I have just been told off by Mrs L. Uh-oh. She has read my blog. The gist of the rebuke was that I am am grumpy and unpleasant. She knew this 12 years ago of course, yet somehow went ahead with it. Nonetheless, I should be nicer and quit moaning. But look, it has gained me an acolyte, as I'm back up to 143! Welcome, whoever you are, to this lovely post about Fluffy Bunny Rabbits.
Not really. I am terminally grumpy. Ranting does get a little tiring though, so here is some happy news: I have sold a photograph. No, really. I can scarcely believe it myself. A graphic designer got in contact via my other website, expressing an interest in using an image on a display panel somewhere in Ireland. I nearly fell of my chair. Anyway, I acted entirely professionally, made up a price, sent an invoice, and very shortly afterwards a cheque arrived in the post. I might get it framed, as it might be the only one ever! Pay the mortgage it will not, but I am dead chuffed. All those hours in a darkened room slaving over post-processing, creating the website, watermarking the images.....it's not even that good a photo, but it meets this guy's needs so there you go. As Art Morris would say, it passed the pen test. I am under no illusions as to where my future lies though.
Yup, Canary Wharf. If famille L are to remain warm and fed, C-dub is where I must go. I was there today. And most of this week. It is one of the great annoyances of life that one either always suffers from a lack of time, or a lack of money. Some people unfortunately suffer from both, but not many people are unafflicted by either and can do what they will. I wish I was one of them, but I am not. I often wonder what I could do that I enjoy and that would not involve CW, yet would allow us to get by, and have always concluded that it is easiest to continue what I am doing. Maybe I'm not brave enough?
PS If anyone wants training in ranting, very reasonable rates, do drop me a line.
Awful news. I have just noticed that I'm losing acolytes at a rate of knots! The other day it was a massive 144, a couple of days ago it dropped to 143. Ah well, people do die I thought to myself. Today it's down to 142...another four and a bit months and it'll be none at all!
It's probably because I shouted at that old woman on the Flats at the weekend. Hours of pent up anger all came out in one go when some people flushed some Fieldfares I was stalking. Yes, you understand me correctly, it wasn't even her, and yet she copped the flak, including the use of those filthy words "bloody", "people" and "dogs". To her credit, and beleing her old age, rather than gasp with a prim "well I never" and run away, she said I should move house if I didn't like it. Touché. But how could she have possibly known I lived here? I might just have been visiting.....
It has been bad lately. The number of witless acts I've been on the receiving end of, both at home and further afield, has really been getting to me. Testy at the best of times, downright unfriendly at other times, I've become prone to snapping quite quickly. It will get me stabbed one of these days. Though not, I hope, by old ladies. Actually, maybe I hope that it is by old ladies, as I might just stand a chance. It's just that there are too many people using too small a space, and any aims and ambitions I might have are completely incompatible with urban London. Birders are a grumpy lot for the most part, it is no surprise that many leave London for less well-populated climes. The answer is probably a combination of a stagnant patchlist on the one hand, combined with a certain amount of world-weariness and loathing of their fellow man on the other. Factor in rising house prices and it's no wonder many of them jack it in and move away. A long way away. Lately I've been feeling the same, though I doubt this has come across in my blog. Not that I get much opportunity to get out on the patch of course, but when I do the level of immediate (and idiotic) disturbance I face is perhaps doubly hard to bear. Half the time I don't even feel like going out as I know that somebody is going to ruin it for me within a hundred yards. And that's a fact. It's not a maybe, or a perhaps, it's a cast-iron certainty. Be they dog-walkers, people out for a walk, Polish drunks, model airplane fliers or whoever, none of them understand what birding is about, and less than none of them understand bird photography, which is of course my major gripe.
Perhaps I am being unrealistic, but would you walk in front of a camera that someone was clearly aiming at something? Would you continue towards the person clearly looking at something through binoculars directly between you and them? Is that a level of understanding too far? Maybe it would depend on your mood? I still remember with great affection the man who slowly and deliberately threw a stick into the water for his dog right into the middle of some close-in Tufties I was photographing on the Heronry Pond, and when I looked round gave me a little wave. Although this was several years ago, I was pleased to find his photo in my extensive files, and so for the first time can share it with you. I had called the image "Tosser" for reasons now lost in the mists of time. Perhaps it will come back to me.
Clearly this was blatant git-ism; most of the time it is of course completely innocent and people just do not realise. It would be nice if they sometimes showed a little grace when the error of their ways was pointed out to them, but hey, this is London, and as I've proved recently, grace goes both ways.
At the risk of boring you all, I went to Dartford this morning to see the extremely approachable Slav Grebe. So did everybody else - just look at my links! When I got there Kev J, Mick S and Richard S were already there, Shaun and Monkey had already been, and Redsy, Rich B and Hawky turned up after I did! Bloody photographers..... I've been wanting to see this bird all week, and when I found out that it was on the small lake again yesterday evening, it was too late! I'd have liked several hours with it, but today was not a birding day, and it was either a smash-and-grab raid with the kids this morning or nothing at all. It was a tick for all three of them though, so fairly easily justified. Typically, and I know I'm a moaning old whingebag, there was too much light - black and white birds in full sunlight are a right old pain - always work in manual, as AV will lead you a merry dance in these conditions. I took a couple of test shots as soon as I got there which were nearly on the money (and almost recoverable) - shame then that this was the highlight of the action - the Grebe caught an enormous fish - it might have been a species of fin whale. It then went and had a quiet vomit and some Rennies under the trees at the back before doing another quick circuit of the pond. I caught it on the way back round, but then it was time to go. I took exactly 86 shots, four of which are below, and was there for a total of about 45 minutes, most of which was spent nattering about lenses and an upcoming trip to Morocco. Mick, who smashed it during the week in ideal light, didn't even turn his camera on, admirable restraint. I'm relatively pleased with what I got - as I said when I turned up, all I had to do was take a crappy hand-held shot with the bird right on the other side of the pond and I'd have my best ever photo of Slavonian Grebe right there.
The rest of the day was spent as a cleaner and taxi driver, ferrying children to and fro from parties, and generally being a good father. I managed another quick hour on the Flats during which I saw diddly squat - my patch list is dead in the water and it's only January. The bad thing about this is that I don't actually care. I caned through God knows how many frames this weekend and had an absolute ball doing it. Heaps more to come once I've finished going through them, however another week of work beckons, and I can tell you now that it's going to be a bad one!
Been wanting to have a day devoted to simply blasting away at things, and for once a sunny day coincided with a weekend when I wasn't busy. Hurrah! I was up and out immediately after a nice lie in, and my first stop was the "orchard" on the Flats. This contained a solitary Fieldfare which promptly flew off when it saw my red camo hat. The local Blue Tits proved more accommodating, and seemed to think it might be spring. I suspect tomorrow they'll realise they've screwed up.
A quick pass by the Alex was a waste of time, the light being completely against me, but I notched up another fine count of Greylag with 24 birds pottering around the car park, hoping against hope no doubt for some mouldy pitta breads. Moving on to the Park I hoped for better opportunities, but nothing doing either on the Heronry or on Perch. Hmmm, so much for my big day of constant shutter-hammering. I decided to try the Ornamental Waters, and I'm glad I did. Apart from Joe Public, it was absolutely perfect. The ice-free bit was in front of the sun, and the Gadwall and Mallards were enjoying precisely the area that was best from my point of view. I cantered serenely past 400 shots in no time at all, a few of which are shown below. Too many? Probably.
Learning from Mick that my next destination of Fisher's Green was closed, and hopes of Bittern therefore dashed, my backup plan was to head back to Hyde Park for another crack at the Bearded Tits, so I hastened home for a quick bite to eat, an Oystercard, and a bag in which to conceal and transport various bits of camera. Despite saying very sternly to myself that I would stay awake on the tube and thus prevent my valuable possessions from being snaffled from under my very nose, I fell asleep more or less instantly. I have a habit of doing this on public transport, but luck was on my side this time as I woke up at Bond Street only a few stops before I needed to get off, and my bag was still at my feet. Up the lifts at Lancaster Gate and out into glorious sunshine and blue sky. No ISO 1600 for me! Until about ten minutes later when I got to the Bearded Tits of course, when the sky clouded over, the sun disappeared, and once again I found myself cranking it up. A real shame given the effort I'd made, but c'est la vie I suppose.
There are two things I like about Hyde Park. One is that the birds are all very tame. And two is the continuing presence of Bearded Tits. There are however fifty-thousand things I don't like about Hyde Park, and they are all people. There are people everywhere, and if you have a camera on a tripod you are PUBLIC PROPERTY. If I had a pound for every person today who prevented me from taking photos and asked me what I was doing and what I was looking at, I would be able to retire before Monday. Ye Gods, the number of cretins I had to deal with today was unparallelled! When will people learn that if you're pointing a camera at something then the one (three) thing(s) you want is space, peace, and quiet, and not a crowd of jabbering idiots all around you? The low point was when a Japanese tourist physically inserted his head between my head and my viewfinder in order to look down my lens. No asking, no please may I, he just stuck his head there. Unbelievable. I threw him in the Serpentine - didn't ask his permission, just chucked him straight in. You make your bed, you gotta lie in it. In the end, I actually gave up talking. There are only so many times you can say that there are Bearded Tits in a reed bed, what Bearded Tits look like, if Bearded Tits are rare, where Bearded Tits come from, if they are making A FUCKING NEST! Imbeciles.....So to anyone who encountered a grumpy git in a red hat who completely and utterly ignored them, including the Scottish chap who complained to passers by that I wouldn't tell him how many birds there were, or indeed anything at all, please accept the fact that I hate you all and if I ever see you again in my entire life it will be too soon. There, glad I got that off my chest. I complain about various segments of humanity here in Wanstead, but if I had somewhere like Hyde Park as my patch I reckon I would go completely loopy. Or spend quite a lot of time behind bars for assault.
Fieldfare is possibly my favourite thrush, though Siberian is a close call. Unfortunately most of those turn out to be either fictional or recently-purchased. The Fieldfares on Wanstead Flats however are very real and entirely wild. Despite my sterling efforts in reuniting ex-dogs with their sad owners, Nick is still far more compassionate than I am, and when the snow started he went around and plonked a few apples on a couple of Hawthorns near the viz-mig point to help the birds get through it. These were found pretty much instantaneously, and so far these treats (along with coconut and oats) have been enjoyed by not only Fieldfare, but also by Jay, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Song Thrush, Dunnock, Robin, Blackbird and Waxwing). Hawthorns are fairly tangled affairs, so getting a clean perch is verging on the impossible, but I spent a happy half hour there this lunchtime. Mainly this was to get out of the House of Vomit I currently reside in, I figure I can't catch it if I'm stood ankle-deep in snow in the middle of the Flats. All too soon it was time to get back to the day job though, and to once again run the gauntlet of extreme bacterial infection. So far I've not succumbed, thanks largely I feel to large and regular dosages of cask strength Caol Ila. I'm a big believer in preventative medicine...
A few more Lapwings today didn't really repay the effort I put into the patch this weekend. I jacked it in at lunchtime and came home to play with the kids. The Lego-fest I had had in mind never materialised, as Muffin has now caught whatever Pudding had, and thus felt more like throwing up all over the place than playing. Poor kid, he had to watch his sisters playing in the snow whilst he felt rotten indoors - as a nine year old that's pretty much the last thing you want to have happen. Pudding's troubles lasted three days, so this is just the beginning, and we still have a kid to go. Touch wood neither Mrs L nor I have yet to go down with it, but I have this horrible suspicion that it is only a matter of time, and that is about the last thing I need. Though of course fairly good news from a weight-loss point of view. Anyhow, it's been a while since the kiddos made it to these pages, so here are a few from the snowman-making in the garden this afternoon. He's called Nathan, and I forgot to take a photo of him - perhaps tomorrow if I'm stuck at home talking down the big white telephone...
I have just one piece of advice for anyone thinking of birding in Wanstead, and it is this: Never let Nick out of your sight. Not for a second, for even if you've spent the whole day with him he will go and find something good the moment you part company. Today he pretended he was off to Hyde Park to twitch the Bearded Tits, but instead went and found Goosander on the patch. I had thought I was pretty safe, and with a prior engagement in town, had headed for home not five minutes earlier. Bosh, another grip off.
In fact today was pretty grippy most of the way through. Bob initially thought he had managed to add himself to one of my favourite lists, namely the "People who have seen Woodlark on the patch who are not me" list, but on reflection cannot be sure, and then contrived to see both a Golden Plover and two Linnet over by Jubilee Pond. To make certain I saw neither of them he sent me off to the Alex to look for them and blamed it on old age - a likely story. Meanwhile Dan scooped a flock of Lapwing over by Alex that I didn't see either... it was all looking fairly bleak. Linnet is regular in autumn, not too worried about them, but Goosander I've seen just twice, and Golden Plover just once - these could be tricky birds to get back. Luckily the day wasn't a complete grip-off as the Lapwing story ended happily when I picked up another flock just a short while later - probably around 40 birds - and then a singleton over the Park. Little Egret on the Roding was another patch year-tick, so I am now sitting pretty on 66. The overall patch list is 76 though, so somehow I am 10 down within three weeks - frankly this is a tad worrying. I guess I shall just have to reconcile myself to seeing the least of anyone. Sniff.
