From the Armchair

The other day I was moaning to Mrs L that I hadn't any ticks for, like, ages and ages. What a terrible terrible shame she agreed [note that this is not necessarily a true depiction of events - Ed.]. Two hours later I was sat in my armchair when Nigel Hudson alerted the world to the availability latest BBRC Work-in-Progress file. Hurrah!

For those that don't know, the BBRC is the committee of birding bods/gods that adjudicate on whether rare birds in this country were real or not. First of all they have to decide whether the bird in question was the bird in question; was the ID correct, and was the bird a figment of the observer's imagination (heaven forbid) or not? In the case of the bird that roused me from my armchair, was the bird actually a Lesser White-fronted Goose, and not some dodgy bread-guzzling hybrid? Yes it was a Lesser White-fronted Goose, and yes it really existed as loads of people saw it. That hurdle passed, they move on to the difficult stuff. Where was it? When did it turn up? What birds did it arrive with? What birds did it leave with? When did it leave? What did it do while it was here? What did it eat? Did it say anything? All crucial questions, the sum of which are used to come to an informed decision about the wild provenance of the bird. Assuming the majority of the committee then call the toss correctly, the bird is accepted as a record onto the almighty British List.

Or one of the British Lists. There are several, maintained by different people, and you can follow whichever one you want. I can't remember the real name of the one I use, but it now has the Goose on it, whereas the one I don't use doesn't have the Goose on it. Although you will find this hard to believe, the various list-keepers can come to entirely different conclusions when presented with the same facts. You could argue about this all day long, and it's just possible that some of that does go on. Thankfully though it happens behind closed doors where the public can't see what a bunch of socially inept losers birders really are.

Moving swiftly on before this post takes a large downhill turn, every quarter the BBRC tells the world how they're getting on with rare bird records they have been tasked with judging. Rabid twitchers everywhere open the file and eagerly scan down the list of birds, which is presented taxonomically.

"Ooooh, Black Scoter, did I see that?!"
"What about that Blue-winged Teal with a ring on it from Cambs somewhere?"
"Oh, I wonder if they've accepted that Goose?

TICK!

The specific entry you are looking for is "OK". OK means it has passed all the tests and is adjudged to be a real non-fictitious bird. There are other entries as well. "IC" is a popular one, and means in "In Circulation", ie they're still looking at it. They can sometimes look at it for a very long time. For example, they're still looking at a Great Reed Warbler from Dorset in May 1961. I'm all for being careful, however fifty years on, with the observer almost certainly (and unfortunately) in Green Italics, it's time to make your mind up. I suggest that a quick "NP" here would be ideal, as there is likely nobody left to chunter about it. NP stands for "Not Proven", which is a nice way of saying you were wrong, and you didn't see a real bird. Personally I'd prefer to see "Bollocks" next to an improbable record, as that is what most sceptic birders would say when they first got the news, but I'm not on the committee. And possibly never will be.

Anyhow, Goosy-Lucy is no longer in circulation, she is "OK". Back in January, when I saw this wild, wary, pure and unringed bird consorting with a classic carrier species in a historically plausible location, I was extremely restrained. Usually I speed home, there to open Bubo and bung the bird on immediately. In this instance I waited, just in case the powers that be decided in their wisdom that the bird was plastic. Happily it has been given the benefit of the doubt, and so, feeling virtuous from the comfort of my armchair, I have been able to tick it off my little bird-spotting list, and need never look at one again. Phew.

Here is the first Lesser White-front I ever saw. It didn't cut the mustard for some reason.

Except on Wednesdays when I get rudely awakened by the burglars

Things are a bit of a blur this morning, famille L has not had much sleep. At 3:50am we were woken by an immense clattering. Assuming foxes, who become ever bolder, I turned over. Fortunately Mrs L jumped out of bed in time to see two men running down the street with a ladder.

Gah! Chateau L had been violated. I charged downstairs, vaulted the Crocodiles, and commando-rolled into the front room. The bear-trap was still set. The crossbow in the kitchen was similarly undisturbed; it appeared the Keep was intact. Phew. Out in the garden, the moth trap was still glowing away, several Toads and a [rabid] Fox cub in attendance. So far so good, no moths stolen. Cautiously checking the front of the house I could see no damage, but the ladder could only mean one thing - our outer defences had been breached, the moat, er I mean gate, scaled. I peered down the side passage - a blank space where Mrs L's bike had until recently been stared back.

This is no mean feat, as our gate is about ten feet high, and Mrs L's bike is a behemoth. It weighs at least two tonnes, there can be no more unwieldy piece of metal on the planet. Somehow it had been heaved over the gate, waking us up in the process. But we had not seen the bike disappearing down the street, which probably meant more than two burglars. In the face of these odds, I decided against heading out to hunt them down, and instead Mrs L called the Police. Being British, I then had a cup of tea.

I am paranoid at the best of times, so to actually be burgled is really annoying. But at least they didn't get into the house. Lucky for them, as if they had managed to negotiate all the traps and Crocodiles and make it upstairs, the sight of me on a hot summer night would have finished them off. Actually it's more likely any intruder would get stuck in Mount Garment and suffocate, his corpse going undetected for several weeks. No doubt it was a bunch of kids chancing their arm, but in this heat I have been leaving vents and windows open, and not pulling that little chain thingy across the front door. I need to raise my game. And buy some Lions.

Amazingly, about an hour later the Police turned up with Mrs L's bike. This was about the least likely outcome I had expected, but top marks, I am happy to be paying my taxes. Oh, wait. Anyway, we had both thought that it was gone for good, and would by now have been in a shipping container in Felixstowe on the way to the Middle East. Or at the bottom of the river Roding. So to have it returned, albeit amazingly beaten-about in the short time it had been missing, is remarkable. The patrol car had been a couple of miles away at Gant's Hill when the call came through, and as they were driving up to our road they spotted six men with a bike in that little cut-through - remember, the one I got mugged in and lost my bins - clearly a place of some iniquity. Six men and a bike at 4am is a little unusual, so they put two and two together and came up with four, stopped the car, and jumped out. The men dropped the bike and scarpered into Bush Wood where they split up. The officers gave chase, but there was little they could do, and the dog team that turned up a while later could find no trace. But we got the bike back, and I would hope that there are currently six pairs of brown pants being washed in Forest Gate or wherever the scumbags came from. I wonder if there is a burglary term for "dip"?

Six guys though, a bit scary. If six men decided to break into your house in the middle of the night, there is not a lot you are going to be able to do about it. Can you imagine? I wouldn't have needed to feed the Crocodiles for weeks!

Guard Toad protecting Moth Trap from Mosquitos.

Dead Birders Society

People are upset. They are up in arms. Teeth are being gnashed, and there is public outcry. The reason? Lee Evans, founding member of the UK400 Club, and President of the British Birding Association, has published his latest life rankings for every top twitcher in the country. And for the first time in a long time, he has placed it where everyone can see it. Like I said, outcry!

Lee Evans has the power to polarise that you would scarcely believe possible, which is strange given what a calm and rational lot twitchers are. A lot of top twitchers are all signed up to the UK400 club, largely because the taxonomy used means that they can have a higher number on the list. For instance as well as House Sparrow and Tree Sparrow, they also get Maisonette Sparrow, Bedsit Sparrow, and One-bedroom Studio Flat Sparrow. They like Lee Evans, and tell him what they have seen. They probably also tell him what other people have seen.

Conversely, a lot of other top twitchers hate Lee Evans. They would rather eat their own testicles before they told him what they have seen, and the fact that their names also appear on this list is a source of great friction. Believe me when I say it is of absolutely critical importance that there be an accurate ranking system for twitchers in this country. Oh yes. So those that don't tell Lee what they have seen, Lee instead estimates what they have seen. This is the chief source of the friction. Some may say they object to other people keeping tabs on them, but really it's because the number that Lee has against their name is smaller than the number they have against their name. Deep down, they always knew they were on the list. But now they can actually see the list, and can thus be publicly offended and upset. The school playground springs to mind.

Battle lines are entrenched, this is a matter of the highest importance. Legal action is threatened - yes, over the fact that there is a list with your name on it and a number next to it - this could only ever happen in birding. Whole websites are devoted to vitriol (who would have thought it?), and yet these are the same people who will next week be climbing the same ladder to see the same bird over the same wall.

For the minute a gross rarity breaks, all of these people at the top of this list, be they friend or foe, drop whatever it is they are doing, pull sickies and so on, and drive hell-for-leather to wherever the poor lost avian waif is. During the journey, they are hoping for only two things. Firstly, that the bird is still there and that they will see it. And secondly that all the others at the top of the list are busy and will not see it. Fat chance. Very occasionally, a member of the top twitchers will be abroad, miss an extreme rarity, and thus slip a precious place down the rankings. So most top twitchers don't ever go holiday, instead they sit at home holding their pagers. But for those that take the risk, and get caught short, they will have a gap on their list where the others have a little tick, and this will annoy them for the rest of their lives, and possibly longer.

And this is where Lee's list becomes interesting, for it also includes dead people. Yup, living twitchers are able to gain rankings places against dead twitchers. Hardly fair, is it? Dead twitchers are listed in italics, and in green. And they don't just die like normal people, no, twitchers 'unfortunately' die. I concede that in some cases that could be true, but it seems an odd way to phrase it. Oh what bad luck, you appear to have died. See? 

Anyway, phraseology aside, with very few exceptions, the reason that people are at the very top of the twitchers list is because they have been twitching for a very long time. Which means they are getting on a bit, or to put it another way, they are (very unfortunately) closer to the end of their lives than the beginning of their lives. One presumes therefore that over time, the list will get greener and greener, rather ironically because the price of fuel is becoming a significant barrier to entry to becoming a top twitcher and getting closer to the top of the list. I'm not an overly morbid person, and I would not wish for any person, not even a top twitcher, to shuffle off this mortal coil early, but I must confess to being rather fascinated by the inevitable future greenification of this list. At what point will it start becoming uncomfortable to publish? When five of the top ten are green? Seven? All of them bar one?! All I am asking is has this been properly thought through, as if you ask me, it's a problem just waiting to happen.

PS I'm not on the list. In any colour.

Time for a Change?

My life is currently a heady mixture of bug photography and domestic servitude. It was a surprise then to get a text containing Wanstead bird news whilst lounging around in bed drinking tea this morning. The exciting and unexpected missive was that a Common Tern was possibly heading my way. I managed to drag myself out of bed and peer out the window, but it was all still a bit blurry. I am of the age now where perfect vision does not simultaeneously occur with the opening of one's eyes, and by the time I could actually see straight the Tern was probably fishing in Walthamstow. I got back into bed and finished drinking tea.

Muffin meanwhile was busy doing the moth trap. A short while later he scampered upstairs with an Isle of Wight Wave. Probably extinct said Waring and Townsend, but this fact didn't bother him - it was one. My brain was not sufficiently engaged to argue with him, except to say that we weren't on the Isle of Wight, but by the time breakfast came around it was a Dwarf Cream Wave instead so all you moth-ers can rest easy.

The school run complete, and various more disgusting elements of the kitchen cleaned, I was free to start bug-hunting again. Flash on, and away I went. Sadly it was hard work to even find a bug in the neatly trimmed garden of Chateau L. A few flies, a spider (probably the catchily-named Tibellus oblongus), and a ladybird were all I could come up with. The spider had an egg-sack though, which was pretty cool. Or it could have been dinner, not sure.

All these bugs have made me decide that I'm going to go out birding again soon. I've been pretty slack of late, and most of all, I think I'm missing it. Wader season is about to start, and there seem to be Crossbills whizzing around all over the place. A few early starts could see me cash in. Or see nothing.

And finally, it would be amiss of me not to say a big thank you to my 100 Acolytes. The momentous three-figure day was yesterday, approximately two and a half years after kicking off. That I still have anything to say is remarkable. Even more remarkable is why any of you return here day after day, but it is extremely gratifying. So please don't leave, it would be very sad, not to say somewhat humiliating, especially after writing this. To show you how much I love you, here is a photo of a fly.

What, you would have preferred a Ladybird? Oh go on then. I am feeling indulgent.

The Rise of the Insect Paparazzi

The insect-life of Wanstead is being terrorised. Hordes of photographers (well, me) wait for them outside flowers. They chase them from leaf to leaf, sticking lenses in their faces. Flashes are fired at close range. No insect is safe, it could all come to blows. I would expect to win though, as insects are really small and I'm gigantic.

The reason for this campaign of insect attrition? Well June, obviously, but also the purchase of a new Macro lens a couple of weeks ago, and a determination to bloody well learn how to use a flash. I've been photographing things for about 14 years now. During that time I have owned precisely two flashes, and not known how to use either of them. In need of a challenge, this week I decided I would sort that out. And sod me if it isn't really really difficult. You might think that you stick the flash on top of the camera and fire away, job done. You would be wrong; from my studies this afternoon, it appears that nothing could be further from the truth, and that Canon's flash system, whilst no doubt ingenious in its own way, is a pig to get to grips with.

Practice practice practice, it's just like birding. You can't learn it by reading books or articles, though these are no doubt helpful. You have to get out there and use it, hence the terror. What I will say is this - it has the power to totally transform macro photography. I now understand, or at least am beginning to understand, why some of the ludicrously good macro stuff on the web is as good as it is. I will not bore you with techy details. They are boring, and, well, techy, no getting away from it. And anyway, it is voyage of discovery that I think all budding photographers should take on their own, the better to really learn it. I may crack later and put my thoughts down, but for now what I will say is this though - Get a flash (and USE IT, unlike me) and you will not look back. I can't wait until tomorrow when I can get out there again and start papping. Oh, and buy rechargable batteries.

To a greater or lesser extent, I used flash for all four of the following photos. All were handheld, and of the four subjects, the only one I can name with confidence is the snail (third down). God knows what the final one is, but I think it is part Goldfish. About 3.5mm long, so perhaps a baby Goldfish?

Dealing with Fame

Today was my big day. The day I broke into television. I’m not counting the dead birds on Wanstead Flats, that was hardly the grand entrance I wanted. No, today is where it is all going to start. I don’t yet know what it is going to be called, but I believe the working title is Wansteadbirderwatch.

I arrived at the London Wetland Centre and was met at the entrance by no less than Sir Peter Scott. Carrying on past the statue, I ended up in a room at the top of the visitor centre where Simon King was waiting for me. He was of course absolutely thrilled to meet me, though true professional that he is, he managed to mostly conceal his utter delight and acted perfectly normally. Like it was something he did everyday. As if! I did my bit of course, putting him at ease by pretending to be totally amazed at meeting him, a bit of fawning and so on. I think it worked! Eventually they managed to drag him away from me, and so I was able to get on with my program-making. Honestly, the people I have to deal with…

Arriving on the set of Wansteadbirderwatch, the cameraman and sound guy were both ready and waiting. Unfortunately Air Traffic Control had been unable to agree to my request that all Heathrow-bound planes divert to Gatwick for the day, so the filming was interrupted about every forty-five seconds by the roar of jet engines. This is why my thirty second segment took fifty-five takes, rather than any other reason such as gross incompetence. Just wait until I get hold of Willie Walsh. Throw in every school child in west London and a few aimless plastic duck-strokers, and it took forever and we were unable to move onto the main segment of me expounding my thoughts on twitching and dog-ownership levels in the southeast. Nevermind, I’m sure that will be the next part to get made just as soon as I have a chance to get back there.

I ambled back to the visitor centre in the company of Sula, a local birder and blog acolyte, where it was no surprise that Simon was hanging around waiting for me. I put him out of his misery and sat down opposite him at a table, and proceeded to have a good old chat about many things. Mainly about travel and Shetland, which he wanted to know all about as I think he is planning a trip there soon. Hopefully I was able to pass on a few tips.

And that was it, I bade my farewells and headed back to my limo. It’s a long red one, I don’t believe in black. Although I had told my driver what time I was finishing, he must have misheard, because he was between twelve and fifteen minutes late.

I’m back home now, and I have to say that cooking dinner and dealing with squabbling children is a bit of a come-down after my day of televisual feast-making. Soon though I expect that to be a thing of the past, and my personal assistant(s) can fetch the children and bring them to the trailer if I’m on set....

PS Anyone who takes this post the slightest bit seriously needs to get out more. Out against a wall to be precise, where they should arrange for someone to then shoot them.

Macro Fun

You know it's summer when the macro lens comes out and stays on. Mine has been on my camera for about a month now, and barely comes off. There are just too many things to point it out at this time of year. It is completely different to bird photography, and requires a whole new set of skills and understanding - skills I don't yet have, but I'm working on it. You might think it would be easier, but I'm not so sure. Who cares though, as it is a whole lot of fun with infinite possibilities.

I was wondering about doing a series of articles/posts about the merits of various lenses and photography techniques, as I do at least know a little these days, but felt it might end up a little turgid, and not really suit the style of this blog. Then I got to thinking that this blog doesn't have any style, or at least not one that I can easily describe, so maybe I'll just do what I normally do and babble. You can get your photography tips from far better places than this.

So, today, when I had finished some domestic chores that have already been undone by my children, I headed out onto Wanstead Flats. I took a birding lens, but had no expectation of using it, and that indeed proved to be the case. The macro lens on the other hand was used the entire time. I actually have two, a 180mm, and a 100mm, and on this trip it was the 100mm that came out, mainly as it has an image stabiliser that alleviates at least some mucking about with a tripod. For serious macro photography, a tripod is essential, but it removes a lot of the enjoyment from just walking around with your camera and pointing it at random stuff. You can be a lot more mobile and flexible without one, and that is my preferred style.

There was heaps, I almost didn't know where to point the camera. Everywhere I walked I kicked up grasshoppers of varying sizes. Multitudes of grass moths flitted about, and bees were everywhere. Butterflies were thin on the ground, but I found a few Small Skippers and a Meadow Brown, all of which flew away. A long way away. Far more cooperative was a Five-spot Burnet, a day-flying moth, resting on some bramble. And very useful for getting this blog back on topic.

The real interest was in the plants though. I have no idea what this one is, the flower is long gone, but it was probably some kind of Dandelion. A massive one though, as the seed-head is about four inches across, and extremely intricate. Probably full of fractals or something, or that Fibonacci sequence. Not that I understand either of those things of course, but they sound good. Anyway, assuming they're still there, I'm going to go back tomorrow and give them really good go.