In praise of Lego

Not that Lego......real Lego. Birders, tchah! No, real, actual plastic Lego - bricks, plates, tiles and bars. The toy of champions, and I love it. Yes I still play with Lego, and I'm not ashamed. It's one of the principal reasons I had children actually, so that I needn't come across as all weird and nerdy. Consequently, rather than in spite of, we have a lot of Lego in the house. Seriously loads. For instance there's a Lego Mos Eisley in the front room that measures a good 4 feet by 4 feet, and has seen many years of love despite it being a wretched hive of scum and villany. But we have nothing on some people, oh no. This weekend the kids and I went to Brick 2014, a Lego exhibition at Excel populated by dysfunctional dweebs amazingly talented grown-ups.

We were blown away. The dedication of these people is sensational, I thought I was committed to some of the things I enjoy. I have nothing on these guys, nothing. I am a pale imitation, my particular brand of OCD a mere shadow of what it could be. This is obsession on a whole new level, these guys would make amazing twitchers if it ever occured to them. Anyone remember this famous National Geographic cover?

What about Westminster Abbey?


I could go on and on. Three hours passed in a blur, especially the final thirty minutes when I lost a child. Some free advice for any other parents out there - monstrously large exhibitions are not the place to lose a ten year old boy. Of course we hadn't arranged a meeting point if we were separated. Or any kind of scenario planning whatsoever. All of a sudden he's nowhere to be seen, in a room the size of a football field populated by thousands of small people his exact size. Parenting fail. I got him back of course, wasn't worried for a moment, ahem, but FFS. But back to the Lego, I want to give up work, downgrade my house to a bungalow somewhere, and purchase half a million bricks, there to spend the rest of my life building the most amazing dioramas in the hope of being invited to sit behind railings in huge exhibition halls being admired by loads of kids. And their dads....

Here's a selection, including birds so that I can keep this blog resolutely on topic! 

 

Yeehah!

What a fabulous weekend. Wanstead Flats overflowing with migrants, and then two amazing afternoons of top-quality music at the O2 in Greenwich. I'm only lying about one of these things, and it being mid-March you might think I would be talking about the latter. Especially when I tell you it was a country music festival, Nashville-on-Thames. But no, Wanstead Flats had no migrants whatsoever, bar a Chiffchaff that has probably been here all along but only just started singing. It was pretty rubbish on both mornings, all the good singing started around 4pm.

For those of you that don't know, I'm a big fan of country music. This is less dominated by twangy banjos these days, but there are still a lot of songs about love, cold beer, and trucks. Generally a love of cold beer and trucks, though possibly of high school sweethearts too. Frankly it's an ideal complement to my other cool hobby of birdwatching, and makes me the all-round "hey, I wanna be that guy" guy. Not. But I don't care, I absolutely love it, as those who have been on long-distance twitches with me driving will know. The Country2Country festival (such a great title, so much hidden meaning...) is becoming an annual event, and takes place over an entire weekend. There is now sufficient demand for this genre that they're able to fill the O2, and what was almost a sell-out last year was a definite sell-out this time around. Last year I only went to one of the days, and saw amongst others two massive names, Vince Gill and Tim McGraw (look 'em up!), but this year I went the whole hog and was there both days. The line ups were Martina McBride, Dierks Bentley, The Dixie Chicks, and the Zac Brown Band, followed on Sunday by Chris Young, The Band Perry, Rascal Flatts, and finally Brad Paisley. Just so people can understand quite how popular they are, I did a protracted search on the wikipedia, and between them these eight artists have won 20 Grammy awards, and sold a massive 83 million albums (and that's just in the US), 29 of which went platinum (or multi-so), with a further 10 gold. This is big, big stuff. Dixie Chicks album Wide Open Spaces sold 12 million copies. That's more than Automatic for the People. More than Back to Black. More than Harvest. More than The Lion King soundtrack.

Getting ready

Lots of this. NO shame.

It was of course fabulous, with the Dixie Chicks, Rascal Flatts and Dierks Bentley being particular highlights. The Zac Brown Band, possibly my favourite group at the minute, were excellent but I didn't think as good as when at the Shepherd's Bush Empire last year, and Brad Paisley, like Tim McGraw (40 million albums, 20 Grammys...), was a superstar and exemplary showman. Cowboy boots and wide-brimmed hats were of course in abundance, though not on me. I draw the line at a truckers cap, I have no need to look (more) like a tit. Anyhow, something like ten hours of live music over two afternoons/evenings, and a brilliant atmosphere. If they can keep it going I'll be there every year. Whilst I prefer the smaller venues for sure, the convenience of multiple acts one after the other with much reduced "per band" rates is an excellent idea, and one I hope continues. 

Pretty much a perfect weekend as far as I was concerned, let down only by a distinct lack of Wheatears. Partial redemption on the way back from the Sunday gig with calling Tawny Owl as I walked home from the bus. When I got home I ordered eight new CDs. Twitchers beware.

Yes, some brainwashing did occur....

End of the Line?

Within birding circles certain topics evoke huge feeling like you would not believe. The three following small words contain a huge amount of meaning if you're of a certain age, which I'm not, being still very youthful and devil-may-care. They are slender, billed, and Curlew. Away back in 1998, away up in Northumberland, what may or may not have been a bit of a runty Curlew was found. Proclaimed as a Slender-billed Curlew, a species near extinction, many twitchers moved heaven and earth to get up there and see it for themselves. Some managed it, some didn't. And as you can imagine this provoked a highly partisan debate about whether it was one or not. Whether or not this debate was split evenly down the lines of who saw it and who didn't I cannot possibly say. Suffice it to say that the bird got accepted by the various committees that exist in order to make decisions on these things, and those who saw it tucked it away on their British lists whilst sticking two fingers up at those who didn't see it and weren't keen on it being one. From what I can gather, righteous indignation reigned.

For years.

Even now Druridge Bay's Wikipedia entry makes mention of it, and the bird itself has a full page! But today, in the latest twist to this long-running saga, it was formally kicked off the list again, a mere 15 years later!. Also kicked off again was the longest running BirdForum thread in the history of the universe, which was started in 2008 as a ten year anniversary "celebration" of the arrival of the bird. Birders have long memories, and year after year the debate rumbled on. If I may summarise briefly....

"Is!"
"Is not!"
"Is!"
"Is not!"
.....

It was at its most active in the first two years, which saw 38 out of the [current] 55 pages, and 2011 was still pretty good, contributing a further 13. Thereafter it slowly declined, including an unforgiveable break of eight months until a mild awakening in February 2012. Perhaps some of the protagonists grew up? It then limped on for another few pages to October 2012, and until today had lain tragically dormant. But in the space of only a few hours we now have another three pages, and the top-class entertainment of watching grown men squabble over something massively inconsequential, err sorry, I meant over a matter of life and death, can begin all over again. Hurrah!

Funnily enough I was recently contacted by an American journalist wanting to find out about birding extremes in the UK. Whilst I am almost certainly not the person she actually needs to be talking to, her timing could not have been better. All she has to do is read 1,355 posts and she will know all she needs to know.

Eric Church

Another day, another gig. Counting Crows on Monday, Eric Church last night. I must remember not to book two in a week again, but trouble is I didn't know about the latter when booking the former. Had it been a straight choice, the Counting Crows wouldn't have got a look in. As regular readers may know, especially if they also read my twitter feed, my other cool hobby is country music - well, perhaps best to call it Americana. I guess people think of banjos and bandanas, but that couldn't really be further from the truth. The themes are country, for instance trucks and cold beer feature pretty heavily, but the actual music is rock and roll. And Eric Church rocked.

His last studio album "Chief" (he's only done three) won Album of the Year at both the CMA awards and the ACM awards, and is a blinder. Of all the people I wanted to go and see live, he topped the list, so when I found out he was doing his first UK concert there was no way I could miss it. Thoughtfully I bought Mrs L a ticket too, as somehow she knows all the songs, and begrudgingly admits he's a pretty damn good musician, even if he doesn't play enough Monteverdi for her liking.

What can I say, it was brilliant. The audience at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town knew every word to every song, not just "Springsteen" which was the single that got UK airplay. As a live act, he is superb. If you want to get an idea of how good it was, he's just released a live album called "Caught in the Act", and it pretty much sums up the show last night. And it was LOUD! My ears are still recovering, no chance of me picking up a Wood Warbler any time soon, though the insistent duh-duh-duh-duh-duh of a Lesser Whitethroat did make it through the slight tinnitus this morning. There, birds. Relevance.

Wanstead's most attractive Woodpigeon

Came across an unbelievably gorgeous Woodpigeon today. I fear its beauty hasn't much longer to shine though, there is something not quite right with its tail.... It's not every day that a Woodpigeon makes you involuntarily gag, but that's what happened when I was photographing Mistle Thrushes and it strayed into my viewfinder. I wonder what on earth has happened to it? It wasn't particularly alert, not that many are I suppose, but this one appeared to have significantly dulled reactions. Horrible, poor thing.

Do you think it looks better from the left....

....or from the right?

In other news, I saw a Nuthatch today in Reservoir Wood, and then again by Heronry. Nuthatch is an inexplicably rare bird in Wanstead given the lovely habitat that exists in the Park. There must be something I am missing, certainly I can't hope to understand what makes Nutchatches tick, but I've been to lots of places that appear at least superficially to be identical, and they are crawling with Nuthatches. I've seen four in Wanstead in eight years, not a very convincing total, so let's hope that they are on the way back. Not much else going on across the patch, fairly quiet in comparison with recent days. I guess this is the problem with excellence; it becomes difficult to maintain. A Little Egret flying west across the Flats was a patch tick though, seen plenty in the Park but none here before, so most pleasing. I kind of punched the air, but not really as I was standing next to Barry and he doesn't need to know what a saddo I am.

Directions to this crippling mega on the Wiki

Talking of saddos, I am getting drawn in to a handbagging match on the London bird sightings page. I would have done better to have stayed out of it, it's like Birdforum all over again, so a huge 'fail' on my part. In a nutshell a loud-mouthed American has turned up and loves the sound of his own typing. Me too, that's probably why it's all going wrong - but I have a blog for my creative output. He doesn't, so he just uses the blog, sorry I mean sightings page, to tell London birders where they might be so lucky as to see a Chiffchaff or other scarce bird, which branch of a tree it is in, and what the weather is like. I put it down to over-enthusiam, severe obstinance, and cultural differences. I must be overly-traditional, preferring a sightings page to concisely summarise what birds are to be found across the capital. My opinion means nothing though, and unfortunately he has become a cause celebre for seemingly masses of disenfranchised birders who need help with finding Chiffchaffs and other rare breeding birds, and so I now find myself somewhat marginalised and accused of pedantry. Such as shame, as I'm actually right, but that doesn't count. I suspect I'm going to get bored of an editing war long before this guy and his groupies do, and sarcasm has no effect either. Even a great joke about Garden Warblers being borin' went completely over their heads, an indication that there is no more I can do. So, completely powerless in the face of a mounting storm of verbal diahorrea that is swamping what used to be quite an easy to use resource, I'm giving up. Given my heritage it pains me to say that I hope his visa is only temporary. If he ever does see the light and start a blog though, I'm going to be the first follower, the style is, is, well, words fail me if the truth be told.

Oh, and yes, I did get assaulted by a dog on the patch today, just as I knew I would. Once again it was my fault (camera), and it improved my already great mood massively.

And breathe......

Where my liver went

If you were hoping that this might be about birds, hope again. I am afraid that once more I have virtually nothing to say. This has never stopped me before, and won't stop me in the future. If you want proper entertainment, I suggest you visit here, which is altogether a lot more fun. If you look very carefully at the very end, I actually feature, which was somewhat of a surprise, but there you go. If you put yourself out there to a certain extent, this is what can happen. Be warned kids. And grip, don't dip, obviously.

Er, where was I? Ah yes, no birding. So, in lieu of actually leaving the house, I did a spot of tidying. The object of my affections this time around was the big cupboard under the stairs, which over time has degenerated into a repository for stuff we no longer wish to see around the house. I pulled the whole lot out, recyled masses of it, went to the dump with a pile more, and shoved what was left back in. In doing so, I found these.

This is almost every single wine cork that I have pulled in the last, gosh I don't know, five years. Why have I kept them you might ask? Because I'm really really cool and well-adjusted. I don't actually have a good answer, or indeed any answer. I think I once harboured designs of doing something artistic with them, but that never happened and it's now getting to the stage where a Tern raft isn't totally out of the question. As a displacement activity, rummaging through a mountain of corks proved pretty good. Much better than cleaning at any rate. I didn't count them, out of deference to my doctor. And anyway, Mrs L is equally culpable. Or maybe a third culpable - that's the usual consumption ratio round here. Looking at this enormous pile, it's hard not to feel very very unhealthy indeed. No, I didn't go for a run today, it was raining.

Whilst poking through them it occured to me that this was very much June July material, especially the wettest and most bird-free July since 1682. By far the majority of the corks say "Mis en bouteille a la propriete", which is posh-speak for saying that the wine was bottled at the same place the grapes were grown, rather than shipped in a tanker to a massive factory in Antwerp and bottled alongside Pepsi, before hitting the shelves of Happy Shopper at £2.99 a bottle.

But digging a little deeper I unearthed a few that were recogniseable. A pleasing half-hour therefore passed, during which no tidying occured, and it turns out that there were quite a few more interesting* ones in there. I feel obliged to feature a small selection, clockwise from top left, and ending in the middle, as I have nothing else to say**.

1. Chateau Batailley, a Chateau L staple. Left bank claret, decently priced. I drink of a lot it. Not that you could tell.
2. Chateau de la Variere. In the Loire somewhere, we visited whilst on holiday. I would never be able to find it again, but I remember it being quite nice and doing dessert, which this is. Was.
3. Domaine Olivier Leflaive. White Burgundy - as popular as water round here, possibly drunk more frequently.
4. Wirra Wirra, an Aussie departure.
5. Bonneau du Martray. Oh yes.
6. Domaine Bruno Clair, Chambolle Musigny - Red Burgundy and Ribena substitute.
7. Cote de Nuits of some description. Likely delicious.
8. Domaine du Vieux Telegraph; wonderful Red Rhone that I can't afford any more because Kim Yong-Un has bought it all.
9. Indeterminate and forgotten celebration.

So where are they now? Recycled? At the dump? Errrr, almost. They're now in the loft. And guess what I found up there? Yup, the previous five years. I am nothing if not consistently sad.

* lies
** true

Internet Tomfoolery

In the absence of birds, I had a lot of fun this weekend mucking about with internet. I am a dunce when it comes to internet, but happily internet realises this and has made doing things on it spectacularly easy. Nonetheless I feel a sense of achievement that what I wanted to get done I appear to have managed. Mostly this has to do with vanity. I wondered briefly if this is one of the seven deadly sins, but it appears not to be. Pride comes close, but is slightly different, so my only feelings now are those of virtue and humility.

So, the first thing is that for the princely sum of precisely three pounds and fifty-nine pence I have purchased the much sought-after domain name of wansteadbirder.com. A stroke of divine luck that it was still available....  It was remarkably easy, as was making Blogger understand about it. Like I said, the internet was designed with dumbasses like me in mind. The upshot of this is that the new URL for this blog is http://www.wansteadbirder.com/, and not the one ending blogspot.com that it used to be, though I understand that it will still work and bring you here. There. Whatever. Anyhow, if you are the linking sort, please refresh your links to the new address, as it will not make a blind bit of difference. Compelling, no?

Internet didn't let me have it all my own way though, and so as soon as I changed the URL Blogger dropped all my links, including all the photo ones that I have only recently painstakingly added. I have added as many as I can remember back on, and a few more besides, but if there is a glaring gap where once there was a link to your blogging efforts, please get in touch and remind me. Chancers welcome, you never know....

In yet another act of gratuitous pomposity, I have totally revamped http://www.justbirdphotos.com/, including migrating the whole shebang to a new hosting service called Zenfolio. I think it looks a lot better than the old one, and has the benefit of added functionality and a much lower cost. Win win, as they say. It also includes blog functionality, so all the geeky camera shit that I mostly manage to repress on here I can dribble out on there, safe in the knowledge that only fellow photography buffs will be browsing. In addition to the slide show on the homepage, each and every photo - and there are over 500 - now shows EXIF data. You can see what focal length I used, what aperture, ISO and shutter speed. See why I spare you all this normally? I've also branched out, so the Just Bird Photos name is now well and truly non-sensical, as you will now also find butterflies, landscapes, and even one of a frog. Just Frog Photos. Creating the site was childsplay, even if I do say so myself. The difficult bit had to do with repointing DNS somethings. I'm not sure what it means of course, but I had to go onto internet, and make sure that the domain name pointed to a series of numbers that looked like 123.45.678.910 instead of a series of numbers that looked like 098.765.43.21. Amazingly I managed it, and once the overnight hampster shift ended and new hampsters took over, the next time I typed in the address it took me to the new page and not the old one. And if it works for me, I expect it will work for you too. If it doesn't, please complain to Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Lucky Landguard

Being a saddo lister, I am able to tell you what birds I've seen where. Partly this is notebooks, but mostly it's the most amazing spreadsheet ever. Have you heard of Pivot Tables? They're great, I mean really great. A quick couple of clicks, and I can produce this:

Landguard NR, Suffolk			5
	Hoopoe		1
		15-Apr-09	1
	Arctic warbler		1
		2-Sep-09	1
	Booted Warbler		1
		16-Oct-11	1
	Short-toed Treecreeper		1
		25-Mar-11	1
	Tawny Pipit		1
		6-May-12	1

Those are all the rare birds I've seen at Landguard, and every single one of them - yes, all five - were lifers. Not a single one was any trouble at all. I bowled up and there they were, straight onto my list, spectacularly easily. I also keep a dip list, not that I dip very often, but it's always nice to reminisce. Landguard has no entries on the dip list. Every time I've been for a bird, it's always still been there, and I've always seen it, and seen it really well. So yesterday, even though I was nearly a hundred miles away in Cambridgeshire, I knew that if I went, I'd score the Tawny Pipit. Dipping was out of the question, no petrol would be wasted. And that's exactly what happened - Muffin and I arrived, bailed out of the car, walked calmly to the point, and immediately saw a Tawny Pipit.


I have similar luck at and around Minsmere. Hang on a sec. Click, click.

Minsmere RSPB, Suffolk			4
	Glossy Ibis		1
		9-Oct-11	1
	Purple Heron		1
		24-May-07	1
	Roseate Tern		3
		21-Jun-09	3
	Audouin's Gull		1
		9-May-11	1

Dunwich, Suffolk			2
	King Eider		1
		17-Oct-10	1
	Thrush Nightingale		1
		7-Jun-08	1

Westleton Heath, Suffolk			2
	Great Grey Shrike		1
		17-Oct-10	1
	Lesser Kestrel		1
		29-Mar-10	1

It's never quite as nailed on as Landguard, for instance I recall a Spectacled Warbler dip, but my record here is still pretty good, and I'm always pretty confident of seeing what I set off to see. It's harder work though - although most were straightforward, the Thrush Nightingale required overnighting in the car followed by three hours walking around in a small circle, most of it in the pouring rain, for about a thirty second view. The less said about the Lesser Kestrel twitch the better, and the Audouin's Gull gave me a mild heart attack by flying off half an hour before I arrived, before doing the decent thing and returning to the scrape just as I arrived on the beach.

Anyway, enough stats. For now. I also do quite well at Dungeness. In fact, I do quite well everywhere, but I think that of the places I've been several times, only Landguard has a 100% unblemished record.

Today was a family day, and what better family activity is there than enforced birding disguised as a walk? Sheppey was the destination of choice, centered around lunch at the Harty Ferry Inn. But before the family were allowed into the pub, the were marched to the hides at Elmley Marshes, where yet another two Black-winged Stilts awaited us. Mrs L was delighted to get a tick, but the girls didn't even look!

The main problem is that the hides are miles away, and so small children lose interest well before half way. Much better is the entrance track to the reserve, where the kids can hang out of the window and observe Lapwings, Redshanks and others at point blank range. Today we had great views of these, as well as of Yellow Wagtails and cute Rabbits. A quick stop at Capel Fleet produced Peregrine and the ubiquitous Marsh Harriers, and a more prolongued stop at the Harty Ferry Inn produced both food and beer.

Dreaming

The other night I had a dream. It's possible that I dream every night, I have no idea how it works, but it's not every morning you wake up and wonder whether it was all a dream, so to speak. This particular dream was about the patch, and I was on it. The snide will comment that it must have been a dream, and indeed, sometimes it does appear to be like that, especially so at the moment, where I get perhaps one opportunity a week to not see Woodpeckers. This dream was not about Woodpeckers though, it was about Lapwings.

Lapwings are what a local bird report might call a scarce visitor. When I first moved here, Lapwing was pretty much a dream bird. I suppose, given recent events, that it still is. Anyway, I had lived here nearly five years before I saw my first Lapwing - in a cold spell one December, 12 flew over me in the Park. I could barely believe it. I dashed home to report the good news to my fascinated family, and in a calculated move of which I am still immensely proud, went and stood in the garden for the rest of the day. Lo and behold, and to a chorus of pure joy, a single Lapwing flying south went and got itself onto the house list. Since that momentous day, I've seen Lapwings a further nine times, totalling 33 birds, though I guess you have to be a fan of urban patch stats to truly appreciate this. One more stat - most of these have been from the garden - unemployment has its benefits.

In my dream I was on the Flats, not in the garden. I was in the SSSI, heading home after a fruitless trip - all the best dreams are grounded in reality. Approaching the ditch that runs approximately east to west, two Lapwings flew over. In case you were having the same dream, they went west. Anyway, they were perfect. The rounded rings, narrower at the base, were impeccably floppy, the flight impressively Lapwingy. In my dream I punched the air, over the moon at a tough patch year tick bagged. Then I woke up. Well, not immediately I don't suppose, but upon waking the dream was still fresh, still vivid, in my mind's eye I could picture them still.

One of the very first ones

Is this post a confession? Not really, you all know I'm a sad case already. I am giving absolutely nothing away when I admit that I dream of birds, but what I feel is particularly noteworthy is that I don't dream about finding Sibe Rubythroats on Unst, or jamming in on Calandra Larks on Scilly. No, I dream about bog standard common waders on my own patch. Unconscious dedication.

Mega Map

Welcome to my megamap, not at all ripped off Birdguides. As a measure of quite what a genius sad tit I am, I waited until midnight, when the day ticks over and the map becomes blank again, so I could (allegedly) perform my little screen-nab. I crossed my fingers that nobody would report a Tengmalm's at one minute past, and that if they did, all Birdguides employees would be asleep, or at the very least, out owling. Luckily it whatever random map page I might have used was resolutely blank.

Having been to a couple of new places last week, I marvelled again how this absurd thing called twitching does at least come with the side benefit of increasing one's knowledge of the British Isles. That sounds extremely pompous and wholesome does it not? Probably, but visiting new places is not always a good thing, for instance I would quite happily never go to the utter dump that is Minsmere again, but mostly it has been a real treat. Places like Aveley Landfill and Staines Moor are absolutely stunning and were it not for the great birds that have been there I doubt I would ever have gone and thus missed out on some superb scenery.

I thought it would be a really really cool* idea to create a map showing just where I have been for various birds, and rather than colour in the entire map, I thought I'd stick with megas (the really really rare ones). Whilst I weep at the mileage, and lament the kidney I had to sell, I've been to a fair few places in just a few short years**, and am very pleased to bring you the Mega Map (TM, don't even think about copying it).

This shows all the megas I've seen, if they were megas when I saw them, or possibly mega whenever it was that I downloaded all the species - things change, today's White-throated Robin is tomorrow's Red-flanked Bluetail. They are not labelled, but it's easy to see that the one and only Welsh rare bit is that Marmora's Warbler, the only Scottish one is last week's Black Scoter, and that I have never been to Ireland. Scilly is notable by its absence (horrible, bird-free, blood-sucking place, where a ten minute boat ride would cost me my other kidney), whereas Shetland, with it's Buff-bellied Pipit, Swainson's Thrush etc, shines like an irresistible beacon. Closer to home, Kent is winning hands down, though Norfolk isn't doing badly, and London boasts three, the Brown Shrike, the White-tailed Plover, and whether it gets accepted or not, the Slaty-backed Gull.

So now you know what I do with my weekends. ***

* pathetic
** I am a lunatic
*** dialysis

Birding Blogs are for Saddos

As is my wont, I was perusing various birdy blogs the other day. I came across one that had no lists, yet the author had just been writing about his new garden list. I'm sorry, but in order to for a blog to be classified as a saddo dweeby birding blog it has to have visible lists of birds. Garden lists, house lists, patch lists, that kind of thing. You will note that my blog has these lists very prominently displayed right at the top, and that I update them assiduously. I would not want my blog to be known as non-nerdy, thank you very much. I pointed out this glaring ommission to the author, and happily he remedied the appaling situation very quickly, and now has a couple of sad bird lists for all to see. With totals - this is important - as nobody cares what you have seen, only how many. So good on him, we would not want anyone thinking that birding can in some way be a normal pastime undertaken by normal people. We must continue to present ourselves as a bunch of pathetic weirdos so that the general public can laugh at us on regional news programs as we queue up to see a bird, all dressed identically. Similarly with blogs, should an unsuspecting member of the non-birding fraternity stumble upon one, he or she must immediately be directed to a list with a number at the bottom of it. They will quickly realise that they would be better off elsewhere, and go and click on a website that shows which crackpot drug-addled musicians died age 27 (and there are lots apparently).

Back to this particular blog I was reading, exciting times are ahead. The author has moved to Grays, and whilst I do not envy him living in Grays, mainly due to the legions of utter morons he will encounter walking their illegal breeds of dog along the seawall, he faces the Thames, and as such has already had such gems as Black Tern from a position of extreme comfort, rather than from a position of extreme wind and rain. Were I him, I doubt I would ever leave the flat, and not just for fear of getting mugged or treading in mountains of dogshit, perhaps simultaeneously. I expect many gripping posts about gratuitous river-watches.

But why, you wonder, would I want to read about what birds some bloke sees out of his window and writes down on a list? It is a good question - well done for posing it - and one I have attempted to answer many times. I'm talking about bird blogs in general now, rather than this one particular blog. This question, even if unanswered, leads to another question, which is why do I write this blog? And why, of course, do people read it (other than to appreciate the magic of blinding prose)? I have an answer, for this would be a pointless post if I didn't.

The answer is that I am performing a vital service to the birding community. By writing, drearily, about exactly the same things that they think about day in, day out, even if they don't write about it, I am normalising their sad hobby. As they read this blog, or indeed the one now being written from Grays, they realise that there are people out there just as pathetic and uncool as they are, and this makes them feel better. For a brief moment, I allow them to experience feeling normal. The effect may even last after turning the computer off, and they can pass an evening thinking happy thoughts, adding numbers up, that sort of thing. As soon as they leave their houses the next day they will of course be shunned, and rightly so for they are a bunch of maladjusted weirdos, but for that short period they can feel happy. Bird-bloggers are basically the Mother Theresas of the birding world. Selfless, thoughtful, in many ways... Saintly.

Sorry, I appear to have wandered off topic. I was intending to write a post about what a fulfilling and complex hobby birding is, how lists are actually cool, how birding blogs are incredibly interesting, and how birders are (by and large) in fact just everyday people. I seem to have strayed slightly, but I'm sure you get the point.

PS If you don't have beard, please consider growing one. I might when I grow up.

They call me Mr Pitiful....

As the song goes, Baby, that's my name. Why, I hear you ask? Well it has to do with lists, need I go on? Probably not, but as you know, I am going to anyway. So, I have today plumbed new depths. I realise that I have said this very phrase on more than one occasion in my birding career, and no doubt will do so again, but let me just run you through the latest pathetic incident that has led me to claim the dredging title yet again.


It involves this:


Yes, very nice. Anyone who hasn't seen a Waxwing this year isn't really trying hard enough. But just seeing them isn't quite enough for a lister, it's about where you see them. I've already had some in Wanstead, over my garden in fact, the best possible location for a Waxwing. By default I must therefore have Waxwing on my London list, which leaves Rainham as the only Waxwing-less patch. This particular Waxwing was almost at Rainham. Very nearly at Rainham.  Not quite at Rainham. And therefore not quite on my list.

There are many ways of defining boundaries, and I find that patch boundaries are very often the most fluid. Now, I could hardly annex the A1306, but most if not all of the people that bird Rainham are quite happy to count birds on the other side of the river, if they themselves are on the reserve. This happened with the Hen Harrier just recently, it never came over the river, and thus is rather incongruously on my Rainham list but not on my Essex list - I have some standards. Could I therefore get to a spot where I could view the Waxwing from within the reserve? It took some doing, and is ever-so-slightly tenuous, but I feel satisfied that I have done enough for the record to stand. This next part is probably meaningless for those who have not visited the reserve, but it is accessed from New Tank Hill Road, which diverts off the A1306 and crosses the Eurostar tracks. The reserve boundary goes right up to the railway line. I was thus able to find a spot on the bridge which had the necessary height to allow me to view the Waxwing's tree of choice AND which abutted the reserve boundary. I scoped the tree and waited until the Waxwing popped into view, at which point I dangled my left arm off the bridge and into Rainham airspace.... I do believe that's a tick, how marvellous! And yes, I did take a photograph....

I recognise the absurdity, I am not proud. But I am also absolutely certain that any of you readers who are also patch-workers will have done something very similar, or considered what you might do if a bird appeared just outside the patch. I therefore feel that I acted entirely normally. Well, almost. Being a birder, in particular a birder who is fond of lists, generally redefines normal in one way or another. Generally in an "abnormal is the new normal" kind of way. Most everyplace I go.