So, what's been going on then?

Hmm, like many bloggers out there I seem to be lapsing, and as others have noted it's real life that gets in the way. In short I have very little news. Let's do this in summary format, it might work better. When I say work better, what I really mean is that it might be quicker for me to bash out, and thus there is at least something rather than nothing. Hopefully a little more spare time headed my way in a couple of weeks.

Real Life
Decluttering continues. I have sold all sorts of crap that never in a million years did I think anyone would be stupid enough to clutter their house up with. Natch. The list is very long and very satisfying. I returned from a three day break recently to find I needed to make up ten packages. This netted me something in the order of 40 earth pounds....Dammit. The time equation should dictate that I simply chuck stuff away. In a spirit of pure altruism I do not want to deny that opportunity to others however, so I'm sticking with it. Phase 2 is I think to cut out the middle man and take it straight to the tip. The difference is actually noticeable, to me at least. For instance my cupboard of fishing gear now contains one rod and one reel. More than enough (by about one rod and one reel....) to keep me in the angling business. Scope eyepieces are reduced to one, which is handy as that matches the number of scopes I have. Idiot. My two 35mm SLRs went to Spain and Manchester respectively, and a lens found its way to Belgium or somewhere. Actually I forget as there have been altogether too many packages. Fishing gear tends to head north, optics south. Does this say anything about the world? Probably, but I have no time to dwell on it at the moment.

There has of course been some travel. Malta (booooooo, hisssssss), and New York. I'll cover both of these in due course. Suffice it to say that despite it's reputation among birders, Malta is actually a very nice place. To boycott or to not boycott? Every birder in the western hemisphere could not go and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference, but the campaign must go on - there was some positive news just recently in fact. Whether that translates to a difference on the ground is impossible to say. There can be no complaints about NY however, a stunning place. Well, apart from many buildings saying "Trump" on them. And the overwhelming stupidity of large parts of the population, most recently in Indiana. Oh America, what are you doing? Still, despite all this NYC remains one of favourite places, we were there in celebration of a significant milestone for Mrs L, and this we did in style. All I want to do now is go back as soon as possible. It feels like unfinished business.

In between all this and metres of parcel tape and bubble wrap there has been some work and some illness. Work is the normal crap I have to deal with, illness is something new and something I may possibly have to deal with for a long time. Hopefully nothing too serious, but when you feel under the weather blogging seems to drop down the list and is yet another reason why these pages have remained silent for quite some time. There is of course some blogging mileage in being ill itself, but I'm reserving judgement for now.

Birding
There has actually been quite a bit of birding, albeit nothing particularly spectacular. I've been keeping my head vaguely above water with visits to the patch, picking up all the usual suspects with some regularity. That's part of the deal with patch working to a certain extent - the repetitive nature of the passing years. The first Willow Warbler, the first Swift. These latter were today when I wasn't even thinking about it. I had just got home from work and glanced up whilst fiddling for my keys. Four birds then spent the better part of an hour cruising around above the garden, a keenly anticipated event round these parts. Reed Warbler fell, as have both Whitethroats and a few other bits. A big miss was Cetti's on the patch, a bird I predicted but then predictably was then away for. There is something about me going to America in the spring which sets a chain of events in motion and culminates in failure.

We also had a rather nice day out in Suffolk. Four seasons in one day, but we picked up number one son from his school in Norfolk and then crossed the border back west to do a circuit of Lakenheath. Cuckoos, Warblers, Swallows and more in what felt like winter at points. Somehow the kids were cajoled into doing the full circuit and it was superb to just be out and enjoying the area. The hail and so on probably put paid to seeing that much, and there wasn't a single Hobby, nor any Stone Curlew in the two sites nearby that we tried, but there was plenty of material to see how much of what I have drummed into the kids over the years has actually stuck. Some, is the answer. Not much, but some, and they're still streets ahead of your average kid in terms of knowing what lives where and what it looks and sounds like. Small victories, for instance the scratchy tune of a Whitethroat was recognised as for what it was, and the number of 12 year olds who can do that must number very few. Way more to do in this space however.

One of my favourite blogs finishes each episode with percentages, this was a recent one:

20% stolen choux outrage (long story)
20% eye strain
20% creeping dread
20% Dutch sentence construction
20% Wishing I'd had my teeth cleaned by softly spoken Jérémie the kind dentist in the last 6 months instead of hiding away until I look like Father Jack.


I am wondering about stealing this idea. If I were to, it would look something like this.

30% non-functioning intestines
20% cardboard and parcel tape
20% jetlag
20% small chocolate eggs even though I stopped eating them two weeks ago
10% Cetti's dipping

Update

A brief summary of the last month would be:

- a quick trip to Poland to find Nutcracker
- geting camera fixed after trip to Poland.....
- desperate processing of USA photos
- doing not a lot at home
- working like a dog (a sad constant)
- in connection with the above, being uncomfortably hot on the tube
- birding

I did the trip to Poland about a month ago now, but I've since been extremely busy doing not much at all - a life dominated by work, cricket, and chilling out at home. Also my camera finally died out in Poland, and whilst I've got a couple of backups, neither of them sing to me quite like my beloved (and extremely knackered) main body. So I found myself simply not taking any photos which is rather silly. Then again it has mostly been June, and as any fule kno, June is always spectacularly rubbish on the bird front. There has been a lot going on with insects, mainly organised by Tim as part of Wanstead's BioBlitz, which has rekindled my interest in all things moths. Plants also featured, but there the limit of what my brain will absorb was reached, and I am not able to tell you anything about that unfortunately. There are plants in Wanstead, quite a few it transpires. I could have told you that from the satellite map, so not sure what we have gained there.

The birding has been dull of course, and whilst I did manage to sneak out for the long-staying Hudsonian Whimbrel, I timed my visit rather poorly and missed yet another Terek Sandpiper that obligingly turned up the following day for Whimbrel twitchers including filthy Shaun. Hopefully, with various waders beginning to trickle past, things are picking up and there will be some local interest soon. I am ready.

Poland was an eye-opener, and a quick write-up is on the way. Wonderfully beautiful habitat stuffed full of Corncrakes and other good things, an inexplicable lack of raptors, residential buildings going up at the rate of one every fifteen seconds, thousands of people out for a stroll, and some of the most dreadful food I have ever had the misfortune to have grace my plate. The Nutcrackers were present and correct, but not as obliging as I had hoped and possibly not worth a 20km hike up a mountain from a photographic perspective. Especially not with a broken camera - hindsight is a wonderful thing.... Despite its age the economics pointed to a fix, and the fab folk at Fixation in London had the estimate to me under two hours after dropping it off, and had it back to me in under 24 hours. Slightly eye-watering, but averaged across the years it's bearable, and I've got what from some angles looks like a brand new camera. Crucially it now has a new shutter which was the source of most of the ruined images, operator stupidity of course being responsible for the rest. They wouldn't tell me how many I had put through the original but said it was comfortably over 200k. And because a fair portion of the outside of it has also been replaced, all the dents, scratches, bare metal and the weirdly crushed and depressed flash hot-shoe are now all gone. All I can say in my defence is that cameras are for using in the field come what may, and cotton wool doesn't come into it. I'm looking forward to many more trips with my rejuvenated trusty brick.

I've also finally finished my Washington write-up. Even if you don't like birds or America, please go and read it as so far the stats don't reflect quite the effort that has gone into it. Day 6 has a mere 38 clicks yet includes a shadow of Snuffi. It could be that people have been flummoxed, as I have, by the disappearance of the URL following me being too slack to renew the domain name and instead being directed to a page where they could buy www.wansteadbirder.com from underneath my very nose. Would that I had sorted it out before it expired as whilst there hasn't exactly been a rush to blackmail me into buying back my own url, getting it all working again properly has been a form of modern day torture. No idea how long it has been dead for, but possibly since the last week of June. The good news is that my feeble brain finally worked out what needed to happen and the site is back up. I can hear the collective sigh of relief from here......

Miscellany

It's only Monday, and I have nothing much to say. As usual there is no restraint, so this is a post of minor and miscellaneous items, including a great new joke I just thought of.

1) My new phone finally works just like my old phone, but is better in one key respect. The touchscreen can be used with gloves, you have to up the haptic transmission or some such gobbledegook. I have no idea if it works yet because before I thought to try it I packed my one remaining pair of gloves off to Shetland in the Braddersmobile. I join the guys on Wednesday night, so let's hope for a memorable trip with lots of haptism. And that the guys save up finding the big one for Thursday.

2) All my shirts are worn out and I am too tight to buy any more. Actually the problem is twofold. They are literally wearing out, especially around the collar and cuffs, but the other problem is that some of them are, shall we say, a little tight. Then again, many of them I bought when I started work around fifteen years ago, and I am a different person now. Perhaps two people.... I don't mind spending money, but I hate doing so on clothing, in particular work-related clothing, which is in my view money wasted. I am still able to look scruffy in nice expensive clothes, so what's the point? Other than to avoid the sad day when I have a stretch at work and my shirt cleaves in two, I cannot think of one. 

3) Here's the joke:
Q: How many birders does it take to change a long-life low-energy light bulb?
A: One, but he will have to do it every three months because they are A COMPLETE AND UTTER CON.
It's not very good, is it?

4) Apparently my reaction to badger news is called Compassion Fatigue, and is a known phenomenon. All the responses to my post have been very good, and indeed since I posted it I have probably received more badger-related tweets than ever before, so a great own goal there. The next big thing is going to be foxes by the looks of it. The Government, saviours of our countryside (for rich people who back them) and all-round nature-lovers, would appear to want to bring hunting with hounds back again. Marvellous. Seriously, when do I next get to vote? They'll be bringing back Poor Houses soon, and introducing tithes. Anyway, what we clearly need is an ageing rock star, an endless twitter campaign, and an e-petition. But then we might all forget about the badgers. A tricky one. As far I know, Badgers don't shred my rubbish bin and shit on my front path, so I'm going to vote for them in the next election. I'm sorry if that means all the foxes have to die. Perhaps they could form a coalition and ease my conscience?

5) Per my stats - the same stats that appear to go back to 2007 - this blog that I started in 2009 has now seen precisely 1000 posts. This is probably one of the worst ever, but believe me when I say that it becomes a lot more difficult the longer you carry on. During these thousand posts I have, I hope, entertained, and perhaps occasionally remained sufficiently serious to have made people think a little. I also know for a fact I have annoyed a few people; this is always easy, and comes very naturally. My personality, a complex mix of warmth, idiocy, arrogance and intolerance, cannot help but shine through. There is a certain amount of exaggeration of course, a certain amount of playing to the camera, but ultimately I am what I am, and I write what I write. And as I have always said, if you treat my writing entirely seriously, then that only makes one of us. So I hope to continue in both directions, lest I get bored, and on balance there is still probably more good than bad, more entertainment than ranting and moaning, and more smiles than frowns. Or at least that's the general idea.

And finally, no blog post would be complete without a nice photo. Sorry, image, what was I thinking? Clearly in a post so littered with filler and padding it would be very wrong of me to post one that was in any way relevant to the subject matter, so here is one that bears no relation to anything at all. I've entitled it "A work in progress", mainly because it is a work in progress, and there is still work to be done. Just like this blog. I reckon I'm getting somewhere with the photo though.

A work in progress

Ten things I have learned recently

Ten things I have learned recently.

1) I have more stuff to do than I can possibly get done, and that something will have to give, I'm just not sure what yet.

2) Being intolerant and shouty is almost three times as popular as anything having to do with birding, and four times more popular than my children. Natch.

3) Taking photos is the easy bit, processing them is hard.

4) 16 months of unopened bills and other crap that arrives through the letter box is about two feet high and takes four hours to reduce to about a centimetre.

5) People do not like constructive criticism and would prefer to hear only nice things about the complete and utter dross that they have produced.

6) I am crap at dieting.

7) Roller might have been my 400th bird, not Dusky(ish) Thrush.

8) I should not have sold my 135mm f2 lens.

9) My toe still hurts.

10) Finding things to blog about is next to impossible, but gratuitous photos help.

Start of the week

Bar the Cuckoo, a slightly disappointing weekend for mid-May. Nevermind eh, always next weekend...... there are only so many weekends I can say about surely? The only tick in UK existence for me were the resident White-billed Divers up in the Moray Firth. They could have been a shoe-in, and were I more dedicated I might perhaps have gone, but a 20 hour round trip would have destroyed me. I've also grown bored of tweeting how amazing I am at birding, and so really have very little to say.

Today I was at Canary Wharf, and the major news, bar my massive dedication and another nearly 11 hour day, is that I have purchased some new sunglasses which I hope will revolutionise my birding. They differ in two critical ways from my old sunglasses. Firstly they are pretty much flat and so are extremely easy to use with bins. The old ones were the curvy ones which proved extremely problematic with bins, to the point where I gave up and just squinted. God knows how many Marsh Harriers I missed. Secondly, I know exactly where the new sunglasses are, which is something I cannot say about the old ones, and which precipated their purchase this afternoon. According to the sales assistant, I was the first customer to spend time down one end of the shop trying on sunglasses and then looking through binoculars to the other end of the shop. She took it very well to be fair, as did all the other punters. In fact not a word was spoken, nary a glance stolen. I guess this being Canary Wharf, people are far too self-absorbed to notice a nondescript yet dashingly handsome young man pissing about with optics in the corner of a shop. I am now much poorer, with a highly uncool pair of sunnies made by.....er, I don't actually remember and they are downstairs and I am upstairs. Paul somebody I think. Anyhow, they look like toy sunglasses, but during an extensive test were the ones which proved easiest to get a clear view though using my bins (with the eyecups retracted). Here's to many hours of successful and soothing skywatching.

Note I say successful skywatching. This is critical part. Unsuccessful skywatching is really dull, and I partook in something like seven hours of it on Sunday. The first three were on Hackney Marshes whilst watching my son play in a cricket match. The cricket was obviously highly absorbing (Wide. Wide. Wide. No ball. Wide.) but nonetheless I found time to gaze at a birdless sky. I continued doing this when I got home, scoring almost as many good birds. Not a single raptor in seven hours. I would descibe my performance as zeroic, a new word I have just invented. Perhaps it was due to my lack of sunnies. Wanstead CC won the match, with Muffin bowling the penultimate over when the game was in the balance. One wicket maiden later and it was all over. Bamboozled the poor kid for five deliveries, with the sixth neatly knocking off the off stump bail. Attaboy!

In other news, I've started a diet. It's called the 5-2 diet, I'm sure you've heard of it. The idea is that you eat like a pig and drink like a fish for five days out of seven, and consume practically nothing for the other two. I started last week, and the first five days were remarkably easy. A breeze, the most enjoyable diet I've ever been on. Today was more difficult....