Pride

Yesterday I had the day off, planned at the last minute. So did you go, most people have asked. No. No I didn't. I chilled out at home and thought how happy I was sat on the terrace drinking a chilled beverage, and how unhappy I would have been on the M3. Fervertly hoping that the bird (a Short-billed Dowitcher, mega, but hardly setting the world on fire) would depart asap, I have but one more night of crossing my fingers. If it stays put, tomorrow I'm going to Lodmoor with the rest of the world for some first-class muppetry. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Not twitching things immediately comes easier once you've missed a few things, you come to the realisation that there is no point going for absolutely everything as if you were that bothered you would have gone for that Orphean Warbler, and you would have gone for that Rufous-tailed Robin or whatever it was. So one more miss just doesn't hurt anymore, and I feel nothing but pride for not cracking.

Anyhow, with my day off I pottered around the patch not seeing a great deal, dialled into a work conference call (Mr dedicated), and sat around skywatching (one Sparrowhawk) with a beer. It's all about quality of life. Then at about 4pm, a new computer arrived, and my quality of life went downhill extremely quickly. No matter what people may have you believe, getting a new PC set up exactly as your old one was is a right royal pain in the wotsit. I finished around midnight, which included putting another hard drive in it, and swapping the graphics cards around, as although the new one is a lean mean fighting machine, the graphics card in it was designed with only one thing in mind; saving the manufacturer money. It has a whopping 4 terrabytes of storage, which I believe is room for around 800,000 photos of Wheatears. I look forward to filling it up rapidly, which seeing how ridiculously quickly it processes image files, shouldn't take too long at all. Maybe some Dowitcher photos would help?

Paralympic Athletics

Superb, what else can I say. The stadium rocks, the 80,000 spectators rock, and the athletes are simply unbelievable. The guys doing the high jump with one leg, blind runners keeping perfect stride with their guide runners, wheelchairs rocketing down the straight. The whole thing was amazing. Several contenders for champagne moment - the roar after Mickey Bushell won his 100m final, the cheers for Tanni Grey-Thompson doing nothing more than handing over flowers, George Osborne getting booed, and then the Argentine 5000m T12 runner Jose Luis Santero getting lapped by almost everyone - twice - and then having the whole crowd behind him on his final - and solo - 800m. A wonderful evening of sport, just to be in the stadium was a privilege. The family were in there all day, and I joined them for a second session in the evening, an excellent way to destress following more fun and frolics at work. Regular readers may have noticed that I have been [even] more grouchy than normal of late. Perhaps it's the lack of Tree Pipits, perhaps it's that I've been back at work for almost a year? Who knows, and who cares? Last night was brilliant!

We did!

Birgit Kober threw 7m further than anyone else, and set a new Paralympic record pretty much every time she wasn't red-flagged!

Mickey Bushell, the T53 100m Champion

Jose Luis Santero at the back, and the amazing Moroccan, El Amin Chentouf at the front. His glasses were 8x32s I think.

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......

My new favourite blog

Today I went to the paralympics with Muffin. In common with most places I have been recently, I made a new friend. My new friend is a man whose son was calling the paralympic athletes names. I objected to this, and said it was disrespectful, to put it mildly. I am apparently a prat who should keep my mouth shut, and were he anywhere else he would have battered me. Nice man. The poor kid has no chance really, has he? Upshot? They left.

This however is not what I wanted to talk about, I just cite it as another example of near-martyrdom of the kind that happens about once a day at the moment. What I actually wanted to talk about was my new favourite blog. My Sister-in-law and her husband who are staying at the moment put me onto it, and it is a work of rare genius.

Bald Monkey Seen a Bird

It must be incredibly difficult to write, but I really appreciate the effort that goes into it. Please go and have a read of it. Read the whole thing if you can, you will come across gems like this: "Went to PC World. Ironically seen a very un-PC Herring Gull spouting fascist diatribe at a man who’d bought a laptop." Superb. Anyway, that's enough from me. I need a good sleep to prepare myself for whichever twat I'm certain to meet tomorrow. Bye for now!

A patch Reed Warbler. Anyone wanting directions for it can take a hike.

  

Soothing

These should....

....help redress....

....the balance.

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.

Invasion of the Chats

I've been saying for a while now that I wanted some decent shots of Whinchats, and indeed part of the reason for abandoning the Wryneck (which is still present, by the way, for it's fifth day, meaning that we have now have an entire fortnight of patch Wryneck) at the weekend was because I wanted to run around after Chats. That and all the twitchers. Anyhow, the single Whinchat present was in no mood for photography, and so I ended up chasing Wheatears around instead, and this was no bad thing.

The broom fields make for excellent Chat chasing, with paths running all over the place, and God only knows quite how many times I diligently followed them round and round in a large circle. I probably covered miles. Unfortunately Wheatears can fly much faster than I can walk. They can also walk/hop much faster than I can fly..... which means that I am always playing catch-up. More often than not my attempts to get close to them were ruined by the good old general public, memorably on one occasion when I was flat on my stomach, inching towards a bird with my camera in front of me, a man actually stepped over me without so much as uttering a word. I was too amazed to even say anything, and the Wheatear naturally flew off. It was one of those rare moments where I retrospectively wished I'd had a speargun..... Anyway, eventually a bird let me get reasonably close to it as it perched on a log, the results of which you saw yesterday.

Oh, OK then.....

So, today it was the turn of Whinchats, and with up to six on the Flats it was as good a time as any. Well, apart from when there are zero, as that would be rubbish for Whinchat photography. Four of the birds were together near the viz-mig watchpoint, and unless they somehow flanked me, possibly another two nearer to South Copse. It was very difficult to get close to them, as usual. But with my stupidly long lens and a converter, and some cropping, I reckon I've just about done OK. They won't win any prizes, but they're the best photos - so far - of Whinchats I've ever taken. I had been contemplating going out to Essex where Russ says there are some good opportunities, but if these birds stick around I'll keep trying closer to home. A Wheatear was with the Whinchats - hard as it was, I studiously ignored it...

These three Whinchats were in the broom fields in a small sticky up plant just to the left of centre path, about 8/17ths of the way along, moving SSE to NNW. The bush is precisely 95.3cm tall, and the birds were found in the upper 15-20cm of the bush. One was on the fourth vertical stem from the left, with another three stems in from the right on the stem that leans in at about 80 degrees. The final bird was almost at the very top, one branch to the left of the tallest stem. Hopefully this will be sufficient to enable you to find them. Oh hang on a minute, they have wings.... Shit.