A Sad Day

Another High Street casualty, and whilst I wasn't too sad to see the back of Clinton Cards and Game, news of Jessops' demise is very sad. When I moved to London in the early nineties, I was a fairly regular visitor to the huge store on New Oxford Street, which had a very well stocked second-hand section. I splashed out for my first real lens from there, the Canon 300mm f4 - this was in the days before image stabilisation had been invented. I also bought one of my two now worthless EOS 1Ns from them - I still have both and they still work perfectly, though my stocks of Velvia ran out years ago.

From what I remember, Jessops was very often staffed by real enthusiasts, and it's these people who are now all out of work, and that's very sad news. There isn't a lot of money in photography, or that at least is my impression, so they may struggle to find work in the same sector, or indeed work anywhere - it's still miserable out there. Too much competition? Online dominance? Probably both, though I think that the day they stopped selling second-hand gear is what started the rot. That's why I went there in my impoverished student days - that 300mm lens came out of my student loan, not quite what it was intended for. It was slightly dented, slightly battered, slightly scraped, but lovely nonetheless. I mean it was white, and that counted for everything! Not that I knew what I was doing with it back then of course, but I used it for years before falling out of love with photography for a period. When I came back to it, that was what I picked up again. I stuck it on a cheap digital body, and it worked just like before, and so away I went on the journey I am still very much on today. I only sold it a few years ago.

On the internet.

Stress

I hate having things weighing on my mind. I hate to-do lists of things that I know I am not going to enjoy. Like any normal person, I put them off for as long as possible. Lists of things I have put off recently include writing a section of the London Bird Report (I had the information for months and started marginally after the deadline), writing to some car hire places in Morocco (in french), sorting out Christmas Thank You letters (only three to write, but there are always other things to do....anything.....). Tonight the last of the great evils was to fall - I was going to do my tax return - yes, before the deadline (but only because I didn't want to be fined). Alcohol in my right hand, National Insurance card in my left, I sat down in front of the computer and didn't start typing.

God what a process. Last week I had to phone up for a number, and today it duly arrived - I thought I was good to go. But no. NI number entered, new registration number entered, I eagerly copied down the third number that popped up on screen with its ominous warning that HMRC would never send me this crucial number again. Right, I'm in! Oh no I'm not! No, apparently in seven working days HMRC will send me, by post, a fourth number that I can use to activate my online self assessment. What kind of bloody moron developed an online system where you have to phone up for one number that they can't tell you over the phone and have to post to you, write down a second number on a piece of paper because they won't tell it to you again by any means, ever, and then wait a week for yet a third number to be posted to you? Have they not heard of email? Do they want my money? By the time this final (I am not hopeful) number arrives about two weeks before the deadline the entire system will probably have crashed and I'll be in the clink for tax evasion. Meanwhile a 71 year old gamekeeper who poisoned two Buzzards (and probably loads more birds during his illustrious career) is fined a fraction of my likely tax bill at the end of a trial which cost the taxpayer many times my tax bill. Is it any wonder the country is going down the pan?

So it is still hanging over me, which is very irritating as I envisaged myself sat here typing with the gay abandon of one who has nothing pressing whatsoever to do for the forseeable future. Here, this is a photo of a sculpture near my office. It is entitled "Man logs onto HMRC Website, in Bronze". I lugged my camera to work today to take photos of a Black-headed Gull that was sat invitingly on the railings when I walked past it without my camera on Monday. Guess what?

One-track

I am becoming boring, and it is annoying me. I have four things in my life - my family (important to mention that first, no end of trouble if I leave it until last!), birds, photos (of birds), and work. Nobody wants to hear about the latter, but it dominates my life so comprehensively that it leaves far less time for any of the former. Long-term acolytes may recall that when I started this blog in 2009 I got made redundant almost immediately. Surely a coincidence, but it did mean that all of sudden life became a lot more interesting. Rather than the grim darkness of Canary Wharf and the ongoing world finanical implosion, you were treated hem hem to my new struggles with washing, buying food and attempting to cook it, potty training, and other daily examples of domestic martyrdom. In between you got to know a bit about my three precious charges, and very occasionally some birding featured.

My domestic days are behind me - as was always agreed (under duress), as soon as my youngest started school, I had to go back. No life of leisure for me, so now, and indeed for the past year, I have been back in my ancestral home of E14. The consequence of this is that I now have nothing to write about, or so it seems to me. Except birds. Bo-ring birds. But hang on a minute, isn't that what I started this blog to witter about? Wanstead Birder, not Wanstead Domestic God. Indeed. It was always supposed to be about the birds, not the minutae of my life. I mean who cares about that other than me? Perhaps not even me actually. As it happens though, I found it much easier to write about various household disasters and what silly things the kids have done recently than I did to write about what birds could be found in Wanstead. In short, I felt - and feel - that writing about my ineptitude was much more interesting than writing about birds. Birds aren't funny. Birds aren't humourous. They appeal to many people for sure, but there's only so much you can say about patch Skylarks. On the other hand, my domestic foul-ups were essentially infinite, and kids will surprise you every day of the week.

At the moment I get up, I go to work and crush rocks for several hours, and I return home in a bad mood and drink wine to soothe my shattered nerves. I repeat this for five days a week, albeit with some school runs and refereeing of offspring thrown in. Then for two days, if I can, I go out and blitz our poor feathered friends with a camera. In other words, I have very little to say. In the dare I say it 'good old days', you got to hear about trying to find an oven shelf online, boozing dollies, food shopping for cretins, and Grebe porn. Today you get to hear about what ISO speed I used.

So what can be done? Well, pack it in I suppose, but all bloggers that I have known to pack it in inevitably come to regret the rash "delete all" decision of their intemperate former selves, and come slinking back, and no doubt that would happen to me too. So that's out. Blog less frequently? Perhaps - in one of my first ever posts, I counselled myself to do just that, and have steadfastly ignored this advice for almost exactly four years. I have verbal diahorrea, and there is no known cure. I enjoy it; you suffer it - a tried-and-tested formula. I know, what about seek inspiration, write about stuff I've not written about before? Eh, what? No, I couldn't do that. I need to rant about dog walkers, post Daily Mail tribute articles, moan about work, and eulogise about the patch. And Wheatears. Branch out? Madness!

Not long now.....

So I have no answers, except to think more about maintaining variety, indeed perhaps return to the minutae of life, as it is from there that all variety stems. Not necessarily mine either, which could get dull fast. I'm always hearing little snippets on the radio, noticing absurd behaviour, seeing some scene or other than gets me cogitating. I occasionally think "oh, that would make a good piece", and then do precisely nothing about it and continue dreaming about optics past, present, and - mostly - future. I have somewhat of a one-track mind, I just need to make sure I don't have too much of a one-track blog.

By the way, 1600 is my most-used speed at present.

Always the way

Went out with Bradders and Muffin today and mostly managed to dip everything we were specifically interested in. No matter, it's early January, and so even the birds we weren't specifically interested in were interesting. Started off in Wanstead where we managed to dip both Firecrest and Nuthatch, both easy as you like yesterday - always the way I guess. Onwards to Cliffe in Kent for some Scaup, and despite a few candidates, nothing that passed the Bradders test. Stupendous numbers of birds though, probably 200+ Little Grebe being the most noteworthy, but heaps of Pintail amongst other healthy duck numbers. Not sure how many were yearticks, but I suspect quite a few. Finished up on the Silts and some momentary excitement of a Grey Partridge which turned out not to be one, but two Short-eared Owls were good value. I'd like to moan about the weather at this point - it is ridiculous for early January, and needs to get a lot colder if anything exciting is going to happen. Bird of the day goes to this fine fellow, surveying his patch in Bush Wood this morning. One of my neighbours asked me only yesterday if he was still around, and I said that I thought so but that I hadn't seen or heard anything for a while. Again, always the way. 

Out and About

After a week cooped up some fresh air and shutter abuse seemed a reasonable tonic, so I toddled off to Shoeburyness at first light hoping that the female Long-tailed Duck and Common Scoter might still be present on the lake at Gunner's Park - scene of my OBP triumph (successful twitch) a couple of months ago. Happily they were both still there, and, with patience, sore knees, and a cold, wet bottom, showed extremely well. What was not quite so wonderful was the abysmal light throughout my visit, and a near continual soft mizzle. Oh for a bit of sunshine, but I guess you take what you can get in these situations, and without wishing to bore you overly, it's amazing what can be done with high ISO speeds these days. Interestingly they stuck together the entire time, mostly very closely indeed, which I gather is causing untold problems for the Church of England.

After three hours of happy pappage (more of which can be seen here), I decided I was cold and had had enough, and so toddled back down the A13 to civilisation. Passing Rainham I noticed, illegally, that the Ross's Goose was back. Not that I think it has a snowgoose's chance in hell of getting on the list, but you can never be too careful, and in any event I've never seen one, plastic or otherwise. And very cute and dinky it was too, albeit distantly from the sea wall, and in rather dodgy and highly undesirable company. To be clear, I didn't meet Dick until back near Aveley Bay car park; the goose was with Greylags. Much year-tickage also occurred, with my first 2013 Wigeon, Little Egret and so on - in fact there was a bit of that at Shoeburyness as well now I come to think of it. A Kestrel near the Serin Mound was fairly confiding - I can see myself going back on a sunny day.

Finished up back on the patch, where in a daring mission of high skill and lightning-fast reactions, I found both Firecrest and Nuthatch in Bush Wood, and didn't get mugged.

Whatever happened to the Peanut Challenge?

It seemed like a good idea at the time, pitting two almost entirely bird-free patches against each other, and seeing which one was truly the worst. Secretly of course, both James and I wanted to be able to say that our patch was the most awful - indeed the perfect competition would have been one where the lowest score triumphed, but that would have meant four versus five or something, and lots of delusional not-seeing of birds that were in fact present. So instead we bit the bullet and went for the highest total wins, and then secretly both tried really hard whilst pretending not to enjoy it, staking an immensely valuable packet of peanuts on the outcome - a prize particularly and pleasingly in synch with the quality of the patches.

And the result? Well rather fittingly it would appear to be a draw, with both Canary Wharf and Tower Bridge pulling in a lofty 42 species. By way of comparison in the same period I notched up 61 species in my garden, which measures about 20 feet by 80. Although this is truly abysmal, it's actually far more than I was expecting to get, with such local gems as Hobby, Chiffchaff, Goldcrest and Egyptian Goose, none of which I'd seen in over a decade working there. Just goes to show how much I like peanuts I suppose, though during the later stages of the year I barely managed to get out at all.

We thought about having 2013's prize be two packets of peanuts, a peanut rollover if you will, but have instead decided to symbolically share a packet of jointly-purchased peanuts at a conveniently-located pub, possibly also sharing a beer while we're at it. Or we might even push the boat out and have one each.

Same old, same old

Another year, another slog around the patch for all the usual birds. I don't know why I do it really - after the excesses of last night, a lovely long lie in would have been ideal this morning, and everything I saw today I could easily see tomorrow. But that would be defeatist - all patch birders go out on their patches on New Years Day. Bradders for example went to Kent. So, patch it was, and I was out by half seven. The target, last year's 62. To cut a long story short, we failed miserably (we being me, Nick, Tim, Bob and Paul D). Best of the morning session was a fly-over GBB for a five Gull day, but on the whole today was about the birds we didn't see, as by and large we failed to connect with any of the birds that count as slightly hard. We couldn't find Firecrest and Nuthatch in Bush Wood, nor either of the (so far) two wintering Water Rails. Neither could we rustle up Little Egret, Bullfinch, Grey Wagtail or Kingfisher - all regular birds, if not quite in the omnipresent category. So we missed loads, but in a slight reversal of fortune, Great Crested Grebe was astonishingly present on the Basin - no bird has made it past December 31st for approximately 750 years. Despite this miracle, a disappointing start given the inevitable build-up of excitement. On the plus side it wasn't raining, and it was great to be out.

The best bird of the day was reserved for last knockings, and was inevitably found by Nick once we had made the mistake of letting him out of our sight. We had parted company in the Park some fifteen minutes previously, he heading off towards the Flats and home, and Bob and I off towards where we live. As we were mere seconds away from loving spouses and hot cups of tea, he called with the incredible news of a Little Owl near Long Wood. Nobody has seen one for almost two years, the assumption was that they had been eaten by the Bonelli's Eagles. Needless to say we hastened over there and managed to hear it yelping from the direction of one of the copses. A complete surprise, and almost rescued what has been a difficult day on the patch. I ended up on 57 species, with the nascent patch list on 59 - I missed Egyptian Goose and (somehow) Fieldfare. Still, not completely cleaning up on day one means there are still reasons to go out again before March and the arrival of the first Wheatears....