Sanderlings at Titchwell

I promised waders, so here are waders. Sanderlings were the only ones I could get close to in the event, which was a shame as I was hoping for lots of bright colours. Not to worry, as you know I don't care what it is I take photos of, as long as the photos are good I'm happy. I think these are good. However I am very tired, am covered in Horsefly bites, and so for now I'm only popping one up and going to bed. Oh ok, two then.

Poster Boy

I've been meaning to share this for a while, it was a poster that was in our holiday cottage on Mull. Can you spot the odd one out? The one we didn't see? I'll give you a clue, it wasn't a Puffin....

Moaning for Britain

My job, as many will know from the Peanut Challenge, is at Canary Wharf, aka the Avian Desert. I live in Wanstead, and if you didn't know that then frankly there is no hope. Between these two cultural Meccas is a place called Stratford, and recently some funny white buildings have been popping up.

Yes, Britain is proud to be hosting the Olympic Games. We have spent years planning it, and it is almost upon us. We have chosen the most utterly pathetic mascots the world has ever seen, we have attempted to insult as many nations as possible before the games actually begin, we have more MacDonald's personnel than security, and the public transport system is crumbling around us. Yup, we're about as ready as we can be.

London 2012. A showcase for what makes Britain great.

Seeing as how I work in Canary Wharf and live in Wanstead, I have to go through Stratford to earn my crust. My normal commute is a shade over 40 minutes. So by Thursday evening I would have expected to have spent a very pleasurable five hours and 20 minutes on public transport. So far this week that number is closer to ten hours, including walking home from Stratford one evening as the problems were beyond resolution. And the Olympics haven't even started yet. People wonder why I've been moaning quite so much. There's one reason right there. No, I didn't get tickets.

Any other gripes? Well yes, thanks for asking, there are quite a few as it happens. The first is an enormous Police Base on Wanstead Flats that has eliminated a good proportion of the patch and cut my morning birding in half. It's been present for a month, and is planned to be present for about another two months. I can only imagine the state of the area once it's all gone. Then there are the missiles on the Fred Wigg Tower. The only reason I can't see them from my house is that a tree is in the way. I don't like missiles very much at the best of times, and having them that close in case some nutter decides he is going to make a statement to the the world makes me quite uncomfortable. I feel like I'm in the line of fire. Two more reasons why I'm not embracing the Olympics.

Anything else? Yes. Helicopters. There are helicopters everywhere. All day and all night there are helicopters buzzing around. Try to work, helipcopter. Try to sleep, helicopter. In my dreams all I can hear are helicopters. And sirens. And people. There are people everywhere. I know. It's London and there are always people everywhere. This is true, but there are more people everywhere. In my current frazzled state it doesn't take much.

Thankfully I have the perfect remedy. I'm going to Norfolk at the weekend to photograph waders. I think Titchwell will be perfect.

Sweet Nothings

Nada to report dear internet friends. I have been slaving away (as usual) and have done no birding. Wanstead resembles the surface of Mars, but with fewer birds. I abandoned it completely at the weekend and went to Kent to look at lovely waders that I have less than no chance of seeing at home. They were very nice, and for once the sun shone and I am a fetching shade of pink.

In other news my commute this morning took over an hour and a half, and I had to stand (eventually) on a bus full of happy French people who were delighted to be in London for the Olympics and were contemplating "du shopping". My commute home took a similar amount of time because the tube was down again (or maybe it never recovered), so instead I walked home from Stratford, which took me past the very subtle Police Base and the Surface-to-Air missiles. On the plus side I saw a Kestrel and a Sparrowhawk, and seeing as the walk took almost 50 minutes, slightly allayed my fears that my neighbourhood is going to turn into an Olympic carpark, being just outside the controlled zone. Whilst the Olympics is no doubt a very exciting event, even for those bitter people who did not get tickets even though they live nearby, I cannot help feeling that the whole thing is going to be a complete and utter disaster from start to finish. Or indeed from slightly before the start.

All about birds*

Today was very exciting. Apart from the work bit. But before that started in earnest, I went out to check the moth trap. Generally speaking, this year has been extraordinarily poor for mothing. It rains buckets, the wind howls, all the moths are either dead or hiding. My moth notebook has a few entries for March, and then it says "then it rained for a month". There are a few entries for the end of May, and then nothing until about a week ago. Partly this is six weeks of solid rain, but mainly it's because my middle daughter - Pie, in case you had forgotten - cycled into the moth trap, and then dropped the bike on it. The handlebars went straight through the bulb and continued on straight through the plastic lid. I wasn't impressed, and there were many tears. Pie cried too.

I thought about sourcing a new bulb, which wouldn't have been too difficult, but then discovered that the trap type had been discontinued and I wouldn't have been able to get a new lid and funnel. I vacillitated for a month, thought a lot about gaffer tape, and then splurged on a super-duper Robinson-type trap. And let me tell you, boy is it super duper! Yesterday evening was warm, humid, cloudy and calm, and in the morning, there was this!

This falls into the "most-wanted" category. And the "nearly spill my tea all over the moth trap" category. It's an Elephant Hawk-moth, and it is amazing. Last year we caught a Small Elephant Hawk-moth, which is rarer, but not quite as cool. Mainly it's because this one is bigger, and in the world of mothing it's a very simple equation. Whacking great enormous = amazing, tiny small nondescript = shit. I've been hoping for one of these for some time, but 2012 didn't seem to be the likely year. How wrong I was. Although the weather last night was pretty much ideal, I hadn't thought that there would be much about other than drowned caterpillars as the preceding weeks have been abysmal. Maybe that doesn't matter to moth caterpillars, perhaps they can swim? I've not seen many butterflies this year, maybe their caterpillars can't?

I emptied the trap after the children had gone to school, so unfortunately there was no double for Muffin. I did however keep it in the fridge for them to play with when they got back, and so all three of them got to hold it and stroke it. If this doesn't teach the kids an appreciation for the magic of wildlife, I'm not sure what will. They were utterly enthralled though, so I have high hopes.

* maybe next time

Where my liver went

If you were hoping that this might be about birds, hope again. I am afraid that once more I have virtually nothing to say. This has never stopped me before, and won't stop me in the future. If you want proper entertainment, I suggest you visit here, which is altogether a lot more fun. If you look very carefully at the very end, I actually feature, which was somewhat of a surprise, but there you go. If you put yourself out there to a certain extent, this is what can happen. Be warned kids. And grip, don't dip, obviously.

Er, where was I? Ah yes, no birding. So, in lieu of actually leaving the house, I did a spot of tidying. The object of my affections this time around was the big cupboard under the stairs, which over time has degenerated into a repository for stuff we no longer wish to see around the house. I pulled the whole lot out, recyled masses of it, went to the dump with a pile more, and shoved what was left back in. In doing so, I found these.

This is almost every single wine cork that I have pulled in the last, gosh I don't know, five years. Why have I kept them you might ask? Because I'm really really cool and well-adjusted. I don't actually have a good answer, or indeed any answer. I think I once harboured designs of doing something artistic with them, but that never happened and it's now getting to the stage where a Tern raft isn't totally out of the question. As a displacement activity, rummaging through a mountain of corks proved pretty good. Much better than cleaning at any rate. I didn't count them, out of deference to my doctor. And anyway, Mrs L is equally culpable. Or maybe a third culpable - that's the usual consumption ratio round here. Looking at this enormous pile, it's hard not to feel very very unhealthy indeed. No, I didn't go for a run today, it was raining.

Whilst poking through them it occured to me that this was very much June July material, especially the wettest and most bird-free July since 1682. By far the majority of the corks say "Mis en bouteille a la propriete", which is posh-speak for saying that the wine was bottled at the same place the grapes were grown, rather than shipped in a tanker to a massive factory in Antwerp and bottled alongside Pepsi, before hitting the shelves of Happy Shopper at £2.99 a bottle.

But digging a little deeper I unearthed a few that were recogniseable. A pleasing half-hour therefore passed, during which no tidying occured, and it turns out that there were quite a few more interesting* ones in there. I feel obliged to feature a small selection, clockwise from top left, and ending in the middle, as I have nothing else to say**.

1. Chateau Batailley, a Chateau L staple. Left bank claret, decently priced. I drink of a lot it. Not that you could tell.
2. Chateau de la Variere. In the Loire somewhere, we visited whilst on holiday. I would never be able to find it again, but I remember it being quite nice and doing dessert, which this is. Was.
3. Domaine Olivier Leflaive. White Burgundy - as popular as water round here, possibly drunk more frequently.
4. Wirra Wirra, an Aussie departure.
5. Bonneau du Martray. Oh yes.
6. Domaine Bruno Clair, Chambolle Musigny - Red Burgundy and Ribena substitute.
7. Cote de Nuits of some description. Likely delicious.
8. Domaine du Vieux Telegraph; wonderful Red Rhone that I can't afford any more because Kim Yong-Un has bought it all.
9. Indeterminate and forgotten celebration.

So where are they now? Recycled? At the dump? Errrr, almost. They're now in the loft. And guess what I found up there? Yup, the previous five years. I am nothing if not consistently sad.

* lies
** true

A break in the weather

I thought I'd never say it, but July is turning out worse than June. Today was the first day I can remember in some time when the sky wasn't the colour of a wet carpark, and the heavens weren't dumping on us every half hour. So far there hasn't been a drop of rain today, it all feels a bit weird actually. No doubt it will kick in again soon.

I've been pretty busy at work, birding opportunities have been limited. I did manage to scope, gloriously, a third year Yellow-legged Gull at Canary Wharf, which was another one towards my pack of peanuts, but Parus hit back almost instantly with both House Martin and Sand Martin. I expect that, like me, he hasn't really been trying, but when he got wind of my Gull and realised I was just one behind, he nipped out in double time  - and sadly coincided with a hirundine double act. As for the patch, I can't remember what it looks like.

To rectify this I popped out this morning to see if it was still there. It was, just about, but somebody has taken all the birds, which I normally equate with June. Quiet doesn't even come close. For starters, most of the patch is underwater. Rather than the waderfest you might think this would herald, all it means is that you tramp around getting wet feet. I had no more chance of seeing a wader this morning than I did of seeing an anti-aircraft battery. Oh, wait.....

Health and Safety is everywhere - the soldiers have to wear blue safety-harnesses. I bet they didn't join the army for that!

Yes, look, this has moved in. The residents of the Fred Wigg tower lost their legal appeal earlier this week against the MoD placing high-velocity missiles on top of their tower. Their argument that this diminished the value of their own arsenal was sadly not persuasive enough for Mr Justice Olympics Rubber-stamp, and so last week - unless they were lowered by helicopter - some poor squaddies had to lug what looks like a very heavy piece of kit up to the roof. I was of course very careful taking this, and made sure that the soldiers were looking the other way. The middle one looks to have bins, but I had taken my shot and retreated behind the broom before he turned round. Not that it mattered though, as they were visible from pretty much all points on the Flats, and every time I looked he was still looking the other way. Maybe they have a large mirror or something, but anyone hell-bent on sneaking past them would likely be fine if they approached from the east....

Bird-wise, nothing doing. Some juvenile Chiffchaffs, a juvenile Green Woodpecker. I got photos of neither. I knew it was hopeless before I even left. Instead I was seeing if I could take photos with a 2x extender. I can, just about, but they're not great. If you're so inclined, you can read about it here. If you're not, you can instead admire this beauty. Yes, that is vomit you can taste at the back of your throat.

A vision of loveliness