Lady Luck is Fairly Fickle

It had been my firm intention to go down to Cornwall this weekend. The forecast looked OK, if not quite what I would have been hoping for. Nonetheless, a chance of a few seabirds, and a supporting cast of Black Kite and a Wryneck or two. Still, it's twelve hours in a car, so a last-minute email to a local contact enquiring as to how the locals viewed the prospects seemed in order. Not good, apparently, no talk of sea-watching whatsoever. Well that settled it, frankly I was looking for excuse not to go.

Saturday was spent wandering round a dead Wanstead, and a dead Rainham with Bradders. Porthgwarra meanwhile saw 2,003 Great Shearwaters go past in the space of five hours. When I tell you that I have seen eight Great Shearwaters ever, you will perhaps understand why morale was quite low in Chateau L last night. I mean, for Christ's Sake! Two thousand Great Shears in a few hours?! That is monumental, the stuff of legend. Deeply pissed off, I went to bed dreaming of seabird passage.

This morning, plodding Wanstead Flats, once again devoid of birdlife, I checked my phone again. Perhaps it had been 2.3 Great Shearwaters and in my slightly inebriated state I had misread the message? I hadn't, there really had been over two thousand. Unbelievable. My phone bonged again: 64 Great Shearwaters past Porthgwarra by 9am. Piss. I abandoned the Flats, and in an uninteresting repeat of yesterday, went to Rainham, again with Bradders, but this time also with Nick C. Like yesterday, it was dead, although three Black Terns and a Curlew Sandpiper did their best to raise me from the doldrums. In the absence of birds we made do with Wasp Spiders and Common Lizards, and learned that the number of Great Shears past Porthgwarra was 173 by midday. Grrrr. Why hadn't I gone to Cornwall? Just how much, exactly, does Lady Luck hate me?

The trickle of terns gave some hope that further down the river, fewer obstacles in their path and a tasty outfall close at hand, that there might be some more, so we headed off to Tilbury. Kicking stones, I set off along the sea wall adjacent to Tilbury Fort. A small bird on the iron railings caught my eye, and a quick squiz through the bins revealed it to be a juvenile Red-backed Shrike. That's nice, now where's the outfall? Hang on a dang minute! Woo-hoo! A Shrike! Woo-hoo! A Red-backed Shrike! Yay! A RED-BACKED SHRIKE!

I never, ever, find any good birds. A few patch goodies perhaps, but nothing actually good. It just doesn't happen. A Glaucous Gull at Rainham, and a handful of Yellow-browed Warblers (in October, and on Scilly and Shetland) are perhaps the closest I have come. This is a Shrike, a bloody Shrike! I phoned out some really really poor directions to the pager. Overhearing these, and realising that my over-excitement was causing me to talk utter nonsense, Bradders called them back immediately with good ones. Whatever. Woo-hoo! What was I saying about Lady Luck? That she loves me!

Look, here it is again, courtesy of Nick C who had the presence of mind to get closer to it and nab some photos whilst I smiled beatifically and dribble ran out of the corner of my mouth.

So it all boils down to whether I would have preferred to have seen 2,176 Great Shearwaters, increasing by 27,000% the number I have ever seen, but for the price of twelve hours in a car, or whether I would have preferred to have gone birding locally and found my very own Red-backed Shrike on the outskirts of London. I'll let you decide. Here, have a photo.

Muffin hits the Jackpot!

Apologies in advance, for this post is unashamedly about moths. Or rather, one particular Moth. As usual the actinic trap was set up in the garden, but the weather didn't look or feel particularly mothy. What the hell, you never know. A reasoned approach.

I've been delegating the trap-emptying of late to Muffin. He enjoys this very much, and usually by the time I stumble downstairs, he is ready with a small box of pots with moths in, many of them already identified. A normal morning conversation with Muffin could easily go something like this:

Me: Anything in the trap?
Muffin: Nah, not much. A couple of Dark Arches, a Heart and Dart, a Scalloped Oak and some kind of Tortrix.

Start them young eh? The other advantage is of course that I can laze around in bed whilst the hard work is done by someone else. And this is what I was doing this morning when I was awakened by high-pitched screams of "Daddy!" from the garden. Really quite loud screams, loud enough to also wake up Pie, which takes some doing. My befuddled brain considered two possibilities; That he had been stung by something vicious that had got into the trap, or that there was a good 'un in there. Thankfully it was the latter, and he had hit the Jackpot!

I made it down the stairs just as he came steaming in from the garden shouting "Small Elephant Hawkmoth!!!!!" at the top of his voice. He hadn't even looked at the book, but I didn't doubt him for a second, and as, shaking, he proudly handed me the potted prize, I knew he would remember this for a long time. The moth is a thing of beauty, and a first for the garden, in fact a first for the whole family, anywhere. It immediately usurps Scarce Silver Lines as the best ever garden moth, and may even be twitched by various members of the East London Moth-lovers Organisation (ELMO) tonight. I was very careful photographing it lest it do a runner. Utterly superb.

Actual Birding

This week has been fairly quiet on the actual birding front (though obviously never a dull moment on the cyber-birding front). For late September, I've seen very little on the patch. Part of this has to do with not actually getting out on the patch for more than about three hours in total, most of those when the birds had not yet woken up. I've seen a single Brown Spotted Flycatcher, and of course the Wryneck is still here, but other than that I can't think of anything even moderately exciting in Wanstead.

However, it is coming up to Ring Ouzel time, or at least I hope it is. I missed them all in the spring, bar a probable that I had to let go, and they are amongst my favourite birds, so I hope I can find one. I'm basically down to weekend mornings only at this point; there is not enough time in the morning prior to Mrs L leaving for work.

Still, I have it pretty good, what with not being stuck in an office or anything like that. I was reminded of work just today, when I received a pay-slip from my ex-employer. Like a child on Christmas morning, I excitedly ripped it open! Was this the big one, the one that would irreversibly change life in the Lethbridge household? El Gordo!

£2.07

Guess not then. Stock dividends from shares I still have in some executive incentive plan or other, and that I still can't sell. Well, whoopee. Do I sound incentivised? That life seems so far away now, though if I don't pull my finger out I could be headed back to it. I had to wear a suit the other day for the first time in ages, and felt almost professional again. I won't say I strutted down the street, but I felt like a different person. Funny what clothes can do. You would think they were meaningless, and I am of course not remotely embarrassed by my customary bedraggled birder appearance, but in a suit I felt more confident, more assertive, with a positive spring in my step. The funeral went fine.

My youngest has been a bit poorly this week, a nasty chesty cough, so we've tended to stay in, hence no birding of any note - a trip to Oare to twitch a White-rumped Sandpiper aside. Instead I've been concentrating on the watching the sky from the terrace, with some success as it happens. The lack of Ospreys and Honey Buzzards has been disappointing, but almost as exciting has been not one, but two garden ticks. TWO!! I mean, wow.

The first of these was Meadow Pipit. At this time of the year the breeding population on the Flats is augmented by passage birds, and the numbers are building steadily, so I was fairly confident. How in the five years or so I've lived here I've not managed to get a Mipit from the garden I'll leave up to you, but it took an hour on Sunday morning, viz-migging from dawn, before two typically bouncy and squeaky birds went over. Played for and got, and a pathetic gap plugged.

Prior to this stunning success I hadn't had a garden tick since May, so I was fully expecting that to be my lot for the forseeable future. So it came as a pleasant surprise on Wednesday when a Great Black-backed Gull flew over the garden. This species is rare on the Flats, I'd expect to see perhaps two or three annually, and whilst I knew that I'd get one over the garden eventually, I'd put it to the back of my mind. I'd just been watching a pair of Lessers when a comparatively enormous gull flapped lazily over with slow wingbeats and a whopping great bill. I'm afraid I don't have even a poor quality picture to aid constructive discussion, so you'll have to take my word for it. I am well known for being highly competent at Gulls, so I'd image automatic acceptance is likely.

Like this, but bigger. And with a darker mantle. And pinkish legs. Just call me Klaus.

Yes, I am bored

There are no birds to see, and even if there were, the particular type of pollen that my nose and eyes object to is off the scale today. I can barely go outside and I'm dreading the school run. And as for wondering what to put here, as Thing from Fulham says, in the total absence of bird-related material, I'm feeling vaguely guilty about posting yet more photos of moths up. Not guilty enough though...

Here is one I caught a couple of days ago. VERY exciting, it being my first plume moth.

Lets look at that from another angle. Yup, wow. Imagine if it were six foot long!

Anyway, keep admiring the Platyptilia pallidactyla, I have to pick up number one son from school, and who knows what excitement that might bring.

1 HOUR LATER...

Right, I'm back, and actually there is some interesting news. Well, depends on your point of view I suppose, but it is at least news. It needs some lead-in though, so bear with me.

There is a child at the school - no, really - who is in a different class to Muffin. I don't know which one, and it doesn't matter. The child is from somewhere in Eastern Europe, I don't know where. It is not the child I am going to talk about though, it is its mum. Occasionally I coincide with the mum. She is always on the phone, which is how I know she is from Eastern Europe somewhere. On the way into the school, on the way out of the school, the phone never leaves her ear. I have never heard her even talk to her offspring, she has always been on the phone. She is blonde, very thin, and in bird-speak, has extremely distinctive primary projections. She also wears very interesting outfits. I would not like to speculate on what her career might be, but one of the more popular outfits is a pink velvet crop-top tracksuit with "juicy" written in sparkly gold writing across the backside. A fetching Leopard-skin print leotard is another favourite. Today's outfit was a new one though, some kind of figure-hugging blue mini-dress, but with a difference. On the front, at the top of the front, where many people might have expected dress material to be, was some kind of drawstring contraption. Kind of like shoelaces, but for breasts. Don't forget that I am on the school run here, in the playground. I am not in Soho at 1am on a Friday night. At the moment, the child is probably only about seven, and thus entirely unconcerned that his mother comes to pick him up looking like some kind of cross between an oligarch and a prostitute. I just snigger quietly at the ever-increasing inappropriateness of the outfits, but many of the mums on the school run wear more material round their heads than she wears in a week, and I can imagine that they might find this rather disturbing. Anyway, the interesting news is that today's staggering outfit revealed that her left (and strangely spherical) boob has a tattoo of a heart with four lightning bolts coming from it. Classy.

At this point I expect many of you are crying out for a photo. I am not going to disappoint. Here is a Blotched Emerald. Pretty nice eh?

Technological wizardry

In another amazing development I can now twitter, or tweet, or whatever the latest ridiculous verb to enter the lexicon is. No doubt this is like, soooo last year, but I am over thirty and come to most parties beyond fashionably late.

So for all those little pointless snippets which don't in themselves justify an entire post, now I can just send a text, hurrah! I can bore you about the Flats, from the Flats. As a blog I follow puts it: tedium as it happens, when it happens. If it ever gets too exciting to cope with, just let me know, and I will tone it down. It should appear over to the right somewhere. Bear in mind it costs me money to send a text, so the more of you read it the cheaper it becomes. That doesn't work does it? No.

In other exciting developments:

- The Goldeneye was refound by Nick a mere 100 yards from where it was. Boy, I checked thoroughly. Anyway, happy days, it is still here, awaiting my arrival on January 1st.
- The Christmas Tree has lights, but is still shedding faster than an Afghan.
- The flock of Lesser Redpolls is still bouncing around, and I was able to text Tim, at work, that they were quite close to his garden, which no doubt pleased him.

Now you see, all the above points would have been perfect Twitter material. Things that nobody other than me cares about or needs to know about. Next time. I just wanted to formally announce that the boredom factor has taken a technological step forward.

"Tweet!"