Failure (live)

It had been going so well, but I am now staring failure in the face. My mission to walk 35 miles a week for a whole year has failed at almost the first hurdle. It's still January and I am about to chalk up a real blow to my ambitions. I am not going to make it this week.

Disappointment. Dented pride. Weakness personified.

So now, obviously, is when I trot out the list of excuses. The reasons why I fell short. I expect sympathy, forgiveness, possibly chocolate, cards and flowers.

Week one was good, everything went to plan. Exactly 35 miles. I hit this on the final day and then must have immediately called for my sedan chair to carry me home. Week two was a blinder - 41 miles, partly explained by being in Madeira and taking nice long walks in the mountains and by the sea. Week three was solid. Despite being hemmed in by Canary wharf and work, I managed to trot out 37 miles, mostly before work whilst seeing no birds on Wanstead Flats. Which takes us to week four and failure. 

It is Saturday morning and I am in Scotland at my parents house. My dad has taken a fall, and I am here helping for the first few days after his release from hospital where he has been for the last three weeks. That's not the reason I have failed however, the real reason is that I started really badly last Sunday. We had some friends round for lunch and I didn't get out, ending the day on under 50% of the required run rate. I picked it up during the week with some fog-bound local pacing but this wasn't sufficient. Going in to yesterday I needed about 11 miles, and given my day consisted of sitting down working and following my dad round the house I didn't even scrape three. Which brings me today, needing eight.

And it is raining. 

This is what I really mean by failure, I am too soft. I cannot see a good reason to go out in the rain, and am thus accepting of failure, which makes me an even bigger failure. True grit would see me shrugging on my jacket and heading out into the wet, personal comfort be damned. As it is I am sat next to the Aga feeling extremely comfortable, eyeing up the kettle, and generally being pathetic. Cozily pathetic.

LATE EDIT: I am up to 10,436 steps today, or 4.8 miles after a spot of birding in snow and rain, but I am still about three miles short. Such is life.

End of the Line?

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

For years.

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

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

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

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

September on the Patch....

....is so far very similar to August. In fact it involves most of the same birds, including all of yesterday's Whinchats and possibly an extra one for good measure. A couple of Redstart still knocking around as well, but quality was provided by a Green Sandpiper heading west across the Flats. I was chasing the aforementioned Whinchats around the Broom Fields, and had got within the requisite 40m before they all took flight again, when I heard a wader call, high and piercing. Looking around desperately yielded nothing, but it called again twice whilst remaining invisible. I was texting out the news of wader goodness when a text from Nick came through. I had thought he was at Long Wood, but in fact he was somewhere over towards the Alex, and had had a Green Sand over calling. He hadn't seen it either, but no matter, mystery solved, and checking my phone confirmed that the high call notes were indeed the species I had been wondering about. Happy days.



This was as close as I came, which with 1120mm of focal length tells you all you need to know.

This proved the only high note of the morning, the Whinchats were completely impossible, and a brief glimpse of a Redstart diving between cover had me scuttling home - there is only so long I want to schlep a big lens around for without actually doing anything with it. So instead I have devoted the rest of the day to sorting out my greenhouse, which before birding took over my life was a mainstay of my OCD. The scene inside was of major devastation. Even though the plants I like are mostly from arid zones, there is only so much that even they can take, and I have unfortunately managed to kill loads of them. Mainly these were seedling plants, the ones that really needed tender loving care, whereas the larger plants have more in reserve and can last longer. I am a fool. So, a massive cleaning exercise, lots of disposing of dead plants, lots of tipping soil away, and a back-breaking trip to the dump to dispose of the lot. But it looks great now! Whilst I was having my sort out, I also swept and scrubbed the floor, and scrubbed the walls (yes, my greenhouse has walls....) and the dirty bits of the frame. I've got rid of all the mould, sprayed away many of the bugs, and basically done what I ought to have done about five months ago. It almost looks pristine, and I've resolved to enjoy it again.

This Green Woodpecker landed vaguely near Bob and I whilst we were discussing which waders we hadn't seen on the patch.

The feeling of satisfaction, although tinged with sadness at the loss of rare plants, is hard to beat. It has been on successive to-do lists for absolutely ages and ages. Why I decided to start it in September, when the whole of June had been available I have no idea, call it stupidity, but it is done. I actually started last night, and in total the job has taken somewhere between seven and eight hours of non-stop work. Mostly lows when confronted with yet another death, but a huge high when with no small amount of pleasure I also discovered two bottles of Scotch down there, a reminder of a time when I wasn't just processing photos and blogging all the time. Back then I thought nothing of actually sitting down and doing very little in my special greenhouse chair, sometimes even falling asleep in the muggy warmth whilst the fans whirred and the foliage rustled. I always kept a wee something down there for precisely those times, and although covered in cobwebs and muck, liquid remained within. The label on one had been completely eaten away by snails, but I recall that if was The Glenlivet. The other is obviously a Glenfiddich, though in a brown bottle rather than green, whatever that means, as the snails and slugs have had the crucial information. Naturally I checked that both were fine, a quick swig from each one, and am pleased to confirm that several years of neglect, sub-zero temperatures and then high thirties, seem to have had no impact on their sipping qualities, so I may take a glass down there. I've just fumigated it, done a final sweep up, a final bit of house-keeping, and all is good. Time to start buying plants again I guess.....

Heroic Tropicbird Failures

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:

"Well it 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.

Belgium Minibreak

As if I have not travelled enough recently, on Sunday I made a last minute decision to visit Belgium. The reason? Heroism, pure and simple. Heroism comes naturally to me. As naturally, say, as wishing to have a large stock of excess Brownie Points available for twitching far-flung Hebridean islands. So it was a pretty easy decision to for me, on finding that Mrs L and two thirds of my descendants were stranded in Belgium, to mount an immediate rescue mission. The problem? Mrs L, handbag connoisseur and noted security expert, had had her car key stolen in Brussels. To be absolutely clear, it had not fallen out, unnoticed, from her massively-overstuffed handbag that does not close properly. Never in a million years could that ever have occurred, and I most definitely have never mentioned this ridiculously obscure possibility to her. No, stolen. Stolen by a heinous criminal gang who had used incredible guile and agility to somehow gain entry to her handbag - amazing that they weren't suffocated by Tesco receipts in the process.

After an afternoon of faffing about with the Belgian RAC, after which it was determined that they could not start the car, nor now lock it back up again, the obvious solution began to dawn on me. The quickest way to regain access to the car and thus return the family to Chateau L and domestic bliss would be for me, Superfatherhusband, to personally and immediately travel to Brussels with the second car key. The second car key is my car key. It lives in my pocket, which I pat approximately once every twenty seconds to ensure its continuing presence. I am not paranoid at all. I gave my pocket another reassuring pat. Yup, one car key, all present and correct. Amazing, and so the plan sprung into action. My brilliant neighbours could take Muffin overnight, so he packed a small bag. Meanwhile I retrieved my passport from its ultrasafe secret hiding place, checked that my wallet – on a CHAIN attached to my belt was still attached – and that the remaining Euros from Spain were still in it. Check. Ipod zipped up in jacket pocket? Check. House Keys in case Mrs L had lost them too had them stolen too? Check.

With the Eurostar website down, I had no choice but to go to St Pancras and chance it. Chance is a fine thing, and so I got a seat on a train leaving 20 minutes later. Not long after that I was in my fourth European country in a week, and under cover of darkness I infiltrated Belgium, my fifth. The location of the car was pre-set on the sat-nav on my phone – attached to me via ANOTHER CHAIN (OK, so I am perhaps a touch paranoid; then again, have I ever lost my phone or wallet?) and so also still present (for the avoidance of doubt that means that it hadn't fallen in a puddle, or down the toilet.... ) but in the event it proved unneccesary as Mrs L's good friend and object of Brussels visit, Jo, was there to meet me, probably in disbelief that I would be on the train and needing to check it out just to be certain. A taxi to the car, and we were reunited! Rejoice! And then Mrs L and the girls came down the stairs - more rejoicing!

The moment of truth. Did I still have my car key, or had the Brussels phenomenon struck twice! Hah! Of course I had it, one simple click and the car was ours again. Family in, seat adjusted, mirrors set, and we were off. Warp speed through northern France as, already approaching midnight we needed to catch the last shuttle before a serious gap in the schedule. We made it with quite a bit of time to spare. A scary moment when the car wouldn't start when we arrived in Kent; not because it  wouldn't start at all, but because in order to start it I had to entrust Mrs L with my key whilst I fiddled with the battery. Luckily she managed to keep hold of it for five seconds and we were off again, once again with me selflessly taking the wheel and guiding us safely to Wanstead. A great success, up there with the best of twitches!

I was in bed by 3am, and in work on time the next morning, though the coffee consumption was excessive by anyone's standards. So, a lovely little trip - I've never been to Brussels before, and I have to say that during my lengthy stay it looked pretty nice. Of note were the taxi driver not having the faintest clue where he was going yet driving at about 100kph through suburban streets, and a Nespresso shop where on another day I might have sourced some decaf, of which I have run out. Next time I have to rescue Mrs L from a foreign city I'll be sure to research the retail options before leaving.

In addition to the above heroic tale, I have three other pieces of news. The first is that I almost accurately predicted that Sunday would be a great day for Buzzards and Red Kites on the patch. Before I was called upon to don my cape and mask, I had scored three of the former, but the Red Kite came through the following day when I was at work earning money for Eurostar tickets.

The second is that also on Sunday, I had a first winter Gull go over the Flats with a very clear black "W" starting on the leading edge of the upper wing. Distant, I could not pick it up with the camera for an ID-clinching shot, and in my excitement I didn't think through the options very clearly and am thus forced to concede that I cannot assign it safely to either Kittiwake or Little Gull, even though it was undoubtedly one or the other, and I need both for the patch. Upon reflection, the flight mode was that of a Gull and not a Tern, though this is hardly a concrete ID feature. So, elation tinged with bitter regret on that front.

The third piece of news is that during a short break from saving the world, I have managed to find time to put together a post of gratuitous photos of Lesser Kestrel from my second-most recent European trip. You can find it here, meanwhile I am off to check on the progress of the Telephone Box being installed outside the house.

 

Success!

Finally, a breakthough! Approaching Long Wood this morning I learned I had missed another Brambling, a single bird that had called only once and disappeared northwards. I had seen a few silent finches heading that way on my approach, but even I decided that having one of them as a Brambling was a step too far. Happily another two birds zipped through a few minutes later; I was too busy talking to actually hear them, but they were helpfully pointed out as being Brambling by a couple of the guys - nice of them. Perhaps I'll get my own tomorrow? Not that I care anymore of course, Brambling hold no interest for me now until January - unless there is a particularly showy one of course, but even then the light levels need to improve significantly. I've barely picked up a camera since Shetland, there has been almost no point.

Apart from some Great Crested Grebes at Canary Wharf that is, which coincided with some rare sunshine and my lunch break which I could actually take. Most of them I have uploaded to my other website, but here are a couple just to break the monotony of text-only posts recently. It can be pretty bad when I not only have nothing to say, but also have nothing to upload.

I have nothing else to offer. My life since returning from Shetland has involved work, more work, and family stuff. Birding has not so much taken a back seat, as been left off the bus altogether. This is a great shame, but what can you do, there is only so much time in the day. The good news is that the clocks change this weekend, which should mean that I get an additional hour on the patch in the mornings. I expect that the birds will realise this however, and wait an extra hour before showing themselves....

Wanstead's most attractive Woodpigeon

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

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

....or from the right?

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

Directions to this crippling mega on the Wiki

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

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

And breathe......

Gluttony

The average UK glutton is set to consume somewhere around 6500 calories over the course of Christmas Day, or so I overheard on the radio. That’s the equivalent of 23 Mars Bars. Can you imagine that many Mars Bars on a plate in front of you? Can you imagine eating them all, even across several sittings? I couldn’t even do that with Doubledeckers. Grotesque, yet many of us will nonetheless eat and eat and eat on Christmas Day. A handful of peanuts here, an enormous portion of Turkey here, and don’t forget those delicious mini-sausages wrapped in bacon.....

I’ve been noticing that I have become slightly more rotund (than usual) of late. Pictures at some Christmas drinks showing approximately eighteen chins convinced me that I needed to know quite how bad it was. Shortly afterwards I bought some bathroom scales. We have not had any bathroom scales since the children broke them about two years ago. They denied it of course, blaming that perennial scamp Notme, responsible for most acts of destruction and vandalism at Chateau L. I stepped on the scales, and once I’d shifted my enormous gut to one side, peered down at the dial. Assuming some kind of mistake, I stepped off, confirmed it was at zero, and got on again. Then I got off again, and lay down on the floor to check it was level. It was. With a sense of dread I got on again. Modesty prevents me from sharing the number, but Notme has a lot to answer for. I am heavier than I have ever been.

Buying a set of scales two weeks before Christmas was perhaps very foolish, or perhaps very sensible. It opens up two very distinct avenues of thought. One is that I will take it easy over Christmas and refuse all delicacies, which would be very sad. The second is that I will gorge myself senseless as usual, and along with the rest of the population start a new regime at the beginning of January. This is known as the cop-out option. I’ve not yet decided what I’m going to do. The house is currently filled to the rafters with nice things. Cheese, cold meats, nuts, biscuits, and we are never short of something to drink. I am not sure I have the willpower, which is presumably what got me into this predicament in the first place.

Mrs L has also had a go on the scales. Self-preservation prevents me from divulging any details, but she too was shocked. Pregnancy saves her from the ignominy of a new personal best, but she has agreed that buying the scales, whilst sad, was a good thing.  The scales are the old fashioned sort with a dial, the primary measurement being Stones and Pounds, so it’s also helping the children get to grip with fractions. Muffin is particularly good at fractions, as he showed when Mrs L stepped off the scales looking miserable. “Well?”, I said. “Something and a half” she replied. “.....”and three-quarters!” a small voice chimed in. I know who I believe! Err, Mrs L, obviously.

Almost exactly a week after buying the scales, I have failed to shed a single pound, which is indicative of the cop-out route being taken. Hmmm. To add insult to injury, yesterday I had lunch with two former colleagues. We had not seen each other for a few years, and so naturally the conversation turned to how much fatter each one of us was than the other. Many years ago, when all working in the same team, we started a weight-loss competition. Inspired by another colleague’s tales of extreme weight-loss via means of a beetroot, tuna and egg diet which culminated in him collapsing on a train, we agreed to a weekly public weigh-in, and clubbed together to buy a set of scales which were kept under my desk. Any week-on-week rise was chargeable, with the proceeds going towards a bumper blow-out lunch when the competition was over. I remember that lunch to this day.

Being much younger than we are now, and far more immature hem hem, our weekly weigh-in was keenly contested, with all sorts of random chocolate items mysteriously appearing on co-competitors’ desks in the run up to the appointed time. The critical thing was not to go up. But as each week set the bar lower, you did not want to lose too much weight in a week that would then see you put some or all of it back on the following week, and thus have to cough up. This led to all sorts of shenanigans, such as tactical water-drinking immediately before the weigh-in, and on one occasion an emergency haircut. Being technically and analytically-minded, we kept a running spreadsheet, and I discovered yesterday that one of the guys still had it. It dates back to 2004, when I was still in my twenties, and very happily the password was still “domisfat”, Dom being one of the three competitors. Remarkably, he is still approximately the same weight as he ended up in 2007, which was when our competition finally ran out of steam, whereas I am in a different league. Perhaps the Sekitori league.... Anyway, he only ever gained weight over those three years, and was a major contributor to the lunch. He had some minor victories, but overall the line went only in one direction. Mine on the other hand was all over the place. Over those three years my weight varied by 23 pounds, but the start and end points are exactly the same, so an entirely pointless exercise. I can see that during the first week of March 2007 I lost 6lbs, and another 3lbs the week after that. The week after that required a pay-out!

We’re now talking about starting the spreadsheet again. The intervening four years have not been kind to me, to the extent that we would actually need to increase the range scale on the Y-axis. A large vertical line would ensue, and I would need to lose almost fully 3 stone to get back to my lowest ever point on the graph. Hugely embarrassing, and highly motivating. How I ever allowed myself to fall so comprehensively off the wagon I don’t know. Age plays a part, but I see plenty of people my age who are thin, so I am coming to the inescapable conclusion that I have a thyroid problem. This is hugely relieving, as no doubt it is for many fat people. Yup, that’s right, I have a medical condition. It’s definitely not related to the fact that I eat too much and do no exercise. Glad we cleared that up.

My timing is impeccable - look what I found today on the BBC!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16275027

I sent it to Mrs L. She replied that she loves me. Both of me.

Fantastic Mr Fox

I have perhaps blogged before on foxes, and their perception of my garden versus my perception of my garden. Whilst I am not a big gardener, I nonetheless view my garden as a tranquil haven in which to drink cool glasses of Rosé on warm summer evenings. A peaceful oasis of overgrown flowerbeds, weeds, and various spiky plants in pots. A place for children to run, to play, to shout and make merry.

The foxes? They view my garden primarily as a toilet, though they also enjoy using it as a place to scatter rubbish from neighbouring bins and gardens. Previous items that I have had to go round and pick up have included several shredded used disposable nappies, various plastic bottles, sachets of catfood, crisp packets, plastic bags, a bag of frozen oven chips, and, tantalisingly, a size 12 purple and white thong. Foxes have a particular smell, a scent that they seem able to leave on anything they have touched. A smell that lingers on one's hands, and one's moth trap, even after washing several time. It's not a nice smell. Fed up with it, and the likely hygiene issues, I bought one of those litter picker claw things that you see people doing community service using, so now, once a week or so, I trapse round the garden delicately pincering rubbish and women's underwear and placing it in a bin bag.

Lately my mind has been wandering to prevention. The air rifle which was so ineffectual against squirrels has gone back to Shaun, and in any event I'd imagine that Wanstead foxes are equally bomb-proof, so instead I've invested in two things. The first are some kind of chemical granules that you scatter round the garden, but I've been unable to use them as they just wash away in the rain. Genius. The second is one of those ultrasonic infra-red scarers. It looks like one of those PIRs that would activate a security light, but instead sits on a spike in the lawn. It looks mean, and so it should for the price. When a fox (or cat or squirrel, it isn't fussy, and neither am I) comes into the area of coverage, it begins to emit a sound that is to Foxes what Metallica is to humans, a sound so intensely painful that you have to leave immediately or die. I placed this near the end of of the terrace, its arc of deterrent covering most of the what used to be called a lawn before we moved in and my children ruined it. Hah!, I thought, this will fox them, they won't know what's hit them! Goodbye fox turds and rubbish, hello pristine grassy surface of happiness!

It turns out that I have underestimated the foxes of Wanstead. I have attempted to show this in the following diagram. Simply hover your mouse over it to discover what I discovered this afternoon. If you have any suggestions, I am all ears.

Back at school

Today I shouted at one of the teaching assistants at my kids’ school. I am officially nasty me again. Thanks banking. I didn’t actually shout, but after needing to knock on the window at middle child's classroom five minutes after the bell had rung with no effect, when the door finally opened around 3:37pm, I was in no mood for mucking about. Sorry we’re a few minutes late was the feeble statement on opening the door.  It’s a bit annoying actually, I stated matter of factly, I have three children to pick up in three different places. Well we’re only just after half past, came the tart response. The classroom clock said otherwise, but I said nothing. I felt like I was getting told off. We’re working very hard, we’re doing the best we can. Again I said nothing. It was for the best, as whatever I might have said would not have gone down well, and with the rest of the parents standing behind me, no doubt aghast at my bluntness, I was already Captain Bastard.

What the dopey assistant failed to realise is that to be seven minutes late letting the children out wastes 210 minutes of thirty parents time. That’s three and a half hours for the mathematically challenged. Parents’ time is extremely precious, and teachers, as a rule, seem not to recognise this. It’s OK for them though, the school day runs from 9 to 3:30, and they get about 13 weeks holiday a year, and then a further week’s worth of gratuitous inset days that, per class, each time use up an entire month of parents' holiday.  In my current job I get five weeks of unpaid holiday and zero inset days. I am trying to juggle a full-time job around the daily school runs, and I have three kids to pick up, and when one kid is released late, I am thus late for the other two. And so it was today, and Pudding was the last in her class to be picked up, and I only had fifteen minutes to get to the girls’ Ballet lessons and get them changed into their fetching pink and white checked leotards and frilly dress things, rather than the more realistic twenty plus. I just don’t have slack time any more, every minute counts.

I am surprised how quickly my demeanour has changed. A month ago I was nice me, relaxed me.  Now…oh hang on, now what? I am being shouted at by a deaf old woman. FFS. I am in the local community centre, where the afore-mentioned ballet is taking place. The car park is ingeniously laid out, two spaces deep. This being London, you park where you can park, and it seems that my Land Rover is blocking this old woman’s 1983 Fiesta. I was a little tardy to realise what she was asking the assembled room, so peeved am I that I have become a shit again, so didn’t answer straight away. More fool me. “Well will you move it, you are blocking me in”. Yes, I’ll move it, I replied meekly, repect your elders and all that. “Yes, move it now, you’re in my way, come on, come on.” Right. As I followed her to the carpark, two paces behind her, she was loudly telling her equally deaf friend about how awful it was that she had been blocked in, how she had asked several times, and weren’t people terrible these days. She probably doesn’t realise how close she came to having her Fiesta crushed. It would have been so simple. "Oops, was that reverse? Sorry about that. Shall I put it in the recycling for you?"

Today is clearly just one of these days where it all goes wrong. I’ve just looked up and seen a sign posted to the wall, two foot square, addressed to “BALLET PARENTS”. It reads thus, and the capital letters are important: PLEASE DO NOT BRING RAISINS FOR CHILDREN TO EAT HERE. IF THEY ARE EATING OTHER SNACKS, PLEASE ASK THEM TO SIT DOWN THUS, HOPEFULLY REDUCING THE MESS”. Grammar aside, it is the kind of officious notice that makes my blood boil. Especially today. I’ve just looked for raisins in my bag of kid paraphernalia, and am irrationally annoyed that we don’t have any, as I would like to wantonly scatter some all over the room. I’ve totally forgotten what I was saying now. Oh yes, my new, unimproved self. It makes me unhappy. I liked being calm, relaxed, and in control. Trying to also fit nine hours of work into a day and something has to give. In my case it seems to be calmness, relaxedness, if that is even a word, and being in control. I felt bad about having a go at the teaching assistant. She probably was doing her best, and while it wasn't good enough, I should have just rolled with it, and accepted the additional stress this caused me. Much as I want my life to be stress-free, and this is what I particularly enjoyed about the last two and a half years, I think I just need to accept the fact that it isn’t going to be like that any more. Reality is biting. I should remember to try and not bite back.

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.

Inner Strength and Momentous Resolve

Yesterday my pager bleeped, or it would have done had I had it switched on (yes I still have it, there is a notice period in the small print). Instead I had a few phone calls from some rabid twitchers I know. "Go go go!" they shouted down the phone. "Eh?" I replied. "Isn't that Jono 'filthy' Lethbridge?" they responded.

I know of no such person. I am a changed man. The message was about a Rufous Turtle Dove in a garden in Oxford. This is very mega, the first southern record for about sixty years, and the home owner, having read my Crow Council piece, had opened up his garden to the masses. He would allow access from 10am until 4pm on Tuesday, and on Tuesdays I am childless and 100% available. Surely I would be going, my friends enquired.

I admit I weighed it up. Two hundred miles there and back, that's about £3,250 of diesel. Four hours in the car, including the first leg on the M25 during the morning rush. Arrival time of 11:30am at the very earliest. I would have needed to leave at 1pm at the latest to ensure I got back to pick up the kids from school. An hour and a half on site, with viewing restricted to ten at a time from a kitchen window, with anxious birders queuing down the street to gain access. Did I want to be part of that? Did I want to stand in a residential street looking like a complete tit along with likely several hundred other people looking like complete tits, whilst looking at my watch every five minutes. Come 1pm, in the queue still, would I attempt to stay that little bit longer. And then just a bit longer? Frankly it had Lesser Kestrel written all over it.

Rufous enough for you?

Today is Tuesday, and I am in Wanstead. The March issue of that august publication Birdwatch Magazine has just landed on doormats (and is available from all good newsagents - buy your copy today!). In it I muse that birding needs to be enjoyable. Indeed - and here is a freebie - the last sentence reads "When your birding is reduced to periodic moments of blind panic, surely it’s time to reevaluate". Going to Oxford on Tuesday did not have many of the hallmarks of an enjoyable day, so you know what? I passed. Mega it might have been, nihth ever it might have been, but fun it would not have been. So no thanks, and I get to not be a hypocrite for a change.

Instead I went for a walk round Wanstead Park. I had a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker down near the Ornamental Waters, and 11 Pied Wagtails feeding together on the cricket pitch was mega in its own way. In Oxford, 700 people turned up, and the bird did a runner just before 9am. Result.

A Photo Essay on Failure

They say a picture tells a thousand words. Does that mean that three pictures tell three-thousand words? I am not known for word-thrift, and I reckon I could probably use up all three-thousand on quite how much this kind of behaviour annoys me. I'll spare you this time. But I took the owner to task, and the good news is that he "heard what I was saying". If ever there was a phrase which indicated utter indifference and apathy, this is it. Apparently Queen Victoria gave Wanstead Flats to the East End for the commoners to enjoy, and that is what he and his dogs were doing and were going to continue doing.

Fail.