Chateau L and the planet: Part II

So the last post was about preaching, this one is more preach-y. I didn't blog a lot in January, nor in February, but one of the posts was about a few changes the residents of a small castle in Wanstead are going to make in 2019. Part I can be found here and concerned energy. Shortly before that there was the whole vegetarian thing, which is still going strong into March. Here are some of the other things that occurred to us as we worked out what small changes could be made to our lifestyle.

• Extend the vegetable patch! We're not going full-on The Good Life, but actually growing veg is a lot of fun, and as you know I am fairly green-fingered. We have a meagre vegetable patch that last year delivered a handful of meals. To be fair we didn’t really do very much, it was more of a kid’s project. This year we plan to treble it in size and actually tend to it diligently. The seeds were bought a month or so ago and and the first plants have germinated in the greenhouse already. This includes lots of tomatoes – per the BBC mass-grown tomatoes are one of the worst vegetables in terms of water usage per kg. I expect this to only make a meagre dent in the amount of food we have to buy, but it does mean we may be able to survive Brexit for a few days longer than our neighbours.

• Composting. This is something we used to do but gave up on. We have started again and once again realised it takes no effort whatsoever. We have several large compost bins at the end of the garden which for a few years now have only had garden waste and grass clippings. It is amazing how quickly this mass reduces in size, and we can use the results for the enlarged vegetable patch, and to fill the pots for strawberries and tomatoes and so on. As a family of five we rarely even fill a 30L bin bag with non-recyclables each week, and this should now become even less. Versus some of the immense piles of rubbish I see on my street on collection days I feel pretty virtuous. Emptying it and carrying it down to the bottom of the garden is not the nicest of tasks, so this has been decreed to be one of my jobs, just like cleaning the toilets and taking out the rubbish.

• Water. Our main bathroom with the bath in it is currently out of action until we can raise the money needed to renovate it. It has been like this for over a year actually, but we are coping admirably. It was the the turret work that really killed us but I think we are nearly there now, although it means more work and more mess. This means we all have showers which is much better for water usage than having a bath. Watering the garden and greenhouses is mostly accomplished using stored rain water, and we do a fair amount of actual washing up as opposed to using the dishwasher (which I think we use four times a week – too much I am sure but there are some luxuries I insist on). Where we can do better is with washing – one of my daughters frequently seems to wear three different sets of clothes a day, and with stupid things like not leaving the tap running whilst brushing our teeth. Basic stuff. I think we have a water meter somewhere so we may be able to see if this makes any difference.

So just a few more things that can easily be tweaked, not a lot of effort required. The big elephant in the room is of course my love of travel, particularly air travel. A tough one, and one I am doing really badly on with two long haul trips this year already. However I did just cancel one - I had planned to go to Boston and then had a change of heart and canned it. I checked and the plane took off regardless.... I'll return to this in another post, there is a lot to cover.

Singapore taster

I've heard people say that it is boring, too sanitary to really be considered Asia, and certainly there are more authentic places you can go. However if you're into birds and into plants, as I am, you could do worse than spend time in Singapore. It is like an open-air greenhouse, resplendently planted and with colourful inhabitants. Here is one of them, an Olive-backed Sunbird.

How to improve your commute

I think I have hit upon the answer to commuting. This morning James and I happened to coincide on the Central Line. As usual there were delays, something about track problems further in towards the city, and as we waited the platform started to overflowl with people. Oh joy. Barely any week goes by where there is not some kind of issue, and indeed some weeks there are more problematic days than smooth days. Even on a day with no problems it is an absolute crush at peak time, so this morning I looked forward even by Central Line standards to a particularly cramped journey. 

A train duly arrived and James and I somehow managed to squeeze on, but in the scrum we ended up with a lady between us. It was awful, no room to move, I couldn’t even wriggle to take my coat off and of course the train then didn’t move. Ugh. Still, this was no reason not to continue our conversation, which naturally was about birds. “Have you seen Wallcreeper?” James asked. “No, dipped it twice in Les Baux. Is it at your place in France?” I replied. “No, but close by.” We continued to be held in the platform, and so dialogue continued back and forth, whether it was year round or just in winter, what a great bird it was and so on, when suddenly the lady bolted for the doors leaving behind a much-needed gap that we could all take advantage of. But what had prompted this? Surely she had needed to get to work too? The answer is simple. Middle-aged men talking about birds is simply intolerably boring and normal people cannot cope with more than about 30 seconds.. James and I are so mind-numbingly dull that the lady had no choice but to get out before she died. 

What a fantastic discovery! Being a birder makes it possible to be so tediously uninteresting that fellow commuters are forced to change carriages.  And as I remarked to James, even if we rarely meet on the commute this strategy ought to be even more effective when travelling alone. Especially for James as he has a beard to mumble into. We just have to remember not to talk to any TfL staff, and particularly not the driver.

Wanstead Bird Report 2017

The Wanstead Bird Report 2017 is out, and you can read it here. I confess that I played very little part in its production this time around - what time I have for this type of thing goes towards the London Bird Report instead. But I am pleased to say that Nick and Bob have put in a ton of effort and got this excellent read prepared - it is amazingly professionally produced for a what is just a local bird report. 

As I am sure I have bleated on about on here more than a few times, the landowner and the general public's view and use of the area continues to be absolutely shameful, and is at least part of the reason that I personally bird the area far less than I used to. A swan was killed by a dog just a few days ago for example. Others may feel the same way, and unfortunately with the more committed people off-patch for various unavoidable reasons the coverage and thus records dropped. What we should have done was bird it even more furiously than before to prove that the poor habitat management combined with the selfish behaviour of a small minority makes the place a far poorer place for birds than it has ever been, both for breeders and migrants. Regardless, we have been branded as activists for a number of reasons - objecting to things mostly. Objecting to the proposed use of the Flats as a festival-style concert venue in the breeding season. Objecting to the continued clearance of scrub in the name of absurd Victorianisation designed to satisfy a small band of old-timers, scrub that is vital breeding habit for passerines and a food source for insects. Objecting to pretty much anything that sets nature back, anything that is a means to make money and birds be damned. Unfortunately our activism also means there a lack of willingness to engage with us. We are troublesome; we are ignored, a story repeated across the country. Please have a read, it is admittedly a little fierier than prior years, but there were nonetheless some decent birds in 2017.

Wanstead Bird Report 2017

Oh look, it's March.....

Oh, hello. I see it has been a full month since I updated this blog. Not sure what to say really, other than I predicted this would probably happen and sure enough it did. I’ve been busy, and so I suspect have all of you. The usual, work and play. The less said about the former the better, all I will say is that Brexit is a big steaming pile of shit and working in a bank (and indeed probably anywhere) makes it particularly shit. Forget the inability of the UK government to organise a piss up in a brewery, my company’s course was set many many months ago. The lack of any type of decision with mere weeks to go just makes it harder, but we have a lot of smart people and we are getting it done, albeit at immense cost, and this ultimately includes my ability and inclination to come home and write fun and uplifting blog posts. Instead I come home and devote what limited brainpower I still possess to simpler tasks. Watering plants, tidying up, other various quotidian to-do list types of things which do not make for interesting blog posts. Back in the old days I would have made something of them irrespective of people’s boredom thresholds. These days I don’t so count yourselves lucky.

I have not been birding in Wanstead since the start of February, my fellow patch-workers must be wondering what has happened to me. I am fine, just not enamoured by the prospect of trudging around Wanstead Flats seeing very little. It will kick off again soon and I am genuinely looking forward to it – my prediction (and upon which a beer rides) is Wheatear on March 14^th. One week to go. Despite not birding I have managed to get a little bit of fresh air, both here and other places. The unseasonal warm spell earlier this month was very much appreciated, and I spent a lot of time mucking about with plants – an early implementation of my normal spring reshuffle when plants that were overwintering in the greenhouse move back outside, which then makes space for plants with less cold tolerance to move out of the house. Of course since then we have gone back to normal weather, but the danger period is over and there is no need to reverse anything I have done to date. I can only imagine you are relieved as I am.

The other reason for little blogging is whilst the first six weeks of the year involved zero travel as work was so busy, once certain deadlines were over I wasted no time in getting the hell out of Dodge. So in the last three weeks I’ve had a fun day in Helsinki, a half term photography expedition with my son to Utah and Arizona, and then most recently a slightly crazy weekend birding and plant-appreciating in Singapore. I truly love plants. All of these will feature in blog posts soon, for which I apologise now as I fully expect all of them to absolutely bomb. I guess many people just don’t relate to travel in the same way as I do. That’s fine, it is what floats my boat that really counts here, and which is what I have said all along. If you can get through it I expect there will be some local birding just around the corner.

This place IS as amazing as it looks

Lights, camera, action!

It looked like it would be one of those lovely clear cold and crisp mornings today, so I leaped out of bed and hurried out. And in a break from recent tradition I took my camera, all those lovely Gulls sat out on the ice.....Aaarghhhh what am I saying!! Ducks, I meant ducks. It was indeed lovely weather, but wait, what is this huge ungainly lump hanging off my right shoulder causing me to bend double? Well, I have not used my camera all year, which also means that I have not had to carry it anywhere. This was the mainly lightweight version, and blimey what a massive pain in the backside it was. Did I really used to do this regularly?

All was forgotten when I reached the Jubilee pond. Perfect light, and loads of ducks paddling about in the small amount of clear water. And out on the ice Gulls, dozens of perfect, gleaming..... Gnuuuuurrrrr. I prepared the camera and for the next half an hour didn't take a single image. Nothing. Nada. A complete wash out. I was hopeless. Useless. Completely incapable of creating anything.

I suppose this is completely deserved. It should not be easy. Even with great kit you should not be able to simply pick it up and go out and create world-class photographs. This morning I couldn't even create pre-school class....  Thinking about it I have not even pointed my camera at a bird since I went to Florida in November. That's only a few months ago but it goes to show how easy it is to get rusty. Not that Wanstead is anywhere near as conducive to bird photography as Florida, but still, I would back to myself to take a good photograph anywhere. Or maybe not anymore....

Whilst I was flapping around I did manage to Linnet and, finally, Fieldfare to the year list, which added to the Buzzard that flew over the house yesterday takes me to the grand total of 66 for the year. So 2019 is below par on that front too. Onwards and upwards.

116 frames taken, 115 deleted. This survived, but only just.

Preaching to the converted

Remember this? Well I went, I could hardly have skipped it having posted about it. Get your miniature violins ready as I dashed out of work at about 7pm, got to the Gold Club just as it started and listened to Rob’s talk, and then went back to work. My own current misfortunes aside, it was a hugely informative session and I would have said that I was one of the converted, i.e. I should know a lot of this already. You have heard this expression I take it, preaching to the converted? I think it started off life being associated with religion, whereby an evangelistic priest is viewed as wasting his time preaching in a church as everyone in the church is already, well, in the church. The same thing can said about many areas, including nature. I didn’t conduct a survey, but I would be willing to bet that everyone at the Golf Club listening to Rob was there because they deeply cared about nature already. That’s not to say, like me, that they didn’t learn something, but it is hardly spreading the word is it? Spreading the word – again this is religious in nature, the word of God. The Gospel. For this to work, the message about the deep shit we’re in needs to spread. Rob alluded to it by mentioning that people could become involved by using social media, but I find that to be a closed circle. Almost everything that flows across my Twitter timeline is there because I have chosen to be exposed to it. People who hold opposing views on various topics experience exactly the same phenomenon, it is what I refer to as the echo chamber. Mainly I mean that in a pejorative way – echo chambers of intolerance and hate – but the same thing can be said of nature and conservation. What is needed is to spread beyond our familiar circles, to wriggle our way into other people’s comfort zones to tell the story. To make a connection to nature for them that, however small, may set seed.

The People’s Manifesto for Wildlife (get it here) contained a very interesting statistic. A study carried out by the RSPB showed that 1/3^rd of adults did not recognise a Barn Owl. Wow, just wow. It is not conceivable to me that people would not know what a Barn Owl was. Then again if you spend your life watching Netflix and piddling about on SnapChat, leading a life so unbelievably blinkered that you never go outside, maybe that is entirely possible. I decided it to test it with a willing* group of volunteers. My team at work. It is not a big team, but we all spend most of our waking hours cooped up inside so in that respect are similar to most of the country. Crucially I knew that none of them are obsessive bird watchers. Also things have been pretty hard recently and anything that can lighten the mood is a good thing.

I sent around the following photo, no funny business here.

The result was an exact split. From a field of 18, half the people got it right, and half the people got it wrong or didn’t know. The most popular wrong answer was Arctic Owl. Yes, Arctic Owl, like in Harry Potter..... Now it probably won’t be a surprise to many of you (don’t forget, you are the converted) that a bunch of finance workers would know less about nature than other demographics. It was not a surprise to me, even though I try and talk to them about birds as much as possible and they have to humour me. These people need help. In my view a Barn Owl is iconic. I don’t see them very often, but nonetheless it is a strikingly obvious bird and I don’t understand how you can get to age 23ish (the youngest) and not just have never knowingly seen one but not know what one is full stop. It’s a scandal. The manifesto also mentions something called Shifting Baseline Syndrome – where each subsequent generation has a new and generally poorer view of what constitutes normal. Younger generations simply cannot comprehend that fields used to be full of Skylarks as now there are just a handful, or that they can expect to see perhaps one Turtle Dove a year whereas an elderly relative may have seen hundreds.

How do we get people who think they don’t care about wildlife to start taking an interest and to start caring? Nature is good for the soul, this is a well-known fact. In some countries doctors are beginning to prescribe it instead of pills! My view is that many people simply don’t know what they are missing. All it might take is one walk outside in springtime, or one visit to a winter wader roost or Starling murmuration to open their eyes to what is all around them. And then when they realise that it might soon be gone, and perhaps that their actions as well as their previous indifference could be contributing to that, might that not then strike a chord? There is obviously something to be said for making the conservation movement’s voice heard, for coming together as a collective and shouting loudly. That’s when our dear elected leaders sit up and take note, when they realise that large swathes of people might not vote for them next time, and if the last few weeks have taught us anything it is that self-interest among politicians still reigns supreme. But in my view the real battle is quietly initiating the uninitiated. Not to be conservation heroes but just to be interested and to care. That’s the fight right there.

So the message is simply this. Tell your friends. Tell your colleagues. Tell extended family. Tell the bus driver. Tell the dog walkers (although be prepared to be told to fuck off...). As I sat in that room earlier this week I wondered if I had been doing it all wrong. For me birding is very much a solitary activity, indeed I sometimes go out of my way to make it so. Perhaps instead I should be the kindly old duffer who quietly tells the disengaged phone-obsessed passer-by about the Green Woodpecker feeding on the path in front of them, about the Skylark trilling overhead. It is not in my nature but it would probably be worth it.

Anyhow, read the Manifesto here. Download it, spread it, leave copies lying around wherever you work. Mention wildlife as much as possible to as many people as possible, and especially to those who you know are not already converted. Those are the people who will win this.

*unwilling, but when I ask….