Snippets from the big wide world

Dealing with a few observations from recent times, this post is about dogs, massages, and twitter. All perfectly logical and highly complementary. I'll start with the dogs as it has been a while has it not? I've been saving this one up, not because I agree with it (go figure) but because I've been busy and then subsequently misplaced it. I found it again the other day tucked in a book, and it comes from the Science Editor of The Times - not a newspaper I normally I read but I found a free copy somewhere (a plane? Ed.) back in April. A bit of light-hearted science is applied to that most esteemed character, the dog owner who is so blinkered by their own inalienable and innate sense of right that they simply cannot  see any other point of view. Ever met anyone like that whilst out birding? No, neither have I.

A German academic, amusingly called Matthias Gross, has conducted a study lasting a decade which concludes that afternoon dog walkers are more likely to pick up their beloved pet's mess than their morning counterparts, who often pretend not to have seen their dog curl one out. You could argue that this particular fact only requires a week to work out, perhaps not even that long, but you have to admire the dedication. The study paper is titled "Natural Waste: canine companions and the lure of inattentively pooping in public", and I am urgently trying to find a copy.

The professor notes all sorts of behaviours that the likes of you and I will immediately recognise. Sudden earnest phone conversations for instance, termed "strategic non-knowledge". Or if a dog-walker does make the effort, the conscious over-the-shoulder look as they do so. He also notes that fabulous phenomenon of the "poo tree". Apparently in the ten years of the study he never once witnessed the ritual of hanging a poo bag on a tree. Thinking about it, neither have I, but a particularly brilliant quote highlights; "they [sic] conduct dirty protests against a society that oppresses their dog's right to defecate at will." He argues that it is an important way of rejecting social expectation by expressing their scorn with parody. I argue that it's being an asshole, but then I'm not a scientist. Where the Professor and I do share a view however is in trying to get to the true answer. But apparently dog owners declined to be interviewed. Who knew that The Times was so sensationalist? Approaches were frequently met with aggression, with friendlier responses being "mind your own business", and "don't you have anything better to do?" After ten years you may well agree with the latter point, but coming from someone who frequently challenges dog owners, all I can say is that if any of them were ever so measured and polite back to me I might easily faint there and then. Commoner responses can be summarised neatly as "Fuck off you prick", or alternatively "I'll do whatever I want, fuck you. (you prick)", but of course my favourites are the incredibly poorly constructed arguments as to why their dog, and by association themselves, ought to be able to do exactly what they want to the detriment of all other human beings and animals. I have enough material to fill a book, so it's disappointing that the study doesn't delve into these irrational outbursts as a psychoanalyst (or birder) could have a marvellous read. Nor does he explore the mythical dog-walker apology, but then again the study only lasted ten years so he can probably be forgiven. My most recent highlight from the field is being bitten on my watch by a passing puppy, the new dog of a grumpy man who lives on my road and who in ten years of walking past me has never exchanged so much as a single word. Well it turns out he's not mute after all, as after pulling the animal away from my wrist via a big smear of saliva and a nice red weal on my hand, was heard to say "come along Poppy*". My wry retort of "You could apologise" was not acknowledged. But I know where he lives, and I may deliver his poo back to him later as never once has he returned home with a bag. You are welcome.

In other social interaction of the heart-warming kind, this week I have been called out as a bird-hater, someone who is all talk no action, and an ass. Well, one of three isn't so bad I guess, but this particular story is so wonderful that it merits some kind of record for posterity, and if you read the news possibly Twitter, which is where this thoughtful exchange took place, may not be around for long. In summary it contains the worst of anthropomorphic drivel, high levels of stupidy, total non-acceptance of conventional wisdom, and a rapid spiral into abuse. I take it back actually, Twitter's commercial future is as rosy as it comes. 

Anyhow, one of my followers  - for the sake of anonymity let's call them halfwit - found two nearly-fledged birds close to a nest. Oh @Wansteadbirder, what should I do? Well let's see, I reckon you should pick them up, give them names, hand-rear them for a while, and then wait for the canonisation that will surely follow. I didn't say that of course, as I am not the facetious type. Instead I suggested that the birds be left alone, and shared an RSPB link to a long-standing FAQ about what to do in this situation, which in summary says "leave them alone" (just on the off-chance that anyone really really stupid out there hasn't grasped that fact yet). I also mentioned that unfortunately this does happen, and nature isn't necessarily all cuddles and happiness. This touched a nerve with halfwit, who went on the offensive immediately with a number of absurd statements, including various pathetic hashtags, accusing me of hating birds, calling me various expletives, and culminating in the insightful "If you get hurt in an accident I hope nobody calls an ambulance just like wot the poor birds won't", or something even less grammatically excellent. Obviously I did not respond in kind, but agreed that in posting the RSPB advice I did indeed hate birds, and that I was chuffed to bits that we had got to the ambulance bit so quickly. This irony fell on deaf ears, and the tirade unfortunately continued for some while, even involving a few genuine bird-lovers that I know, to whom my thanks. Oh sorry, my mistake, they all hate birds too. Nothing of course beats the ambulance tweet, but I did enjoy halfwit's courteous gratitude towards Prof W, who said to leave the birds alone and shared......the same RSPB link. Thank goodness that at least somebody was helpful. I was also advised by halfwit to give up my job, as obviously all people's Twitter account names reflect exactly what it is that they do in real life, oh yes. Two days later and still being called a twat I decided that the "block" feature might be usefully employed, so sadly any further gems won't be seen, or at least not by me. However I would ask that correspondents and readers keep me fully informed about anything that could surpass the crass idiocy of the ambulance tweet, as that would be special and a real shame to miss out on.

In other news I had a back massage. It hurt a lot and was indescribably awful in all respects. It came included with an airline ticket, but I remain utterly mystified as to why anyone would pay good money to simply be abused. Twitter, on the other hand, is free.

*name changed to protect the innocent guilty. Gosh I am being good today.

Evil

A small whinge from me to all blog readers, twitter followers, and anyone else who may be vaguely interested. This kind of follows from my post the other day as to whether you know me or not. So, with that preamble out of the way, here is some shocking news. I am not evil. No, really, I'm not. However I do work in a bank. Such dichotomy, how can that possibly be true? I have been known to voice opinions, some real ones, some in jest. However the speed with which my job is rolled out and laid before me as an accusation can sometimes be astonishing. It need not even be a vaguely inflammatory blog post like the one based on Kevin or Nigel or whatever his name was. For instance this week I tweeted a piece of news that I felt needed retweeting, which is that our wonderful badger-slaughtering government (you will perhaps note another apparent dichotomy here) were seeking to reduce fuel poverty statistics simply by redefining what counted as fuel poverty. This is clearly outrageous, so outrageous I didn't even feel I needed to say it. I'd barely pressed send before an unknown Twitterite rolled out my career again. To be fair, he later apologised, realising he had gotten the wrong end of the proverbial stick, but it's still a valid example of quite how prejudiced people can be. Yesterday I moaned about people wanting to rob me on Ebay, and joked about there being no honest people left in the world. Guess what got rolled out? Maybe it too was a joke? I don't know, but as the saying goes, we are not amused.

I am not a political person, nor a religious person, so most of the time I avoid getting involved in either. On issues I feel strongly about, such as port-swilling toffs slaughtering our wildlife, or the massacring of badgers by a blatant collusion between our so-called public servants and the priggish landowners to whom they are beholden, I do occasionally comment (until I get sick of it), but obviously I steer well clear of perpetuating absurd stereotypes. On the whole though I do not feel strongly enough about many issues at all, and religion and politics are both huge turn offs. I've yet to be called saintly, but any Toryboy label people might like to slap on me is hugely wide of the mark. Then again, as you may have gathered, neither am I a left wing activist noted for my charity work. I lean in no direction and would quite honestly rather not vote for any of them. Any implied connection between where I work and how I might vote is mind-crushingly simplistic.

I do believe strongly in some things though. I believe in hard work and being rewarded for it, and I do not like layabouts or scroungers. These two facts do not make me Margaret Thatcher. However, and here's the big problem, in addition to the above I work in a bank. Oh dear, I must be scum. No? Well, you may have guessed I don't see it quite that way. Rather than this be the crime of the century, this is an entirely normal career, and close to 300,000 other people in London do the same thing. It is called working for a living, and I do not deserve to be castigated for it. Neither do the vast majority of the 300,000 other people. Clearly banks of the kind that I worked for, and continue to work for, are not softly softly charitable organisations with a focus on cuddly animals and social justice, but that does not make me evil. If the banks all disappeared tomorrow, many things that many people take for granted would cease to occur - they're not a necessary evil, they are simply necessary. That the actions of a few people can cause an entire system to come crashing down, and cause ripples across the whole of the labour market impacting people who don't even work in banks is I something I don't really understand, and it sounds very unfair that it could happen. I'm not going to apologise for it though, because guess what, it wasn't actually my fault, and simply working in the industry does not, contrary to popular opinion, make me somehow guilty by association. I do not know a single cigar-smoking, Ferrari-driving, bow-tie wearing, cocktail-swilling person of the sort perceived to have caused the financial crisis, the same crisis that if you recall cost me my own job quite quickly. I work in a team of entirely normal people who are decent human beings that I would share a beer with all day long, and probably so would you if you met them. I have made a conscious choice of where to work in order to fund, amongst other things, a house for my family to live in, which last time I checked is also entirely normal. My choice of work is based entirely on sound economic reasoning. I would love a 9-5 job, and I would adore a 10-4 job, but I have yet to find one that supports my cocaine habit. Nonetheless I reserve the right to constantly moan about how hard I work. Mainly simply because I enjoy moaning.

Here's what I wanted to say about three paragraphs ago. Please do not fling the term "banker" at me as some kind of pejorative put down. It's ill-informed, ignorant, and an insult both to me and your own intelligence. By all means criticise me for being arrogant, rude and intolerant. This is good for me, and will make me a better person. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go pick up my Helicopter which was in for servicing. I worked from home today, but I need it for the daily commute tomorrow.

Provocation

Against my better judgement, I have been provoked into writing a blog post. Before I start, I should make it clear that I have nothing whatsoever to say, and that what I do say I have said before. Generally it makes unpopular reading, that is to say, it makes me unpopular. It makes me come across as arrogant, right-wing, and a shit. It is probably how I get this misplaced Toryboy image - I speak proper, I work in a bank (though not in the champagne-popping, Ferrari-driving bit as commonly portrayed in the media), and I hate scroungers. That's a shallow way to judge someone.

I was having this conversation with a friend the other day. Well, not exactly this one, but along similar lines. It was basically how I couldn't vote for anyone as I hated them all. Not that I take a great interest in politics, and I could be entirely wrong about some things. Many things most likely. But anyway, and although this may come as a surprise to some, I could not possibly vote for the Conservatives for reasons recently made clear here. Namely that they are a self-serving bunch of walking environmental disasters with seemingly no concept of democracy. Fine, so they're out. The Lib Dems then, are they my natural home? No. They're a load of pathetic ideologists with no hope of ever making a difference other than taxing me out of existence. The Labour party? Iraq. And they're basically Tories anyway. The Green Party? Laudable in some respects, unfortunately so far removed from reality that they're not a realistic choice in the modern world. UKIP? Not if you paid me. The BNP? The day those fascist pricks wield any kind of meaningful power is the day I emigrate. So politics it seems is not for me. There are probably a heap of fringe parties I have failed to mention, but nobody knows who they are anyway, and I might as well walk into my polling station and eat my ballot paper for all the good it would do voting for one of them. But I still hate scroungers, which makes me......makes me what exactly? Nothing. It makes me nothing. I go to work, I provide for my family, I am at this point no burden on the State other than the education that my children receive, but that's where my taxes go. Oh, and to shooting badgers and conducting illegitimate warfare overseas.

As I was walking home from work tonight, at about 7.30pm or so (half day...) I noticed a guy sitting on a bench in the sunshine. I say sitting, really I mean lolling. He looked most contented, and was enjoying a beer and a cigarette. Fair enough, we all like to unwind after a long hard day, indeed I myself was on my way to a bit of unwinding as well, having left the house at around 7am. Except this was the man who for years now has hung around Leytonstone tube station asking for 90p for the bus. I've not seen him for a while, probably because I typically go one stop further up to Wanstead station so as to avoid getting mugged by yet more honest and hard-working folk, and what with rising fares he probably asks for more than 90p these days, but I digress. In addition to being a liar, he's a complete and utter scrounger. He's the kind of person that instantly gets my hackles up. The kind of person who gets to sit around doing whatever the hell he wants (OK, so perhaps not exactly pursuing his dreams necessarily, but you know what I mean) whilst I schlep off to work and indirectly provide financial assistance so that he doesn't have to. He looked really happy, angelically at peace with the world. Of down in the dumpness there was not a hint. I tweeted, as is the modern way, some words of mock surprise. And (thank you Mark) I received a reply. The suggestion was that rather than be bitter and angry, I should go home, uncork a bottle, and toast my luck. A fine sentiment. Live and let live.

Apart from the luck.

I am not railing against the unfortunates of this world. I am railing against the suggestion that in any way, shape or form, the fact that I enjoy a happy life free from many worries and  financial pressure is down to luck. Bollocks. It's down to choices. A friend of mine called Dal, who has had twenty jobs in the same time in which I have had two, frequently insists I am the luckiest person on the planet. Poppycock. Complete garbage. The fact that my life is currently where it is at is essentially due to one thing and one thing only, and that thing is called effort. Effort from the age of about 15. Jobs before school and after school. Jobs in the holidays. Exams. Hard work. Toil. Graft. Going out every day and doing something I do not enjoy so that I can do things I do enjoy on the few days that I am not working. So that, many years down the line, I can buy nice camera lenses I never get to use to their fullest extent. So that I can give my children exciting experiences. So that they can play musical instruments if they so choose. So that they can be members of a cricket club. The list is endless, but so that, in short, I am free to make some life choices. Not everybody gets that opportunity of course, but the point is that nobody came along and handed it to me on a plate, and I didn't win some kind of life lottery that solely and exclusively determined my fortunes. There is a school of thought that talks about the cards people are dealt, and I concede that there is an element of truth there, and that my upbringing was trouble free with loving parents who insisted on education (In case anyone thinks I went to Gordonstoun or wherever, I didn't, I went to my local community college. Whatever). But there are plenty of stories of people overcoming the below-par cards they ended up with and doing just fine, excelling even. The difference tends to be willpower and determination. Some people would call that luck. Crap.

My health is luck. Or at least to a certain extent. For instance is it lucky that I don't wreck my body with crystal meth? Or lucky that I don't do crack cocaine every night of the week, even though I could probably afford it? Possibly, possibly...... who can say what will happen, but at the moment I am healthy and I am thankful. But absent health issues, the reason I do alright is very simple, and has nothing whatsoever to do with luck. I get along in life because I work my socks off. I have not taken the easy way out. I grind it out day after interminable day. I absorb myself in it. I bring it home. I allow my mood to be dictated by it. I think about it day and night. I piss my family off with it, and I am mostly a grumpy bastard because of it. I don't pull sickies, I just get on with it. I expend a huge amount of effort and time to making a success out of it. Luck? Forget it, it's called effort, and anyone who pitches up and calls me a lucky so-and-so is delusional (sorry Mark, I don't buy that one little bit). Is that a Tory attitude? I don't know, and I don't care. I don't give a shit what you label it as, as long as there is a recognition that the reason I am not sitting on a sun-kissed bench swilling premium lager and pulling on a fag is that I have chosen to work for a living rather than waste my life scrounging off other people.

The counter-argument is of course that there are plenty of people out there who put in a lot more effort than I do, work a lot harder than I do, and still end up on the metaphorical bench. I reckon that must just be bad luck.

This Land isn't your Land

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

Many of you will recognise these words, penned by American songwriter Woody Guthrie, king of the political protest singers, inspiration to Bob Dylan and countless others. Although written about the US, the sentiment can be applied to just about anywhere. I think it is very apt today.

I am about as unpoliticised as they come. Mention politics and I switch off more or less immediately. It holds no interest for me, and I've yet to come across a politician or a political party where I've sat back and thought "Yes, you know what? I agree with you". Perhaps I never get that far? I'm one of the silent majority, the uncomplaining masses who get up every morning, go to work and pay their taxes, and let it all wash over them. My interest lies in birds. I have other interests of course - eating, drinking, cricket, popular music, even photography, but my life is so full I don't have enough time to pursue all of them to the obsessive extent of which I am fully capable, so birds is generally where it's at. Politics doesn't get a look in, and I don't have time to be an environmentalist.

I am not about to come out with a grand statement along the lines of "Well, all that changed today", but I have to admit that the level of fuckwittery I've learned of this morning has moved even me. Sufficiently so to not only send a few tweets, but also to pen a blog post - this is unfortunately the modern way, the equivalent of what used to be "Dear Sir, I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms....". Yes, I'm so annoyed I tweeted about it and wrote my blog that six people read. Way to go!

I am not known for moaning; typically my posts are upbeat, light-hearted and positive. Not today. Our leaders are a bunch of vacuous and incompetent self-serving elite who are not fit for office. Like I said, I'm not political. So why the fuss? Well, quite simply, this land isn't your land. It's somebody else's, and you and I are not invited. I read today that something like 80% of this country is owned by 0.5% of the population. Naturally I don't wish to generalise, but those half a percent of people typically have different ideas on countryside management to the other 99.5%. To them, the countryside is a place to have a jolly good time, and a jolly good time means shooting things. I just don't understand blood sports. I suspect I never will, but to a few people it's one of the finer things in life. Fair enough, whatever floats your boat. I mean I like country music for Christ's sake, who am I to comment on what is acceptable and what isn't?

Without wishing to be judgemental, shooting living creatures isn't the most lovely of hobbies, but I appreciate that we're only here for a short time, and that time should ideally be spent enjoying yourself. OK, so you shoot a few birds, so what? It's not like you're Maltese is it? And the birds you shoot are essentially placed there in order for you to shoot them, not wild birds. Raised in cages, they get fattened up on food people put there for them, and when the time is right, normally a glorious day in August, they get let out, whereupon a small number of people massacre as many of them as they can as quickly as possible. What a great hobby, and truly sporting. I will never, ever, go on a shoot.

But here's the rub. Pheasants, being large, dumb, and tasty, are not just of interest to the Purdey brigade. Given the chance, a few of our wild birds and mammals will also show an interest. Who would have thought it? The commissioned "science" is ropey at best, but yes, Buzzards might take a few Pheasants. Not many, and certainly not with the veracity that White-tailed Eagles take lambs and children, but enough that it makes the tiniest of dents in the pockets of the already obscenely rich landowners. And that, clearly, cannot be tolerated; the Buzzards must die. Lucky then that they're a protected species.

Ah.

Not content with ridiculously flimsy legislation and a pathetic sentencing regime which allows codgery old gamekeepers to act with almost total disregard for the law, it now transpires that shooting-estates can successfully apply to Natural England (the governmental guardians of the countryside, whose mission statement includes "Securing a healthy natural environment for people to enjoy, where wildlife is protected") in order to get a licence to remove the Buzzards eggs and nests. Remove as in permanently remove. How can this be possible you might ask? Surely any agency worth it's salt would simply deny the aforementioned request, seeing as Buzzards are recovering from historical persecution and are legally protected? Just like our recovering population of Hen Harriers. Oh, wait...

What you have failed to grasp is that we don't live in a democracy. A sweeping statement I acknowledge, but any political system where the Minister for the Environment and Rural Affairs is a millionaire landowner with Pheasant-shooting estates and miles of fenced-off riverbank cannot possibly be democratic. I know, I can't quite believe it either, but you can see how convenient it is for the 0.5% of the population to have somebody like this in charge. Buzzards protected? Don't worry about it, if it costs you even the tiniest amount of money, we'll sort it out. And it is all about money. A proper blogger would have gone and got all the facts. How much revenue shooting estates generate. How many families they support (about 17). How much tax is paid, that kind of thing. I don't fancy doing that, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Shooting stuff is expensive. The landowners themselves probably don't shoot much, but they can raise a fabulous amount of money by letting other people do so, and there are plenty of people, it seems, willing to fork out. If a local Buzzard nobbles a few Pheasants, or even if it didn't and it was something else (perish the thought), that's one less bottle of port for a guy called Ronald with five middle names. Many more and he could be down a Range Rover. Yep, it's that serious.

So you can see why it makes complete sense to kill Buzzards, to eradicate Eagles, Kites and Hen Harriers, to cull Badgers, Gulls, and anything else that was here first in order to preserve that income stream. And what's more, you don't have to risk getting slapped on the wrist and being fined fifty quid because now you can get a licence from your lobbied-up pals at Defra and Natural England and do whatever the fuck you like with complete impunity. Everyone's a winner!

Except you, and me, and the indigenous wildlife, whose land this isn't.

Ospreys, Kingfishers and Elephants

This morning was a bit of a write-off after some beers last night. The tipple of choice was "Osprey", and I am afraid to say that I over-indulged. Paying for it this morning, I wondered what I could do that would add meaning to my day. Ah-hah, I had it! I would go to a local wildlife reserve and photograph Kingfishers from a hide. What could possibly go wrong?

A Hawk and some Ospreys

Just about everything it transpires.I almost don't know where to start it was so painful. For ten though, to the woman in hob-nailed boots who came into the hide possibly eight times in three minutes, walked a circuit and then left again, if I ever see you again it will be too soon. To the fat, lumpy, green-clad dudes incapable of being quiet, and whose mission if life it was to excitedly and loudly point out the Kingfisher every time it flew in, I am in awe of your crassness. To the man with the velcro jacket who opened it and closed it again upwards of ten times in an hour, you nearly died. To all those with cameras who inexplicably rattled off a thousand frames when the bird was about half a mile away, I hope you enjoy your fuzzy blue dots and that they win prizes. To the ineffectual volunteer who any time anyone brushed the screen netting said not to touch the netting as it would scare the birds away, and yet failed to mention that shouting, pointing, stomping, slamming, waving and running might also have the same effect, I have no idea what to say. You are selflessly giving your time, and for that I salute you, but you are also completely wasting your time.

Stomp stomp stomp THERE IT IS!!! Slam Stomp stomp slam click click clickclickclick click stomp IT'S COMING CLOSER!!! please don't stomp click touch the stomp click click netting you'll IS THAT THE MALE? OH LOOK IT'S GONE INTO scare the birds THE HOLE click stomp stomp slam stomp away stomp ! LOOK AT THAT!!! stomp click stomp click OOOHHH!!!! IT'S HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Oh, it appears to have flown off........

Gah!

I tested my exposure about eight times while I was there, and took one photo of the bird before realising I was wasting my time and leaving. There was no way it was going to come anywhere near the hide, the entire length of the window has been covered with scrim netting with just a few blank spots (with good reason, but it is highly irritating), the distortion through the glass was nearly impossible to deal with, and the place was chock full of absolute cretins.

I hate hides. I hate the occupants of hides. If it were just me in a hide, I could probably just about stand it, but even then I reckon I'd probably end up hating myself after a few hours. We just don't get on. OK, so the saturday of a bank holiday weekend was never likely to be the best hide experience I was ever going to have, but the lack of any common sense whatsoever was mind-blowing. If you're in a hide to watch birds, especially sensitive schedule 1 birds like Kingfishers, but really any hide, surely you must realise that sitting still and being quiet are of paramount importance? And if you don't, why don't you? And more importantly, how are you going to learn?

I suppose the mission of the RSPB is to raise awareness of birds, and to have people enjoy birds as if they enjoy them then they will help look after them. Fair play to them for keeping the hide open to allow that to take place, had it been me I would simply have locked it up for the duration. But if you're going to go to all that effort, why not make it absolutely clear as to how you behave in a hide? Silence, and no fidgeting.  No clogs, and no running. No shouting, no waving, and no screaming. Or you're thrown out. Easy.

I wandered around for a little bit, but my heart wasn't really in it, and the arrival of rain was in many ways a blessing and I went home to have a good old moan. I'm a big fan of my local wildlife reserve - I'm a voluteer there in fact - and I know I shouldn't be rude about it (and fellow volunteers), but there are some times when you go there and it just seems to typify everything that is wrong with watching wildlife in this country, which I suppose is largely that the people who watch it are mostly idiots out for a nice walk. Well meaning I don't doubt, and it's great so many people are at least a bit interested, but for the love of God please please please just SIT STILL and above all, SHUT UP!!!

Sublime Subalp

Today was all about a nice little drive to Suffolk via Peterborough, easily the best route. With the best will in world it was a long shot that the Rock Thrush would stay to be my 400th UK tick, and so it proved. After and hour or so kicking back in some services off the M1, and the dreaded but not entirely unexpected "negative news" message, Rich B, Nick and I decided to cut our losses and head off to Landguard where the Subalpine Warbler from the previous day was still present. Except that yesterday after I had gone to sleep it was upgraded to the eastern race, which could well be an armchair tick for me in the future. I know nothing about these things, but it was showing down to about three feet, so who cares?

On site the paparazzi were massed - again, not entirely unexpected. The bird was a dream, one of the really good ones that care not a jot about people. Practically flew through peoples' legs in fact, so it was no surprise that the usual crap about getting too close was trotted out by those without cameras. Bird photographers can be right idiots of course, as can birders, but I'm continually amazed by the propensity of some people to essentially cry wolf the minute a long lens comes out. Naturally I ignored the moaning and got on with it, as did everyone else. To those who felt we got too close, frankly you'll never be happy and the sooner you move out of the south of England and to somewhere remote where you're the only one there, the better. Seriously, this is twitchland, just accept that a lot of birders have cameras and get on with it. By all means have a go if you see a complete twerp behaving poorly, but on those occasions where it is abundantly clear that the bird is under no stress whatsoever, just accept it and say nothing. Unless of course you're not really concerned with the welfare of the bird at all, but rather your own personal enjoyment of the bird, which if you ask me is actually the source of most of the agro. Whichever, don't attempt to make me feel like a bad person for the way I enjoy a bird. Rant over, and on to the results of my incredibly poor fieldcraft and continual flushing of an exhausted and near-to-death migrant.

Tiring of the bullshit, we wandered towards the point in search of other migrants. A Ring Ouzel was hiding in some brambles, so we continued on to the common, where at least 15 Wheatears, part of the same fall that brought the Subalp in, were still hanging around. Oddly enough nobody moaned when I crawled right up to one, seems it's only rare birds that deserve being protected from bloody photographers. Yes, I am annoyed. Annoyed as I knew exactly what it would be like before I even got there and it was 100% true to that vision. You might say that there's no smoke without fire, and clearly I am massively biased, but nonetheless it's a sad indictment on twitching down south. The Hebs are far better.

In other news, Rich's Green-winged Teal had relocated to Rainham, so he was of course enormously interested in seeing it there too, as was I, but first we called in at a Ring-necked Duck at Chigborough Lakes. Quite a rare bird in Essex I would imagine, and certainly a new county bird for me, as was the Teal. Neither proved obliging for the camera, but the RN Duck, a female, was really smart. So a pretty twitchy day with a fair few unnecessary miles, but all good fun, and things could have been very different. Next time. Cheers to Mr B for the driving and the early pick-up, a good little jaunt.

A day behind a lens

Been wanting to have a day devoted to simply blasting away at things, and for once a sunny day coincided with a weekend when I wasn't busy. Hurrah! I was up and out immediately after a nice lie in, and my first stop was the "orchard" on the Flats. This contained a solitary Fieldfare which promptly flew off when it saw my red camo hat. The local Blue Tits proved more accommodating, and seemed to think it might be spring. I suspect tomorrow they'll realise they've screwed up.

A quick pass by the Alex was a waste of time, the light being completely against me, but I notched up another fine count of Greylag with 24 birds pottering around the car park, hoping against hope no doubt for some mouldy pitta breads. Moving on to the Park I hoped for better opportunities, but nothing doing either on the Heronry or on Perch. Hmmm, so much for my big day of constant shutter-hammering. I decided to try the Ornamental Waters, and I'm glad I did. Apart from Joe Public, it was absolutely perfect. The ice-free bit was in front of the sun, and the Gadwall and Mallards were enjoying precisely the area that was best from my point of view. I cantered serenely past 400 shots in no time at all, a few of which are shown below. Too many? Probably.

Learning from Mick that my next destination of Fisher's Green was closed, and hopes of Bittern therefore dashed, my backup plan was to head back to Hyde Park for another crack at the Bearded Tits, so I hastened home for a quick bite to eat, an Oystercard, and a bag in which to conceal and transport various bits of camera. Despite saying very sternly to myself that I would stay awake on the tube and thus prevent my valuable possessions from being snaffled from under my very nose, I fell asleep more or less instantly. I have a habit of doing this on public transport, but luck was on my side this time as I woke up at Bond Street only a few stops before I needed to get off, and my bag was still at my feet. Up the lifts at Lancaster Gate and out into glorious sunshine and blue sky. No ISO 1600 for me! Until about ten minutes later when I got to the Bearded Tits of course, when the sky clouded over, the sun disappeared, and once again I found myself cranking it up. A real shame given the effort I'd made, but c'est la vie I suppose.

There are two things I like about Hyde Park. One is that the birds are all very tame. And two is the continuing presence of Bearded Tits. There are however fifty-thousand things I don't like about Hyde Park, and they are all people. There are people everywhere, and if you have a camera on a tripod you are PUBLIC PROPERTY. If I had a pound for every person today who prevented me from taking photos and asked me what I was doing and what I was looking at, I would be able to retire before Monday. Ye Gods, the number of cretins I had to deal with today was unparallelled! When will people learn that if you're pointing a camera at something then the one (three) thing(s) you want is space, peace, and quiet, and not a crowd of jabbering idiots all around you? The low point was when a Japanese tourist physically inserted his head between my head and my viewfinder in order to look down my lens. No asking, no please may I, he just stuck his head there. Unbelievable. I threw him in the Serpentine - didn't ask his permission, just chucked him straight in. You make your bed, you gotta lie in it. In the end, I actually gave up talking. There are only so many times you can say that there are Bearded Tits in a reed bed, what Bearded Tits look like, if Bearded Tits are rare, where Bearded Tits come from, if they are making A FUCKING NEST! Imbeciles.....So to anyone who encountered a grumpy git in a red hat who completely and utterly ignored them, including the Scottish chap who complained to passers by that I wouldn't tell him how many birds there were, or indeed anything at all, please accept the fact that I hate you all and if I ever see you again in my entire life it will be too soon. There, glad I got that off my chest. I complain about various segments of humanity here in Wanstead, but if I had somewhere like Hyde Park as my patch I reckon I would go completely loopy. Or spend quite a lot of time behind bars for assault.

How to lose friends and alienate people

It’s all my fault. This morning I was walking along centre path admiring five Whinchats and a Wheatear when I spied an enormous animal lumbering along. That Essex lion perhaps, or had cattle been reintroduced to the Flats overnight?  I raised my bins to check it out and was amazed to see that it was a huge dog, and I mean massive. My dog-ID is fairly rudimentary, I tend to split them out into three groups: “bitey yappy”, ”big”, and “fuckwit”. This dog needed a new category, henceforce known as “bloody enormous”. It was probably a Great Dane or something, they’re pretty big aren’t they? It most closely resembled a horse in both size and structure. I looked around for a lost jockey, and was instead amazed to see a birder. My mood of late has been on the antagonistic side of grumpy, so I’m going to cut right to the chase. If you’re going to come birding on MY patch, don’t even think about bringing a dog with you. I don’t care what kind of dog it is, how well-behaved it is/you think it is, just don’t bring it. Go somewhere else, find your own patch. This patch is overrun with dogs, they make birding here very difficult. They run amok through the breeding habitat of endangered ground-nesting birds, they crap all over the place, and they flush almost everything, including most waders that we are lucky enough to get. There are signs requesting that dog-owners keep their animals on leads; barely one in a hundred does so. Every single owner without exception thinks that their dog is perfect and no trouble at all. I’ve done a fair amount over the last few years to put Wanstead on the birding map. Gradually the word has spread, and I’m very happy that the number of dedicated patch-workers is now into double figures. The rewards are there for all to see; the increased coverage is turning up absolutely loads. But if you’ve got a dog, and you want to bring it with you........

Anyone who has read this blog for more than about two minutes will know my feelings on dogs, and how they directly impact my birding and my photography. In addition to their detrimental impact to birds and to the bottom of my shoes, I’ve been chased by dogs, and bitten by dogs. I’ve also been threatened with their urine (no, really). It does not matter how nicely you ask, how politely you conduct yourself. Every single dog owner I have spoken to about either the poor behaviour of their pet, or about the importance of Skylark habitat, has been instantly bristly, instantly aggressive, sometimes to the point of completely unwarranted verbal abuse. Young or old, man or woman, it makes no odds. You just get told where to go. I’ve had it. I’ve been polite, I’ve been reasonable, and it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. So I don’t care if you’re a birder, if you think you can bring a dog out with you you can piss right off as far as I’m concerned. Not that I can do anything about it when the thing makes Shergar look like My Little Pony....

I had another memorable encounter this morning near Long Wood. I rounded a hedge and a medium-sized "bitey yappy" dog saw me and immediately started going ballistic. The owner, whilst trying to restrain his other “big” dog that he was close enough to to grab, shouted over to me that he wouldn’t bite and that he was only playing. Uh-huh. Great. Bared teeth - fangs - retracted lips – bristling fur and mad barking. Did the owner make any effort to put it on a lead? I’ll leave you in suspense on that one. "Stand still! Don’t move, you’ll only make it worse!" So this isn't unusual then? The best was yet to come though. After he had eventually shepherded the animal away and I had retreated a safe distance, I asked him if he thought that having it on a lead might be more appropriate. Why, he countered? “I said he wouldn’t bite, all he is doing is playing”. If I had a pound, etc. Nonetheless, I carried on, some people might find it pretty scary. “Well you’re the first person that’s ever said that”, he said. Right....You should really put it on a lead, I said, as I did not find it a pleasant experience. “Well you came from round that corner and surprised him, what do you expect?” Unbelieveable. Oh I see, so it’s all my fault, I said. “No, I’m not saying tha....” I cut him off. You just did, that’s exactly what you just implied. He walked off – “You have a nice day mate”, he said. You know, I’m not sure he meant it.

This is today’s example. I have many, many more, and they all go to explaining why my threshold for tolerating dogs is so terribly low. The day I meet a dog owner who apologises, puts their animal on a lead, then berates it and offers to have the pawprints on my trousers dry-cleaned will be the day I go and buy my own dog. It’s never their fault. It’s never the dog’s fault. He’s just being friendly. He only wants to play. He needs to be exercised. I didn’t see any signs. He can run where he likes. It’s a free country. He’s scared of your camera. You surprised him. It's your fault. Yeah? Well fuck off.

Google ain't that smart!

If like me you use Blogger in order to pollute the internet with useless rubbish, you will have noticed a few months ago that various boxes kept popping up to do with privacy. Google, who own Blogger and most other things on the internet that are not owned by Microsoft or Apple, have been changing their privacy policy. I have no idea what this means, but the way notice of it was being plastered all over the place suggested an attempt to thwart criticism of their latest plan for world domination in advance of it happening.

It interests me very little, but nonethless I thought that I might have a quick look to see if I actually needed to do anything to prevent them selling my mother. The first thing I chanced upon was something about biscuits. A cookie to be precise. I do not understand cookies other than in the most general sense. I have no idea how they are created (baking?) but I do know that they store my passwords and mean that I can actually access websites that I want to use. Without the magic of cookies, I would be lost. You would probably never hear from me again. Every single website on the planet needs a password, and I do not have the excess mental capacity to remember them - cookies are therefore good. Sometimes, and I don't know why, all the websites start asking for user names and passwords again. I infer from this that someone in cyberspace has eaten the cookies, and it is incredibly annoying.

The first thing I looked at was called the "Ads Preference Manager". My preference would be for no Ads, but if it keeps it all free, so be it. I never click on them anyway - Google, you have failed. And in fact, it turns out that Google really has failed. Based on my cookie, they have prepared a summary of my interests, and inferred my demographic. I thought it worth sharing.

OK, so maybe they have a point with the cameras, but non-alcoholic beverages? I have never been so offended! Until the next bit about my age: 55-64? That's somewhere between two and three decades away from my actual age! They must think birding is the exclusive preserve of a few sad, old and decrepit wrinklies on the point of claiming their state pensions and bus passes, rather than the mainstream hotbed of dynamic young go-getters that it actually is. I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my whole short life! Pffff. This shows very clearly that Google is massively out of touch with real life. Totally unlike birders.

I clicked on the opt-out link, which took me to another web page where I could see which companies were targeting me via cookies. This revealed an astonishing 58 companies. Even more astonishing was that I'd heard of only three of them, and one was Google. I must be immune to the power of advertising. I could understand if the companies were ones like Leica, Canon, Fisher Price, Swarovski. But they're weren't. They were things like Batanga Network, which offers unrivalled exposure to the US Hispanic population, and Glam Media, which claims to be #1 in Women's Lifestyle. This is ridiculous, and ......and at this point I got bored. I'm sure there are gazillions of other snippets of 'useful' information that Google is harvesting from my computer every single minute of every day, but what you don't know can't hurt you, and as far as I'm concerned they can have it. Really, they should make a massive red button at the top of your Google account which says "TURN OFF EVERYTHING", but that would be too easy. So instead they rely on the fact that most people are as inept as I am, and have very low boredom thresholds. Whatever. Right, I'm off to browse some more burrito sites.

What next?

I enjoyed summer yesterday, all seven hours of it. Very nice indeed, a pleasure to be out in it. The same cannot be said for today. As is normal for this dedicated patch-working in April and May, the alarm was set for roughly 5am. It duly did what it was supposed to do, and so I poked my head out of the duvet. Some days I actually have to get up to have a look at the weather; this morning the clatter of heavy rain on the windows could be heard from the warmth and comfort of the bed, and so I pulled the duvet back over my head and went back to sleep. Another day of no birding...

It doesn't quite end there though, and a break in the weather around lunchtime meant that a quick sortie was on the cards. And what a sortie it was! The Flats were alive with migrants. Nine Wheatear together, one of which was a cast-iron Greenland with wingtips practically dragging on the ground. There was a female Whinchat with them, and there were Swallows overhead for most of the short time I was out. With them were a couple of Swifts, and finally, over a month later than expected, a solitary Sand Martin. As I took in this aeriel feast I could hear Lesser Whitethroat singing, and Common Whitethroat and Willow Warbler were knocking around too. All in all a pretty fantastic fifteen minutes. And then I looked over the road and saw Fred Wigg Tower.....

The Fred Wigg Tower, and its neighbour the John Walsh Tower, are seventeen storey 1960s monstrosities that stare out across the western side of Wanstead Flats - the side I live on. They're a stark reminder that there are nice places to live in London, and not so nice places to live, and that the two are often to be found side by side. There was a huge fire on the 13th floor of the Fred Wigg Tower at the end of last year, and the burnt out windows and resultant damage can be seen from any point on Wanstead Flats. My assailants back in 2009, who so cruelly relieved me of my phone, bins and Tesco shopping, disappeared off in the direction of the Fred Wigg Tower, and I can only imagine that it's pretty rough - I have of course never been there.

John Walsh (L), and Fred Wigg (R)

Why am I mentioning this? Well, as I have often mentioned, the wildlife (and birders) of Wanstead Flats suffer from huge amounts of disturbance. Birds (and the rest of creation) are at the mercy of legions of dog walkers and their charges, and of model aircraft enthusiasts and their irritating flying lawnmowers. Joggers, alcoholics and footballers discard drinks bottles and cans with abandon, and late night revellers leave more of the same, but with added chicken. And the cruising community leave, er, other things which I need not go into here, though special mention must go to a full length bathroom mirror in one of the broom clumps. The funfairs and circuses come and churn up the Western Flats every bank holiday and leave yet more mess, there are firework displays in the same place, and we're soon to get an immense Police muster station over there for three months. Thames water spent months drilling a huge pipeline across it a few years ago, the path of which is still easily visible, and every summer holiday various parts of the grassland get set alight. It's a wonder we have any birds at all. What new forms of disturbance could we dream up I wonder? How about Surface-to-Air missiles on top of the Fred Wigg Tower?

If you were to go through the Fred Wigg Tower with the proverbial fine tooth comb, I reckon you would be fairly certain to accumulate a fairly extensive arsenal of weapons. Knives, bats, iron bars, knuckle dusters, a few swords and probably even some guns. But Surface-to-Air missiles is an embarrassing gap on an otherwise likely comprehensive list. Happily the army is going to put that right, and Fred Wigg Tower has been selected as one of six sites in London to host missiles to shoot down terrorist threats in the air during the Olympics. Personally I can't wait, it's what my birding has been missing. Come July when I am out looking for returning waders, dodging rabid dogs and model planes, negiotiating the razor-wire perimeter of the police base while tripping over drunks, stumbling over beer cans and evian bottles, slipping on used prophylactics, and trying not to get mugged, bitten or solicited, the sight and sound of missiles streaking through the air will lend a frisson of excitement to an otherwise dull experience. Bring it on I say.

Making money out of birds

You need only look at the back few pages of any birding magazine to realise that there is money in birding, and a lot of it. Heaps of kit, foreign trips to go on, books, and lately smartphone apps. I suspect however that very few people actually make it work - professional ecologists, bird news service providers, publishers, tour operators perhaps. For most of us, making the hobby pay is pure fantasy. And anyway, to succeed you probably need to approach it with a business-like attitude that for me at least would severely curtail the enjoyment. I've made almost no money out of birding, indeed most of what I contribute - and I'm not including this blog as a 'contribution', I would not be so bold! - has been entirely charitable and taken heaps of time I didn't really have. I'm talking about penning articles for local rags, local WeBS and wader counts, photographs for local reserve signage, writing sections of bird reports - that kind of thing. Yes I get a modest fee for magazine articles and sometimes photos, but overall I am down several hundred unpaid hours. I once thought about signing up for Google Ads, but determined that I was being greedy, and for the sake of a few quid here and there I would rather have complete control of what readers see. If there is going to be rubbish and nonsense, I want to be the one putting it there. So no, there will be no selling out here.

So it always leaves a slightly sour taste when I see a website that, at least on the face of it, seems to be set up purely to make money. A few have popped up recently, and in common with other things I'm not vastly keen on, I'm going to refrain from donating a free link. I'm not really into naming and shaming anyway, or at least, not unless the BBC has done it first....

The websites I have particularly in mind purport to offer local bird news. Actually they probably do, but I wouldn't know as I'm not signed up. Now I may be doing them a disservice, and the administrators of any site who feel they may have been maligned are welcome to comment unanonymously below, but in my opinion local birding websites and local bird news should be free. Indeed, here in London it is free, and many people put a lot of time into making it free. For instance I tweeted about a Sparrowhawk over Columbia Wharf today - free bird news. Better even than that though, there is a wiki site where lots of local London birders spend their free time, for free, dutifully typing in all their local sightings, including their names IN FULL, so that other birders may get a feel for what is going on in the capital. When not abused by disgruntled and bitchy anonymous commentators, it is a brilliant resource, and indeed I may go back to posting info there again one day; in the meantime other Wanstead birders have it covered. Then there is the BirdingEtc twitter feed, again entirely free. Various people text Dom with news, or he picks it up from their Twitter feeds, and anyone who is interested can get it as a text message on their mobile phone. For free. OK so Dom is not a full time operator, but then he's not trying to compete with Rare Bird Alert. It's a great resource, and if you're into London listing (I'm not, obviously), I suggest you follow it and work out how to do the phone bit.

So I seriously question the need for, and motivation of, members only sites that purport to offer local bird news as a primary reason for their existence, and to charge a fee for it. They're having a laugh, surely? Especially when a fair amount of news is just lifted straight off the wiki site. So without wishing to destroy someone's carefully thought-out business model, don't get sucked in and pay for something you don't have to. All you really need to pay for is a pair of bins and you're all set. Or you could just mug me in Bush Wood and get a nice set of Leicas.

Here, have a Rat photo. It's free.



Any reader wishing to procure a free Rat may come and select their very own specimen from the borders of Alexandra Lake, where they are extremely plentiful, free, ridiculously tame, and free. Act now to avoid missing out!



Wanstead and elsewhere

This post can be summed up as follows: Another weekend, hooray! Yet more cold weather, hooray! More birds, hooray!

But you're not getting away that lightly. I was looking at my stats the other day, and they dared to suggest that the average length of time people spend on this site is about five seconds. Wow, fast readers, I thought. Or maybe people just look at the pictures? I'm not sure, but there haven't really been many good ones recently - pictures that is. Indeed, some posts have had none at all, not even something totally spurious. Time is a big factor, it takes effort to select a photo that has nothing whatsoever to do the text, and I don't want to get it wrong and somehow give the impression that this is all well thought out and carefully considered. I've also not been out with the camera much, other than to bounce it off Southend Pier about a month ago. With no family duties today, it was a good opportunity to get a little amortisation in.

First stop, naturally, was the Basin. I know a few of you are rooting for Goldeneye, and I had high hopes, but after what must have been an extremely cold night, the open water had shrunk so much that any passing Goldeneye that had tried to land would have embedded itself in a Coot, of which there were at least a quarter of a million, all crowded into about a tennis courts worth. I moved on to the Heronry, where some kind soul at the Corporation has turned on the inflow - as such there was a lot more clear water than otherwise would have been the case, and though there were no Goldeneye, a pile of Pochard (is that the correct collective noun?) were enjoying an early morning preeing session. I busied myself getting ready for post-preening flaps, which were numerous and excellent, and while I was doing that noticed a very small Woodpecker fly to the trees at the end of the Perch pond. Yay! I wandered over but it had vanished - I thought I had heard one a few days ago, but it only called once, and good conscience prevented me from counting it in case it had been a Starling or something, which have been known to make a similar sound and bamboozle me before.

Once Crufts was fully underway, complete with entrants joyfully causing some duck angst, I mosied over to the Old Sewage Works, where literally the first birds I saw were two Linnet, another patch yeartick. For those of you keeping track, that's 78, which is loads and loads. Pleased with this minor success - in fact the first Linnets I've seen anywhere this year - I headed to the Roding for an extended Smew photography session. This went very badly, mainly caused by the total absence of Smew. I walked down into Mordor, ie off the patch, but there was no sign to the Aldersbrook, though 15 Teal, all on-patch, were quite nice. I went a similar distance upstream to about level with the Canal, but there were no birds at all that end, mainly due to dog. So I gave up and went for another cup of tea, and two bits of cake - one a late breakfast (the banana one), the second a mid-morning snack (the carrot one). Both were excellent, and fully justified by the cold weather that I'm sure I read is much more calorie-intensive.

South of the bridge

North of the bridge

Although it was great on the patch, lovely light and so on, the call of an Essex Woodlark, currently living it up in the picturesque Roding Valley Park (in a dog-shit strewn stretch of mud underneath the M11 flyover) proved too strong. I picked up Bradders kind of en route, and found the spot without any trouble at all. Mainly by smell. I can categorically say that I have never been anywhere, and this includes Cornwall and Grays, where I have seen quite so much dog muck concentrated in one spot. Whether this is the work of a single dog over a long period, or multiple dogs over a shorter period I cannot speculate. However, protected from the weather by the motorway above, it endures beyond its normal lifespan, and was EVERYWHERE and totally disgusting. And hopping around amonst the innumerable little curls of turd was a fantastic and congenitally anosmiac Woodlark.

Much as I enjoyed the bucolic appeal of the area, it was the only bird there, and once it been flushed by a horse, a bike, several dog-walkers, several dogs and a nameless photographer, we felt it was time to leave. With high tide approaching, we made for the river. Rainham, to be precise, which had the draw of warm food as well as birds. In the visitor centre I looked longingly at the homemade Bakewell slices, but then saw the price - £2.10. Seriously. Rainham food prices seemingly suffer from hyper-inflation. Every time I go there the price has risen again, the place makes Canary Wharf look cheap. I've not been keeping notes, that would be very petty, but last time I came the Bakewells were £1.80 or £1.90, and before that they were £1.40, and the sausage rolls were £2.00 - now they're £2.50. It is getting beyond unreasonable, and I don't mind saying so. I know they need to pay for the mega-hides somehow, but it's out of control. None of this matters as Bradders bought lunch, though in deference to his recently deceased boiler I skipped the cake. Just so you know RSPB, a piece of cake at the Tea Hut of Happiness costs 60p, and a cup of tea is 70p.

Perfect, no post would be complete without a good whinge.

Once Upon a Time we had Woodpeckers

For the last two years on the trot we have had Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers breeding on Wanstead Flats. Wanstead Flats is mostly grassland and football pitches, with a few mature copses. The lack of cover meant you could easily see the Woodpeckers for the trees, so to speak. Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is a good bird anywhere, let alone London, and as they were so reliable, people came from far and wide to get a glimpse of them. Most came away happy, and we, the patch-workers, were also happy. Wanstead is good for Woodpeckers.

Then came health and safety. The Corporation of London, who in all the time I have lived here I have yet to see perform a single worthwhile act that benefits wildlife, decided that the trees in the copses were dangerous. Being so attractive to Woodpeckers, and so, well, dead, there was a risk that they might fall on someone, and that that someone might sue. So breeding Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers be damned, all those trees are now gone. You cannot argue with health and safety. It's like trying to argue with the Olympics, utterly pointless.

The copses are used by breeding Starling, breeding Stock Dove, and Woodpeckers. Blue and Great Tits feed in them, as do winter thrushes. Squirrels and Noctule Bats call them home, and when we had Little Owls, they lived there too. Human activity is confined to the drinking of lager, the lighting of barbeques, the dropping of litter, and casual sex. All of those activities could do with a large lump of wood interrupting them in my opinion. But no, the Corporation does not want to be sued by a bunch of half-drunk eastern european migrants or aged doggers, so the trees have all been reduced to bare trunks. The sensible thing to do would have been to fence off the copses, and leave nature to run its course, which would result in lots of nice dead wood for invertebrates, and the continued presence of breeding Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. But no, a branch might crush a drunk, so it's far safer just to get rid of the trees altogether. At least the beetles and grubs will have some nice logs to get going on though. Er, no. They constitute a fire hazard, and so have been removed in case the local youf or aforementioned drunks decide to burn them.

I spent a good two hours looking for Lesser Spots on Wanstead Flats today. Guess what?

I took this in 2010

 

Now the tree looks like this.



A big two fingers up to wildlife