Florida III - Logistics and Itinerary

Logistics

• A three day trip in early  November (9^th – 13^th); I've been at this exact time of the year before, albeit slightly further north around Tampa Bay, so fully expected a repeat of those wonderful photographic opportunities. It did not disappoint. Accompanying me and chomping at the bit was Mick S for his first visit.
• Flights with Britis Airways to Miami were pretty cheap all things considered, and I used some of my frequent flyer built-up perks to get a flat bed there and back - the return journey was especially important as I was going straight into work and needed some sleep. Other airlines are available.
• Car hire via Avis was a fantastic Chevy Camaro convertible. God knows what engine it had but it made a lovely noise. Despite a likely dreadful economy fuel was only £50, which included driving across Florida and back again. Welcome to the land of the free....
• We stayed on Estero Beach at the Wyndham Garden Inn. A twin room was basic but adequate for our stay - we spent almost zero time in it.
• We visited a number of sites, some repeats from my first trip, others new. Ding Darling was once again disappointing for bird photography and we did not linger. The new sites, such as Bunche Beach between Sanibel and Fort Myers, proved excellent.
• Weather was stunning throughout, with highs of 31c and blue skies. This actually meant that photography ended quite early on each morning.
• Early morning and in shaded areas the midges were unbelievable. Invest in some repellent.

Itinerary

Day 0: A very early start at work to fit in a half day and then nipped to Heathrow for the early Friday afternoon departure to Miami. The nice shiny A380 I had booked had morphed into a knackered old 747 with no in-flight entertainment which was rather a shame. We arrived in the evening and set off for the long drive across the Everglades, attempting and failing to sleep in the car. The Camaro is great to drive but has almost no space in it so we gave up and got a motel in Naples.
Day 1: After breakfast at an all-night Denny's we were at Ding Darling for dawn, and spent the morning exploring Sanibel island. The afternoon saw a small amount of shopping and a nap, and then the early evening was spent reconnoitring Estero beach and lagoons in preparation for the following day.
Day 2: Pre-dawn start at the southern end of Estero Beach, walking north with the sun rising behind us. Mid morning we did a recce of Cape Coral for Burrowing Owl sites, and in the afternoon we sought out Florida Scrub Jay up towards Port Charlotte. Evening back at Cape Coral for the Owls.
Day 3: Early start at Bunche Beach Preserve, and an afternoon visit to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary for a different selection of birds.
Day 4: Back at Corkscrew for a morning of birding and photography, and then back across to Miami for a 5pm flight back to Heathrow

Main Sites visited

Sanibel Lighthouse and Fishing Pier - tame Egrets by the pier and various other bits of habitat.

Estero Beach and Little Estero Lagoon - a series of lagoons between Fort Myers Beach and the strip of hotels, fabulously tame waders and egrets as well as Pelicans and Terns.

Cape Coral - Burrowing Owls amid suburbia, no photographic opportunities but a few Owls seen.
Tippecanoe Environmental Park - a confusing series of trails, but prime Florida Scrub Jay habitat.
Bunche Beach Preserve – an almost empty and massive beach carpeted in waders and egrets with the sun in a perfect position in the morning. One to go to again.
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary - a long boardwalk through a Cypress swamp, magnificent habitat and various warbler and woodpecker photo opportunities.

Jungletoast

This is going to be a very boring post, I strongly advise that you click away now to something else. Anything else. Even the Liberal Democrats homepage. It’s about plants. Bye now! Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I mentioned on here that I had had a disaster in my conservatory. Boring and middle class, yay! Like many that particular blog post sank without trace, but I had briefly mentioned that I had been almost reduced to tears (and my youngest daughter actually was!) when on returning from holiday we discovered that the conservatory had had no ventilation during an extremely warm spell, and had probably heated up to something like 50C for around five days. When we got home in the evening it was still 43C in there, a dry arid heat. The kind of conditions in which dogs die in cars, and it had dreadful consequences for the plants. Our conservatory is a haven. It has – well had, let’s get the tense tragically right here – a bougainvillea vine growing into the ceiling up a trellis, foliage plants giving bold splashes of green, hanging baskets with hoya, ruellia and tradescantia, cacti and agave dotted around, and my pride and joy, cycads from Australia, South Africa, Mexico, and India. We eat (ate…) surrounded by heady amounts of oxygen and prickles, leaves arching over our heads. If it’s warm enough we open vents, windows and doors, and are soothed by the gentle rustling of leaves. We do get stabbed from time to time, but generally we (well, I) feel that the benefits outweigh the occasional sharp pain.

I’ve been growing plants for a long time, one of several interests I have. Like all my hobbies, commitment ebbs and flows, it's a time thing, and so during times of ebb the plants do tend to suffer from neglect, but this is nothing compared to what just happened to them. This spring I had finally dragged myself out of the gardening doldrums and got everything sorted out. Things were going, and growing, gloriously. Plants that had not grown new leaves for a number of years were flushing, the bougainvillea was flowering. The place was looking more lush than ever before, the results of the increasing love and attention the plants were getting. Good husbandry in other words. I still had issues with mealy bugs, a common sap-sucking houseplant pest that even Kew Gardens has legions of, but overall I felt I was winning the battle.

Then we came back to total devastation, a wall of heat. All the soft leaved plants - the vines, the trailing plants, the foliage plants - had been decimated. Barely a living leaf, brown and shrivelled, white and skeletal. The cacti and agaves, desert plants that you would think would have easily tolerated the conditions, had had the moisture sucked out of them and become shadows of their former selves. But worst of all was the damage inflicted on the cycads. Glorious leaves that had once been silver, blue or green were a deep reddish brown. New flushes of leaves had been cruelly stopped in their tracks and withered away – to put this in context the plants frequently grow only one set of leaves per year, and sometime not that many! On the species that grow continually but one leaf at a time from a central whorl I had literally lost a decade of growth. What had looked like a lush green firework now looked like a dead stump. To say I was stunned was an understatement. I sat on the sofa numb, disbelieving of what had happened. Away for just a few days I’d undone months and in some cases years of care and attention.

The family gathered round, unpacking forgotten. There was no saving some plants as once desiccated leaves do not recover. The green garden waste bags came into the conservatory and I sadly pulled down metres of dead vines from the struts and supports, and was almost inconsolable as I chopped off the dead cycad leaves. Everything got a mild watering to try and reintroduce some moisture into the soil, but not too much as dried roots will rot in waterlogged conditions. When we were finished clearing up it looked post-apocalyptic, Armageddon. Our once green space was practically bare. There were some exceptions, a cycad from Mexico had sustained almost no damage whatsoever where neighbouring plants had been cut to the ground. Of two from South Africa, both the same species one had lost 100% of its leaves whereas the other had just the mildest of brown tips. Nonetheless these were the smallest of miracles in what was otherwise outright carnage. Depressing as hell. There are no photos, I couldn't take it.

I have a greenhouse too, and the plants in there were not affected, including some that by good fortune I had moved down there to repot but not brought back, and so I was able to add some instant greenery in places but the vines and foliage plants had no subs ready to go. To get back to something not resembling a nuclear holocaust I’ve made a few select ebay purchases. A new rubber plant has been collected from Surrey, far larger than its unfortunate predecessor, and looks fantastic in one corner, like it has been there for years. It has reached the stage where it’s more like a small bush, rather than the single stems you find in garden centres, and is growing from multiple different points. I swear that it has grown by 10% in all directions since I brought it home, clearly it likes the new conditions. Agaves were easily replaced from an enthusiast in Essex and again look like they have been there forever, and where there was once a huge hoya I have now strung up a passiflora that is already four feet tall and spreading its tendrils all over the place. In time it could look amazing, especially if it flowers. Overall it is looking a lot better than a few weeks ago. The cycads are not so easily replaced though, and amongst the new green additions look like a succession of Del Monte cast-offs, pineapple husks in weathered pots. Nonetheless I was hopeful that their unique biology would have allowed them to survive.

Cycads are funny old plants. They’re remnants, living fossils, descended from the oldest of plants and familiar to dinosaurs, like Ferns and Araucarias (like the Monkey Puzzle). For some reason plants from these families have always called to me, I should have been an Edwardian. They have small furry or smooth trunks, caudexes, formed from the bases of old leaves, and they grow incredibly slowly. Smaller plants in particular, which most of mine are as I’ve grown them from seed, tend to have significantly more more below ground than above, huge underground root systems far larger than the caudexes themselves, and this means that they can store a tremendous amount of energy in the form of starch. I was hopeful that this energy would be released after the heat stress, just as wildfires in habitat can trigger a mass flushing of new leaves.

Tim Farron never looked so good did he?

I was not wrong. A mere three weeks after the furnace they are springing to life, even the smallest and daintiest plants. In the days immediately after coming home I gradually introduced a bit more moisture, and then the following weekend I gave them a decent amount of a high nitrogen fertiliser. Slowly but surely the tops of the caudexes are expanding. Green tufts are beginning to show. On one Indian cycad they’re a foot long already. I will remain eternally grateful for the extra warmth that September has blessed us with, as ironically enough these plants need heat in order to grow. Had we hit an early autumn it could be that many of these plants may have just gone dormant, as it is I’d say that around half of them are actively growing, and it’s likely the other half will follow suit, although the sooner the better as the leaves become stretched in low light conditions (the professional term is etiolated). It may not look dark to you or I but these plants are from the tropics.

I suspect that in another four weeks things will look vastly better, and that a year from now we will barely remember what happened with the exception of one of two plants that will unfortunately look forlorn for much longer. There is a silver lining however, and that is that a week of oven-like conditions has proved pivotal in the fight against the bugs. Mealy bugs are soft and moist, with a waxy coating, and the unrelenting and extreme heat seems to have killed the vast majority of them off. A few lived on the leaves, and so departed when I cut them off. Many more however lived unseen in the cracks, crevisses and fur. When soft new leaves start to come out they’re like a magnet for these pests and in some cases, if I’m not sufficiently on the ball, can prevent a new leaf from growing before it has even got started. They breed like the clappers and severe infestations can completely engulf leaves, making them look like they’re covered in snow. Like aphids they secrete sticky goo, and this in turn grows mould on it and it all becomes disgusting. They’re easy enough to clean off leaves, but hiding in the cracks they escape detection and also insectides (though mostly I use a hose or the shower to blast them off). This time around however and the new leaves are untouched. Where previously I could have been guaranteed to spot small white bugs crawling up stems, now there are practically none. I can only surmise that where a decade of various treatments has failed, the unintended super-heating of the conservatory has fried them all. Who knew? Certainly not me, and whilst I would obviously have preferred that none of this had ever happened, if all the plants are back to normal in a year or two but I have no bugs to contend with, it may just have been worth it. Just. 

Did you make it this far? If so I'm amazed!

Florida II - Trip Report

Logistics

• A three day trip in mid November (13^th – 16^th), hopefully to be a repeat of the trip I made in February and which I enjoyed hugely, and targeting a slightly different area I hoped to see a few different species.
• I took advantage of an airline sale and snagged an economy return to Miami for £380 with British Airways on their A380 service. Airline geek, moi? In a very happy turn of affairs I ended up getting upgraded to a flat bed both ways which made the trip a lot easier. I also booked cheap onward tickets to Tampa with American Airlines.
• Car hire via Avis was a lovely Ford C-MAX hybrid, very comfy with lots of mod cons including satnav which meant I didn’t even need to use my phone. About £90 for three days and used a mere £15 of fuel.
• I stayed in the frankly dreadful Guy Harvey Outpost on St Pete Beach, complete with spurious resort 'fees'. I don’t believe there are any decently-priced options that are not going to be full-on uber-occupancy party hotels. I spent very little time there so it didn’t really matter, but it was a poor way to spend close to £200.
• In contrast to my last trip where I tried to visit too many sites, I resolved to visit only two – Fort Desoto Park and St Pete Beach. Research was thus very thorough, reading up on what the tides were doing, where to park, which locations were best at which times of day. I even picked out the main Skimmer colony from Google Maps satellite view, though in the event no birds remained after the breeding season.

Itinerary

Day 1: A morning at work before a wholly chaotic departure from London Heathrow mid-afternoon, arriving three hours late into Miami and missing my Tampa connection which was the final flight of the evening. These things happen I suppose. BA put me up in a hotel overnight, and AA rebooked me onto the first flight in the morning – the benefits of being a frequent flyer but irritating as I missed out on a sunrise.
Day 2: Early arrival into Tampa, picked up my car and was in Fort Desoto Park by half nine. I spent all morning and early afternoon here, and then investigated St Pete Beach in the afternoon.
Day 3: Early morning at St Pete Beach, an exploratory drive to Clearwater, Largo and Seminole. Afternoon and evening at Fort Desoto Park.
Day 4: All morning at Fort Desoto Park, early afternoon around Old Tampa Bay, and then an afternoon flight to Miami. Miami to London overnight and straight to work.

Main Sites I went to

Fort Desoto Park - a fantastic peninsula for birds reached by some toll bridges. Multiple beaches that face all directions, so great at all times of day, tidal pools, scrub and mangrove. Shell Key Preserve just to the north ensures plenty of birds, as does a roped-off sanctuary area on the western edge. There is a $5 park entrance fee.

St Pete Beach – this is a stretch of white sand that stretches for miles, from Fort Desoto in the South to Clearwater in the north. I spent most time near Indian Shores.
Old Tampa Bay - various boat ramps around the bay seemed to attract waders, gulls, egrets and other birds.

Day by day account

Day 2
Day 1 was all about either work or travelling. I dislike work and I like travelling, but nonetheless let’s skip straight to day 2 and birds. I arrived at Tampa at 8am, and had completed the 40 minute drive to Fort Desoto Park by about 9.15am. Florida was experiencing some rather unseasonal weather, and rather than temperatures in the 80’s and bright sunshine, it was more like high 60’s, with a stiff breeze blowing and overcast skies. This turned out to a blessing in disguise, and meant I could happily take photographs all day long, albeit that I missed out on the soft golden light that Florida is so famed for. After paying my $5 at the entrance booths, I checked out East Beach but this was busy with kite surfers so I went straight to North Beach, parking at the far end. Here I had a good encounter with some Palm Warblers in the mangroves at the shoreline, as well as a Blue-grey Gnatcatcher. Waders on the beach included Willet, Grey Plover and Sanderling, however most birds were concentrated on some sandbars offshore – huge swirling masses that I couldn’t get to! Green Heron and various Egrets stalked some inland pools, and an American Herring Gull played with a crab. Being a weekend, the numbers of beach users soon began to build up, but there were plenty of inland areas that I could bird happily. Eastern Phoebe and Mourning Dove were the commonest birds, whilst Ospreys and Black Vultures soared overhead, and there was constant traffic in the form of Royal and Sandwich Terns. I was very happy, but as with most first mornings, the photography was a slight disappointment. I guess I am somebody who just needs a bit of time to get into it.

Palm Warbler

In the early afternoon I drove to St Pete Beach, to somewhere between North Redington and Indian Shores. There were loads of tame birds around the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary – this is a hospital that takes in and recuperates injured birds, but due to the amount of food around there are a lot of hangers on. Maybe they’re there to visit friends, maybe they spent some time there themselves? Whatever, if you want to see Wood Storks and Great Egrets wandering around, copious quantities of Night Heron etc, then this is a place to visit for sure. The best photographic opportunities are on the beach outside the Sanctuary, where you can see the Pelicans coming in to land on the aviary roof. On my visit there was also a fantastic Cooper’s Hawk perched on a wooden pole nearby. 

Cooper's Hawk

On the beach itself there were plenty of the usual suspects – Laughing Gulls, Royal, Sandwich and Forster’s Tern, and lots of waders. In the afternoon with the light coming in off the sea, I had to resort to a bit of wading myself to get the right angle, but it is very shallow, and in any event it was still cloudy. Of course there were lots of people swimming, using the beach, out for a stroll and so on, but very few of them flushed anything – in most cases they walked right past and the loafing birds barely moved. Gradually people started moving away, and this resulted in more birds dropping in on the beach, including an American Oystercatcher, a bird I had missed last time. Finally the sun went low enough to undercut the cloud layer, and so I finally got some decent light and spent a good 20 minutes with this one bird which was quite wary by Florida standards. I resolved to come back in the morning when the sun would be coming from the land side.

I finally checked into my hotel who had of course been expecting me the previous evening, and went and had a couple of beers on the beach before going to a roadside bar for dinner and live music. Despite the “mission” aspect of it, this was still a holiday.

Day 3
Back on St Pete Beach at exactly the same place as the previous day, and most of the same birds were still there! Overcast again, and although somewhat of a repeat of what I’d already done I had a couple of different ideas and spent some time trying to make them work. Particularly appealing was a juvenile Royal Tern constantly begging from a parent that had no food. I spent a happy few hours here, rarely going a hundred metres either side of the pier here. I’d lie down and photograph Terns and Waders, and then when a Brown Pelican came in range, quickly stand up, change the settings and try for a few flight or diving shots. 

A quick sandwich lunch and then I drove the length of St Pete Beach looking for different opportunities. Due to the amount of residential buildings it’s very difficult to find places to actually get to the beach, but there are a few public carparks along the way. I pootled all the way to Sand Key Park and beyond, but there was nothing doing during the middle of the day. Retracing my steps I spent the early afternoon driving around the interior looking for suitable habitat, but the short answer is that it’s either exceedingly built up or that you need a boat. I found a friendly female Anhinga on a public golf course, but other than that I barely took a photograph. So, back to Fort Desoto Park.

I tried a different area at the south end of North Beach, and this was fantastic. There are some saline pools, and beyond this the beach is roped off – and this is where all the birds are! The ropes are there not only for the breeding season, but also to provide the birds some respite from the constant human activity. There were thousands of them in tight flocks – no good for photography but great birding. Happily there is a bit of overspill, and it was here that I found one of my top target, Black Skimmer. A lone bird in with Laughing Gulls, and unfortunately right in the middle! They’re enormous, like a giant Tern with an even more outsized beak. Miracle of miracles this single bird was progressively joined by more and more birds, giving me some brief flight opportunities, and then developed into a decent sized flock on the beach. Again I had to wade to get the best of the light, but managed to isolate some individual birds – very happy. And then the inevitable happened and a kid flushed them, whereupon they all took off and went some distance back over the rope and into the sanctuary area. Still, it had been good while it lasted and I knew where I would be the following morning.

Black Skimmer

I spent the final part of the day investigating the fishing pier and the scrub behind it, and unfortunately managed to lie on a fire ant nest whilst photographing some Phoebes. For very small ants they really pack a punch, and being social animals they cunningly all got into position before HRH Number One Ant issued the bite command, whereupon they all got stuck in simultaneously. Agony, like being poked by a thousand needles. Legs, arms, back of the neck, thumb, ears. I sprang up, dropped the camera and vigourously started slapping at myself but it was too late….. I read later that these mass attacks can be bad enough to require steroid injections, so I was pleased to more or less get away with it, though some of the bites persisted for two weeks. I didn’t get any photos of the Phoebes and didn’t try again!

Day 4
I had until at least midday before needing to return to Tampa, and finally the day dawned bright and clear, and I got the light I had been wanting. I was at the same spot at sunrise and photographing a Reddish Egret fishing on the saline pools. Wonderful birds, and exactly as per the last trip to see them fishing is superb – dancing, jinking, running, waggling. Comical but amazingly effective in the shallow water. There were Egrets and Herons everywhere, but the Osprey I attempted to stalk was having none of it. No Skimmers this morning, and rather disappointingly two metal detectorists were systematically working the beach exactly where they had been yesterday, no doubt hoping to find all the jewellery lost at the by the weekend visitors. They happily stepped right over the rope and carried straight on into the bird sanctuary, pushing everything with them….Grrrr. A few birds remained however, and in the lovely warm light I made the most of it. Best of all was a white morph Reddish Egret. By 10am the light was really harsh, and I reverted to birding mode. Although the prior days had seen no nice light at all, the benefits of a cloud layer were now very apparent – I had in reality been very fortunate.

Hard to believe that these two are the same species! Reddish Egret!

All too soon it was time to leave, and as is typical for my flying visits I was late already. Just enough time to photograph a male Anhinga on the shores of Old Tampa Bay, and then I packed up, got rid of as much sand as possible, and headed to Tampa airport for my flight to Miami. A long layover in Miami stocking up on beer and deleting upwards of a thousand duff images, and it was onwards to London on the upper deck of the flying whale. All in all a decent and very productive trip, once again in rather compressed timescales, but it only required a day and a half off work.

Always go see Shrikes...

What a bird, what a little stunner! All week I've been itching to go and see the juv Red-backed Shrike at West Canvey. Local blogger after local blogger has been posting point blank images, but could I get there? I couldn't even get there yesterday, being indisposed in Oxford. However by some good fortune it was still there this morning, and so after dumping Mrs L and the girls in central London, young Master L and I went straight there. Well, a slight deviation to pick up suitable optics in Wanstead, but essentially straight there, nothing could have swayed me from my course. Rule #162. I love Shrikes, and I mean love. LOVE. They're brilliant, compact little birds absolutely stuffed full of personality. And Craneflies.

On arrival we could see a small gaggle of people, and a mini proliferation of white lenses. How come so many people have them these days? Naturally I added to the congregation, trouncing everyone with the mighty 800mm. Ha! Happily I only had to lug it all of about 100 yards, and it proved its continued worth - Shrikes are surprisingly small. It was atop a small bush, a crappy shooting angle, but it soon flew down onto the fence to continue feeding there. Probably as close as 30 feet - I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. Oh, except I don't buy any of that, and anyway, this was loads better. It was one of those rare and perfect birds that didn't care. Faced with a barrage of shutter clicks, it could not have cared less, and even the presence of the photographer with as little fieldcraft as I have ever seen didn't phase it - mind you he was well behaved today. And it was a Shrike of course, which added to the perfection. I suppose if I'm nit-picking it could have been an adult male, or a Masked Shrike, but hey....

So, absolutely no apologies for a massively photo-heavy post. It was awesome. Wish I'd been there for the early morning light, as it would have been delightful, but you can't have it all, and I was pleased to be there at all. If I could have one opportunity like this every weekend, ideally with a Shrike, from now 'til the end of the year, I would be a very happy man. Actually, I'm pretty happy already. Brilliant.

 

 

Heroic Tropicbird Failures

All this Tropicbird nonsense has been utterly fantastic for my blog stats. 2500 hits today, nearly 1000 yesterday. That's over a week's worth in a couple of days, and proves what we all knew all along, which is that birders love a tale of a dip, especially a big controversial one, far far more than news of another one bagged. It's a bit like an ID faux-pas, we would all prefer to revel in the discomfort of a crass cock-up than congratulate somebody on a hard call well made. This is easily one of the best bits about birding, the enjoyment that can be gained from the misfortune of others makes it far easier to console oneself in similar moments. I'd hesitate to say I dipped at Pendeen, but I've been involved in perhaps one of the best ever tales of woe. You will note, I hope, that despite a long and arduous return journey from the South-west full of expressions of what-might-have-been accompanied by much sighing, I was still able to have a bit of fun at the end of it. And what would birding be without the fun, really?

Yes it was a UK Tropicbird, and it would have looked pretty good on my list for sure, but it was only a bird, and I'm not defined by my list. And besides, less than a year ago I was on Little Tobago with hundreds of them. And this is of course where I lifted my gag additions to my Cornwall photos from. Now I wasn't expecting a pile of comments, but well done to those who read my post for what it was. Anyone who has lingered on this site will know that I am very rarely serious, and indeed most often completely frivolous, bordering on plain stupid. It amazes me though that occasionally people still fail to judge where it is that I am coming from. All I can say is that when I read it, I know exactly what I mean....

Most of the time all that happens is various people get irate, call me a variety of colourful names, and presumably drift off to other less offensive websites, like the Guardian homepage. But sometimes those that grasp the wrong end of the stick surprise and delight me. And we are talking about a heroic failure here - I cannot think of a single time when I have been more delighted than this morning when picking up the phone to a birder I know. I was in the office, naturally, earning money for optics through which to miss rare seabirds, and on answering a small voice came down the line. Serious. Sincere. Curiously excited, as though she were happy for me and about to let me in on a big secret. She had been at Pendeen too, and the conversation went something like this.

"You do know what you've seen don't you?"
"Errr"
"Have you looked at your photo?"
"Ah....um....err" (I was beginning to possibly understand at this point....)
"The photo on your blog. The Gannet photo. Have you seen it?! On the edge!!!!"

She made my day, plain and simple, and I cannot thank her enough, other than of course to relay this conversation on my blog for everyone else to read. If you know who I am talking about, you will know that this is typically wonderful. Brilliant even, and I could not have hoped for better. I had dared to dream, but assumed that most people would realise I'm an inveterate joker. But there is perhaps something going in Herts, a sarcasm filter of some description, for a little while later I saw a post on BirdForum that read:

"Well it certainly isn't a hoax anyway. Take a look at Jono's website at the photo of a Gannet taken on Sunday at Pendeen - the extreme right hand side of the photo. So there is one thing worse than being there and not seeing it at all!"

followed by another post from somebody else saying:

"My God! Does he know?!!!"

I've refrained from naming the individuals concerned for fear that I might embarrass them - I'm nice like that - but to all of them, I can't thank you enough, it makes missing the bird eminently easier to take, and I'm still giggling.

A cautionary tale

I'm late to this due to a bit of time spent being intolerant, but there has been one and only one story in British birding circles this week (well, twitching circles, if that's different) and that has been the fiasco surrounding the mis-identification, or the mis-broadcasting of the almost-identification of a monster rarity in Devon, Orphean Warbler.

Like many, it would seem, I checked for bird news before heading off to bed on Tuesday evening. I am a well-rounded individual. Not that I'm a hugely keen twitcher, especially not now, and on a school night there is little potential anyway, but it's developed into a bit of a habit due in no small part to a tendency for recent megas to break fairly late, cf the recent Dusky Thrush.

Ooooh, will you look at that! An Orphean Warbler in Devon. Mega-alerted no less! A specific routine now kicks in - I jump in the car and drive there immediately! I'm kidding. What I mean is that I log onto BirdForum to see if anyone actually believes it. And lo, there is commentary suggesting it is without a shadow of doubt one, with confirming (and comforting) observer names. There is even a blurry photo of about a tenth of a warbler and a song recording. I have a quick listen, both to the recording on the net and to the recording on my phone, come to no sound conclusion one way or the other as it is late and for me it makes no difference as I can't go anyway, and then I go to bed, dreaming thoughts of mass twitchery and ticks. I wonder briefly who might be waking up a little early and can't think of anyone so filthy........ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The next morning dawns with the mega still present and correct, but before I am even out the door it appears there is a problem. Twitter is going ballistic, and there are MAJOR CONCERNS about the bird. Two minutes later and it is a Lesser Whitethroat. Eh? Oh dear oh dear. I mean, really? One is about twice the size of the other for starters. So last night a definite nailed on mega, today in the half-light a common summer breeder. How did that happen?! And far more importantly - and with a suppressed snigger - how many people are currently in Devon about to start a riot?! And even more importantly than that, do I know any of them?!!

More twitter messages are now coming through, and.......wait a minute, yes! There is some excellent news of exactly the sort I had been hoping for! I do know somebody! Fantastic! I couldn't possibly say who it is, but this is what birding is all about in many ways and easily one of the best things about twitching. And this is a proper banana skin. Yes it's about the thrill of the chase, yes it's about the numbers, yes it's about relief and despair in equal measure, but mostly it's about being able to have a bit of a giggle at your mates, or indeed at yourself. We've all done it of course, a desperate journey, the bird seen well and self congratulation begins. In my case it was even worse - I was actually home again before the Greater Yellowlegs a hundred miles away was re-identified as a Greenshank! I hadn't suffered the ignominy of having already put it on Bubo and having to slink back on and delete it, but I felt enormously stupid. However rather than blushing furiously and cursing, rewriting history and myself out of it, my response then and now, once the initial disbelief had passed, was to have a bit of a giggle. I mean what else can you do? Even today, when I think back to how smug I was feeling having arrived at the school gates, a distant mega snaffled in the meagre time available to me, an involuntary giggle never fails to escape my lips. Yes it's embarrassing, yes it's very silly, but above all it's very funny. Especially if it wasn't you! I appreciate that those who had driven overnight from various distant places (for instance, and entirely hypothetically, Walthamstow) might not see the funny side quite as clearly, but in time I am sure they will come round.

Of course the real fun starts now, the finger-pointing, the rewriting of history (and deletion of blog posts), the accusations and denials. And it's all there for everyone to enjoy, on the same place that confirmed the ID for many people in the first place. Top quality entertainment, and 100% free! Perhaps the best bit of all is that the young guy that found the bird hasn't had to revert to revisionism at all, as almost from the start he maintained it was a Lesser Whitethroat with a funny song, and presumably was quite surprised when birders from all over the country arrived on his patch slavering in anticipation of an Orphean Warbler, only to slope back to their cars feeling confused and ashamed, and with work many miles away, presumably all with nasty coughs coming on.....

After the Flood

Today has been one of those glorious days that inland patch-workers live for. One of those days when it all comes together - birds, weather, birders and luck. It doesn't happen often, I can recall perhaps two other days as good in eight years, but when it is good it is very good. I'm not talking patch megas, or even rare London birds, simply a good variety - and crucially, quantity, of common migrants. It's all about quantity. London-wide, local patches have had an astonishing day - 260 Wheatears and 44 Common Redstarts. You could perhaps get that at Spurn on a good day, but in London it is exceptional. That said, it was always on the cards. Spring has been delayed for so long that in my mind it was always a question of when, and not if. As soon as the weather changed, I felt the flood gates would open, and all the birds that had been held up would come through en masse. Today was that day. I hope tomorrow is also that day!

Wanstead had its fair share. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that we kicked ass. When I tell you that we broke our day count of Wheatears you'll perhaps see where I'm going with this. The day totals read as follows: 27 Wheatear, 5 Common Redstart, 3 Whinchat, Ring Ouzel, Sand Martin, Swallows, 3 Common Whitethroat, 5+ Willow Warbler and more Chiffchaff than you can shake a stick at. And crucially, I saw at least one of each....

It started well for me - out on the Flats at around 6.15am, the first birds I encountered were four Wheatear on one of the cut areas. I spied Dan up ahead, bins raised. He had more Wheatears, about a dozen. As I walked over to him a highly suspicious-looking dark thrush curved around me and dived into the broom. It had Ring Ouzel written all over it frankly, but it had been too quick for me. Dan had seen it too, and reached the same conclusion, but inconclusively. I put it out as a probable and carried on looking for Wheatears - the last Ouzel that had dived into the broom had taken about two hours to come out again, two hours that I didn't have. By the time the Wheatears were relocated near the small football pitch they had become 21, soon scaled back to a miserly 20 when one in fact turned out to be a Whinchat. Result!

Never one to miss out on the action, Nick turned up a short while later, and I commented to him that if someone later found a Ring Ouzel in the brooms, I was having it. We wandered over to the Alex to try and find a Redstart. A flick in the brambles near the water turned into the patch's first Whitethroat of the year, and sure enough, a female Common Redstart was in one of the Hawthorns in the pub scrub, with another Whitethroat for company. As we watched it the first Sand Martin buzzed overhead. By this point my time was up, but I didn't want to leave - it felt like a dangerous morning to go to work!

And indeed it was. The guys had an amazing morning, including Tony who pitched up a little later, and, surprise surprise, found a female Ring Ouzel in the brooms. Ker-ching, and thank you very much - a five year-tick day in the space of roughly two hours. It didn't end there for me though. As I headed out of the office briefly to buy cakes for the team (to 'celebrate' my recent holiday, a bizarre office tradition) I got a call from John A. Amazingly, and from my perspective, fortuitously, he had stumbled upon a singing Nightingale just outside Canary Wharf at Poplar Dock - about a ten minute walk. How could I not? So I did, and not only was it in fine voice at two in the afternoon, but I also saw it as it flitted from one bit of cover to another. Loads of Phylloscs and a Whitethroat in the a same scrub, and achingly close to CW - I checked all likely areas on the way back to the office, and they were of course bird free, exactly as they ought to be.

Apols for the crappy photos, today was all about the birding and no time to fart around being artistic. I'm not even going to bother with my pretetious watermark, and tomorrow I'm going one step further and am not even going to take a camera with me, which all but guarantees a Cuckoo or something.