Dipping, smugly.

I had to go up to Cambridge today to deliver a grandchild to a grandparent, and whilst there I noticed that there was a Waxwing nearby. It was a nice blue-sky day, so I went to see if could get a few shots of it. I couldn't, chiefly because a resident Mistle Thrush was having none of it and kept chasing it away. Luckily, here is one I prepared earlier. Much earlier, and in a different county in fact.

Instead, I decided it would be educational to go and see if I could find the Rough-legged Buzzard less than ten minutes away. Become a better birder - not year-listing you understand. As I arrived at the lay-by, the very same lay-by I had seen a Rough-leg from last year, there was a car already there, and a birder looking through a telescope.

"Have you got it?" Note how "it" is all that is necessary, mentioning the bird by name is entirely superfluous.
"Yes, it's in here!"
"Do you mind if I take a quick look before I set up?"
"Go ahead"
"Thanks"

In my brief glance it looked suspiciously like the Common Buzzard I've been seeing a lot at Rainham. Still, set up the scope anyway, take a closer look.... tail first. I was very nice about it, it's not like I'm on the BBRC is it? But it was basically, to my relatively untrained eye at least, a Common Buzzard. The big problem was the the undertail didn't have a broad black band, and wasn't white. He wasn't totally sure, he said, and he valued a second opinion. Fair enough. It then flew revealing a dark uppertail.

I had to go anyway, so headed back towards Cambridge, but only a short distance down the road another car was parked up, with another scope pointing off into the distance. You can probably guess where this is headed, but this is my blog, and as you will all be aware, me getting it right is fairly mega, so I'll continue to drag it out. Bear with me.

"Have you got it?"
"Yes, it's in here!"
"May I?"
"Please."
"Thanks. Er, I'm not sure that's it actually."

This one was distant, and facing away from us in a tree, but whilst it had a paler upper-tail than the previous bird, and a dark-ish terminal band, there wasn't any trace of pure white at all -overall the appearance was beigey-brown. He tried to talk about how pale the undertail was, and about scapulars. If I'd have know what scapulars were, I would probably have been in a better position, so instead I pressed on with the tail theory, and argued that even at this distance, you should be able to easily pick out the distinctive black and white pattern, especially as it was on an exposed branch in the wind and using its tail to maintain balance. He didn't believe me, fair enough I suppose, I wouldn't believe me. Instead he called a bloke who had actually seen it - the county recorder no less - which seemed quite sensible, to discuss the specifics of this bird's tail. I wasn't party to the conversation, but it would seem he rained on the parade as well, as once the guy had hung up he confirmed that the bird we were looking for had a white tail with a widish terminal band and then just one thinner tail bar. We all then agreed that this bird didn't have that. I drove back to Cambridge feeling smug. A dip, but a good one. I hope they didn't all think I was a tosser.

Actually I don't think they would have done. I was nice about it, and not arrogant at all - difficult to be when you know as little as I do about RL Buzzard features. I've seen three, ever. I would have liked it to have been four, but I have standards, and seeing as I'm not year-listing, I am being much more critical. Would it have got on last year? No, of course not!! As if.....who do you think I am?! The year before? Almost certainly.....

Well-behaved Pheasant

Your Tuesday morning mission, should you choose to accept it: Drag your lazy arse out of bed at first light and go and look for Tim's Pheasant.

Rational JL: "But the bed is lovely and warm, and it is dark and cold outside. And anyway, Pheasants are boring, non-native, and don't count."

Birder JL: "They do count, it is a site tick, and a patch mega. You don't get many of those. Now get up."

Rational JL: "Do I have to?"

Birder JL: "Yes"

So it was that I found myself near Jubilee Pond at 7am staring at an inpenetrable clump of plant matter that I strongly suspected that the Pheasant would be in, if indeed it was still here at all. It was. It took an hour to see it - I was impressed by my dedication - but finally it broke cover and ran across a stretch of open ground into a smallish patch of broom. Although the Flats is a large area, it is very disturbed and slap bang in the middle of urbanity. To get the number of Snipe that we do, the occasional Woodcock, and now a Pheasant, frankly I'm amazed, but there you go, that's urban birding for you. It has the ability to constantly surprise - when did you last get excited about a Pheasant? Exactly.

Representative non-Wanstead Pheasant

I did a quick round-trip of the Flats and the Park in the time I had left. Highlights were three Egyptian Geese on Jubilee Pond, the female Kingfisher still on Perch Pond, and a year-tick in Grey Wagtail. Although a cold north-easterly was blowing, signs of spring are everywhere - Dunnocks singing from the tops of bushes, the cyclical and repetitive song of Song Thrushes from taller trees, Robins having a go, Ducks getting frisky, and a Magpie carrying twigs. Five weeks to go until Wheatear season - they must be gearing up to leave. Perhaps the early ones already have?

Can I go somewhere warm please?

It's snowing again. I'm fed up with it. Pudding and I tried going for a walk this morning out at East Tilbury, where there were Shorelarks and also a playground, but it was too miserable to do anything other than struggle back to the car. We had met up with Paul, Lisa and Jack to look for them, but after twenty minutes of a bitter wind, and extreme push-chair mudplugging, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and went home. Meanwhile the Shorelarks were back in Kent...

I'm sitting here thinking about Des Murs' Wiretail. Des Murs' Wiretail is a small South-American passerine that is mostly tail. It's like an extreme Long-tailed tit - 8cm of bird, and 16cm of tail. Whilst birding early one morning along the Argentinean border with Chile, I found one squeaking in a bush near the Araucaria stands. I had no idea what it was when I heard it, a fairly good idea what it was once I managed to see it, and a complete idea of what is was once I had leafed through the field guide. It was one of those brilliant birding abroad moments when you find a new bird completely off your own bat, with no starting knowledge at all. You can't beat it, and I love birding abroad. On the road yesterday, we talked a bit about world birding, and some recent trips that John had been on, which is why I'm now reminiscing about Des Murs' Wiretail. I don't even have a photo of it, I was entranced and it slipped away before I even thought about finding the camera. All I know is that I want to go birding abroad again, I don't care where really, I just want to be dropped in the deep end somewhere, with a field guide and some bins, and I'll make my own way. Obviously with three children and no income, trips of this kind are now pure fantasy. However if someone would like to pay for me to go birding abroad and then tell them about it, I'll make the child-care arrangements. Please can it be somewhere warm though?

The Wiretail was down here...

Kite Spectacle in Powys

Another twitch, more patch ticks forsaken. Tim had a Pheasant on the Flats first thing this morning. I raced out, was shown the exact patch of scrub it had walked into, but couldn't find it in the short time I had. Having dipped some White-fronted Geese at the Ingrebourne and a Scaup at Walthamstow yesterday, I was beginning to wonder if going to Wales for the long-staying Black Kite was a good idea. Too late to change my mind, John and Kev arrived and we were off.

Mid-Wales is luckily only a very short distance away from Wanstead, and we were soon winding our way along the River Wye towards Rhayader. A stop at a convenient bridge to try and see Dipper was astonishingly successful with two located approximately 0.2 seconds after exiting the car. Perhaps we might see the Kite after all?


The number of Red Kites at Gigrin Farm near Rhayader is incredible. I took a wide-angle shot of some of the mass swirl in the air just prior to feeding time, and counted 171 in this shot alone, so there were perhaps 400 birds all told. And, I'm happy to report, a single Black Kite. Mission accomplished. It came in relatively soon after feeding time began at 2pm, and fed on the wing before grabbing a larger chunk and disappearing off to feed unmolested. It came back about twenty minutes later for a more prolonged session, before being persistently harried, first by a Crow and then by a Raven, such that it went off for good. This being mid-Wales in early February, the light was somewhat less than ideal, but with the lense wide open and a horrible ISO selected, I managed some OK shots, mostly of the Red Kites as there were far more opportunities to pap them. The Black Kite was a lifer, so I was more interested in just looking at it, but got a few the second time it came in. For anyone considering going, go. It is an amazing spectacle, and the Black Kite is merely a bonus. If you have a long lense and decent technique, and in an ideal world, daylight, you have the chance to get some amazing shots. There are even a couple of photographer-only hides with wider windows, or in the case of the Tower Hide, no windows at all, just a platform. Trouble is they cost an extra £10 and £15 respectively, which I reckon is rather steep. These hides don't get you any closer, and today there were not many visitors, so I took my chances with an ordinary hide and was perfectly happy with the possibilities.

Lean beef only - the last thing we need is a bunch of lazy-ass fatso Kites sitting around watching Trish all day.

Spot the difference

We only stayed just over a couple of hours, so the ratio of time spent looking at birds versus time spent in the car is pretty poor, but those two hours were amazing and made it worthwhile. In addition to the acrobatics of the Kites, you can marvel at the size of Ravens, and enjoy Buzzards getting annoyed with Kites and each other.


My thanks to John for driving over 500 miles in a day to take a low-lister to see a Black Kite. Tomorrow I'm staying local. Hopefully those Geese will still be around and will find their way to Rainham. The Pheasant will have to wait until Tuesday when I can get out early. And if it knows what's good for it, it had better be there...

Human Nature

An interesting stat for your consideration. Two weeks ago I stuffed up a Gull ID, called it a Caspian, and it wasn't. A bit of a howler. I posted photos of it up on the web. Within 24 hours, these invited no fewer than eight public comments, and four private ones, ranging in tone (as I interpreted them) from "You idiot, how could you possibly have thought that was a Caspian Gull." to "Nice try, Gulls are sods, better luck next time". So, twelve comments about getting it wrong.

Yesterday, in a minor miracle, I appear to have got it right. Same process, photos mailed to a few people, and photos up on the same website. You can probably guess where this is leading. Yup, public comments on my Gull identifying prowess - zero. Private comments, four.

So what could this mean? That people are busy? Maybe. The cynic within me that rarely surfaces thinks different though. Now I posted up the photos because I want to learn, not because I am in need of public adulation. Reputation? Hah, as if! I am rubbish at Gulls, happily admit this fact to all and sundry, and I was half expecting to have got it wrong again, but I am happy to be humiliated in my quest to become a better birder. I know this makes me appear a bit holier than thou, but I'm serious about it, and though I may joke about it on here, I was straight back to grilling gulls shortly after my dismal failure. Anyway, there is not a great deal of literature out there about Caspian Gull ID, and what there is somewhat heavy going. Tertials? Most people lurking on the web are probably better birders than I am and have looked at Gulls for much longer. The South-east seems to be Caspian Central, and so I value their opinions. But cruelly, there is this thing called Human Nature, and birders suffer from it just as everybody else does. There is no fun to be had when somebody has got it right, no belittling available, no scope to show how amazing you are versus the rest of the planet, so what's the point? I hope I'm not sounding too bitter...

Let's lighten the mood. Here, have a Gull photo. I'm pretty sure it isn't a Caspian as it has a yellow eye, but beyond that I have no idea. 1w Med Gull perhaps?

Rainham Today, and more Gull Headaches

A text from a fellow London birder whilst I was in Tescos helping them on their way to another few billion got me fairly excited. "Turnstone on Crayford foreshore" was the gist of it. Not easily visible from the cereal aisle in Leytonstone, so we finished up and hurried home to unpack. At this point people who know a bit about London geography may wonder why I was getting excited. Surely Crayford is in Kent, on the south side of the river? And the title of this post is "Rainham Today blah blah blah", not "What I saw in Kent Today" Well yes, it is, and also, yes it is, but you see, I don't worry about small details like that. Crayford is opposite Rainham, and that is good enough for me. If I can see it from Rainham, on it goes for the Rainham list. This is obviously slightly tricky if it ever came to a rarity, as I'd have it on my patch list, but the record would be down in the books as being at another site, and it wouldn't be down as having been at Rainham at all, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Literally - if was a really good one, I would have to go across the QE2 Bridge to get a good look, which would be a problem as although I know where Crayford is, I have no idea how to actually get there. Opinions vary on this one; there was some talk about creating notional airspace boundaries for local patches, in the case of Rainham, one that goes along the centre of the river, but it becomes impossible to judge accurately. I think the general concensus was that though it wasn't perfect, if you or the bird are on the patch, that'll do. Well, I was on the patch, the Turnstone wasn't, but I saw it, so it doesn't matter. It's not like it's a site tick anyway, as I have had them on the Rainham side of the river before now. I'm slightly stricter for more well defined boundaries, like counties. I was once twitching a White-winged Black Tern on the Kent side of the river. At the time it was a lifer, so I didn't care where it was. Once the initial euphoria had worn off though, I realised that it wouldn't have to go too far across the river to be in Essex airspace and get itself on another meaningless list, so I started willing it to do just that. Happily it obliged by flying over to the other side and actually plonking down on the mud; I didn't even have to take a punt on where halfway across the river was.

Anyway, flush with success at nailing the Turnstone, I continued on to the actual reserve in high spirits. A Jay was a 2010 patch tick close to the visitor centre, but there wasn't much else of note about until I got round to the Target Pools. Uh oh, there are Gulls on there. Maybe I can just close my eyes, walk past them? We need to get home for lunch, yes that's right, the girls need lunch, no time to stop and look. They will all be boring anyway, as all Gulls are. We'll just carry straight on past....

On my second scan through them, my worst fears were confirmed - a tall bird, white-headed with a long, slim beak. Given my track record, you would be forgiven for thinking Little Egret, but this was actually a Gull. Hurrah, I am 50% of the way there with the ID already! Now for the trickier part. Hmmm, small, dark eye - yes. Pale bill, dark tip. Hmmm. Looks slim, no obvious gonywotsit thingy. Hmmm. Long thin legs, a lot above the knee, hmmm, could it be? No, don't be silly, you're rubbish at this, it will be a really common species that all people other than yourself will find really really easy to nail. Quite a bit of grey mantle beginning to come through, does that make it an advanced second winter or a third winter? I'm not really sure. No obvious primary spots. Maybe. Hmmm. The head shape actually looks quite good as well, like a pear. And very white, with minimal streaking on the nape. Hmmm. Quite a striking tertial crescent, is that even relevant, no idea. What I need right now is a helicopter to fly over, then they will all disappear and WE WILL NEVER KNOW. Oh, they're all still there. Shit. I could probably get a photo of it. Several photos of it. OK, what the hell, here we go. I am going to stick my neck out and say that this IS a third (or second) winter Caspian Gull, and I have photos (after a fashion...) to prove it. Sacrificial Altar, here I come again....

Poll Results and a Fit of Immense Proportions

After enthusing more than strictly necessary about my garden, I have not really looked in it for about two weeks - too busy at Rainham and so on. This is poor, given that I was one of the people who voted for "Garden" in that poll I made up. The results are below.

Garden/House 2 (9%)
Local Patch 9 (40%)
County 4 (18%)
National 7 (31%)

One other person thinks that the garden is their favourite list. Just one. The poll was supposed to show that everyone loved their gardens the best, and that the revolution is on the way. Well, it went wrong, free speech or something. And only 22 people voted anyway, whereas I was expecting thousands. But working with what we have, the local patch has come out tops, which can't be bad thing. And whoever the seven filthy twitchers are, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Disgusting. I certainly won't be twitching that Black Kite in Wales at the weekend, oh no.

I was out on the patch today, despite my poor throat which now has a horrible horrible tickle. I'm also feeling very achy, my voice is going, and there is only so much whisky I can drink. And it's not like childcare stops either. They still need to go school, they still need feeding, and dust still needs redistributing. Rather than do that, I decided to go and get some fresh air with Pudding. It was a lovely sunny day, cold and crisp, so as soon as the school run was done, we headed to the Park.

For the first hour or so it was very nice. We chased each other, and we talked about snow, of which there was a light dusting in open areas. We picked up sticks and poked each other. We watched Pied Wagtails wagging, and talked about Mute Swans and Mallards. She laughed at them dabbling, bums up. Beaks are noses btw. I let it pass. Then she had a change of heart. An instantaeneous change of mood. Sweet talkative child became willful demon child.

"Come on, the car's this way"
"No, my go this way"
"But we need to go and have lunch"
"No"


This culminated in an immense fit as I dragged her back towards the car. Her response was to collapse on the floor, in the mud, and scream. I left her for ten minutes to see if she would stop. She didn't. I picked her up under one arm, kicking and screaming, and marched back to the car. People stared. One, presumably a Mum, smirked. The screaming continued on the short drive home. It continued in the front hall. It continued on the naughty step. It only stopped when I put her to bed at 11am, whereupon she fell straight asleep and didn't wake up for over two hours. And she woke up I had my sweet little girl back, and she remained lovely for the rest of the day. Maybe she is getting ill. On the other hand, maybe it's just because she is two. I know which I'd prefer.

Here are a few images from today before it all went wrong.

Long-tailed Tit

A curious Crow.

Another Teal, this time on the Perch Pond. Very rare here you know.

Anyway, a new poll is over to the right. Should get the desired result this time. Hah!