was a female, and decided to plonk down in some broom only a few yards from Nick, Tim and I as we conversed about what a shit spring it had been. It then afforded us some of the best views of an Ouzel I've ever had for at least thirty seconds, before slipping into cover. Reaching for my ever-present camera, I discovered it had no battery left. Well that's excellent, what great planning. Honestly, my camera has one of the beefiest batteries I've ever seen - it's good for well over 2000 shots, even in sub-zero temperatures. I brag about it constantly, and then get caught short with a 2.5kg camera-shaped paperweight 500 yards from my house.

3. Chateau L has a cleaner again, though not a fairy, and will shortly have a gardener. This may sound somewhat decadent, but I view it as job creation, a responsible move for a more robust economy. When I lost my job a few years back, our cleaner lost hers the same day, which was very sad, both for her and for us, but particularly for her. Well, and for us equally now I come to think about it, and especially for me, as her responsibilities became mine. I did my best** but really my heart wasn't in it. Whilst the house looked superficially tidy, underneath the surface lurked terrifying amounts of grime. When I went back to work, I resisted getting help - I thought we could do it ourselves, and the novelty of actually having money coming in, rather than just going out, well, I wanted to keep as much of it as possible to spend on optics. The house began to look like Beirut on a bad day in the 1980s, and so I have now seen the error of my ways, and launched my very own economic stimulus plan. In any event, it is impossible to have a nice house when you have three children, as they are able to trash it far more quickly that you can clean it. They are of course also able to trash it far more quickly than a cleaner can clean it, but there is that fantastic period between the cleaner leaving and the children arriving home from school when it looks amazing. The one flaw in my plan is that I'm at work earning money to pay the cleaner, so I don't ever get to see it in this state.

4. I have more wine than I can possibly ever drink. I can't tell you how good a thing this is. Somehow I have managed to plan ahead, which is something I rarely do. I got one of those lovely emails the other day which said something along the lines of "Dear Mr L, the delicious, drinking-now-but-will-also-keep-for-a-couple-of-years White Burgundies that you ordered two years ago and have entirely forgotton about have arrived in the UK and are ready to be delivered to you in exchange for a moderately small amount of tax." It's lucky these wine merchants are honest folk, as I had entirely forgotton about them. Happy days.

Bad things

1. I am not well. Specifically, I have an unspecified stomach complaint. This started this morning, on Wanstead Flats, though as I was looking at a Ring Ouzel I made light of it. I did mean however that rather than dice with death - or worse - on public transport, I decided that working from home might be the safest and least disgusting option. My stomach has never really been the same since a trip to Thailand in the late nineties, when I experienced the worst case of the runs in my entire life, up to and including now. Somehow I survived a flight to Sydney, and sought help straight away. I'd encourage you to look at this link about bacillic dysentery, particularly the symptoms bit. One of the syptoms is apparently death, so I suppose I got off lightly, but every now and again, and I have no idea what causes it - inferior Burgundy perhaps? - I get a bout of dodgy tummy, and today was one of those days. I like to bare all on this blog.

2. Unconnected to the above, but equally pleasant to anyone who combines blog-reading with eating dinner, I have a large spot on the back of my neck which actually hurts when I turn my head. I cannot see it in order to be able to describe it to you, but I suspect it is bright red and throbbing. I have not been a greasy teenager for many years, and I would like to think that my hormones are so calm now as to be practically dead, so it is highly unfair that I should have a zit on my neck that a fifteen year-old would be embarrassed by. At least it is not on my nose.

3. There has been some kind of birders tiff in within the publications section of the London Natural History Society. I have no idea what has happened, a friend merely told me that some acrimony had occured. Highly strung these birder types. But why is this bad news? Well, for two years I compiled a section of the riveting read that is the London Bird Report. This tells you that on June 23rd eleven Blue Tits were seen in Hackney, and other important things of that nature. Whilst I wasn't working, I felt that I ought to put a little bit back into London birding, and volunteered to write a couple of sections. Rarely, and this includes work, have I been so bored, but I manfully struggled on and only delivered my sections a couple of months late. I had tried to make my accounts of Blue Tits in the capital a little more pithy than my predecessor, and was ruthlessly edited. I do not like being edited, and after two years, and finding myself working once again, decided I would pass on a third year. I thought nothing more of it until I heard about this spat, and very shortly afterwards received an email from someone drafted in as an emergency editor, with a neat little table showing who wrote which sections in 2008, and who was writing sections in 2009. There is a nasty little blank space in the 2009 list where you can see my name against it for 2008; the implication is clear. So I am currently agonising about whether I should volunteer again. On the one hand, my conscience tells me I probably should. On the other, birding is about enjoyment, and I know I will not enjoy it.

4. I keep on getting letters from the tax man. Whilst unemployed I did not seek a single penny from the public purse. Now that I am employed again, I am being instantly and relentlessly pursued. You already know my feelings on how my taxes will likely be spent. Anyway, I have a neat little pile of brown and very governmental envelopes sitting on my desk. None of the ones I have so far opened have contained good news. "Dear Mr Lethbridge, we are pleased to be able to tell you that you have been opted out of the tax system, and will no longer need to pay us anything. Please do not reply to this letter."**

That is all.


* Before I even finished this post, this happened. Stair rods.

** This might have been in a dream.

Another Firecrest

Well, the same Firecrest, or one of the same ones anyway. I couldn't resist going back for another look at the weekend. Well, actually, apart from today, I think I've been to see them every day since whatever day it was I first saw them. They're that good. I saw three again on Sunday; what's better then three Firecrests eh? How about four Firecrests? Yup, there could be four according to a report from another of the local birders. Hopefully they will stay all winter - likely - and I'll get to see even more of them. Snow rarely penetrates into the lower story of Bush Wood, but it's a photo I find myself dreaming of from time to time.

Photographing them is rather challenging. Slow and predictable they are not, and the Holly plays havoc with the autofocus system. You can forget about a tripod, no way is that quick enough, you have to hand hold. It's pretty dark in there, so that nice high shutter speed you wanted isn't going to happen. Nonetheless, modern technology is there to offer a helping hand. Hello image stabilisation, and hello high ISO. I took this next photo at 1/320s at ISO 1250. The focal length is 650mm equivalent, so you can see IS in operation here - I've managed a sharp shot (Picasa, my host, tends to muller my photos, the one on my screen is a lot nicer) with an extremely heavy lens which I would expect to wobble like a good'un. And the only reason I even scraped 1/320s is because I had 1250 available and knew it would be OK - you can see some grain but isn't troublesome. You won't be able to tell from the photo, but I also underexposed it by 2/3rds of a stop, the metered exposure was only 1/200s. The overall scene tended to dark, thus likely fooling the camera's metering, which is exposing for mid-tones. I felt that -2/3rds was a more accurate reflection of what I was seeing, and it also gave me that extra bit of speed. I probably could have taken it down even more and brought it back up in post-processing, a useful trick if you're really struggling with available light.

4,054,458,047

That’s me that is. On this glorious planet on which we blog, tweet and snipe on Birdforum, I am the 4 billionth, 54 millionth, four-hundred and fifty-eight thousandth and forty-seventh person to have been born. Whoa. How s about that for mind-boggling thought eh? Hope you were sitting down. How do I know this? It was on the BBC website, so it must be true. You can play too:

What's Your Number

The reason that this little gem of a stat exists is that the population of planet earth recently passed the seven billion mark. That is a serious number of people, imagine the queue at the post office, it would go on for ever and ever. I mean when I get up in the morning and catch the tube, I think that’s a lot of people, but seven billion! They wouldn’t even fit in an extra-long train!  Seven billion is like, loads. The other interesting stat is that, in the history of the universe and space, there have been 78,404,690,760 sentient human beings. And then add some birders. With seven billion alive (if not all well, necessarily) that means a lot of dead people. 71 billion to be imprecise. Where did they all go? Jeez. I’m alive though, one of the seven billion, and able to blog, tweet, and post inanities on Birdforum. Talking of which, I’m actually having a little love-in with Lee Evans on there at the moment, or rather he is, as for some reason he believes me to be on his side. I’m not on his side, nor am I on the opposing Lee-bashing side, but it didn’t prevent him declaring his adoring and eternal gratitude for something he perceived me to have done. Had there been a “hugs” emoticon thing, I would have used it in reply. Except emoticons are a load of crap, and I refuse to use them; they are a poor substitute for intelligent writing, and only exist so that stupid people can grasp simple sentences and get a vague understanding of their likely meaning. I didn’t reply, I couldn’t think of anything both cutting, witty, and genuinely inoffensive.

This bird is largely responsible for global warning. I hope it goes south via Malta.

Er, where was I? Oh yes, over-population. Not quite as important as which UK twitchers have seen the most birds and which grown men hate which other grown men, but worthy of mention nonetheless.  I read somewhere that by 2050 – this could be wrong, I refuse to actually conduct research - we will need two earths to feed the population, which by that time will be ten billion people. The trouble is we don’t have two earths, we only have one. Better hope somebody thinks of something, and fast. The good news is that by 2050 I’ll be on the way out, so won’t have to worry too much about, except perhaps over where to get buried alongside 71 billion other people, but it will be a genuine problem for my kids and my kid’s kids. I mean, what if they have to knock down Waitrose and grow turmips there instead? Where will they buy their imported green beans in December, or their Malaysian jumbo king tiger prawns? Like I said, genuine problems. Forget about where they might live, that’s blindingly obvious. They’re all going to be living with me and Mrs L until their early forties, possibly beyond. We will make weekly attempts to throw them out of course, but ultimately with starter houses by then costing a million quid, and starter salaries remaining exactly as they are today, and perhaps even less, what choice are they really going to have? I'm already resigned to it, but I suppose it will be nice to be looked after in my old age.

Seriously worrying statistics though, the cost of the weekly shop is only going in one direction. That said, it is a very clear case of SEP (someone else's problem), and I don't expect anyone reading the BBC website to do a damn thing except moan about the increasing cost of bread. In case you were wondering my preferred loaf has risen from £1.65 to £2.09. Yet another interesting stat. I am sure I can find more. Sorry this hasn't been about birds. I was going to go on the patch at the weekend and get the blog back on track, but instead I'm going to be planting spuds in the front garden and stocking up on canned food.

Barrel-dredging

I was so bored today that I drove round the M25 (well, was driven round the M25 would be slightly more accurate) to see a Glossy Ibis. Yawn. I am told that Glossy Ibis is a real London blocker, that there hasn't been a twitchable one since Andrew M saw one in 1937. Well, perhaps there hasn't, but I could still derive very little pleasure from seeing it, and my mood only lifted slightly when it flew off. There was a time, only a few short years ago, when I looked at Glossy Ibis in my field guide and drooled a bit. What a massive rarity - look, three stars in the Collins! Bet I'll never see one of those, mega.

My chance came in October 2008 when I dashed to the Cambridgeshire fens and connected! It was my 274th UK bird (I very nearly got a Tshirt made up). So what has changed? Have I lost my birding innocence? No. The trouble is that I have now seen three in the last two weeks. Glossy Ibis are everywhere, almost pestilential. No watermeadow is safe, and rumour has it that DEFRA will have to be called in soon to start shooting them lest they start breeding with our native Cattle Egrets.

Still, the day could have been a lot worse. A LOT. At six in the evening yesterday I was on the point of packing my bags for Cornwall, and we all know what would have happened then.... Thankfully common sense prevailed, and I decided to stay at home. Wanstead was very quiet so Nick & I went to Rainham. This was once again packed to the rafters with waders and wildfowl, so after kicking a few stones by Aveley tip we decided the only thing for it was to circumnavigate the M25 for a Glossy Ibis. That is how bad it's been today. Roll on tomorrow...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. This one was in Essex last weekend. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Forth Bridges

If you are unfortunate/dim-witted enough to also follow my twitter feed, you may have seen a message yesterday which combined a popular Christmas ditty with news of a neutral density filter. You probably wondered what I was going on about and promptly unsubscribed. Here is a link to resubscribe, re-follow, re-gret..... 

So what is a neutral density filter anyway? It is a filter which doesn't really do anything other than reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor, ie no colour casts, no warming, no chilling, no polarising, or at least that is the theory. Bored yet? You will be. They come in several different strengths, measured in stops of light. One stop, two stops, six stops, ten stops. A one stop will look a bit grey. A two stop version also grey, but darker, and so on. Like sunglasses I suppose. A ten stop one looks black, you can barely see through it. Supposedly used to photograph people welding and so on, industrial forging. Yawn. A far better use is to be able to create long exposures in broad daylight without burning out. In the normal course of things, even if you set your aperture to something really tiny like f22, and reduced your ISO to the lowest it will go, any long exposure measured in seconds is going to allow so much light to hit the sensor that you will get an almost totally white image. Every wondered how people do those chocolate box waterfall pics where the water is all creamy and soft? I reckon they use very strong neutral density filters. I have no idea how the maths works, and I have yet to find a waterfall, but supposedly a ten stop ND filter reduces the light throughput by 1000x. You can happily have a thirty second exposure at midday, and this is the oneI went for.

I decided to try it out on the Firth of Forth Bridges, the theory being that the bridges would stay still, and that the Firth would go all creamy. In position, filter on, I had a look through the viewfinder to compose the shot. Ah, first issue encountered. Black. I took off the filter so I could actually see what I was taking, and then flipped the lens to manual focus (I think of everything!) and put the filter back on. Click. Would it work?

Well, it does, and there is a huge amount of potential, but I think it is going to take a lot of work to have a successful chocolate box-illustrating career. It is basically trial and error as to what happens, almost entirely guesswork with the camera in manual mode, fiddling with different apertures and shutter speeds. If I head up to the hills, I will try and find a suitable waterfall, but for now, the sea will have to do. What I can say it that it is jolly good fun, very much like this blog post. Ahem.

Back to Brown (aka The Patch)

I was up and out by 5.30 this morning. Considering the somewhat beery previous evening, this was pretty miraculous. A good start immediately when I could hear a singing Whitethroat from the front door. Whitethroat is only a very recent addition to the garden list. I was going to blog about it and many other things last week but then suddenly lost the will to live. I'm ready now, so backtracking a little, I had gone out early morning, and as soon I hit the Flats there was a Whitethroat singing very loudly and insistently from the top of some broom. I had walked past it a little when that weird little (though possibly quite large) part of my brain responsible for lists of things kicked into action and told other parts of me like my legs that it might just be possible to hear it from the front of the house, and thus sneak it onto the garden list. Being the cool, sophisticated guy that I am, unruffled by such trivialities, I naturally hurried straight back home and was delighted to find out that my listing brain was quite correct, and that the scratchy notes of a Whitethroat could indeed be heard with one foot on my front drive. Kerching, as they say. I composed a blog post there and then in my head about this glorious triumph of idiocy over common sense, and then did nothing with it, but you were not to be denied it seems.

I digress. This morning I opened the front door, and heard it straight away as there was no traffic at all. Whilst this is not a tick for the reasons very recently outlined above, it is only the second time that Whitethroat has been recorded from the garden. If I were some kind of sad lister, that would mean that I could remove the italics from Whitethroat on my garden list.

Er, be right back....

Anyway, brown. Glorious, glorious brown, everywhere. Yellow, heh! Blue, heh! A Jedi UK Patch-worker craves not these things! The Whitethroat was happily browny. Then, on Alexandra Lake, there were two Reed Warblers. I couldn't see either of them, but I was content in the knowledge that they were dull brown birds. Mmmmm, brown. Some movement on the side of the lake, and a brown and white Common Sandpiper became two brown and white Common Sandpipers, raising the pulse but then immediately calming it with sensations of beige and bland. I sighed a sigh of pure satisfaction, and some plain brown Swifts screamed overhead. This is more like it! None of those fancy little exotic Dendroicas, wooing me with their gaudy cheap colours, appealing to my baser senses. No! Back to London patch-birding, with its insipid and non-descript birds. How soothing!

One of the Sandpipers was extremely confiding. If you have had an unusually exciting day for whatever reason, perhaps having looked at some Yellow Wagtails for far longer than is healthy, please gaze at it for a while until you feel normal again.

A short post apropos nothing at all

My life is excrutiatingly dull. There, I've said it. This week was the pits. I mean, pleasant enough in its own way I suppose, a bit of sunshine here and there, but I cannot think of a single noteworthy thing that I have done. And by extension, to blog about. Still, not to let that get in the way of a short post,  no doubt a corker.

My week
Monday: Bought a new camera. Played with it all afternoon.
Tuesday:  Birded Wanstead Park. Of note, Water Rail and Waxwings.
Wednesday: A blur. No idea. TMS?
Thursday: Cleaning. Might also have played Snakes and Ladders.
Friday: Went shopping, almost bought Sea Bass. Played with Lego. Haddock for dinner.

Scintillating huh?

Moving on, I'm still trying to compile a list of all bird in Wanstead ever. This week - can't remember which day - I read the London Bird Reports from 1940 to 1952. The good news is that they were all pretty short, paper rationing perhaps, so it didn't take long. In those twelve years Wanstead was mentioned perhaps thirteen times. Twelve of those were of breeding Herons in Wanstead Park, and the thirteenth was a uber-rarity, a record of a Buzzard flying over the Flats on September 26th 1949. Rather in keeping with this post. I aim to tackle 1953 to 1960 this weekend during a quiet moment.

But that's not what I wanted to tell you about. I wanted to tell you about Red-backed Shrikes sixty years ago. Sixty years ago, they were so common in London that they barely get a mention. Look at this, which is from 1951.

Thirty-five nesting pairs! You know, of course, how many now breed in the whole of the UK? Correct, none at all. It has been twenty years since the last known breeding attempt in the UK. I can't bring you a graph showing the decline, but you can visualise how depressing it would look. I love Shrikes, brilliant little birds - an adult male up on the Norfolk coast last June (huh?) eclipsed by some margin the Trumpeter Finch we had in fact gone to see. Forty-three pairs in London, sensational! I've seen one solitary bird in London in six years. There have been a few others, but I've always been busy. But that's not the point, the point is that back then they were common, just another regular bird. A Buzzard over Wanstead Flats gets more print time in the LBR.

There was an article on the BBC news today about birds of prey making a comeback. It - the article - followed hot on the heels of a scare-mongering gutter press story about Golden Eagles feasting on thousands of lambs in Scotland somewhere. Just what we need. A lamb is worth, on average, about two pence, perhaps three. That's what supermarkets pay farmers in this country for them. They then mark it up by about a trillion percent, making it beyond the reach of most people who would like to eat it, forcing them instead to eat £2.99 chickens pumped full of shite, but I digress. If you read and believe the comeback article, most of our birds of prey at some point have been utterly eradicated from our landscape, and every single one has now made a comeback, either by accident or by design. I'd like to add Red-backed Shrike to that list. Sod the Great Bustards, sod the Cranes. White-tailed Eagles I like, but Wanstead is hardly the habitat. Red-backed Shrikes on the other hand may find it to their liking with only a small amount of work, such as tearing up all the football pitches and planting hawthorns and mice.

More from the Baltics, and a boring bit about Cameras

Just a few random photos from the Baltics. I'm pleased to say I am still all toasty and warm, and if the current heatwave continues I am likely to be found wandering around butt naked around Wanstead Park in an effort to remain cool. Not really. In fact, today has been a bit parky, and I put on a fleece whilst at home this afternoon. This is patently ridiculous, as the temperature was probably 5 or 6 degrees positive today. How quickly the body adjusts. Here is a picture of me birding in Estonia - I think I had six layers on, plus my new fleecy scarf wraparound thingy, which a correspondent informs me is called a snood, and implies that it is deeply unfashionable, so last seaon, or too down with the kids, not befitting a man of my advanced years etc etc. All I can say is that without it I might have died.





 

So, that's the Baltics done and dusted, and from now until about April this blog will revert to its usual banal mix of domesticity and Wanstead, with some minor excitement (for the author, rather than the reader) when the Wheatears turn up. About another two and a half weeks I reckon - you heard it here first.

Today I didn't do a great deal, mind you, when do I ever? I had a quick mooch across the playing fields, this time armed with a camera, in the hope that either the Med Gull or Caspian Gull would be there. Needless to say neither was. To be fair, I hadn't expected the Caspian  (or should I say putative Caspian, as the record now needs to be judged by some committee or other)  to be there, large gulls rarely linger, but I had had high hopes for the Med Gull. My only photos of it to date have been a bit crap, so I was hoping to get some proper ones. It was not to be. The overall lack of birds on the Flats had saw me instead heading for the Park, via the Waxwings at Westmorland Close just to the south. I counted 37 birds, and then the whole lot got up and flew off west, probably over my house, though they are of course on the all-important garden list already. Photo on the other blog.

Caution - boring bit
Then into the Park proper, there to stake out the Water Rail and test out the high ISO capabilities of a new camera body. As people who know me will testify, I go through camera equipment like it is going out of fashion, and recently sold my backup camera - sent it to Australia as it happens -  in order to finance (partially) a different one. It's not going to replace my main camera, the autofocus capabilities and frame rate are far inferior and as such it isn't suited to bird photography, however it will do kids, landscape and macro. And, as it happens, Water Rails at ISO 5000. Yes, you did read that right, five thousand. That is almost four full stops more sensitive than ISO 400 which is what I normally use. Which allows me to use a shutter speed about thirteen times faster than I would normally get away with. And that, simply put, is sensational. Now most cameras do of course have high ISO settings, nothing new there. The difference is that if you try and use them you will end up with an incredibly grainy looking image. At ISO 5000, it would essentially look like a sheet of sandpaper with a photo printed on it. Now I'm not going to pretend that the image below is noise-free, but the Rail inhabits the darkest, dankest and most overgrown spot in the whole of Wanstead Park. All previous attempts to photograph it have ended in dismal failure. Today I rocked up, no tripod, no monopod, nothing. Click. Best photo of it I've ever taken.

PS, the new camera is a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. I'll try and post some photos in the coming days that show quite how good its 21.1 megapixels are. Something to look forward to eh?

Yawning and Year-listing

Another day, another Red-flanked Bluetail. Officially now the bird UK birders least want to see. Secretly the finders are hoping for Robins, but no, another sodding Bluetail. Bedgrudgingly, and knowing they are going to be made fun of by their peers, they put the news out....

Half a day in Suffolk today with Bradders, following another morning dipping Bluethroat at Rainham. Continued this fine form by dipping Ferruginous Duck at Lackford, but managed some excellent if brief views of the Bluetail at Lowestoft. The experience did not compare with that of ten days ago at Geosetter. There, the bird was in full view most of the time, and came within fifteen feet of the few observers present. At Lowestoft the cover was incredibly dense, and viewing was extrememly difficult. Despite their newfound common-as-muck status, the bird today attracted upwards of fifty people, and was seen sporadically by only a few of those. I was one of the lucky ones, it just appeared in my bins for a moment or two, and then vanished again. Very smart, but not even a useful year-tick....

Having seen it I abandoned the crowded paths, went and sat in the sunshine by the sea, ate a Double-decker, and hoped for a Little Auk. Miraculously I was soon treated to one drifting south very close inshore (#290). Unbelievable, and superb! It was only the second I have ever seen. I've seen three Bluetails......



The day, or what was left of it, for it was now close to 4pm, became a blantant quest for year ticks. I'm so close to 300 that I might as well. I know I said I wouldn't, but I'm hopeless. I'm not feeling too guilty, this is genuinely the first time this year I have been chasing stuff for no reason whatsoever.

First up the King Eider at Dunwich, which I found at extreme range, but in excellent light was still identifiable, at least well-enough for a mere year-tick (#291). We then dipped a Pallas's Warbler just down the road at Sizewell, before retracing our steps to Westleton Heath where we were just in time to get the Great Grey Shrike before it went to roost (#292).  That out of the way, we spent a bit of time looking at Red Deer on the heath, including two rather magnificent Stags braying and snorting.

So, eight to go for 300, and I haven't even seen a Puffin, and likely nor will I. That's how laissez-faire I've been, but it appears to have happened anyway. I must remember to not year-list again in 2011, it appears to be an incredibly effective way in which to see a shed-load of birds.

Holding Pattern

Well, Mrs L has gone, and I am on my lonesome. Me, my two girls, and my purple toe. Muffin returns on Sunday, and I am genuinely looking forward to seeing him. It has been a week, and I have missed him. Although he is going to be bitterly disappointed that Daddy won't be able to play football with him, there are plenty of other things we can do, and he is so self-sufficient these days that he is going to be incredibly helpful with me incapacitated.

I must apologise again for all the photos of my foot. Not nice I know, and in retrospect I suspect that they must have put you off posting messages of sympathy and concern. I promise I won't post any more. Unless it gets infected.

So what has been happening? Well, unsurprisingly, hardly anything. Bar being driven to the hospital, I have not left the house. I have barely seen a bird. I just heard a Great Spotted Woodpecker whilst brushing my teeth, but so far today that is the sum total of my avian adventures, and the rest of the day, indeed week, holds precisely nothing in store. Mrs L did a big shop last night that should see us through until she returns, and I suspect that we're just going to hunker down.

I will endeavour to continue publishing exciting posts, and in the absence of any birding, I am afraid that you must expect a few more insects, starting with this Grasshopper. TTFN.

Yes, I am bored

There are no birds to see, and even if there were, the particular type of pollen that my nose and eyes object to is off the scale today. I can barely go outside and I'm dreading the school run. And as for wondering what to put here, as Thing from Fulham says, in the total absence of bird-related material, I'm feeling vaguely guilty about posting yet more photos of moths up. Not guilty enough though...

Here is one I caught a couple of days ago. VERY exciting, it being my first plume moth.

Lets look at that from another angle. Yup, wow. Imagine if it were six foot long!

Anyway, keep admiring the Platyptilia pallidactyla, I have to pick up number one son from school, and who knows what excitement that might bring.

1 HOUR LATER...

Right, I'm back, and actually there is some interesting news. Well, depends on your point of view I suppose, but it is at least news. It needs some lead-in though, so bear with me.

There is a child at the school - no, really - who is in a different class to Muffin. I don't know which one, and it doesn't matter. The child is from somewhere in Eastern Europe, I don't know where. It is not the child I am going to talk about though, it is its mum. Occasionally I coincide with the mum. She is always on the phone, which is how I know she is from Eastern Europe somewhere. On the way into the school, on the way out of the school, the phone never leaves her ear. I have never heard her even talk to her offspring, she has always been on the phone. She is blonde, very thin, and in bird-speak, has extremely distinctive primary projections. She also wears very interesting outfits. I would not like to speculate on what her career might be, but one of the more popular outfits is a pink velvet crop-top tracksuit with "juicy" written in sparkly gold writing across the backside. A fetching Leopard-skin print leotard is another favourite. Today's outfit was a new one though, some kind of figure-hugging blue mini-dress, but with a difference. On the front, at the top of the front, where many people might have expected dress material to be, was some kind of drawstring contraption. Kind of like shoelaces, but for breasts. Don't forget that I am on the school run here, in the playground. I am not in Soho at 1am on a Friday night. At the moment, the child is probably only about seven, and thus entirely unconcerned that his mother comes to pick him up looking like some kind of cross between an oligarch and a prostitute. I just snigger quietly at the ever-increasing inappropriateness of the outfits, but many of the mums on the school run wear more material round their heads than she wears in a week, and I can imagine that they might find this rather disturbing. Anyway, the interesting news is that today's staggering outfit revealed that her left (and strangely spherical) boob has a tattoo of a heart with four lightning bolts coming from it. Classy.

At this point I expect many of you are crying out for a photo. I am not going to disappoint. Here is a Blotched Emerald. Pretty nice eh?

Nothing to report

Not quite nothing, but as a measure of just how interesting my life is at the moment, let me offer you the following highlights:

1) The Dyson died. Again. I blame the children. I say "again" because Dyson #1 in our life (2001-2009) died last year after a good innings. Dyson #2 (2009-2010) was swapped for two crisp ten pound notes via a popular auction house last year, and lasted 6 months. Dyson #3 (this evening-?) was again swapped for two crisp tenners, and it had bloody well better last longer than the last one. Actually this is a low-light.

2) I did the Wanstead Flats butterfly transect again today. Two Meadow Browns over the whole circuit. Almost unbelievably this is fewer butterflies than the last transect, which netted just three. I see a pattern emerging whereby my next outing will result in one butterfly, and all subsequent trips will get nothing. I see more butterflies sat in a deckchair on my terrace. Thinking about it, this was a low-light too. In the almost total absence of butterflies, I used the Macro lens on the kids with acceptable results given its unsuitability.

3) Yesterday I twitched the Blue-winged Teal at Fen Drayton. Although I have already seen one this year, I went because this one was an adult drake. It showed brilliantly, but then chose to waddle out of the water and display a nice ring on its leg. Low-light. This isn't necessarily a record-killer, but I doubt it will help. Smart bird, but had I known in advance I wouldn't have gone.


4) A Little Egret flew over the car on the way back from the school run this morning. It would not have been visible from the house, but it didn't miss by much and is easily the closest one has got. So near and yet so far. Perfectly rationally, this had me mildly annoyed for the rest of the day. Low-light.

5) My fruit and veg intake today consisted of one dill pickle, 4 slices of cucumber, and a strawberry. I also consumed two packets of crisps, four sausages, and a chicken and bacon slice. And some cheese. If we had had any biscuits I would have eaten them too. I searched, but came up empty-handed.

So there you have it, all that is worthy of mention over the last couple of days. Do I feel better for typing it? No, not really. Do you feel better for having read it?

Election Special!

Election Fever is gripping Wanstead! Not really. Much as I detest politics, I went and did my civic duty this morning. Having instantly recycled every single piece of election pamphleteering that came through the door, I was surprised when I got to the Polling Station to see that one of the local candidates lives on my street! I didn't vote for them. They tried to get planning permission to build a 20 storey extension in their back garden, like parking round here isn't screwed already. It got refused thankfully, but I certainly didn't want them having any say in local planning regulations, so I voted for someone else. I can't even remember their name, but they were from the Green Party, and thus presumably marginally less smarmy than all the others.

I'm ashamed to say that having thrown out all the bumpf, I hadn't a clue what any of their policies or pledges were and so voted somewhat randomly. I had a look at the first few bits that arrived, but that was so long ago I can't remember who they were from or what they said. The initial trickle turned into a deluge though, and I was just sick of the waste - the amount of stuff we ended up getting through the door was ridiculous. Mountains of it. Mostly it was from the three larger parties, but the smaller ones got in on the deforestation too. The BNP managed to deliver a glossy one-pager on how lovely, caring, and misrepresented they are (I didn't read it) and I think the Christian Alliance's key policy pledge was to end sex education for five year olds (I didn't read that either, so I could just be making it up).

So not really having read any of it, I found myself at a bit of a loss in the polling booth. It would have been helpful if the candidates' hobbies had been listed on the wall or something. Surely at least one of them must have been a birder and thus secured my vote?

Anyway, no doubt my vote will have made all the difference. I'll tell you tomorrow. I'm thinking about staying up to watch it, but probably won't. It will be a surprise in the morning. Anyway, if I go to sleep at a sensible time I can get up early and go birding. There are some things that politicians can't change.

The candidate from the Mallard Party.