Dawn on the Flats

My son and I headed out into the crisp morning air about twenty minutes before sunrise. He is probably keener on photography these days than I am, and much more skilled in all matters processing. He takes a tripod and a remote, and routinely focus stacks, brackets and so on with complete competence, joining the results later on the computer - all very impressive. I accompanied him mainly in the hope of an early morning mega. Fat chance! Here instead is my contribution.

I actually got out twice today, news of the first Firecrest of the year in Bush Wood saw me spend half of a rare lunch break looking for it. Without success needless to say, but the weather was lovely and I enjoyed my twenty minutes in the mud and holly. January and February might be slow but on days like today it doesn't really seem to matter. 

Slush

For a period of about an hour this morning it actually snowed. I was in Bush Wood looking and listening for Firecrest and Treecreeper, neither of which I detected. These are usually January stalwarts but this year it is looking like they might be February birds. Hope so, February is otherwise looking rather bleak.

When the snow started I left Bush Wood and went out onto Wanstead Flats. The wide open space is where I would best see the flocks of Lapwing and Golden Plover as they flopped in from the white and frozen countryside.... Anyway, instead I found myself at the pond taking photos of the ducks in quite heavy snow. The diving ducks kept their backs clear of ice by virtue of it all coming off when they submerged, but the dabblers, Geese and Swans all developed a nice white crust. Shows quite how good their insulation is.

Needless to say the temperature changed slightly and the falling snow turned to cold rain, the wafer-thin covering of ice developing at the margins vanished, and the nice white covering that for a brief moment made Jubilee Pond look less scummy than it is rapidly turned to slush. As I type there is barely any hint of any white in my garden, I think that because I was out I simply missed it. Still it was nice to be outside in it while it lasted, snow continues to be a singularly rare event here.

Out and about

I'd been threatening to do it I suppose but this morning I forsook the patch and loaded up my bike with scope, tripod and tea to explore my 5MR. Broadly speaking I went west, taking in a few sites that I remembered from back when I used to be quite into London listing. My approximate route is below - somehow I covered 15 miles over the course of about four hours, plenty of stops. 

My first stop was Eagle Pond at Snaresbrook where there was a predictable Caspian Gull. I was also genuinely surprised to find a Black Swan, although now I think about it I do remember reading about it last weekend. From there I headed to Coppermill Lane filter beds where I was not at all surprised to come across my first Chiffchaff for the year flitting around the trees near the fence. Another called nearby.

I then entered Walthamstow Wetland and wiggled my way through to the northern reservoirs. This was rather a chore, being a public site there is a one way system and not all paths are open, and they also insist on not riding your bike. Fair enough I suppose, even though I entered as soon as it opened it soon became extremely busy and you can see that cyclists would be a problem. No such restrictions on the other side of the road though and I was able to blast up to the Lockwood and set up my scope. Dreams of waders pottering around on the banks and of flocks of rare sawbills soon evaporated, in truth I saw exactly the same species that I would have seen had I been in Wanstead, just higher numbers. 

The route home took in Walthamstow Marshes, Middlesex Filter Beds and part of the Olympic Park. By now it was late morning and having a bike did unfortunately restrict me to the same paths being used by hordes of Londoners out for a stroll. It may be better to use the roads next time to move between sites.

I viewed today as more exploratory in nature than dedicated birding. Mainly I wanted to test out the pannier and get my bearings in East London. Although all of these sites were within five miles of home some of them I have not visited for many years, and certainly getting to them by bike felt quite novel. I expect after a few sorties I will have it sussed and be able to concentrate more on the birds. Dumping the bike somewhere and then birding on foot is going to be important. As it was I recorded 46 species, the best of which was a Peregrine at Waterworks. Three were new species for the year. 

Despite the slow nature of the birding it felt good. No, it felt great actually, an adventure of sorts. Last week I went outside just once, work did not really allow for anything else - the usual excitement of January causing fellow employees to want to everything immediately. They need reminding that it is a marathon and not a sprint - I should know, this is my 21st year in working for the company. There is a lot of birding in range, January might be a bit dull but in a couple of months it will liven up considerably and my enlarged boundaries are brimming with possibilities. Can't wait!

A few sentences about a few birds

I have ventured out locally a couple of times lately. It has been hard going and I've seen nothing particularly of note, but seeing as how this is a birding blog first and foremost I suppose that I had best mention it. I saw a Kingfisher. I also saw a Kestrel. Interestingly enough I was actually looking for a Cetti's Warbler which I didn't see.  

Right now that is out of the way I can get back to the usual fare. Despite my last post being about a 5MR I managed not to leave the house at all this weekend, not even on Sunday when some blue sky appeared and which according to a contact keen on all things weather was the first view of the sun for about seven days. I did go outside though in order to a do a job that I have been putting off for ages and ages. Sorting out a recalcitrant water butt.

As a water conscious gardener I have three water butts, all of which are connected to the substantial roof area of my greenhouse. They fill up remarkably quickly, and it is very rare that I ever run out as it is something like 700 litres worth and my plants are mainly arid in nature. In winter they are hardly used at all, so I was a little surprised to find one of them empty before Christmas. This is the one which had half of the tap snapped off by my son's basketball last summer, which does make it a little less clear which way is on and which way is off. I twiddled the tap the other way, assuming that because of this I'd simply left it open, and then went and did something else. It has rained extremely heavily recently, so I assumed that it would be full again by now. However when I looked last week it was still empty. Hmmm, do I have a leak?

So when that little bit of blue sky appeared on Sunday I changed into some old clothes and went outside to sort it out. I took it off the breeze blocks it sits on and turned it upside down to have a look for cracks on the base. A huge gush of foul-smelling black sludge immediately slewed out and soaked my feet, leaving a disgusting slimy puddle on my pristine lawn moss. Excellent. Seeing I was now filthy anyway I took the opportunity to clean out the greenhouse guttering which was also pretty nasty. Anyway, after cleaning the butt out with a hose and partially filling it up again I can detect no leaks whatsoever which is all very odd. I have no idea what is going on and appear to have deposited a load of gunk on the grass for nothing. However I have now marked "on" and "off" on the side of the butt with a sharpie so that there can be more ambiguity, and the good news is that there is a lot more rain forecast for later this week and so I should find out definitively if I have sorted it out or not.

Back to the 5MR, I have now created it in eBird and the total number of species I've seen without realising it is 187. Whilst this might sound impressive I've seen more than that at a single London site, Rainham Marshes, and in any event Wanstead contributes 159 of them. That said, some of the additional 28 species are pretty tasty in a London context - Little Bunting, Fulmar, Long-tailed Duck, Tawny Pipit, Bonaparte's Gull, Melodious Warbler, Dusky Warbler. Common Rosefinch, Alpine Swift, Eider, Velvet Scoter and the only Nightjar I have ever seen perched up at a day roost.

The next step is of course to work out what I have not seen in this 5MR. That will take up some time. I swear I spend more time thinking about birds than I do actually looking at them. Of course I could just go out anyway.... a bit radical perhaps but you never know.

The 5MR

The 5MR, the Five Mile Radius. Birding, ideally in a green zero-carbon manner, no further than five miles in any direction from your front door. Even before the pandemic the 5MR was being touted as a sustainable way to bird, and has quite a large following particularly in America. But I think that in these trying times the 5MR (despite seven miles being the "local lockdown" distance as defined by the Prime Minister's recent bike ride) is increasingly relevant for all of us. As I've mentioned a couple of times recently I've been looking at ways to mix things up a bit as I think lockdown or forms of it are here to stay rather than being a temporary state of affairs. I've also said that I find birding Wanstead Flats ad infinitum rather limiting, and so in the absence of being able to travel anywhere better I have been giving serious thought to a 5MR. Extending my local horizons by a few miles is likely not going to be earth-shattering, but it will be different and that may be all I need. Many people I know have taken great solace in recent months exploring their local area and getting to know it better, whereas for my part I have done precisely nothing different at all barring nocmig and a lot of sky watching from my balcony.

I wonder what my 5MR looks like?

Well well, will you look at that? My 5MR has most of the Walthamstow Reservoirs in it, albeit only half of the Girling and excluding KGV altogether. It also has the Roding Valley Park, Coppermill Lane, Waterworks NR, Stoke Newington Reservoirs (these days aka Woodberry Wetlands), Hackney Marshes, Victoria Park, the Olympic Park, Fairlop Water, Thames Barrier Park, Galleon's Reach, Beckton Sewage Works and Barking Creekmouth - a veritable who's who of East London birding sites. Excitingly there is even some river, including the very bit of river that I am certain I've seen a Fulmar on, and possibly also a Guillemot. 

As you might expect many of the best bits are right on the edge, which if I am to cycle to them means that they are basically out of range during the working week, but come the weekend I could find myself down by the Thames or up on the Reservoirs. I have a pannier which held my shirt and tie when I flirted with cycling to work; it can easily hold my scope and tripod with very little modification. The only thing I will need to work out is how to get to some of these places safely as London traffic continues to be quite challenging.

I am about to devote a quality half hour to constructing this 5MR in eBird, which being a US platform has exactly the functionality needed. Although it is missing Rainham I am expecting that the starting point could be really rather good. I suppose the real challenge is the 5MR green year list, but it will still be interesting to find out exactly what I've seen over the years. 

Let's find out.

Slipper sloth

As you can see I have remembered what my stunningly relevant blog post last week was going to be about. Slippers. This is peak Wanstead frankly. Or peak middle age. Probably both. So here's the question: With another six weeks of lockdown ahead of us during which we are largely confined to our homes, will people mostly be wearing slippers or will they be making a bit of an effort and wearing proper shoes? Note that I am assuming people actually make the effort to get dressed, rather than slumming it in their pyjamas and dressing gowns all day. If you are one of these people then please pull yourself together, it is no way to live.

I have been wearing shoes quite a bit, even if I don't step outside. I like shoes, as I have perhaps mentioned before, and I also think that in some ways you're not fully dressed unless you have shoes on. I have no qualms at all about wearing shoes indoors. For some though the mere thought of shoes on carpets and interior flooring is just a complete no no. Back in the distant days when we used to leave our houses and visit other people in theirs, how many asked that you take your shoes off before you came in? Quite a few I'd wager.

We are not that fussy, but nonetheless Mrs L thinks it is odd that I wear shoes inside on days where I am very unlikely to go outside. She wears slippers and would not even contemplate shoes as part of the working from home wardrobe. She probably won't even look at her shoes for the whole of this period, the exception being her walking boots for short bouts of 'essential exercise'. I just don't know about that. For starters when shoes do become necessary again it may feel rather strange putting them on. During one of the earlier lockdowns I think I went for about a week wearing only slippers and when I then tried to put shoes on they felt peculiar and somehow restrictive.

I own a lovely pair of wool slippers that during the night sit by the side of my bed with some laundry fresheners in them lest they get a bit pongy. When I swung my legs out it was almost instinctive that the first thing I did was to reach for my slippers. As I picked them up the question formed in my mind as to whether or not I would be wearing shoes later on that day or not, and whether this new lockdown meant I might not wear shoes for weeks and weeks. One of the last things I remembered to grab back in March 2020 when I left my office in Canary Wharf for the last time were my two pairs of black formal shoes that I wore on rotation. They have not been touched since, it is such a waste, and I just don't want my brown shoes to sit and gather dust in the same way.

Is wearing shoes a sign that you are serious and not slovenly? If you're working from home does getting fully dressed for work, including shoes, somehow put you in a different frame of mind? Are you more purposeful, more dynamic, more awake and raring to go? And does the near permanent wearing of slippers have the opposite effect? Do they render you somnambulant and soporific? I associate slippers with weekends and evenings, with routines linked to the day either having ended or not yet started. It is how I have been conditioned over many years, and so to have them as my only footwear for months at a time just seems really odd, yet another blurring of the boundary between work and home that I am trying unsuccessfully to remove. 

I just thought I would put it out there to see if anyone else had an opinion? Saves writing about birds at any rate.

A culinary triumph!

It has been a long time since I did any cooking. The odd dabble perhaps, but since the La Fée Magique left for pastures new some years ago my time in front of the stove has been extremely limited. Les résidents du Chateau L believe that they are in the current situation for the long haul. Mid February may have been toted by our glorious leaders but we're thinking longer than that, so in the absence of going anywhere and doing anything we're trying to think of ways to mix it up a bit. As with many households meal times are one of the core familial events, and one idea we had was to take it turns to try and produce something special at weekends. This Sunday I went first, or as Mrs L would describe it, 845,489,271st.

So on Saturday afternoon I dusted off and donned my ceremonial apron. But wait I hear you exclaim! Saturday? I thought you said Sunday? Indeed dear reader you did, but Coq-au-vin is so much better if prepared the day before. So says Delia, and so that's what I did. Now I have probably posted the odd photo of food here before, I recall a post about various vegetarian triumphs last year or the year before that, but I don't think I have ever done a post about cooking a meal, or at least not for many many years. Back when I was a fully enlisted Domestic Goddess I suppose that something like this could have featured, but that is now a decade ago and largely forgotten. The children all survived, that is what matters.

So here goes. Also, to the reader who felt sufficiently moved to complain that my post about the US Capitol Riots strayed too far from the expected bird content, this contains chicken. Ca va? Anyway, apron on and sleeves rolled up. I couldn't find my tiara. Au boulot! By the way the recipe is from Delia's Complete Cookery Course, the one with a photo of her in a red top smiling radiantly on the front cover, before she started wearing yellow and became a football hooligan.

Saturday

You basically need chicken bits, bacon, onions, garlic, mushrooms, butter,  herbs and WINE!

This is it towards the end of day one. The chicken and bacon has been browned off, and the onions are doing the same next door. (NB ideally you should use small button onions of the sort that Mrs L allegedly told me were in the freezer but I allegedly wasn't paying attention). Soon I will add them to the main dish and poor in an entire bottle of cheap red plonk. The white bits are two whole cloves of garlic chopped up and sprinkled into the pan. Delia said to crush it but I couldn't be bothered.

Liberally seasoned with pepper and salt, and with both thyme sprigs and bay leaves added, the next step is to leave it to simmer for half an hour. After that turn the bits of chicken over, let the whole dish cool, and whack it in the fridge overnight.

Sunday

About an hour and a half before the meal haul it out of the fridge and slowly bring the pot back to the boil. After a further fifteen minutes of simmering add all the mushrooms. Again ideally these should be the small button mushrooms on the left, but as we did not have much chicken I elected to bulk it out with the extra ones on the right.

Let it simmer for a further half hour or so. You want those mushrooms to really absorb a lot of the flavour and liquid.

Mmmmm mmmmmmm

Yuck! This is some butter and flour that I had to hand knead into a paste. Unpleasant, but such is the life of a Domestic Goddess. Once this is ready, sieve out all the chicken, bacon, onion and mushroom until all you have is the liquid. Discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaves at this point. Then put this grotesque lump in the liquid and stir it a lot until the sauce thickens.

This is parsley and adds nothing whatsoever to the dish.

When your sauce is nice and thick recombine everything into a suitable serving dish, sprinkle the parsley on the top to make it look posh, and serve to the famished masses. Time how long they take to eat it versus how long it took you to cook it and complain vociferously about the mismatch.

Et voilà! This step requires cutlery and another bottle of wine. Traditionalists would probably say that rice has no place on the table with a dish of this calibre, and that potatoes and only potatoes should be served. And on plates! They are probably right, but in Chateau L we have only ever served this with rice and in bowls and I would urge you not to knock it until you have tried it.

So there you have it. Many compliments were paid to the chef. Children kept appearing in the kitchen on both Saturday and Sunday, attracted by the frankly divine aromas permeating throughout the entire house. Sunday morning appeared to be actual torture for at least one of them, but by about 1pm the five of us were sat down and tucking in. My eldest daughter thanked me profusely for once again eschewing potatoes, and we all wondered aloud why it was that we hadn't had this dish for years and years? A roaring success, and a major contributor to a Sunday afternoon spent doing very little indeed.