Hard

I departed Shetland last night rather nervous. Not nervous that the guys I was with would find something good, after all we had been flogging far-flung bushes for six days and found practically nothing, but nervous that a gettable monster bird would appear the day after I had left. A bit like the White's Thrush would have been gettable had I not needed to be down south for my flight. I flew off in the evening, and after a decent sleep in Aberdeen commuted to Glasgow this morning. I had a busy day, and the first time I checked the news properly was a bombshell. Howard, Bradders and Bob had found a Siberian Thrush on Unst. This isn't like finding a Red-flanked Bluetail or a Blyth's Reed Warbler. This is like finding a Dodo.

Jesus. Whilst I am delighted that the team have scored and scored big, I am understandably finding it rather hard that I wasn't there. These things happen of course, and it is only a bird, but to have thrashed around for nearly a week for very little reward and then depart the day before my carload bump into a dream bird is a bitter pill to swallow. I put in all the effort, all the time, gave it as long as I could give it and missed out. You could see it coming obviously, I know I did. But to have it actually happen, well....that's a different thing entirely. Good blogging material mind you.

As well as working on a presentation this morning I also drafted a blog post, before I heard this news. It was about how I was mildly pissed off with seeing fewer birds than I thought I could have seen given both the weather and what there was, how hard graft had not delivered, and so how on the next trip I was simply going to stay down south and twitch everything with rapturous abandon in a steamy tick-fest. Now I don't know what to think. Clearly finding rare birds is possible. I knew that. I still know that. The lads were doing nothing different today then they and I did over the last week. We thrashed plantations, we checked sheltered spots, we peered over fences, we walked down burns, we fell over in iris beds. In doing this non-stop for a week we found nothing noteworthy at all. I flew home, and the next day, without me, they did find something noteworthy. Very noteworthy. Different league noteworthy. I'm not interested in having my name in lights or referenced in a report, that's not my bag at all. I'm just as happy if not happier papping Fulmars, but nonetheless I do feel that I have missed out and that it is all a little unfair.

I'll live of course. Anyone who has been within 100m of a UK Tropicbird and still goes birding is clearly highly resilient, and I am level-headed enough to accept the c'est la vie nature of it all. I can have no complaints really. I had to come off as I had no leave left. And I had no leave left because I had used it all up seeing a procession of amazing birds all over the world. You pays yer money, you makes yer choice, or something along these lines. And that's entirely fair enough, I did make that choice, and I'm still glad I did. I'm gutted to have missed out, but that extra day (or days, watch this space!!) that 'cost' me so to speak, that was not a day that in my view I wasted, and so I do not feel especially sorry for myself.

Blog readers however are invited to feel extremely sorry for me, and to post messages of unadulterated sympathy and support in the comments section. You never know, one day YOU might be in need of karma....

The cost

More of the cost

Hello Kitty!

A monumental morning out on Wanstead Flats, one of gripping tales and mega grip backs. The title perhaps gives it away, but how about this then?!

Yup, that is an adult Kittiwake, and it was at Alexandra Lake this morning. Like I said, monumental. Most other patchworkers have seen one, and indeed I thought I had nailed it a few days ago, only to concede, sorrowfully, that I had not seen enough to eliminate Little Gull. In other words I was very good, so this is my just reward. I had been traipsing round with Josh and Nick, seeing very little. A Blackcap was my first this year, anywhere, and reasonably satisfied with that I was heading back across the Flats from Alex to see if I couldn't do something about a male Wheatear Bob had found. I'd left Nick and Josh - extremely dangerous - and was headed alongside the Alex when I happened to glance up at a Gull dancing above me. Holy Crap, black legs!! A quick scan through the bins, and yes that bill was that shape, and the eye was as lovely and large and dark as I wanted it to be. By this point Nick and Josh had emerged from the scrub, but were headed away. I screamed and I pointed. They looked and they saw. And were pleased for me. I sorted my camera out, got dialled in, and started recording this happy moment. Nick's seen at least two on the patch, but never managed a photo - didn't want that to happen again, but it lingered long enough to get some shots that dare I say it are actually better than just record shots.

Unfortunately for Bob it didn't stick around for an additional 30 seconds, but when he got there he divulged some interesting news regarding a Redstart sp that he had just got onto when news of our bird had forced him to abandon it and leg it over. Which leads me to last Thursday, an episode which if you read my Twitter feed you may be aware of, but which to all intents and purposes I had erased from my memory. At least I didn't come on here and bleat about it, but I was on the train into work when Nick found a Black Redstart where I had been not 20 minutes previously. The dedicated patch-worker would have turned around and come back, but I had a day stacked full of fun and ruefully carried on. The bird did one mid-afternoon, and later that evening the photos hit the web. As far as we know, it was the first Black Redstart for 42 years, i.e. the next one will be when I'm 80 and needing to be wheeled to the Alex. Meanwhile of course the world and his dog twitched it - even Tony's kids saw it! In other words mope mope mope, woe is me etc.

So it was with a mounting sense of excitement that we followed Bob back to East Copse. Of course it's a great date for Common Redstart , but maybe, just maybe, a two tick day was in the offing? It wasn't long before we got there and immediately a small bird popped up exactly where Bob said it would be. Bingo grip-back! Nick of course was very pleased for us all, two monster Wanstead birds that we'd all got back on him. Happy, happy days! A two tick day!!

It didn't really give itself up for photos, and in any event I had to get back home for another busy weekend, but rarely has a morning been so good. As I type, Bob has found a Yellowhammer, and Stu is back on the patch and has immediately found a male Common Redstart. Exactly in the area I carefully checked this morning.....

Never let him out of your sight

I have just one piece of advice for anyone thinking of birding in Wanstead, and it is this: Never let Nick out of your sight. Not for a second, for even if you've spent the whole day with him he will go and find something good the moment you part company. Today he pretended he was off to Hyde Park to twitch the Bearded Tits, but instead went and found Goosander on the patch. I had thought I was pretty safe, and with a prior engagement in town, had headed for home not five minutes earlier. Bosh, another grip off.

In fact today was pretty grippy most of the way through. Bob initially thought he had managed to add himself to one of my favourite lists, namely the "People who have seen Woodlark on the patch who are not me" list, but on reflection cannot be sure, and then contrived to see both a Golden Plover and two Linnet over by Jubilee Pond. To make certain I saw neither of them he sent me off to the Alex to look for them and blamed it on old age - a likely story. Meanwhile Dan scooped a flock of Lapwing over by Alex that I didn't see either... it was all looking fairly bleak. Linnet is regular in autumn, not too worried about them, but Goosander I've seen just twice, and Golden Plover just once - these could be tricky birds to get back. Luckily the day wasn't a complete grip-off as the Lapwing story ended happily when I picked up another flock just a short while later - probably around 40 birds - and then a singleton over the Park. Little Egret on the Roding was another patch year-tick, so I am now sitting pretty on 66. The overall patch list is 76 though, so somehow I am 10 down within three weeks - frankly this is a tad worrying. I guess I shall just have to reconcile myself to seeing the least of anyone. Sniff.

A New List

As is well known, I love lists. One can never have enough, and whilst I might not equal Professor Whiteman in the list of lists stakes, I've just realised that I have a key list missing. It has quite a catchy title: "List of birds that other people have seen on my patch that I will probably never see but that I will hear about for the next 27 years". Why I didn't think of this one before is a mystery, but recent events - particularly this morning - have brought it to the fore.

I worked out at some point this morning that I have been birding for about two hours since I returned from Shetland. It might stretch to two and a half hours, but no more. That I managed to snatch that Short-eared Owl is nothing short of miraculous, and aside from that, I've seen nothing. This morning was no exception. I managed approximately 20 minutes of birding as I walked across the Flats to the bus stop, during which I saw a Pied Wagtail. Safely parked at my desk in Canary Wharf, the remaining Wanstead Birders could now open their eyes and start seeing rare birds. First up a Hawfinch (last record 1985), possibly two, circling Esso Copse. A nice addition to my new list, and with the added bonus of also being seen by a bloke on his second visit or something - extra points. Then three Woodlark west over Long Wood. Excellent, ink that one in. Oh, a Brambling in with Chaffinches - that one at least only goes onto the "missing from my patch year-list list", and finally two Golden Plover. Not too fussed about those, but you can probably sense my building frustration. And this is just today, the actual list is much much longer, and there are some real gems on there.

Happily it does not stop there, no no! There is apparently an Olive-backed Pipit near Southend. Fantastic! What better way to heap more misery on me. It shows all afternoon, right up until dusk. Comments from various people that I am missing a lot of good birds are not well received. Tony suggests I ought to take the afternoon off and twitch it, a nice thought, but with meetings from 1pm through to 6.30pm, somewhat of an impossibility, and anyhow, if I don't work, I don't earn - this is of course entirely fair, but it also means that twitching is not the frivolous affair it once was. I returned home this evening in a foul mood. Magnanimity? Not in this house.

The one tiny tiny speck of good birding news is that I managed 15 minutes birding in Canary Wharf this lunchtime. In addition to most people in Wanstead gripping me off, Parus over at Tower Bridge has also been getting in on the action. Goldcrest yesterday and Chaffinch today, to take the lead in the peanut challenge. I couldn't let this stand. The words "good birding" and "Canary Wharf" rarely go hand in hand, but bugger me if I didn't find a Goldcrest in the first place I looked, which was the nearest bit of green to my office, and was thus able to get back to my desk extra-quickly. Happy days.

I love it when a plan comes together

Yesterday could not have gone much better really. My mincab driver didn't crash and kill us both, my plane left on time, and similarly experienced no crashing and burning, and the adult Sandhill Crane near Aberdeen decided to stay the night. So in a fit of minor extravagance, I hired a car for six hours, and went to have a look at it. Naturally the dreaded "flew off" message came up when I was about half an hour away, but the way my luck is running I knew that wouldn't be a problem. Indeed it wasn't, and after a very small amount of searching, I found the spot that it had favoured the day before, and was happy to see people ejecting themselves from cars and running up the side of a field. I parked up, put my camera together,and sauntered up the side of the field, no mentions of whippets here please. And there it was, feeding in the next field along.I enjoyed it with perhaps ten other birders before the masses really began to arrive, and then, joy of joys, it got up and flew right over our heads.

Please look away now.

Thank You.

The S Word

Remember I asked what you would do if you looked out of your back window and saw one of these. Well?

http://thecrowcouncil.co.uk/2011/02/the-s-word/

Meanwhile not at Rainham....

"Hey look at me! Pretty nice eh? Shiny yellow beak, nice orbital ring, stunning black plumage, and a lovely song to boot. What more could you possibly want in a bird? What, a stupid crest, silly curved beak and floppy wings? Don't be silly! Huh? Stupid bendy legs that are way too long for the body? And Pink? Absurd, get a grip! Trust me, Blackbirds are the way forward."

On being magnanimous

Today has been tough, and I am in a rather bad mood. I have missed the opportunity to see both Pallid Swift AND Lesser Kestrel. This is why I hate twitching. And I didn't even dip. I simply didn't go, as I was busy having lunch with friends. That in itself would be fine, you can't put normal life on hold simply because a rare bird might turn up. The trouble is I came within a whisker of going, and in hindsight....

I'd finished doing the patch by about 10am. Willow Warbler, yee-hah!! Soon after I got in, my favourite Pallid Swift reappeared at Kessingland. What great news! Shaun rang, would I like to try again? Hmmm, whilst lunch with Hilbs and co had been booked up for several weeks, I did have the rather antisocial option of ducking out it if a rare bird turned up. Naturally I decided I would go, and called Shaun back. I got my stuff together, and as I was about to leave, I had a change of heart. There will be another Pallid Swift, and it is basically a washed out Common Swift and thus boring. Nope, I was going to have lunch with my friends, as planned. I called Shaun back, hoping I hadn't delayed him by too much.

The hosts, forever associated with a gap in my list....

Lunch was great, and until the inevitable text came through, I didn't think very much about the Swift. Oh well, you can't get them all. Off to the playground just next door to Hilbs, and then the mega alert. From Suffolk. Lesser Kestrel. Fourteen miles and twenty minutes from the Pallid Swift. Noooooooooo!!!!!! Shaun and the guys turned around, made it back, and got the bird. A two tick day, and the Kestrel is a real mega, only sixteen records, and the last twitchable one was on Scilly in 2002. Most of them are fly throughs or one-dayers. I am sitting here gutted, which is ridiculous. You can't see them all, but I was so nearly in that car. And as for being magnanimous? Hah! Magnanimous is not in a twitcher's lexicon! "Well done lads, great bird!" Gah!! No, this is the stuff true grips are made of, and the next birders drinks are not far away! I fear I shall be forced to pull out my Blue-cheeked Bee-Eater again. Can't use the Fea's Petrel as Monkey was with me for that one...

There is no adequate or rational way to describe my feelings this afternoon. It's difficult to just shrug the shoulders and move on, though I am going to have to grow up and do just that. But before I do, I should mention the Lesser Kestrel that very fortunately dropped in to Wanstead just as I got home from lunch. What were the chances?!

On the small side perhaps, but I can't think what else it could be.

A good weekend

If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed some subtle changes to the numbers in the 'Lists' section over on the right. Yes that's right, the 'Wanstead ever' and 'Wanstead 2009' lists have each moved up by one, and the 'BOU 2009' has increased by one as well. Well done if you noticed. You must be a sad, obsessive kind of person, perhaps a birder, and almost certainly a bloke. If you didn't notice, give yourself a pat on the back. You are a normal healthy individual.

So what, you ask, has been happening, for it must be greatly exciting and I for one cannot wait to find out?! Well, it has been exciting. Let's start with Saturday. Actually, let's start with Friday night, as there was an almighty storm that blew over one of my bamboos and dumped loads of rain while it was at it. Prime conditions for something unexpected to arrive in Wanstead, and with that thought I hastened to bed to be up early to find it.

The next morning was horrible, windy and wet. I elected to stay inside, eat bacon and drink tea. Casually checking my phone at around 11am, I was somewhat displeased to see a text from Stuart that had arrived at 9:20am whilst I had been fecklessly slumming around downstairs not even dressed. "Female goldeneye on heronry pond", it read. Why am I so bloody lazy? Why oh why oh why? Bugger. Stuart is hardy, tough and dedicated. I am soft and indolent. I wrapped up and headed out there, it had to be done. The bird was still present, totally indifferent to the weather. Tick and run. Then I drove home again. Yes, that's right, I drove to my local park. Pathetic.

The last one of these was in 1985. Mega!

Once home again, I berated myself at length for being so useless, and made some more tea. This must have had some impact, as on Sunday morning I managed to get out by 8:45, a mere hour and a half after first light. I did a full circuit of the Park, mainly for the purpose of taking photos for the Wanstead Park tour, but half in the hope of picking up something good. No chance, the best I got was a group of Fieldfare in the Old Sewage Work hedge. Still, it was a lovely morning, calm and with blue sky. I bumped into Stuart near Heronry, who had been unsucessfully looking for the Treecreeper in Reservoir Wood. I found that Treecreeper. Me! He told me that Paul was also in Reservoir wood, and so while he headed off for a mug of tea at the Tea Hut of Happiness, I headed over there to say hello, and also to look for the Firecrest that Stuart (yes, Stuart) had found last week. 200 yards from Reservoir Wood I got a text from Tim, in Reservoir Wood, to say that there was no sign of any Firecrests. 100 yards from Reservoir Wood, Tim called to say he was looking at a Firecrest! I quickened my pace, and soon found Tim and another birder I'd not met before called Nick looking at an empty holly bush. Despite a bit of searching none of us could relocate it, but the positive news is that it is still there and probably will be for some time. On an even more positive note, there were five birders in the Park on Sunday morning. This is amazing news. I think success breeds success, and encourages more people to get out there. Stuart has been at the forefront of the bird-finding this year, my input has been more modest (bar this blog devoted exclusively to Wanstead of course), and the goodies seem to be racking up at a rate of knots (not C canutus...). As you have seen in the recent "Map" posts, it is a vast area and deserving of much more coverage.

Just as it was going so well, my phone went. It was Bradders. I had been so into my patch that I hadn't checked the pager all morning. Spotted Sandpiper at Abberton, and he had precise directions from the finder! Tim's ears pricked up. And then there was one....

Yes, Tim and I shamefully abandoned the Firecrest, Nick, and the patch, and hurried off to fetch scopes, a car, and an OS map of Essex. Turns out Tim is something of a twitcher, and a year-lister to boot! He had kept it very quiet, but the secret is out - at least 14 people may now know! An hour and a small amount of EWT-approved fence-hopping later and we connected with ease. A very smart bird, # 313 for the year, only the second I have seen, and an Essex tick for good measure (#218 if you're counting, which I am).

Dear Shaunboy, this is the one I saw last year. Yesterday's one was too flighty to get a photo of, but I didn't want you to miss out.

Numbers

Yesterday evening I sat down and worked out how far I have driven in the pursuit of birds this year. Yep, another slow evening in the Lethbridge household. Including the longer range dips I can remember, which include the Black-winged Pratincole twice (which I eventually saw) and a Squacco Heron twice (which I didn't), the answer is 10,626 miles. That is like driving to Fife and back eleven times. If I factor in lift-sharing, the number of miles paid for drops to 8,380. You can see where this is leading....Mrs L has oft asked how much I am spending on diesel. Well, the car does about 40mpg on a normal run, and I have taken an average cost per litre of 102.9p. So making some big assumptions, the total monetary cost of my birding so far this year has been about £970. This does not include the cost of double deckers, nor any of the other crap I consume on a day out. The emotional cost is of course far higher, as significant other people will tell you.

With my year list on 281, on a per bird basis this equates to £3.45 per bird. Year listing is very stupid, that much is clear. In fact you don't need to do any numerical analysis to discover this. Just think about it for a minute, and it becomes plain stupid. Seeing as I am never doing one again, this got me thinking. How far would I have travelled if I had just been for life ticks? Thanks to the magic of excel I can tell you that the answer would have been 5,998 miles, and with lift-sharing, 4,140 miles, for a total cost of £479. If we're splitting hairs, £479.31. Each new tick, and there have been 28 this year, has cost £17.11. And it appears that lift-sharing increases if year-listing is abandoned, which is a good thing. My incidental year list would be at 231, alternatively expressed as £2.07 per bird. This is a 50% decrease in cost, but only an 18% decrease in species diversity. Going only for new birds is clearly the way forward, and that is what I will do. Starting from next year. Anyone want a lift?

Actually, restricting myself to only birding in London would be the true path. This year that number is 164 species, for very little expediture whatsover, a couple of trips to Staines and Amwell, once to Beddington, 30-odd trips to Rainham, and the rest of the time on the patch. I wonder what Mrs L would say if I announced I was doing a London-only year list? She would probably explode. Obsessive listing is a bad thing, and it does not matter where it takes place. When she saw that my Wanstead patch list was at 97, and that this year it was 91, she said it worried her as both numbers were sufficiently close to 100 that I might start going a bit nutty trying to get there. As if. The cost of birding is not purely measured in GBP. What I have not measured is time not spent with the family, although my new life happily means I do now spend heaps of time with the children. NB, 4 days to go until the start of term! It also doesn't measure the number of hours other people have baby-sat, supported, put themselves out. This is not an Oscar-acceptance speech, but to all of you, Thank You, and I love you all; I could not have done it without you. See you in November!

The whole thing is lunacy. To make myself feel better I looked at someone much more obsessive than me. No, not Bradders. At the top of the listing site (that I use at least) this year is a guy called Chris. I have never met him. Nor have I met his wife and daughter, who take up slots #2 & #3. I might get upset about this being #4, but when you realise that only a fraction of UK birders use this particular site, and that if they all did, then in reality I would probably be at the lower end of any scale, it doesn't worry me. I'm using it to track my progress towards my personal - and stupid - target of 300 this year (after which I will stop) and that is it. Anyway, all of them are on about 300 for the year already. He/they goes/go for pretty much everything. I think (well, Google thinks...) he lives in a large city in the west country. Last week he drove to South Yorkshire for a Dotterel, via Portsmouth for a Blue-winged Teal. The previous day he had been to the far tip of Cornwall for a Citrine Wagtail. Who would do such a thing? Two days before that he went to Lancashire for a Wilson's Phalarope. By my calculations that is 1,300 miles for four birds in four days. Ridiculous. This pattern of absurd trips for minor rarities, and in some cases, dross, is repeated thoughout the year. I'm not going to do the full analysis, I have no idea what he drives, nor what he has dipped. Suffice it to say I feel much better and I hope Mrs L does too. He hasn't seen a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater or a Fea's Petrel either, what on earth has he been doing?

So, those are the numbers, or some of them at least. I could write about various other lists and numbers for a very long time, but that would be boring, unlike this post. Incidentally this is my 100th. One more target out of the way.

Pterodroma grippa

As I approached Porthgwarra in the early hours of Sunday morning, I couldn't help feeling pretty stupid. Why was I doing this again, a mere eight days after the last time? This time I was with the Blowmonkey, and fellow Wanstead Birder Stuart. He probably wondered what he was doing as well - only a few hours previously he had been happily birding the [kick-ass] Flats with no thoughts of Cornwall or Sea-watching in his mind. As I casually mentioned it while we were kicking bushes for what turned out to be a Dunnock, you could see him begin to weigh it up. Hmm, sea-watching, Cornwall, would I like to do that? Turned out he would, so at 1:20am the three of us were stood in Porthgwarra carpark, facing away from the "No overnight camping" sign, and having a deserved beer. After a long and comfortable sleep, we hit the cliff. Almost immediately I got onto a large Shearwater circling near the Runnel Stone marker. We tracked it south-east, and once we had talked to some experts who arrived later, decided it could only have been a Great Shearwater. The next few hours were fairly quiet, with about 30 each of Sooty Shearwater and European Storm Petrel going through, but not a lot else. Visibility gradually reduced in drizzly conditions, and I wondered if I hadn't made a serious error in coming again.

Happily negative thoughts of this nature were dispelled at 11:26am. All three of us had scopes trained on the Runnel Stone as this was the line being taken by Storm Petrels as they headed west. All of a sudden the quiet birder next to us spoke up. You'll have to excuse the language, but the air turned blue. What follows is a rough transcript of the next thirty seconds: "Great Shearwater coming right, almost at the Runnel Stone" Given our fortunate positioning, we were on it immediately. "Fuck, it's not a Great Shearwater! Fuck me! Dark underwings! Fucking Hell, it's a Fea's. It's a fucking Fea's!!! FEA'S PETREL! FEA'S PETREL going right!!!!!!!!!!!!" We watched this pelagic gem shear slowly west until it disappeared into the mist, and then the celebrations began. News was phoned out. The finder was quite calm once the bird had gone past actually, turned out he had seen a few and was a very experienced sea-watcher. Monkey and I showed no such class, and were going ballistic, disbelieving of what we had just seen. At this point Bradders, recently arrived back in the UK from Canada, and knowing I was in Cornwall, unwittingly texted me. The exchange merits reproduction here.

Bradders: So how's Cornwall? Falling over flocks of Little Shears and Albatrosses?
JL: No Little Shear or Albatross, but we just had a Fea's. Is that good?!
Bradders: Please tell me you're winding me up...Who's with you?

Needless to say, a gripping conversation followed within minutes, repeated shortly after with Vince, who also called in shock. Meanwhile Monkey had roughly the same conversation with Hawky, and sent a few gripping texts of his own. Played for and got I say. Well that isn't quite true I suppose, there was a very very large slice of luck involved. But I had been tracking the winds for about a fortnight, had pored over the short-range forecast for the weekend, read the results of various mid-week sessions at Pendeen and Porthgwarra with interest, and conversed with a few experienced people from the SW. As a result of what was actually many hours of mucking about on the net, more than were eventually spent sea-watching by some margin, I decided it was worth the trip, but never in my wildest dreams had I considered Fea's. My big hope was Cory's, and one that remains unfulfilled. About an hour after the Fea's went past, the fog rolled in and didn't lift for the remainder of the day. Feeling it was probably all over, we left Porthgwarra at about 1pm, and twitched the nearby Citrine Wagtail at Marazion. We returned to the cliff at 4ish to check conditions, but if anything it was worse so we headed back to London. Monkey spent most of the trip back mentally composing his blog for maximum grippage. How childish. There are no thoughts of glee as I sit here typing. None at all, no. And no thoughts of posting unnecessary and repetitive photographs of pager messages, no way.

I won't be going that far again this year, though remarkably the Fea's went past Porthgwarra again today. But I am already ear-marking a few weekends for next year for something similar. I suspect the Monkey might be quite interested, and less arm-twisting might be needed to get him to come. Hope his snoring issues have been sorted out by then.

Boring

I have continued to bash the patch every day from 5:30am until about 7am. This is because I am dedicated, strong-willed, and a real patch birder. With the exception of the Redstart earlier in the week, it has been very very boring. This morning's highlights were two Mistle Thrush and a Sparrowhawk. Excited? I wasn't. Getting up at 5am for a Mistle Thrush is sub-optimal. Getting up at 5am for a Redstart is tolerable. Getting up at 5am for a Wryneck would be just fine, oh Birding Gods, and I have identifed a nice spot for this to occur, just east of Centre Road on the sandy slope near the large gorse patch. Tomorrow?

But boring is unfortunately the norm, as are my frequent supplications. The thought of what MIGHT be in the next Hawthorn is always likely to be more exciting than what actually IS in the next Hawthorn, and this is what keeps me and countless other inland patch-workers going.

Yesterday, after another dreary morning on the patch where I found a rare Willow Warbler, I headed off for a spot of year-listing. I know, it sickens me too. However - and do you sense a flimsy excuse heading your way? - I was over the west side of London anyway dropping the two eldest off at their Grandparentals for a couple of days when I realised that Hampshire wasn't too far away, I mean a mere 70 miles or something. 70 miles is nothing for a diesel-fiend like me, so off we went to Keyhaven Lagoon where there was a very nice Red-necked Phalarope spinning around like a nutter only a few feet from the path. This is only the third one I have seen, and these were the best views ever, plus Pudding got a tick as well. Three excellent justifications for going. And there was a Cattle Egret too, which was another tick for her. Four justifications. Amongst the justifications were...hang on, I'll come in again. Anyway, many good reasons for going, and we had a nice walk in a very brisk wind and generally had a lot of fun looking at boats, talking about boats, and talking about how it was "quite windy" as we struggled to stay on our feet.

"Why are you now bolding all the bird names?"

This is all preamble. As I was happily scoping the Phalarope, a young guy who I have seen before at a couple of south coast twitches turned up. Obviously the first time you see someone, you say nothing. The second time, there is perhaps a nod of recognition, but no actual dialogue - still too early. The third time however, to say nothing would be a bit odd, so I proffered a tentative "Hello mate, how you doing?" Ah the intricacies of social arkwardness in Britain, how fantastic. Anyway, I got him onto the Phalarope, and we got chatting. Turns out he is also doing a bit of a year list, and he tragically recognised my name from Bubo when I called the bird into RBA. His patch is Splash Point and Seaford Head in East Sussex. This week he found an Iccy. Last May he found a River Warbler. Imagine that, a mega on your own patch. I know, what on earth was he therefore doing in Hampshire, why wasn't he bashing bushes for rare migrants back in East Sussex? Well, that's year-listing for you. My point is that for him, going out on his patch in spring and autumn must be unimaginably exciting. I'm not sure I could cope. The highlight of my birding year is still the self-found Ring Ouzel in April. This is despite the Collared Flycatcher, the Crested Lark, all three Pratincoles and a certain Bee-eater that I am loathe to mention. As you saw, I get excited by Redstarts. This guy could literally get anything. I think the emotion I am trying to describe is jealousy. Extreme jealousy. Can't wait to get out on the patch tomorrow morning, I wonder what I'll get? Trumpeter Finch?

Bring on the rarities!!

I can't help thinking that it would be very amusing if the next two weeks were to produce an unprecedented stream of rarities from continental North America. This is because tick-machine Bradders is away - in North America - and he has his phone with him. This will continue to receive all the Mega alerts, and I have no doubt that he would find it quite funny, nay hilarious, to be looking at, say, a Black-and-White Warbler, in Canada, at the same time as we all were looking at one in Cornwall. How he would chuckle! Siberian rarities (especially a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper) would also be acceptable, but would be lacking the delicious irony that only a North American bird could bring.

Of course I am just joking. Mostly. He flew out today. I did not plan this (or petition the Birding Gods), but as I type, at about 5pm, the first Mega since he took off has come up, which is pretty stunning timing as there hasn't been one for ages, not since the Blue-cheeked Bee-eater in fact (which, if I hadn't mentioned it already, I saw). It is not as gripping as it could be though, as it concerns an Audouin's Gull on Scilly, which neither he nor any of us would go for anyway. Birding Gods, mainland next please, ideally London, even more ideally north-east London. If you need a post-code, just ask.

Audouin's Gull. Sort of.

Another one snaffled

In my last post I mentioned I was unemployed and that this is good for twitching rare birds, especially megas that are found on weekdays and very sadly only stick around for a few hours. The last part is very true, as proved once again today. The first part however is not true. No, I am not unemployed. That has perjorative connotations, and makes me out to be some kind of wastrel good-for-nothing flip-flop-wearing lay-about. Many parents throughout the land choose to stay at home in flip-flops without an income in order to look after children, and that is what I am doing. I am officially a stay-at-home-except-when-a-rare-bird-turns-up Dad. Nothing wrong with that.

One of these is not a Black-headed Gull

It is said that fortune favours the bold. When the Great Spotted Cuckoo was found in Norfolk yesterday afternoon, I could have gone for it there and then. I would have got it as well, except I would have arrived after my youngest's bedtime and she wouldn't have had any dinner. Model parent that I am, after much consideration this was ruled out as not being fair, and anyway the ratio of time spent driving to time spent birding was highly unfavourable. No, I resisted stealing a march, and decided to go today instead. I hatched a plan with the Monkey whereby I would take a gross risk and drive up early doors on no news, spend my redundancy payout on diesel yet again, and phone him with an pre-pager update as soon as I arrived. So whilst the Monkey slept soundly, no doubt dribbling gently into his pillow and dreaming of the next tick, I stumbled round my house half-asleep at 4.30am, woke up and fed a surprised toddler, made another picnic, packed the car and drove 120 risky miles. It paid off, the bird was still there, and showed superbly - Get in! 7:28am and the JL Bird Alert service swings into action a full 20 minutes before the pagers kick off. Other London birders start finalising plans, and Monkey gets in his car.

Very unfortunately the bird chose to bugger off at about 11am, and was not seen again all day. Monkey arrived at about 11:00:30. Oh dear. This is a genuine "oh dear", not, I assure you, to be read with a smirk unless you are cruel and heartless, which I am not. Seeing a rare bird is a thrilling experience, you want your friends to be able to enjoy them too. Dipping is horrible, really crummy. I dipped a Fan-tailed Warbler last year, which is really really rare, by 30 seconds. I would have preferred to miss it by several hours. But at least Monkey's children got 5 quality hours in the car with Dad and were able to experience birding at its best. I wonder what they talked about on the way home?

This is a Tick-Monkey. Can you imagine what a Dip-Monkey looks like?

Later on in the day I dipped a relatively long-staying American Golden Plover. Whatever. I saw a Great Spotted Cuckoo! This bird also means that I am once again ahead of Bradders again in the year-listing game, although probably not for long as very happily the Cuckoo has been refound again this evening approx 1 mile from where it went missing, so the guys can have another crack at it tomorrow. Let's hope it dies in the night, er I mean stays all night.

By the skin of my teeth

As a number of my mates read this blog, it would be rude not to write about the second mainland twitchable Blue-cheeked Bee-eater since 1950 that I saw yesterday. OMFL, as they say. Anyhow, a pleasant morning was shattered at roughly 10:30 when my pager and phone went beserk simultaeneously. At the time I was in a supermarket carpark, just about to unload the kids. As I have been in charge of the shopping and the shopping list this week, it will come as a surprise that we even made it as far as Wednesday, but we were totally out. I had dry cereal for breakfast - the life of a parent is one long sacrifice. Hawky was one of the first to call: roughly "Go Go GO!!!!!!!!!!!!" Somehow we continued into the supermarket - I had promised the kids little tiny trollies and to abandon this could have been disastrous. The shopping list was transformed into a picnic list, a quick stop off home to put it all together and gather optics, nappy changing equipment, raincoats, beakers, spare clothes, the buggy, soft toys and all the other crap you need in order to survive with children away from home, and we were off.

By this point it was rather disappointingly midday, and I was wondering if I hadn't made a serious mistake in not leaving the children with the Manager of Waitrose in South Woodford. Even more so when the Dartford crossing was all bunged up, and I almost cried when the pager came up with a "flew out to sea" message at about 1pm whilst still half an hour away. But crucially I continued rather than abort, and a quick call to Bradders established that it had come back and was sitting in a bush. I arrived on-site, found a space, and loaded up the buggy, a process which takes five minutes in itself - you can't just commando-roll out of the car with kids. A returning twitcher pointed the way, and off we set as fast as I could push. Halfway down the hill I noticed the guy 20 yards in front of me stop suddenly, and then heard a funny "Prrrrt" call. As one we turned and raised bins, and a funny-looking greeny-blue bird with a long tail projection flew past us and up the hill. Yay! Any further down the hill and we would have missed it. Indeed this is what happened to another twitcher who had arrived on-site at the same time as me, and had been running, and so was below the bird when it flew up. In this instance being burdened with a buggy and children turned out to have been rather fortunate. My views lasted all of about 20 seconds, and were poor against a bright sky, but it was enough. Euphoric, I cursed myself for being so slow to leave. On first news I would have spent an hour looking at it sat up in a Hawthorn, taken a few photos, and have been in a much better position to grip people off, but hey, sometimes you take what you can get, and this is one of those times.

We continued on down to the twitch in the hope it would return to the bush, but no joy. Back at the top of the hill an hour or so later, with my phone in total meltdown from East London-based birders wanting news, stacks of eager twitchers were arriving to find the bird gone. I may have been one of the last people to see it as it didn't get refound all day. So I am officially a jammy git. Three cheers to being unemployed! Here's hoping it flew off to the continent and will never grace these sunny shores again that it gets refound so all my mates can see it too ;-)

Where is my Wheatear?

Seemingly all other sites in London today have had a Wheatear, in some cases several. Wanstead though remains a Wheatear-free zone, despite some serious bashing this morning. I did find some reasonably photogenic Skylarks though.





Rainham is hotting up, have been three days on the trot now, very pleasing indeed. Still not caught up with any of the white-wingers, but I did jam in on the first Mandarin Duck for about 20 years, which pleased Howard. He had to be pleased for me from a distance though, as he was in Kent. As a true birder, he did of course consider driving all the way from Kent just to get it on his Rainham list, but in a fit of sensibleness didn't bother, so if you saw it, be sure to mention it to him.