Filthy Yearlisting and Twitching

But not by me!! Hah! Everyone I know seems to be twitching or year-listing. Take the Mo, as fervent an anti-twitcher as you would ever meet - he didn't even get his arse down to Dungeness for the Oriental Pratincole. But where was he last week? Tear-arsing round Essex in search of filthy ticks, that's where. Yep, Glossy Ibis and Red-breasted Goose ticking. Every time I see him he goes off on one about how all his mates are wrong in the head, chasing round the country for birds, and what does he go and do? He's just blogged about Black-tailed Godwits in London, but don't let that fool you, he's hardly ever in London - most of his Peregrine shots are taken in Wales probably. Filth.

Moving on, who should we find nutty year-listing? Me? I don't think so! I would never be so silly. Nope, it's Hawky, that's who. The two years that I saw over 300, at this exact date I was on 147 & 148. Filthy Hawkins? 152. Yes, you read that right. 152. Unbelievable. Again, another person who professes sensibleness and the virtues of local patching. He came over today to year-tick the Wanstead Firecrests. Next stop the Girling for Black-necked Grebe, and then to Connaught Water where I helped him pick out some male Mandarins - tricky little blighters. Not content with all these ticks it was back to Wanstead for Ring-necked Parakeet and a shot at Lesser Spot. We failed on that, but the Parakeets were a walk in the park. Literally. Filth.

Normally (or perhaps not), Nick would be found walking in the Park. But not today. As dedicated a patch-worker as you will find, there was no sign of him, no gripping messages about Lapwings, no counts of Redwing. Instead a series of garbled messages about trains, small Geese and Norfolk. Two weeks ago Hampshire. Last weekend, Dorset. This weekend, Norfolk, in search of the Lesser White-front before it buggers off back to Pensthorpe. He's reached 150 with a Purple Sandpiper in Lowestoft! Filth.

In addition to a Lesser White-fronted Goose, Bradders could also have been found at Buckenham. In contrast to the three miscreants above, this is perfectly normal. Finding him outside of Norfolk is probably more unusual. He professes to be visiting family, and pretends (every year) that he isn't year-listing. Desperate. Hot news from Norfolk is that he's on 149, a real laggard. If he reads this tonight I expect it will motivate him to be out at dawn tomorrow. At Helston probably.

As far as I can tell, the only person I know who has stayed true is Shaun, who birds the Ingrebourne Valley, as his title picture hopefully makes clear. He's been dipping the pair of White-fronted Geese that have been there. And me. Where was I? Wanstead of course, seeking patch ticks to get that Golden Mallard winging its way to the big smoke. It didn't happen, but I did jam another Kingfisher briefly, and whilst I had my camera pointing vaguely in the right direction as well, always pleasing. Highlights were that, and a high count of Pochard on Heronry, a staggering 54 birds. Oh, and an honourable mention to the carrot cake from the tea shop of happiness, which showed well, if extremely briefly.

My year-list? 136. Comfortably lower than anyone else I know.

Dreams come true!!

But not for me..... There I was, sitting in my little grey cubicle in big grey Canary Wharf when my phone bonged. It was from Nick. This is rarely good news. He had the good grace to start with an apology, but there was no getting away from the fact that a Lapwing had just flown over his head. Unlike my dream, this one was going east, but they all count.

Meanwhile I took a stroll round Canary Wharf. Though 13 Great Crested Grebes was a new high, I could not help but feel slightly short-changed. If I walked around Wanstead for an equivalent amount of time, I'd easily rack up 30 species, possibly more, and I wouldn't just be seeing one of things, I'd be seeing loads. In 45 minutes today, during which I circumnavigated the whole patch, I saw eleven species. The highlight, other than the Grebes, was a Blue Tit. There is poor, and then there is downright impoverished. And then there is Canary Wharf. At one stage, at the far eastern end of my defined boundary, I thought I heard a Pied Wagtail. I quickly folded my hat up over my ears for that ultra-cool look that I pass off so well, but whatever it was it didn't call again, and with a whole packet of peanuts at stake I can't go claiming dodgy ones. 

It will be interesting* to see what happens this spring. I am working it harder than ever before in the limited time I spend there, so perhaps it will shine**. The happy*** news is that my contract has been extended, so I get to spend more time there. Woohoo!**** But it does mean crusts on the table (and wine in the cellar) and in these uncertain times I am thankful; there are plenty of people who are not employed, and plenty of people for whom the future is doubtful. I would still like to petition for continued child benefit though, it's the only reason I had children, and it's the only monetary benefit I have ever claimed. If it goes I will be forced to injure myself more in order to extract a quasi tax rebate out of the NHS. I assure you it will be quite easy- in fact I stubbed my toe (THE toe) just the other day and for a brief moment of extreme pain I thought it had all gone wrong again. It certainly hasn't healed quite correctly, I wonder if I ought to have had some kind of cast after all? Mind you, the doctor I had probably would have put it on the wrong foot....

* not
** almost certainly not
*** errr...
****Never has a woo and a hoo been quite so muted

Dreaming

The other night I had a dream. It's possible that I dream every night, I have no idea how it works, but it's not every morning you wake up and wonder whether it was all a dream, so to speak. This particular dream was about the patch, and I was on it. The snide will comment that it must have been a dream, and indeed, sometimes it does appear to be like that, especially so at the moment, where I get perhaps one opportunity a week to not see Woodpeckers. This dream was not about Woodpeckers though, it was about Lapwings.

Lapwings are what a local bird report might call a scarce visitor. When I first moved here, Lapwing was pretty much a dream bird. I suppose, given recent events, that it still is. Anyway, I had lived here nearly five years before I saw my first Lapwing - in a cold spell one December, 12 flew over me in the Park. I could barely believe it. I dashed home to report the good news to my fascinated family, and in a calculated move of which I am still immensely proud, went and stood in the garden for the rest of the day. Lo and behold, and to a chorus of pure joy, a single Lapwing flying south went and got itself onto the house list. Since that momentous day, I've seen Lapwings a further nine times, totalling 33 birds, though I guess you have to be a fan of urban patch stats to truly appreciate this. One more stat - most of these have been from the garden - unemployment has its benefits.

In my dream I was on the Flats, not in the garden. I was in the SSSI, heading home after a fruitless trip - all the best dreams are grounded in reality. Approaching the ditch that runs approximately east to west, two Lapwings flew over. In case you were having the same dream, they went west. Anyway, they were perfect. The rounded rings, narrower at the base, were impeccably floppy, the flight impressively Lapwingy. In my dream I punched the air, over the moon at a tough patch year tick bagged. Then I woke up. Well, not immediately I don't suppose, but upon waking the dream was still fresh, still vivid, in my mind's eye I could picture them still.

One of the very first ones

Is this post a confession? Not really, you all know I'm a sad case already. I am giving absolutely nothing away when I admit that I dream of birds, but what I feel is particularly noteworthy is that I don't dream about finding Sibe Rubythroats on Unst, or jamming in on Calandra Larks on Scilly. No, I dream about bog standard common waders on my own patch. Unconscious dedication.

Once Upon a Time we had Woodpeckers

For the last two years on the trot we have had Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers breeding on Wanstead Flats. Wanstead Flats is mostly grassland and football pitches, with a few mature copses. The lack of cover meant you could easily see the Woodpeckers for the trees, so to speak. Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is a good bird anywhere, let alone London, and as they were so reliable, people came from far and wide to get a glimpse of them. Most came away happy, and we, the patch-workers, were also happy. Wanstead is good for Woodpeckers.

Then came health and safety. The Corporation of London, who in all the time I have lived here I have yet to see perform a single worthwhile act that benefits wildlife, decided that the trees in the copses were dangerous. Being so attractive to Woodpeckers, and so, well, dead, there was a risk that they might fall on someone, and that that someone might sue. So breeding Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers be damned, all those trees are now gone. You cannot argue with health and safety. It's like trying to argue with the Olympics, utterly pointless.

The copses are used by breeding Starling, breeding Stock Dove, and Woodpeckers. Blue and Great Tits feed in them, as do winter thrushes. Squirrels and Noctule Bats call them home, and when we had Little Owls, they lived there too. Human activity is confined to the drinking of lager, the lighting of barbeques, the dropping of litter, and casual sex. All of those activities could do with a large lump of wood interrupting them in my opinion. But no, the Corporation does not want to be sued by a bunch of half-drunk eastern european migrants or aged doggers, so the trees have all been reduced to bare trunks. The sensible thing to do would have been to fence off the copses, and leave nature to run its course, which would result in lots of nice dead wood for invertebrates, and the continued presence of breeding Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. But no, a branch might crush a drunk, so it's far safer just to get rid of the trees altogether. At least the beetles and grubs will have some nice logs to get going on though. Er, no. They constitute a fire hazard, and so have been removed in case the local youf or aforementioned drunks decide to burn them.

I spent a good two hours looking for Lesser Spots on Wanstead Flats today. Guess what?

I took this in 2010

 

Now the tree looks like this.



A big two fingers up to wildlife



Deep pockets

As I go about the tricky business that is sorting out how to get to fantastic birding destinations other than Wanstead Flats, I find myself once again feeling a very deep hatred for budget airlines. In a civilised society, budget airlines would be banned. Instead they are free to con, swindle and rip us off at every opportunity. The booking process is of course the worst bit - somehow, every time and without fail, a £29.99 flight advertised in flashing lights ends up costing about £200. First there are the taxes, not a lot you can do about that apart from vote for the other lot next time around. But then, incrementally, the airlines find more ways to hike it up. So you find insurance pre-selected, including snow and ice cover for your spring break in Egypt, and you find that you are about to hire a car for your trip to Venice. You find that the flight price didn't include a seat on the plane - perhaps you are expected to stand? So booking one - pre-selected for your convenience - sets you back another few quid. If, like I was, you're taking several flights, you find that this applies to each leg, so multiple lots of a few quid. Pre-boarding before the other poor sods on your flight? More money please. What, you want to take some stuff on holiday? Well, you'll need a suitcase then, so another charge - but half price if you book it now rather than at the airport! OK, we're almost done. Do you want to check-in at the airport? If so it'll cost ya! Online it is then. So, your total is now £180. Ah, hang on, we haven't yet added enough spurious extra charges, so we need to add a booking fee. In fact, a booking fee per leg. That's better. Right, £200 then. How would you like to pay? Got a credit card like any normal person? Excellent, that'll be an additional £10. Bit steep? OK, how about a debit card - this only costs us 20p to process, so we can generously drop the handling fee to £8. What, you find that absolutely outrageous? OK, what about a Visa Electron or a pre-paid Mastercard, we don't charge for them. Know why? Because nobody has one and they don't actually exist.

In the end, the flight is probably cheaper than a real airline, but how much there is in it I have no idea. The problem is that budget airline customers end up loathing their carrier before they have even left for the airport - how can that be any kind of successful business model? For me though, the villainly of the booking process is eclipsed by the hand luggage restrictions. The policy on some budget airlines is near enough identical to a normal, decent and morally superior airline, which means that by and large you can get one of those small rolling suitcases on. Some however are just plain evil, and they slash these dimensions to a plainly ridiculous degree, typically about 1cm less than any known bag. You're allowed to bring the case your bins came in, and that's it. Unfortunately birders are not known for travelling light. In addition to bins we need scopes. We need tripods, and we possibly need cameras. All nice and bulky.  Packing for birding trip is agony, it takes hours. You pack and repack, you stand on the bathroom scales to see how much your bag weighs. You unpack it all and start again. Three weeks later, you're ready.

At the airport you stand in a long line. Though you checked-in online, this in fact means nothing, you still have to queue. There is one person at the desk, and she is dealing with an irate fat scouser. Finally you get to the front, pretending that your bag isn't really really hurting your back. Nobody asks to see it, nobody weighs it, nobody tries to squish it into one of those little cages. Phew, I've done it, I've made it! The plane is only four hours late, but hey, they didn't check my hand luggage! Result!!

You wait in yet another queue for the plane. They announce boarding - you're off!! All of a sudden there are budget airline staff everywhere! They are checking bags, and they have one of those little cages. In sight of the plane, too late to do anything about it, and now, finally, they are getting draconian on bags. The choice is a stark one. Leave your bag containing thousands of pounds worth of optics behind, forfeit your flight, or.....pay £60 to have a man take your bag to a different door on the airplane approximately twenty feet from the door you're about to go through. Weeping, passengers reach for their credit cards, presumably to be told that if that's how they want to pay, the price has risen to £100. The whole process is sickening. I read recently about a great airline scam - the sizing containers at the check-in desk of one budget airline were larger than the ones at the departure gate! Passengers bags passed the initial checks with flying colours, and then failed the later one. A nice little earner, as they say. I would not be at all surprised if check-in staff work on a commission basis.

The only way to successfully travel on a budget airline is to wear all your clothes, including a coat with masses of pockets. I habitually use a fishing jacket - the rear pocket, designed for trout, can hold a 300mm lens with no problems at all. I can get full size bins in one of the front pockets, a DLSR in the other. A wide-angle lens, macro, and both converters go in the top pockets, my tripod head in another, and I can smugly present them with a very small carry-on bag. My weight has doubled, but so what? I bet I still weigh less than that scouser. I actually think airlines should charge fat people more. Where's the equity in charging me for a bag weighing 1kg more than the defined limit, when the guy behind me weighs the same as my entire family? But I suppose that would be fattist, or whatever the word is, and anyway, I'm at risk of getting charged.......

Bills bills and more bills

I have not had any nice post for ages. You know, people sending gifts of chocolates, free optical samples, that kind of thing. The only things that have landed on the mat have been in brown envelopes. Brown envelopes always signal doom. The accepted method of dealing with brown envelopes is to leave them on the kitchen counter unopened and hope they go away. They don't, they just stack up. I've let ours stack up for a couple of weeks now. The crunch came yesterday when a child presented me with an envelope fresh from their school bag. Guess what colour it was? Gah! My own children giving me bills! What have I done?! What have I forgotten to do?!

It was a bill for cello lessons. I've only just paid for three lots of school dinners for this half term, even the school is bankrupting me. I decided to get it over with, and opened the envelopes on the counter. They came to a four figure sum, and are all due now. And it's not like that's it either. The good ship Eco One needs taxing again next month, which also means it needs insuring again. That's another whopper right there I expect. Bills, bills, bills. Basically everything becomes due in either January or February, which is straight after Christmas, not a period known for frugality. But it doesn't stop there. The start of the year is also when you start planning stuff, so today I also booked a flight to Shetland, paid a deposit on a self-catering cottage on Mull, and booked a CalMac ferry ticket.  If you're going to be left with beans, you might as well do it properly.

I was just recovering from that by soothingly working out how many decades I had left on my mortgage when an email arrived. It was from the electricity company. Please read your meter, it said, as we would like to send you an enormous bill. If you don't, it went on to say, we will estimate your usage and send you an enormous bill anyway. Win.

Now before you all start sending me cheques, or small wads of used fifties, I am able to pay these bills. I would have been very foolish to have signed up to all the various things that the bills relate to if I could not, though note that this has not stopped many many people from spending wantonly and sucking this country into a large hole, along with the good financial people who encouraged their borrowing. No, it is all OK, just about, and though it pains me, we are not on the street just yet. It's just when it comes up in one lump that you actually notice quite how much normal living actually costs. We are not extravagant people (except for Mrs L's obsession with buying obscene quantities of optical equipment almost constantly), we live well within our means. My car is twenty years old, and we have not heard of flat screen TVs. Most of our kitchen cupboard doors hang on one hinge, and we have instructed our butler to only feed the tropical fish twice a week. My point is that even if you only stick to the basics, which by and large we do, the cost of living is simply ridiculous. Take my council tax for example. Monumental - over two thousand pounds!! Imagine the holiday we could go on?! Imagine the left-hand barrel of a pair of Swarovski SVs! Included within that (since about 2006, and until about 2018)is of course my personal contribution to the 2012 Olympics. The same Olympics that are two miles away and that I got no tickets for. The same Olympics that are going to build a fuck-off police megabase on Wanstead Flats mere yards from my house and prevent me birding Jubilee pond. The same Olympics that are between me and work, and where the transport bosses think that a wait of half an hour to get onto the tube at Stratford is "reasonable". Talking of which, getting to work costs me almost six quid - it's about five miles away. Eating lunch is another four or five, and don't get me started on coffee. At the Spanish Sparrow twitch a bacon roll and a cup of coffee cost me £1.50. In Canary Wharf, where my best bird this year has been a measly Blackbird, I'd be looking at a fiver. London is sickening, and I'm led to believe that there are plenty of other places that are equally as outrageous.

You know what, I am all whined out. Typing this has been very helpful, and I now know what to do. Pour myself a drink. I'll try not to think about 60% of every sip being tax.

Olé Olé, Olé Olé

Many many sensible people arriving in the dark for a bird that will be present all year.

Although I very rarely twitch, as any regular reader of these pages will know, there were a couple of cars heading down to the New Forest yesterday. Would I like to be in one of them? Well, not really, but if you insist on having my wit and repartee in order to make the drive that much shorter, how can I refuse? Right, pick you up at 5am says Bradders. 5am? Holy S. Five in the morning, ie waking up at four something, to see a bird that looks remarkably similar to a Sparrow, and that has been there a year and will likely be there a further year. A bird so comfortable in its surroundings that like many a sailor in a foreign port, it has knocked up one of the local lasses, and is even now eyeing up some more. Never have european relations been stronger than in Calshot, Hampshire. But would the bird still be there for the weekend masses?

Housing Estate-watching

An emphatic yes, though I was surprised how few people were there. I had been anxiously expecting a good five-hundred, and had been preparing myself for the shame of being seen amongst so many green-clad middle-aged men. In the event it was fine, perhaps a hundred tops, and many of them in blue, though there is no getting away from the age. I am uncomfortably part of a very particular demographic. But hey, twitching is fun! Ticking birds is fun. Yes, even Sparrows. The locals were doing a roaring trade in bacon butties and teas, and I thought the whole thing passed off really well, with no stupidity from anyone, not even me. Not that it would have been possible to scare the bird off, the thing was seemingly impervious to humans. Anyway, as soon as we were done with ticking it, we were heading off birding in the wilds of the New Forest, where we doubted we would see another birder all day.

¿Qué estás mirando, mal vestido idiota?

Unfortunately the New Forest is teeming with goodies, and we could not avoid driving round in what was essentially an enormous convoy of birders all visiting the same locations. So first the Dark-eyed Junco somewhere near Bewlee (although the signposts all said Beaulieu for some reason), then Blashford for a semi-Ferruginous Duck, and then somewhere else for a regular Hawfinch roost. I swear I saw the exact same people at every place. They probably wondered what I was doing there too.

But of course...

The birds were good. My second Junco, a bird I had not expected to see another of, performed beautifully with 11,000 Reed Buntings and 250,000 Chaffinches. Crossbills were an almost constant feature, all three Swans (naturally, as I had failed to see Bewick's last year), and the Hawfinches showed superbly by their standards. A grand day out, and my year-list is going extremely well.

Managed to take this out of one of the few windows at Blashford HWT that actually opened and that wasn't blue. Worst hides I have ever been in by some distance, they need to sort it out.