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:
"Wellit 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.
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.
I just read this post by Emma Waffle. It is about nothing at all really (hope she does not me saying this) but is excellent nonetheless. That it contains a link to Peregrines helps perhaps - a closet birder if ever I saw one - but for a post that is essentially wittering on about stuff, well done. It probably helps if you have been reading the preceding waffle, which I have. Just as you have on here. So I am going to shamelessly copy the format, if not the style. Or the parts about lipstick, though I do have a skin tale to share. Oh yes.
Good things:
1. It is not raining, though this may change*. It has been raining almost non-stop for about the last week, and I am fed up with it. It was largely inevitable once Thames Water announced a hosepipe ban. The same Thames Water who lose a full 25% of all water they supply on a daily basis - this is used as a marketing tool, as in we only lose 25% of all our water every day. Before replacing however many miles of leaky pipes last year it was running at over 30%. Well done I say. Not that I need the hose now of course, as last time I looked a wader scrape was forming about half way down the garden. If the next time I look out I see a pair of courting Avocets I won't actually be that surprised. The rain has made birding all but impossible. Wanstead is sadly lacking in sea and south-west headlands. We have no alternative when the weather closes in. If I lived near the sea, I'd be down there like a shot. In fact, in good weather I'd probably be there too, but that's not the point. Constant rain equates to no birds. And to getting wet whilst not seeing them. All things being equal, I'd rather it were dry, though the downpours are helping the local ponds which are desperately low. And preventing the local youf from burning any more of the Flats.
2. This morning I saw a Ring Ouzel, or, I should say, another Ring Ouzel. That makes three this year so far, and is very pleasing. My Ring Ouzel cup overfloweth. Verily. What great birds they are. This morning's was a female, and decided to plonk down in some broom only a few yards from Nick, Tim and I as we conversed about what a shit spring it had been. It then afforded us some of the best views of an Ouzel I've ever had for at least thirty seconds, before slipping into cover. Reaching for my ever-present camera, I discovered it had no battery left. Well that's excellent, what great planning. Honestly, my camera has one of the beefiest batteries I've ever seen - it's good for well over 2000 shots, even in sub-zero temperatures. I brag about it constantly, and then get caught short with a 2.5kg camera-shaped paperweight 500 yards from my house.
3. Chateau L has a cleaner again, though not a fairy, and will shortly have a gardener. This may sound somewhat decadent, but I view it as job creation, a responsible move for a more robust economy. When I lost my job a few years back, our cleaner lost hers the same day, which was very sad, both for her and for us, but particularly for her. Well, and for us equally now I come to think about it, and especially for me, as her responsibilities became mine. I did my best** but really my heart wasn't in it. Whilst the house looked superficially tidy, underneath the surface lurked terrifying amounts of grime. When I went back to work, I resisted getting help - I thought we could do it ourselves, and the novelty of actually having money coming in, rather than just going out, well, I wanted to keep as much of it as possible to spend on optics. The house began to look like Beirut on a bad day in the 1980s, and so I have now seen the error of my ways, and launched my very own economic stimulus plan. In any event, it is impossible to have a nice house when you have three children, as they are able to trash it far more quickly that you can clean it. They are of course also able to trash it far more quickly than a cleaner can clean it, but there is that fantastic period between the cleaner leaving and the children arriving home from school when it looks amazing. The one flaw in my plan is that I'm at work earning money to pay the cleaner, so I don't ever get to see it in this state.
4. I have more wine than I can possibly ever drink. I can't tell you how good a thing this is. Somehow I have managed to plan ahead, which is something I rarely do. I got one of those lovely emails the other day which said something along the lines of "Dear Mr L, the delicious, drinking-now-but-will-also-keep-for-a-couple-of-years White Burgundies that you ordered two years ago and have entirely forgotton about have arrived in the UK and are ready to be delivered to you in exchange for a moderately small amount of tax." It's lucky these wine merchants are honest folk, as I had entirely forgotton about them. Happy days.
Bad things
1. I am not well. Specifically, I have an unspecified stomach complaint. This started this morning, on Wanstead Flats, though as I was looking at a Ring Ouzel I made light of it. I did mean however that rather than dice with death - or worse - on public transport, I decided that working from home might be the safest and least disgusting option. My stomach has never really been the same since a trip to Thailand in the late nineties, when I experienced the worst case of the runs in my entire life, up to and including now. Somehow I survived a flight to Sydney, and sought help straight away. I'd encourage you to look at this link about bacillic dysentery, particularly the symptoms bit. One of the syptoms is apparently death, so I suppose I got off lightly, but every now and again, and I have no idea what causes it - inferior Burgundy perhaps? - I get a bout of dodgy tummy, and today was one of those days. I like to bare all on this blog.
2. Unconnected to the above, but equally pleasant to anyone who combines blog-reading with eating dinner, I have a large spot on the back of my neck which actually hurts when I turn my head. I cannot see it in order to be able to describe it to you, but I suspect it is bright red and throbbing. I have not been a greasy teenager for many years, and I would like to think that my hormones are so calm now as to be practically dead, so it is highly unfair that I should have a zit on my neck that a fifteen year-old would be embarrassed by. At least it is not on my nose.
3. There has been some kind of birders tiff in within the publications section of the London Natural History Society. I have no idea what has happened, a friend merely told me that some acrimony had occured. Highly strung these birder types. But why is this bad news? Well, for two years I compiled a section of the riveting read that is the London Bird Report. This tells you that on June 23rd eleven Blue Tits were seen in Hackney, and other important things of that nature. Whilst I wasn't working, I felt that I ought to put a little bit back into London birding, and volunteered to write a couple of sections. Rarely, and this includes work, have I been so bored, but I manfully struggled on and only delivered my sections a couple of months late. I had tried to make my accounts of Blue Tits in the capital a little more pithy than my predecessor, and was ruthlessly edited. I do not like being edited, and after two years, and finding myself working once again, decided I would pass on a third year. I thought nothing more of it until I heard about this spat, and very shortly afterwards received an email from someone drafted in as an emergency editor, with a neat little table showing who wrote which sections in 2008, and who was writing sections in 2009. There is a nasty little blank space in the 2009 list where you can see my name against it for 2008; the implication is clear. So I am currently agonising about whether I should volunteer again. On the one hand, my conscience tells me I probably should. On the other, birding is about enjoyment, and I know I will not enjoy it.
4. I keep on getting letters from the tax man. Whilst unemployed I did not seek a single penny from the public purse. Now that I am employed again, I am being instantly and relentlessly pursued. You already know my feelings on how my taxes will likely be spent. Anyway, I have a neat little pile of brown and very governmental envelopes sitting on my desk. None of the ones I have so far opened have contained good news. "Dear Mr Lethbridge, we are pleased to be able to tell you that you have been opted out of the tax system, and will no longer need to pay us anything. Please do not reply to this letter."**
That is all.
* Before I even finished this post, this happened. Stair rods.
As you know, I've been watching the sky quite a bit lately. The back of my house has a small flat roof, which until recently I had never considered as a vantage point. A couple of days ago I tried it out for the first time and was immediately rewarded by a pair of Tufted Duck that I simply wouldn't have seen from the terrace, which is where I usually scan from. Garden tick #62.
Today I spent a bit of time between cleaning jobs having a bit of look. I saw very little. At around 2:20 it began to rain heavily, so I gave up and climbed back inside to make a cup of tea. Mid-boil, the phone rang - it was Paul W, stuck in traffic on the way to Tesco in Leytonstone. He had seen what he thought was a large raptor drifting overhead, and it looked like it could come my way. Still on the phone I dashed upstairs and flung open the window. Sure enough, it wasn't long before I saw a large bird distantly over Bush Wood Flats. Up until that point Paul and I had been having a relatively normal conversation, well as normal as it gets with one birder sat in a car and another stood on his roof with binoculars. Then I lost the plot. "RED KITE!!!! RED KITE!!!!" Where was the camera? Downstairs. Gah!!! I hurridly said I'd call Paul back, who I think assumed I had fallen off the roof in my excitement, and galloped downstairs. My camera habitually lives on the sofa, but it wasn't there. Instead there was a vision of loveliness with plumped up cushions. Aargh!! What had I been I thinking! I had put it away! In a bag! In the cupboard! This is the first time that the camera had not been sat on the sofa in WEEKS, for God's sake! Struggling with the zip I rushed upstairs and back out of the window, the rain forgotten. It was still there, with fourteen local Crows in attendance. Of course the camera wouldn't focus on it, but despite my haggard state I managed to remember to flip it to manual and got a few record shots before it disappeared south.
Now, I have twitched Wanstead Park before, for Little Egret and Garganey, but this is plumbing new depths. I have just twitched my own Garden. OK, so Paul didn't call me up and say "If you look outside now there is a Red Kite sat on your lawn", it was a little more tenuous than that, but that's the general gist. Do I care? No, of course not! What an absurd suggestion! Red Kite is not only a garden tick, which is the best kind of tick there is, but also a Wanstead tick. And it doesn't stop there either - it is also an Essex tick! Yes, a three tick day! Superb. Red Kite, along with Osprey, is, or should I say, was, my most-wanted bird locally. I came so close only a few days ago, so to get the chance again, well, wow. The weekend starts now!
I did. And guess what? I don't understand it. Driving back from Scotland last weekend, Mrs L casually mentioned the path the music we were listening to had travelled to get to our ears. I was just humming away, then I had to stop and think. Uh-oh. But it is amazing. Recorded by musicians playing real instruments in a room somewhere, made of wood and metal etc, hooked up to microphones, the sounds travels as waves from the instruments and is picked up by microphones. Christ knows how but it is recorded onto a tape. Yes the music was old enough for a tape. The tape is digitalised into a series of zeroes and ones, and is somehow put onto a small shiny plastic disc. I then insert said disc into my computer, and those zeroes and ones go onto my hard disc, and from there are copied again onto the hard disc of my ipod. Don't get me started on hard discs - I have absolutely no idea, it just works ok? The ipod undertands the zeroes and ones, and so the digital signal is turned into an analogue signal and is broadcast in FM via a very small transmitter known as an itrip, and is picked up by the car radio which then transmits signals down a wire which wiggles a speaker cone in a very precise way which creates sound waves and hey presto we hear some music, and yours truly starts singing a bit. WTF??
For all I know. there are probably a number of gross inaccuracies in the above. If you spot some, rise above the urge to correct me, and just sit back and enjoy the music. As far as I am concerned, the world needs mystery.
