Ohio - September 2023 - Day 1 - Lake Michigan to Lake Erie

I arrived back from Bogota on Tuesday evening and was on the road again on Thursday afternoon. This was simply poor planning, or rather the timing of planning. This trip to Ohio to see my Aunt and Uncle had been in the diary for much longer than both Colombia or the Alps. When the invitation to Switzerland had arrived I had realised I could do it, and then could fulfil my mandatory two week leave by filling in the middle, which is when the Colombia idea was born. Obviously I cut that one a bit fine, and although it all looked good on paper I'd have actually quite liked a few days at home. This is always the way it happens in my experience - too quick off the mark booking things without really thinking about how they stack up, or might stack up. Somehow I always make it work, but I question my sanity at times. That said, on balance I think I'd prefer to be busy than not.

So, Ohio. Not a normal holiday destination by any means, but my connections there go back decades. It is where my Mum's family moved to when she was in her teens, where my Grandparents then lived for my entire childhood, and where my Aunt Megan and Uncle Chris (my Mum's siblings, or should that be my Mom's?) now live having spent time away. In my Uncle's case he lived all over the world working for the State Department, but after a stint in Texas and then Pennsylvania he has ended up back in Ohio. Likewise my Aunt spent many years in California and then Maryland, but is now also back in her home town in Ohio. They live on the same street, diagonally opposite one another. Maybe this is how their childhood bedrooms were laid out on the upstairs landing?

I've been visiting the small town in which they live for my entire life, and even though it can't be said that a lot happens there I really like it. It's genuine America, but intelligent America as it's a College town, and I like to think that it's a long way from JD Vance. When I was a kid this is where I first saw real snow, and I mean real snow. Snow you could do things with, snow you could sledge on. We couldn't go every Christmas, but it was a huge treat when we did. As I've got older I've maintained my relationship with the place, and with Grandparents now replaced by the next generation I continue to visit.

I flew to Chicago a day or so after getting back from Colombia. A quick turnaound but just enough time to sort a few things out, remind the family who I was and so on. My camera bag was just where I had left it, but with this not being a birding trip I left it where it was and simply extracted the clothes that I'd packed around the lens. It was an evening flight, and with Lorain about a five drive away I'd booked a motel just over the Illinois State line in Indiana that was conveniently close to what looked like some good birding. The plan was to spend the whole of the following day getting to Ohio as my Aunt was working, and then we could cook when I arrived which she likes to do. This all worked out exactly as planned, and by around 11pm local time I was ensconsed in a crappy motel near Gary ready for the next day. 

This is the route I planned to take, more or less. In addition to Indiana I planned a quick wiggle into Michigan - eBird is a powerful motivator!

This isn't my garden

My garden smells of fox piss and is covered in cat shit. Sad truths. I don't own a cat, but one or more local ones have decided that a bit of clear and very dry ground underneath a conifer makes an excellent litter tray. Bastards. I cleared this area of the lower branches last year as a place to sit in the shade, but of course it reeks and so now I don't sit there. It is just so disgusting. Nothing will grow there as the soil is sucked dry by the conifer, so the usual scented plants are a non-started. I could cover the area with potted plants but that defeats the object of having cleared it. I just don't know how to deter them. It seems that once they have discovered the area and made it their own they will keep coming back.

I don't own a fox either, but my garden is the main thoroughfare for a family of them that live under an old shed at the bottom of the garden that backs onto ours. In the winter time when the grass is long you can see the 'paths' that they create by taking the same route diaginally across my garden time and again. Unfortunately this path is not the only thing they leave behind. The problem is not so much the bin raids (used nappies from a neighbour a favourite...), though that does happen from time to time, it is the marking of their territory. Well, my territory. And as if the acrid smell of fox piss everywhere is not enough they seem to delight in crapping on things that I use. Here is their latest gift.

The accuracy and delicacy of the placement would be quite something were it not so grim. The sprinkler is something I pick up and move around the garden so it must have my scent on it, and somehow this acts as a trigger to the foxes to try and instead make it their own. They literally shit on my belongings. Or in the outbuildings if I am stupid enough to leave a door open. This isn't very nice, but actually I don't think it's as bad as the piss. I can clear crap up and dispose of it, but urine is a different proposition and can't be got rid of.  And they spray urine everywhere - a unique and persistent aroma, and one that it is next to impossible to get off your hands once you have touched it. 

I like foxes as it happens. Not cats, they have no place here, but foxes yes. Foxes are cool, and if they would just trot through my garden without doing anything that would be absolutely fine. But they don't, they leave it a stinking mess that I then find unpleasant to spend time in. Maybe this is their plan, to deter other animals including me. Pretty rude given it is my garden and not theirs, but I get it. I have one question though.

Why doesn't it deter the sodding cats?

eBruce

I took some of the family to see Springsteen at Wembley at the weekend. I should have ignored Mrs and middle child when they said they weren't fans and taken them anyway, all five of us. For me it's as close to a religious experience as exists, and mere words cannot do justice to being in the presence of greatness. The E Street Band are quite extraordinary, but Bruce Springsteen is imperious. Nearly a week on I am still in awe. He has it must be said been doing it for a long time, and has had over 50 years honing his craft, but still... it is just a different level. 

I saw the light only quite late, and I've only seen him once before in 2013. I was mesmerised., and I am not sure how I have not been to other concerts since. He was 63 then, and I was slightly concerned that now, at 74, he might be in decline. I am an idiot. In decline? Hah! If anything he has stepped it up. The power and the energy are just quite quite incredible, and it's not just The Boss. Steve Van Zandt, Nils Lofgren, Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent and Patti Scialfa are all roughly the same age as Bruce, Soozie Tyrell is only a few years younger, yet all are absolutely at the top of their game. And still doing 3+ hour gigs. His relationship with and command of a crowd of 90,000 is mind-bending. I wasn't one of the ones right at the front as last time, but I wished I had been. As a reminder, here's my view from last time vs my view this time.

2013

2024

I don't think he took a single request so in that sense his approach has changed. But the setlist was remarkably different to 2013, with 19 songs he hadn't played then - and these are not obscure tracks either, they're classics that have stood the test of time. I was particularly pleased to hear Youngstown. One of the local birders, Richard, was there too, his ninth concert. He was able to tell me how many times he'd heard various songs, almost as if he had a recreational spreadsheet...  I immediately hit on the idea of launching an App for concert-going fans to be able to record the set-lists and get some stats going - see their "blockers" and that sort of thing. I rarely have good ideas like this and was very pleased with myself. eBruce was going to make me millions. I hadn't quite enrolled on a Java coding course when I discovered that inevitably someone else had already done it. Late again.... Oh well, here's the set list from Saturday.

Lonesome Day - Candy's Room - Adam Raised a Cain - Death to My Hometown - The Promised Land - Hungry Heart - Darlington County - Tougher Than the Rest - Darkness on the Edge of Town - Youngstown - Long Walk Home - The E Street Shuffle - Nightshift (cover) -- Mary's Place - The River - Last Man Standing - Backstreets - Because the Night - She's the One - Wrecking Ball - The Rising - Badlands - Thunder Road

Encore:

Born in the U.S.A. - Born to Run - Bobby Jean - Dancing in the Dark - Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out - Twist and Shout (cover) - I'll See You in My Dreams (solo accoustic)

As you can see, the final third was just sensational. From about Wrecking Ball they just stepped it up a gear and kept on going up, roaring to the traditional Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out finish. It was exhausting and exhilarating. And I want to go again. "We'll be seeing ya" were his departing words. I sincerely hope that is true, and that it is soon.

A decadent lunch in Rotterdam

I had some time to kill last week - not able to go back to work after Brazil as I needed to complete a mandatory ten days away from the office I was at rather a loose end. Unable to face local birding and not wanting to just mooch around the house doing long-postponed jobs, quite last minute I booked a day trip to Holland to go birding. I identified a few decent looking spots around Rotterdam that I could get to on foot from the airport, packed what's left of my bins (major rubber armour flaking issues), and set off early on Tuesday morning. 

The weather had other ideas, and on arrival in Rotterdam it was overcast and extremely breezy, with intensely heavy and thundery storms in the vicinity. Being out in the wilds in these conditions seemed like a bad idea so I elected to instead stay in town and within a short dash of cover. After a little bit of birding at Het Park down at the Nieuwe Maas,(Kingfisher and Short-toed Treecreeper the highlights, a million Egyptian Geese the lowlights), and a nice walk around sections of the massive harbour, I then ambled along to the Witte de Withstraat. Very peculiar coffee shops.... Then I went and had lunch nearby as the clouds gathered. A lengthy lunch. Quite decadent in fact, and made even better by the fact that the promised rain did indeed materialise, was as heavy as forecast, and I was right next to the window looking out at it rather than being stuck in it.

Now I've never done a post like this before so I'm viewing this as a bit of a test. I suspect it's rather a niche subject matter, but you know how it is on this blog. If the thought of gratuitous travel and expensive restaurants doesn't appeal for any reason then just skip it. Anyway, as regular readers will be aware wine is a major interest of mine. It always has been to some extent, but it found new prominence during the various pandemic lockdowns as other interests were forced to wane. Since then I've kept it up quite intensely, and these days I probably spend as much if not more time thinking about wine than I do about birds, photography, plants, travel. Possibly combined. When I eventually retire I will not be short of things to do. Nor things to drink.

I found a restaurant with rather a specialist wine list called Vineum, and it being Tuesday lunchtime there was tons of space. Excellent. I was one of only three covers, which combined with an extremely attentive and knowledgeable member of staff made for a superb experience.

Already looking promising

I had the four course menu for 55 euros which was fantastic value and really good. Although the wine list was monumental and glorious I opted to go for wines by the glass as they had a relatively good selection. I started with some Champagne, after all why not, I was on holiday.

Champagne

Amuse Bouches. Can't remember what they were I'm afraid! But I enjoyed them with the Champagne.

Young mackeral ceviche, leche de tiger with passion fruit, jalapeno, avocado creme. This was as good as it looks, with the tart yet sweet passion fruit coulis in the middle proving an excellent foil to the slippery and highly fresh fish. I don't recall the pepper making much of a mark. One of those pairing combinations that you would never in a million years think of yourself, nor attempt to make at home. This is why restaurants exist.

NV Egly-Ouriet Champagne Premier Cru Les Vignes de Vrigny - France, Champagne, Champagne Premier Cru
Medium gold in colour. Instant champagne hit, nutty, bready and rich. Fantastic balance marks this out, supremely easy to sip and contemplate. Fine mousse, stone fruit, cake and pastry, stewed apple and a lovely lemony acidity that keeps it all in check. Although you can sense some age it does not stand out. Base 2019, disgorged July 2023.

Whites

Continuation with the ceviche and then onto:
Tagliatelle with fresh truffle, cream, rocket cress and parmesan. Fabulous. This is apparently their signature dish and I can tell why. Normally I dislike truffle, it's a bit like when something is smoked - it seems not to matter what that something is, it just tastes like all other smoked things. This however was excellent, just the right amount of truffle taste, not over-powering. It must be the fresh ingredient, rather than a chemically produced one which is all too prevalent. Pasta nicely al dente, and a good ratio of sauce. My one minor gripe was that it was rather difficult to eat, with some sections of the pasta a bit fused together and coming apart in lumps. Then again I was sat by myself, in a corner, and so a small amount of inelegance went unseen.

2020 Sylvain Dussort Meursault Vieilles Vignes - France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Meursault
Light yellow. Small amount of reduction and smoke on the nose, dissipates to leave quite a mineral and chalky Meursault that is in a linear rather than fatty style. Nice clean burgundy, totally hits the spot, but at the same time doesn't scream Meursault. Depends what you want I suppose, and good wine nonetheless. Coravin pour.

2022 Schloss Lieser Riesling Trocken SL - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer
Light yellow. Fruity nose, whiffs of petrol after a swish, hints of pineapple. Wonderful freshness, the merest hints of sucrosity. For a base-level Mosel Riesling this is really good, and when you see the price you will be astonished. 

Reds

Sautees magret de canard with candied leeks, rosti with epoisses creme and sauce of figs and balsamic vinegar. Ooof, now this is food. The duck was OK, well executed but but not spectacular, but the rosti with epoisses taken with a small amount of fresh fig, wow. Just exceptional. You could almost see the calories mounting up as you ate each morsel. Good match for the in some cases rather strident wines.

A selection of 5 cheeses. I'm afraid I cannot now precisely recall what these were, possibly the lunch was a little too decadent... I remeber I had to eat them left to right, essentially in order of strength and with the blue at the end. Pretty sure #2 was a local young cheese, and that #3 was a Tomme, but that's it. All were delicious, though the blue was actually quite mild by my palate. I was not a huge fan of the matching condiments, I tend to like cheese by itself but I gamely gave each one a go just to see what they added.

2021 Jérôme Chezeaux Bourgogne - France, Burgundy, Bourgogne
Medium red. Good earthen quality to the nose, not deep and musty but definitely present and correct. Red and black fruit on the palate, there is a nice amount of acidic zip here and whilst this isn't an outstanding entry level BR it is very nicely done. I didn't know the producer but was pleasantly surprised as was not expecting much from the vintage. This is a decent bottle of Bourgogne with the right amount of sense of place for the price.

2018 Domaine de Ferrand Côtes du Rhône Mistral - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Côtes du Rhône
Medium red. Quite olivey and gamey on the nose, dark fruited in nature but with lighter flashes. Astringent tannic core with more acidity than I was expecting and tough without food - definitely not in the sipping style for my tastes. However transformed as an accompaniment to magret de canard where this cuts through the fat.

2022 Le Chiuse Rosso di Montalcino - Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Rosso di Montalcino
Medium red. A lighter style of Sangiovese and very approachable despite its youth - designed no doubt for early drinking. Ripe soft fruit with sweet overtones, herbs and some grit. Very nice with or without food.

 

To close

2022 Schloss Lieser Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling Kabinett - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer
Intensely clean and fruity, just a brief impression as a small taste and I was on my way out. You could drink it more or less forever was my quick view. Super-fresh as you would expect. A nice parting gift.

Well what a fantastic discovery this place was. None of the wines I had by the glass were standout other than the Champagne, but I wasn't particularly expecting them to be. What mattered was they were universally decent, went well with the varied food and were reasonbly priced. I could have just about stretched to a bottle off the stupendous list, but decided that I'd prefer pairings for the variety. The list was enormous, pages and pages, filled with gems and with a real focus on Burgundy - a page from the Cote-de-Nuits shown below. There were so many bottles I would have loved to have tried but they were almost all beyond my means - restaurant markups are totally understandable but at the same time they make me very sad. This is why I am hugely grateful for the concept of corkage and am more than happy to pay what might seem like a lot of money to be able to bring something from my own cellar. I have a list of restaurants in London that allow this and that I visit regularly as a result.

Vineum uses Spiegelau Definition glassware which is what I use at home. They're excellent, basically 90% of a Zalto glass for about a third of the price. Lovely to drink from, but not a total disaster if you break one. You can see their Burgundy glass in one of the photos above. I had a fresh glass for every wine, and sometimes had several on the table at once - this is one of the markers of this being a place for wine lovers, and if I lived in the city it would definitely be a regular haunt. As it was not busy there was plenty of time to talk about the wines in depth with the guy running the floor, and I was treated very well with even a couple of extra tastes of things. I would go back in a heartbeat next time I am there. In fact I might travel specifically to go there...

After lunch I went shopping for cheese and then did a bit more birding near the airport, ending up with a day list of 36. Not bad for a three hour lunch....

Glad to be indoors looking out!

Bursting the bubble

Anyone here ever had Bubble Tea? If you have not, let me offer this post to help you make up your mind. You can thank me later.

A while back a local salad shop in Canary Wharf quite close to my office closed its doors for the last time. What would replace it we wondered? The windows were boarded up or otherwise rendered opaque, and for several months nothing happened, or at least not visibly. Then one day I when I was passing I could could barely make it past such was the crowd. The demographic was strongly East Asian for a reason that I could not then discern, but having been to Singapore quite recently the answer is now clear. Bubble Tea. It might not be much of a 'thing' over here, or at least not to my knowledge, but in Asia people are wild for it and so the opening of a store in Canary Wharf with its international workforce was clearly highly anticipated. 

Earlier this week a colleague of mine suggested that our team went out for a Bubble Tea Experience. He had become hooked and wanted to show us what all the fuss was about. You only live once I suppose, I gave it a go. The menu is fixed, there are perhaps a dozen different drinks, all variations on a theme. Even this was too much for our small group of Bubble virgins to cope with, and whilst we dithered a large queue of the expected diaspora built up behind us, eager for their fix.

Here's what I had, the catchily-named Coconut Mango Boom. It cost £5.90, more than my lunch. This is broadly the same cost as beer, it had better be good. I picked up a straw the width of the Dartford Tunnel and took a preliminary slurp. Boom! This was the sound a marble-sized ball of firm gloop made as it hit the back of my throat and caused me to nearly choke to death on the spot. Now I understood why the straw was so immense. I was also beginning to understand why it is called Bubble Tea, something which I had never really given much thought to before. I spat the aforementioned bubble into the palm of my hand and examined it. Clear, vaguely spherical, dense and sticky with air. I gave it a tentative chew - firm, springy, a bit like a tasteless jelly bean. Tapioca, or cassava starch, something I'd not had in this format before. And now I know why. Exploring my drink a bit more it became clear that there were two sizes of this stuff in there. Big ones about the size of a small marble, and little ones like a tiny bead. The big ones I could detect and spit out (or spray out, as happened with a particularly large straw-full) but the little ones I ended up swallowing whole. My goodness what a vile drink this was. A vile concept in fact, completely lost on me. Why on earth is it so incredibly popular? The market is worth billions apparently, but once you have got rid of the pointless tapioca balls you are left with milk and fruit pulp, and of actual tea there was little sign. Anyway, my advice is to avoid this fad and have a proper cup of tea, or a milkshake, or a smoothie, but certainly not this bizarre combination of all three and laced with blobs. The only good use for it that I can think of is chucking it at Nigel Farage should you be unfortunate enough to happen across him. Probably not much of a market for Bubble Tea in Clacton....

Colombia - August 2023 - Trip List

The full list of birds seen is below, and the eBird trip list is here. I amazed myself by seeing more birds by myself than with Alejandro, but then again I suppose I was in prime habitat for four days and I am nothing if not keen, even in sweltering weather.

184 species was the final total, of which 100 were new for Colombia and 64 were new anywhere.

Colombia - August 2023 - Day 6 - Sabanalarga to Bogota and home

With my stomach bug behind me I was once again up at dawn and birding. This time I went a little further beyond the track down to the river and birded an area of rough ground around some agrticultural smallholdings, and where some friendly horses gathered. I had a list of eBird targets from the general area but wasn't sure how useful they were given how little data there was. But I felt sure that there were certain birds that I hadn't yet seen were almost certainly here, and this morning's walk was a deliberate effort to try and find them. So it was that I eventually found Scaled Piculet, a tiny woodpecker, in some trees on the outskirts of town, and also picked out a Spectacled Thrush in with the more numerous Pale-breasted Thrushes. 

As ever the plants I struggle to grow at home in pots grow like weeds in Colombia. This is Phildendron gloriosum.

It was time to pack up and go. I flew back tonight and we were a seven hour drive from Bogota airport. Don Gilberto had arrived with his van and we all packed into it again. It was slow going, with numerous landslides stopping the traffic. During one of these an Andean Cock-of-the-Rock flew over the van, sub-species equatorialis, so different to the ones I'd seen in Jardin in Antioquia which were sanguilonentus. Somewhere on the outskirts of Bogota the van died, insufficient prayers perhaps, and so I swapped out with a one of the people in Albert's father-in-law's car and he drove me the rest of the way to ensure I did not miss my flight. It had been an excellent trip and so different from most holidays I take. I had hugely enjoyed the experience and Albert and his families had been amazing hosts. I returned as I had arrived, with Iberia via Madrid, which was uneventful - I think I slept almost the whole way. Like all good holidays it had been very tiring!