Heronfest 2011

A four-Heron day, inexplicably missing Little Egret, which you would expect nine times out of ten. No matter though, the targets were well and truly bagged. I am finding it difficult to not classify today as out-and-out twitching, but I decided to accept a lift to Dungeness from Bradders so I suppose it was always on the cards.

Top of the list was a Squacco Heron that has been around Hooker's Pit for a few days now. I've seen precisely one of these in the UK before, just the other side of the Thames at Crossness. It seems like years ago now, but it was one of the first birds I ever twitched. I had no idea about the pain and anguish back then, and recall being surprised at seeing haggard sweatball of a man rushing up to the viewing area, wild-eyed, asking (shouting, if I'm honest) if it was still showing. Oh the age of innocence. It was still showing, and I watched this crazy fool of a man visibly relax as he almost literally drank it in. I pitied him. And am now belittling him.

Hey ho. We pitched up and saw the Heron immediately, which was nice. A short scope-swivel away and a summer plumaged Great White Egret was standing around doing not a lot. The primary interest was the Squacco though, and after a short while it took off and turned into a Barn Owl, which was rather clever of it. After catching a few voles it settled back into the reeds and started being a Heron again.

News then started filtering through of a Night Heron within the LNHS area, Stocker's Lake in Herts to be precise. It was the work of moments to abandon a windswept and somewhat sodden Dungeness for the comfort of Bradders' Subaru and scoot back to London for some filthy tickage. The Heron showed extremely well if distantly, and largely sat in a tree and preened. The last one I saw just slept, so this was a step in the right direction. A fine way to finish an afternoon's birding you might think, but the best was yet to come. In our mad rush to twitch the Heron we had inadventantly parked next to a pub with a beer garden. Only noticing this on the way back to the car, it was too much to resist, and a swift pint of Wells Bombardier was duly despatched whilst a Red Kite glided overhead.

Moving on up

Whilst it would have been difficult to beat the Small Elephant Hawkmoth, the reality of steady rain and cold, windy nights has meant that the comedown has been quicker than expected. Last night, a solitary Heart and Dart and a bunch of soggy egg-boxes were all we could manage. As I type, it is still raining, so unless you are very unlucky, tomorrow's post will not be about moths.

So what's the news? From Wanstead, well, nothing really. I am sad to have to report that the second pair of Great Crested Grebes have also failed. Hero to zero. As far as I can remember, this is the first year that Great Crested Grebes have attempted nesting. We had high hopes, especially for the particularly enthusiatic first pair, and then couldn't believe our luck when a second pair constructed a nest on the same pond. To have both fail within a week of each other is rather gutting. Still, it will allow Mrs Grebe to get on with what she enjoys most.

On the other hand, and on a different pond, last year's solitary male Reed Warbler this year attracted a mate, and baby Reed Warblers are the happy result. When I arrived here, a mere glimpse of a Reed Warbler was an event that only took place in my dreams, so to have successful breeding is a massive result.

I have to more 'results' to share with you, ones I am quite excited about. The first is that I am finally getting paid to wander about and watch birds. I suppose I knew that there was always a possibility, but to have it actually happen is rather amazing, not least to me. It's only a small bit of survey work, but to get paid real money for knowing what Wrens and Blackbirds sound like is extremely gratifying, even if it does mean getting up at 3am. Now if only somebody would pay me for going round Wanstead at first light in June....

The second 'result' is even more unbelievable than the first. Somehow, as a result of this very blog and my column in Birdwatch Magazine, I have been invited to the Wetland Centre to make some kind of film with Simon King and a few other people. I really have very little idea of what it entails, other than that it's about birding, but I am not fussy. I think I would like to be Simon King. In fact I think many people would. And whilst I don't go to the birdfair at Rutland every year with the specific aim of stalking him like some people do, to get to meet him will be a real privilege. A certain Norfolk-based blogess would be well jealous I suspect. He's a proper wildlife guy, the whole shebang. Great on camera, but also great behind a camera - he has all bases covered. Should I offer to carry all his camera gear for him wherever he goes, or would that be too fawning? What do you reckon? I'm just kidding of course, I have the school run to do, but it will make for an interesting day, that's for sure. Who knew that writing a bit of nonsense in weboland could open such doors?

Which reminds me, and I may have forgotten to mention it last year, but I met Bill Oddie. No, really. And the head of the RSPB. These are now the circles I mix in, ahem. Yup, me, Bill and Mike, we're running the show. Well maybe not Bill, but definitely me and Mike. Or maybe that's just Mike, and not me at all, in any way, shape, or form. Anyway, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I've got Lee Evans' phone number, and he's got mine. Oh, wait....

Muffin hits the Jackpot!

Apologies in advance, for this post is unashamedly about moths. Or rather, one particular Moth. As usual the actinic trap was set up in the garden, but the weather didn't look or feel particularly mothy. What the hell, you never know. A reasoned approach.

I've been delegating the trap-emptying of late to Muffin. He enjoys this very much, and usually by the time I stumble downstairs, he is ready with a small box of pots with moths in, many of them already identified. A normal morning conversation with Muffin could easily go something like this:

Me: Anything in the trap?
Muffin: Nah, not much. A couple of Dark Arches, a Heart and Dart, a Scalloped Oak and some kind of Tortrix.

Start them young eh? The other advantage is of course that I can laze around in bed whilst the hard work is done by someone else. And this is what I was doing this morning when I was awakened by high-pitched screams of "Daddy!" from the garden. Really quite loud screams, loud enough to also wake up Pie, which takes some doing. My befuddled brain considered two possibilities; That he had been stung by something vicious that had got into the trap, or that there was a good 'un in there. Thankfully it was the latter, and he had hit the Jackpot!

I made it down the stairs just as he came steaming in from the garden shouting "Small Elephant Hawkmoth!!!!!" at the top of his voice. He hadn't even looked at the book, but I didn't doubt him for a second, and as, shaking, he proudly handed me the potted prize, I knew he would remember this for a long time. The moth is a thing of beauty, and a first for the garden, in fact a first for the whole family, anywhere. It immediately usurps Scarce Silver Lines as the best ever garden moth, and may even be twitched by various members of the East London Moth-lovers Organisation (ELMO) tonight. I was very careful photographing it lest it do a runner. Utterly superb.

Gah! Birds in Wanstead!

There are actually some birds here. Nothing pulse-quickening, but to be enjoyed nonetheless. The highlight has been a Lesser Whitethroat singing in almost exactly the same place that a Common Whitethroat was singing a few weeks ago - you know, the one that could be heard from my front drive and therefore scraped onto the garden list? I hurried home, continuing to hear the strident "de-de-de-de-de-de-de" at the end of the song until about half way down the road. Whether the bird stopped singing or whether the sound simply faded away I cannot say, but it was a big disappointment. I had a listen this morning, but I didn't get up early enough and there was too much traffic. Very sad.

So, some bird news at last. And there's more! Another Red Kite flew over the Flats at the weekend. I got a call from Gary who lives south of me somewhere, to say he had just seen one going over the Flats vaguely towards my house. I rushed out but could not connect with it, I am guessing it passed north and east of me. So close, and yet so far. Still, Red Kite is already, and will be forever on the garden list, so no great drama, but I think I am right in saying that it is the fifth Red Kite sighting from the patch this year, which is remarkable really.

The Mute Swans have cygnets which are rapidly growing. If you want to see them still in their uber-cute phase, now is the time. In only a short while they will be gawky adolescents totally ill-at-ease with their size. If you can't make it, here they are. Altogther now...."awwwwww".

Not much else to report really, I am very much looking forward to the next part of the kids' play, and to the weekend. Yet again I have a poorly child at home, what I have done to deserve the almost constant illnesses is a mystery. I did manage to nip out for an hour yesterday, in between getting a puncture sorted out on the car - my run of luck with tyres continues to astound. I saw almost no birds, and a single butterfly, which I think is a Small Skipper, but I am happy to be corrected. The key ID feature is apparently that the undersides of the antennae are orange, whereas they are black in Essex Skipper. Obviously.

The One Dancing Princess

Ideally this post would be about a Roller I've just seen, but the timings just didn't work out. There'll be another, and right now my twitching urges are at a low ebb. In fact I am at a low ebb, but that's one for another time. However I am very pleased to bring you a production by the local dance company, performed only this afternoon in our middle room.

The company have apparently been working quite hard at this, the first in a series of works, to be performed one-a-night all week. There has been hushed practicing, and back-stage (or the hall) has been a hive of activity. After a couple of false starts, including the leading lady forgetting her name three seconds after being reminded of it, they were ready, and this is the stunning result. The children have inherited my dancing genes it appears, they are very lucky. I am not sure of the exact story, no doubt more will be revealed tomorrow. Listen carefully for the outpouring of sympathy from the director (who also plays Taylor, the hunter) very near the end of the production. I have no idea who was in the audience.....

It's only a couple of minutes long, I encourage you to watch until the very end. Or if you're busy, just skip to the final fifteen seconds.

So good they named it again

You thought I was done didn't you? No, no, no, plenty more where they came from. Bird blog? Who said that? I do sometimes feel a tad guilty that increasingly many posts have absolutely nothing to do with birds. Wanstead Birder - kind of gives the impression that birds might be involved. So, if you feel cheated, especially by the Speedo modelling, I can only apologise and say that July is just around the corner. Come on though, who genuinely thought that by scrolling down that they would actually get some "banana hammock" action? (many thanks to regular reader Laurel for introducing me to this quite fantastic expression). All I can say is that the chances of me posing in Speedos but without the Jeans were always very close to nil. That was a one-off, dedicated to the people of France and their utterly ridiculous and spurious rules. And boy do the French love their rules. I've lived in France in the past, and the mere act of trying to live, trying to have a telephone and electricity for example, are enough to drive you mad. It is the most beaurocratic place I have ever been, and it's all Napoleon's fault. Still. Before I get too carried away, and remembering that there is always the possibility that I may have some lovely French readers, let us skip gaily across the Atlantic and get NY over and done with.

New York is a quite wonderful place if you can cope with the excess consumerism and monumetal amount of waste that only a very few people generate. Excuse me if I just go off on one again. My family of five generates one 30L bin's worth of rubbish per week, if that, and one to two boxes of recycling (lately growing due to my increasing wine addiction). That's the same amount of waste generated by the average New Yorker's lunch. It is enough to make you sick quite how much is thrown away. The City is not dirty, far from it, but the level of consumption is simply unbelievable. Everything comes in a bag, bottle or can. You buy food, it comes wrapped in yards of paper and will have a styrofoam tray, accompanied with an armful of napkins. They could build the Brooklyn Bridge every day out of used coffee cups. It doesn't help of course that the portions are gigantic, something I definitely didn't take advantage of.....

So good they named it twice

Well, you've been able to look at me in Speedos for a few days now (the stats show many repeat visitors, ahem), so I reckon it's high time we moved on to something completely different. It being June, there is not much bird-related, although largely this is due to me not going birding. Who knows what could be out there, flocks of Black Skimmers on Heronry, roving parties of Bee-eaters around Alexandra Lake, or even a White-throated Robin near the Bowling Green on Aldersbrook Road. That last possibility is just plain silly of course, and would never happen, but June does have the odd knack of throwing up a biggie. Indoors however, on what must be my eightieth load of washing since returning from France, I wouldn't know. Holidays are all very well, but you spend a week preparing for them, you know finding stuff, packing it, sourcing Crocodiles, that kind of thing, and then when you get back it's at least another week of unpacking, finding homes for things, washing, more washing......

Oh, and to hammer yet another nail in my non-birding coffin, earlier in the week Muffin had a tummy upset involving stuff coming out of both ends. Lovely. This generated another few loads of washing, but hey, and whilst he has now recovered, this morning Pudding threw up on the school run. She is now wrapped up in towels in the front room in what is becoming a well-practised routine. The washing machine door is open, the powder is in, the dial is set to 'K'. I'm ready!

So, as I sat down and wondered what to replace the Speedos with, I thought that either I could write about washing and being sick, or bung a few photos on from New York last month. I concluded that nobody wanted to hear about vomit and diarrhoea, and that the Big Apple would be a better bet.