Starling Stake-out

The patch is beginning to get me down. It's May, and I can't find anything. Meanwhile my co-patch-workers have turned up a Reed Warbler, a Cuckoo, several Turtle Doves, a Red Kite, and a Common Tern. My best find of late has been a Pigeon. Or perhaps a Canada Goose, not sure which is better. So I'm in a bit of a strop. All patch-workers go through phases like this I suppose, when things don't go so well, and I know it'll get better, but I'm a bit frustrated as I've been working it quite hard (apart from when I've been in Norfolk or Kent).

This morning was no different. It was cold, but relatively clear, and whilst Whitethroat were abundant, I couldn't turn up anything else. After a 6am start it's not really what you want. What I'd really like is some sea to watch, but unless something spectacular happens in Wanstead, I'm a bit stuffed. Actually if Wanstead becomes a sea-watching location, we're all a bit stuffed.

After about 90 minutes of nothing, and feeling genuinely cold in mid-May, I gave up on finding rare migrants and reverted to plan B, which was to see how the Starlings are getting along. Fine is the answer, and I spent a happy twenty minutes watching the adults come and go. They were mostly feeding in the long grass, and had no trouble at all in finding tasty morsels for the hungry chick. I don't know how many are in there, but I only ever saw one poke its head out. Mum (or Dad, in the world I inhabit) did poke her head in though, presumably to ensure fair distribution. Patch-working -the excitement never ends.

"Mum! I think I've been sick!"

Bird Race - the results

The first result is that I'm still alive, we didn't wipe out. This is no mean feat after a 22 1/2 hour day that began at 00:50. Luckily I managed a six hour sleep, so didn't feel too bad after picking Bradders up at 01:30.

Before heading up to the Brecks, we decided to try a few spots in Epping Forest for Tawny Owl. You would think that remote spots in Epping Forest would be rather quiet in the middle of the night, save for the hooting of owls. You would be wrong. Epping Forest is in fact a hive of activity at 2am. Suspicious activity, quite possibly insalubrious. Not a word I use often, I've just looked up "insalubrious" in an online dictionary. Definitions include "not promoting health", "unwholesome", "unpleasant", and "sordid". I reckon I've hit upon the right word. About two minutes after pulling into the first carpark that we tried, we were surprised to see two cars heading out of the woods back to the main road. We were even more surprised when the second of the two cars pulled up behind us and turned its lights off. I must have had a sheltered upbringing. We left.

We were in the Brecks and birding before 3am. Against the backdrop of Sedge Warblers, we got both our target birds, Nightingale and Tawny Owl, and hit Lakenheath before sunrise. This was our first major stop, and by the time we left at 06:45, we were on 56 species, including the expected Orioles and Bittern. By the time we reached the coast just before midday, we were on 90, having ticked Mistle Thrush at 60mph.

Bird #100 was a Gannet offshore at Salthouse at 12:53, where an amazing coffee from the little van put a spring back in our step. I'd been up for exactly 12 hours, and was feeling it. The coffee was sensational, and it was now we started to get a bit more urgent about it. Tick and run mode was fully engaged, but birds were becoming more difficult now. Luck was on our side though, as we picked up the Crane on Holkham Freshmarsh in under two minutes, and the Montagu's Harriers at the usual spot took even less than that.

We blasted into Titchwell on 120 at 14:12, scattering Tilley Hats off the path as we progressed to the beach. We spent an hour and a half here and cleaned up, leaving on 133 with a very late Pochard and a pair of Ruddy Ducks that we had somehow missed on the way in. We dashed down Gypsy Lane, jammed a Bullfinch and Kingfisher, before bagging the reported Red-necked Grebe. Hunstanton added Fulmar within tens seconds, and a flock of Bar-tailed Godwit within a minute, and a quick scan of the beach at Heacham finally secured a Knot, bird number 139 at 7pm. Could we make 140?

Missing potential birds at this stage included Jay, Corn Bunting, Golden Pheasant and Little Owl. We gave Wolferton twenty minutes but drew a blank, and then cruised some country lanes for Corn Bunting, but this late in the day, with a brisk northerly, something which had nagged us all day, there was nothing doing. Final stop Flitcham for Little Owl, make or break. We couldn't find one in the usual tree, but DB pulled one out of a more distant one for the 140th species of the day. The time was exactly 8pm and we had been going for nineteen hours.


Somehow we made it home, and after dropping off Bradders, I finally collapsed into bed at 23:30. Easily my longest day in the field, surpassing by a couple of hours a crazy day in Scotland last year. 140 is a pretty damn good result given the weather and lack of any birds to twitch. The rarest thing on our list was probably Temminck's Stint, which in Norfolk in mid-May is indicative of extreme paucity. We never did get a Jay, nor a Yellow Wagtail. With better weather and a few decent birds on the coast, 150 should be achievable, but that will have to wait for another year.

So, a very silly day. I cannot explain it rationally, but I enjoyed it immensely. Bird of the day award went to two Otters which we watched feeding for over ten minutes in the Brecks, easily the best views I've had outside Bungay. A mammal tick was gained in the form of a Mole, flailing around on the surface on the path at Titchwell, and a butterfly tick, Green Hairstreak, at Friary Hills. Now I'm going back to sleep.

Bird Race

Tomorrow I am doing a bird race. This is possibly even stupider than twitching, for instance it involves getting up at 1am and going birding in the dark. The idea is to see as many species as possible in a day, so you have to start in the dark and cross your fingers that you hear Owls and stuff.

When it starts to get light, you get the dawn chorus, and then you spend the rest of the day hooning it from place to place trying for specific species, with perhaps the odd twitch thrown in for good measure. You also drink a lot of coffee. I cannot begin to describe how silly this is going to be, but even sillier is that I am looking forward to it. If we do amazingly well, we might get 150 species, but I think our real target is more like 140, which is still loads. My best day out netted 115 species, so that's my personal target. What, just go out birding, don't make any lists, and enjoy myself? Are you mad?

Anyway, if we don't fall asleep and wipe ourselves out on a quiet country road, I'll report back early next week on how it went. Ta-rah!

"Idiots..."

Election Special!

Election Fever is gripping Wanstead! Not really. Much as I detest politics, I went and did my civic duty this morning. Having instantly recycled every single piece of election pamphleteering that came through the door, I was surprised when I got to the Polling Station to see that one of the local candidates lives on my street! I didn't vote for them. They tried to get planning permission to build a 20 storey extension in their back garden, like parking round here isn't screwed already. It got refused thankfully, but I certainly didn't want them having any say in local planning regulations, so I voted for someone else. I can't even remember their name, but they were from the Green Party, and thus presumably marginally less smarmy than all the others.

I'm ashamed to say that having thrown out all the bumpf, I hadn't a clue what any of their policies or pledges were and so voted somewhat randomly. I had a look at the first few bits that arrived, but that was so long ago I can't remember who they were from or what they said. The initial trickle turned into a deluge though, and I was just sick of the waste - the amount of stuff we ended up getting through the door was ridiculous. Mountains of it. Mostly it was from the three larger parties, but the smaller ones got in on the deforestation too. The BNP managed to deliver a glossy one-pager on how lovely, caring, and misrepresented they are (I didn't read it) and I think the Christian Alliance's key policy pledge was to end sex education for five year olds (I didn't read that either, so I could just be making it up).

So not really having read any of it, I found myself at a bit of a loss in the polling booth. It would have been helpful if the candidates' hobbies had been listed on the wall or something. Surely at least one of them must have been a birder and thus secured my vote?

Anyway, no doubt my vote will have made all the difference. I'll tell you tomorrow. I'm thinking about staying up to watch it, but probably won't. It will be a surprise in the morning. Anyway, if I go to sleep at a sensible time I can get up early and go birding. There are some things that politicians can't change.

The candidate from the Mallard Party.

Inevitable Springtime Post. Look away now.

1-2-3 Awwwwww!!

Lovely light out on the Flats this morning, and I couldn't believe my luck when I saw two Canada Geese leading their goslings out of the water for a morning feed on the grass. Irresistible. I forgot all about the Siberian Rubythroat I had been photographing and moved straight onto these.

For larger and more satisfying cuteness, you can click on the photos. If you need high-res files so that you can print them out poster size and hang them all over your house and postively bask in the cuteness, get in touch. Similarly, if you are selling your property, forget about baking bread before a viewing, just replace all your current pictures with these and double the asking price.

Iberian Chiffchaff. Again.

Given that the girls and I had seen the Iberian Chiffchaff on Friday, Muffin felt left out. Despite being only six, he is getting interested in the concept of listing, and, put simply, he didn't want the girls to have seen something he hadn't. Poor kid. So we had to go again, which was no bad thing. I am a proper birder, not one of these tick and run types, so an opportunity for further study was welcomed. Yesterday evening I even went as far as reading the BWP entry for Chiffchaff, some fairly indigestible reading, and although the book was printed before ibericus was invented, it contained quite a bit of information on what was then the sub-species brehmii. I'll quit before this post becomes just too interesting to bear, but suffice it to say that I was fairly intrigued and didn't mind going back one little bit. With the camera, naturally.



After some irritating early morning tyre trouble, we picked up Paul en-route, and were soon at the site. The bird did not disappoint - it seems to favour a small oak to the left of the path, and returned there fairly frequently. When we realised this, rather than hunt for it in the canopy, we shot the breeze and waited. Muffin was very particularly adept at spotting it when it did pop out, mostly before me it pains me to say. My poor fading eyesight....


We set up both the camera and the scope, and had rather fantastic views. In addition to singing, it also called this time. I'm not sure I'll remember it, but it was clearly something different. The song is very distinctive though, so when one turns up in Wanstead I'll have no trouble. And of course, Wanstead being the rarity hotspot that it is, it's a matter of when, not if.

One-hundred and Eighty!

Should have been 181, but the less said about that the better. Still, had a rather good day out all told, added a Rainham year tick, three national year ticks, three London year ticks, and a London life tick. I also won an award for being really really cool.

Whilst the best bird of the day went to Roy's singing Wood Warbler at Fisher's Green, it was all about the Terns. First a Little Tern on KGV, as well as some Skua or other, and then later, at Rainham, three rather elegant Black Terns wheeling around Aveley Pools. I spent an hour attempting to photograph them, which was incredibly difficult as their flight is very erratic, the background kept changing, and the light was rather dull. After half an hour of frustration, I ended up on manual focus and manual exposure. So much for technology. Out of 700 shots, perhaps 20 are acceptable, and I don't really like any of them. But, dear reader, they're all I've got, so here they are.




Well, two of them anyway. Although I can do what I want on here, I am sensitive to the fact that twenty near-identical pictures of a slightly blurry Black Tern might not go down too well. You should also be grateful for that fact that I have avoided using any terrible puns for the title of this post, unlike some of my compatriots..... Bad pun of the day Award goes to Dave C. The Skua was initially called as a Pom, and then became an Arctic. When I asked him what had happened to the spoons (for adult summer Pom Skuas have spoon shaped tail streamers), replied that they had "forked off"!

My London year-list now stands at 180, hence the title of the post. This is pretty good going for May 2nd. The last few days have seen me add Sandwich Tern, Sanderling, Little Stint, Little Tern, Black Tern and Wood Warbler - all of them good birds for London, and not guaranteed. Obviously I'm not counting my chickens, but I'm still hopeful of getting to 200. Chickens aren't BOU eligible, which is why I'm not counting them.