Keeping my distance

I have made sure to keep a healthy distance from humanity the last few days. I went out on Saturday morning to collect the Golden Wheatear Chalice, but that has been it. I was a little nervous if I'm honest, but how can you cancel something as big as Wanstead Wheatear Competition? A large crowd had gathered, at least eight people (decent distances apart), and after Tony had tossed the substantial trophy to me I made a short speech thanking my fellow birders etc, and then we went our separate ways. 

The birding was dreadful, nary a migrant in sight. A cold easterly was blowing, two months ago that might have seen some decent birds on the patch but in March it basically kills it. That said it is still early, the major arrivals are not for a week or so yet, there is plenty of time for the excitement to build. The big unknown is of course whether by then we will all be confined to our homes. It appears large segments of the UK population are treating the current crisis as a vacation, and doing all the things they would normally do on a nice bank holiday weekend. The photos of crowds at Snowdon and on beaches make you want to scream, and if a total lockdown does happen it will be because of idiotic behaviour like this.

Perhaps in anticipation of this birders are moving online. Various competitions and other forms of entertainment are beginning to spread across Twitter etc. I have yet to get involved, it is early days and I have plenty to be getting on with. For me this means pottering with plants and skywatching, both favourite activities that can be done at home. And home is currently where it is at. It is genuinely nice to have the whole family together and engaged in getting through this, and for me to hole up and devote my every waking hour to birding and communicating with other people about birding doesn't seem right. So for now everyone can expect me to be a bit distant.

So far so good at Chateau L. We had a lazy weekend spent mostly in the garden, if we are stuck here it is going to be our salvation. I busied myself with plants and having a big sort out after the winter. I can now get into my greenhouse again without needing to bend double, and gradually it will begin to open up and look decent again. Mrs L serviced all of our bicycles so that we can go on family bike rides, and the kids started transforming their rooms for an extended stint at home. Mrs L and I have our jobs, but for the kids it will be more difficult separating weekends from weekdays. To try and draw a clear boundary they are attempting to keep to their timetables, despite my stupid suggestions of what elements of housework could be dressed up to cover core elements of the curriculum. 

In the evenings we work out something to do en famille. Online quizzes are proving quite fun, particularly those ones that dump you on a google map and you have to work out where you are. We are treating ourselves to the occasional movie night, and I expect we will end up watching everything that David Attenborough has ever made. Board games and jigsaw puzzles are going to feature as we go on, and of course we all have our own projects to be getting on with. I'll be reading even more than I do already, and this is surely my opportunity to try and get to grips with drawing birds, something I have been threatening for a long time.

I think we are in this for the long haul, so stay sane and keep well. 

Fortress Chateau L

As from last night we're all at home on a permanent basis. No commuting, no offices, no school, just five people living on top of each other. I think there could be lots of positives - normally our family are so busy with one thing and another that it is rare that we spend any time together. That's not to say that there might not be some bumps along the way as we readjust to our new schedules, but on the whole I think this could actually be rather nice. Until we kill each other.

We're ready, or at least I think so. Mrs L has brought her desk chair back from work, and we've set up a work space in the spare room. I've bought a new computer, which we sort of needed anyway, as well as another screen for when e-learning kicks in. Other than that my panic buying has been limited to a 5L tin of olive oil from the local Turkish supermarket, 10kg of BBQ coals, and six more bottles of Rosé. If we are stuck in Chateau L over spring and summer there are some basic needs that need to be catered for. That is assuming we can actually get anything to put on the barbecue. If not, wine by itself will be perfectly acceptable.

Not everyone is as sensible as me however. I was forced to visit the local Tesco yesterday morning before work. Boots was not open and Mrs L needed some critical "right now" items that she had unfortunately not stockpiled, and I needed some hayfever tablets. The world has changed a lot recently, but I expect nobody has told the trees and grasses and they still plan on releasing a shed load of pollen right on time. I am a sufferer, particularly earlier in the season, and with endless birding on the horizon as there will be nothing else to do I needed to get a few weeks worth. 

I'd heard that supermarkets were carnage but nothing could have prepared me. The place was packed, the queues for the tills stretched in enormous snakes to the back of the shop. Many of the shelves were bare at 8am. A few lonely items sat in disarray whilst seemingly the whole of East London wheeled grossly overladen trolleys around looking for goods that may have escaped their frantic attention first time around. A few forlorn shoppers who had missed the boat scratched around looking for something, anything, that might provide sustenance. Fortunately for me the things we needed were just about still in stock (heaven forbid if I had wanted a tin of tomatoes...) and I could pay for them at the chemist bit relatively quickly - a few chancers were trying to pay for food shopping there but getting sent away.

There were tannoy announcements saying that shoppers could only have three of any one item so I imagine that there were going to be some heated arguments at the tills, but I did not stay to witness one. Frankly it was grim, but of course not unexpected - a sign of the times. There are stories of hospital workers finishing long shifts and then being unable to buy any food - if their local supermarkets are anything like mine I can well believe it. 

I really don't understand the mentality, but it's happening across the globe - the prevailing attitude is just me me me. Hopefully once the initial panic has abated and people realise that this is survivable without 80kg of pasta and 900 rolls of toilet paper there will be less outright selfishness and more acts of human kindness. We have already put a note through the door of our elderly neighbour over the road in case she needs something - we've had a weekly online delivery for a couple of years now and can easily add anything. So far during this crisis I think we have had our favourite brand of houmous replaced by a different one, which suggests to me that wholesale panic is unwarranted. Today's delivery even contains toilet paper, a whole 9 rolls. I will be taking them straight down to the Tesco car park and auctioning them to the highest bidder.

Silver coronavirus clouds and the rite of spring

As you know I cannot now go to the office to work. This is a shame, there are social elements to a job that go along with the grind and that make it tolerable - without the people there would be no point. Me and all my colleagues are now working from home for the forseeable future, and I can imagine that this will drive a number of them slightly crazy. In time it may well drive me mad as well, but for now it is spring time and I am fortunate to have a hobby which is very fulfilling. No more so than today.

Today was a big day. My first shot at the title, now in its third year. My first date in the Wanstead Wheatear Sweepstake 2020. On what day would the first one be found? A quick recap on the rules - the names of ten local birders were drawn out of a hat (well, a bowl actually) by Tony, and we then got to choose two dates in the order our names came out. Once a date is chosen nobody else can choose it. I came third and plumped for the 16th and 19th of March, nice median arrival dates, by no means my earliest but also a long way from the latest. 

I had been waiting for this moment and marshaled the troops. At first light Tony would start at the Alex and comb that area. Rob and Simon would start in the Old Sewage Works, and from there progress to the Plain in the Park. James would check School Scrub, with Richard carefully checking the Western Flats, then both moving to the Fairground. Meanwhile Bob, Tim and I would cover the central portion of the Flats (the most likely place frankly), with Nick starting at Angel and working his way up. Sean, who has a bike, would take the whole southern side of the Flats along Capel Road. We would then all meet at the Vizmig point at 11am for the prize-giving ceremony where I would be crowned victor ludorum, provided this was granted Government approval as there would be more than five of us. It's all about confidence.

So bright and early I found myself on out on the Flats in the central portion as discussed. It was a lovely morning, blue skies and a gentle breeze. Oddly no sign of Tim or Bob, they were probably just a little behind, so I set off solo on my search. First of all a circuit of the Brooms where I met Louis and Gosia, nobly helping my cause even though they were not in the sweepstake. Nothing doing in this area, so I went off to check first the Barrage Hitches and then the Ditch of Despair, both of which were also Wheatearless. I was now at the Alex where mysteriously I could not find Tony. He must have been there somewhere, really trying his hardest to winkle one out of some deep scrub or something. Or perhaps he had swum over to the islands to check those? I did a loop of the Pub Scrub where I met a lady with bins who I have never seen before - good of her to get involved. 

Meanwhile some fairly negative news from other areas of the patch. On the western side James, who lives about a third of a mile from the Flats, had briefly looked out of his top window and not been able to see any Wheatears, and was now patiently waiting (at home) for Richard to arrive so that they could coordinate their areas. On the southern sector Sean was just finishing a hasty breakfast and would only be about another 45 minutes, excellent to see him so committed. Simon was also on his way but did need to try and find some toilet paper first so had still not started looking. Also bad news from Rob who needed to reorganise his entire life before coming out birding. And finally Nick was still asleep in Forest Gate. 

In other words a real team effort. Back in the central brooms there was still no sign of Tim and Bob.... but I did briefly see Marco (not in the sweepstake) cycling off east. Perhaps Sean had drafted him in whilst he had another round of toast. Fine. I get it, I was on my own. I had no idea people took the competition so seriously! That being the case, and with only a few minutes left before I had to leave the patch, I pulled out all the stops and stormed round the central path one final time. A Stonechat in the Brooms ! A Skylark singing from a mound! Another Stonechat flitting around the base of some wispy stuff! And then, finally, tantalisingly, a flash of white over my head towards the Model Airfield. A bouncy flight, was it a Woodpecker? Heading directly away it was impossible to see. And then it landed. And turned sideways on. Yessssss!!! A male Wheatear! Fresh in and carrying a small trophy under one wing!

I sent out a message to the team signalling the end of the 2020 competition and thanking them for their unwavering dedication to the cause. Soon Bob turned up, and a short while later Tim and Nick, eager to get in on the action now that the competitive element was over. Tony is contacting COBRA to see if the presentation can go ahead, meanwhile I am of course over the moon that against all the odds I have managed to pull it off. It has not escaped my notice that in peacetime I would have been forced to leave the patch nearly an hour before I found the bird in order to get to work, and that Nick would have snaffled it up like he usually does. Every cloud....

Sent home

Well now. Hasn't the world become an interesting place?

Where I work has been split into two teams in order to preserve some ability to continue what we do. One team works in the office, the other works from home, and then we swap. The idea of course is that we never meet, so this lessens the odds of, say, a very infectious virus sweeping through all of us. I've been in this week, and so have been braving the tube every morning to get to the office. A man coughed next to me today, I was not impressed. My line of work involves the fun of global financial systems, which even somebody completely disengaged from world economics cannot have failed to notice have been a little rocky lately. As in 30 years rocky.

Anyhow, as I was chomping on some breakfast an email popped into my inbox. The latest centralised update on Covid-19. We have been getting these daily of course, in common with many other organisations large and small. I started scanning....and to cut a long story short I have been quarantined. I went to France within the last two weeks, and thus the latest guidance/order is that I remove myself from the office. I finished my breakfast, gathered my things, and headed back to the tube and the isolation of home.

Which means I can bring you this.

Not one but two Red Kites circling just above my house in Wanstead. They represent my 19th and 20th Red Kites in Wanstead, and the 7th and 8th from my garden. This is of course the prime time for them to be having a bit of a wander, and in between metaphorically feverish bouts of work I had been poking my head skywards out of an upstairs window looking for precisely this kind of thing. My pension pot might be sinking like a stone, but there are still silver linings to be found in global pandemics.

As fear grips the nation and this virus gets worse (and without wishing to sound overly doom-mongering, it is going to get a lot worse), there could be a lot more of this. By which I mean local birding, somewhat a thing of the past as far as I have been concerned. Needless to say almost all of my planned birdy travel has been cancelled, generally by the places I was going to - I am persona non grata for both Israel and Argentina for instance. So staying local is likely to be the name of the game, and actually that's not the worst thing ever. It is pleasantly timed for small African birds with white bottoms for example. 

The issue I see is one of sustainability and endurance. Next week was my week at home anyway, but what if that extends to two weeks? Or a month? Or two months? I am going to go stir crazy. And what if Mrs L and the children are also all sent home? And frankly this is a when not if and I think we all know that. What happens when all five of us are cooped up for several weeks in Chateau L? Family harmony and happy matrimony, that's what. But it may at least result in some blogging.

The very definition of niche

One of the things I have to do at work is report upwards. I am sure many of you have to do the same in thing in your line of your work. To anyone who has never been burdened with such things, well done - you are not missing out. Telling people more important than you what is going on below their line of sight is a constant in my office, but it is also formalised into a weekly management update. A written update. In a miniscule amount of paper real-estate I have to try and condense the preceding five days into a modest soundbite that on the one hand lets people know that I and other minions are all beavering away as hard as we possibly can and achieving great things etc, and then on the other tells them all the things we messed up but without sounding too alarming. It is a delicate balancing act.

Although my job is almost entirely based around numbers, having a good command of written English is very handy and it is rare that I struggle to bash out the required bullet points. Until recently that is. On Thursday last week I simply could not work out the word I wanted and ended up mangling it. I sat there for what seemed like ages completely unable to dredge it up, and only this morning - at home in bed, looking out at Storm Dennis - did it come to me that the word I had wanted was the adjective 'competing'. Or possibly 'conflicting'. I think I went with the noun 'clash' and therefore had to form my sentence entirely differently. Now this may seem like semantics, all three words are basically the same in the context of priorities and missed deadlines, but I still think that competing would have been far better, it has none of the harshness of 'clash'. 

Yesterday there was another example, I couldn't get my brain to work properly and just sat there flapping. Proper open-mouthed floundering. A day later I can't even remember what that one was, which does at least spare you a paragraph. I take these as clear signs that my brain is disintegrating and that I need to do something about it.

That something is of course this, a little attempt at writing something. I read a lot, but perhaps it is writing that nourishes the brain, or whatever part of the brain controls and stores voekabyoulurry. To be clear this isn't me blogging again. No. I've actually been quite happy doing other things and not given this place too much thought. However here I am, so I may as well fill you in on a few gaps. Those other things, barring of course what led to the above, have mostly been connected with birds and birding. Real, proper, actual no gulls birding. My telescope has not seen as much use for years, I had forgotten quite what a difference it makes to getting stellar views of things. I used it the other day on this gaudy little number.

I know what you are thinking. Yuck. Disgusting, garish, ostentatious filth. I quite agree. Looking at it filling my scope in a canyon in Spain last weekend I felt genuine waves of nausea overcoming me and had to start taking photographs of it instead when it came down the cliff towards me. This was not helped by being completely and utterly alone at the time. No jostling, no crowd surges, no idiots, nobody shouting I was too close as the bird came ever nearer. I simply didn't know what to do.

I am of course being silly. Spending time watching this Wallcreeper was one of the greatest birding experiences of my entire life. What. A. Bird. It's hard to believe that they even exist, they are the very definition of niche. To be fair I was due one, I have dipped them repeatedly all over the place. France, Spain, Switzerland and Bulgaria have all seen me return empty-handed, with two of these trips having been specifically organised to see Wallcreeper. I think I had been trying too hard. This particular bird had not been on the cards at all, all I had done was book a very cheap flight to Madrid at some point last year on the basis that it had to be better than the UK in February (somebody called Ciara ensured that was indeed the case) and had then forgotten all about it. It was only about a few weeks before I left that I was looking up where I might go and what I might see, and chanced upon a site that was hosting a pair of Bonelli's Eagles. Excellent, a Western Palearctic tick no less, and only an hour from Madrid. Firming up my plans with a week to go I noticed that this same site had a wintering Wallcreeper and that it had been seen several times in 2020 already. My track record ensured I didn't get too excited, but with the bird then being seen the day before I left I started to dare to dream.

After two hours of wandering up and down the gorge with no large birds of prey or small creepy grey things to show for it I decided to chalk up another dip and go and do something else. As I turned on my heel and strode back towards the car cursing all things montane, a small shape flew across the canyon and landed on an inverted rock face right in front of me. Twenty seconds later it would have crossed behind me and I would not have seen it. And of course a little later on as I was continuing to watch the Wallcreeper, what should fly over my head? I'll give you clue.

Rhymes with Wellies and Beagle.

A change is good as a rest

This weekend just gone I birded so much my eyes hurt. Patch abandoned, no two hour Saturday morning stroll for me. Instead a marathon weekend of dawn to dusk birding. I have been threatening it of course, and now that I have done it I want to do it again. As a change of scene goes it was fantastic, and really drove home quite how dull birding in London most often is. 

Call me shallow, but 2 Smew, 4 Long-tailed Duck, a Ring-necked Duck, a Scaup, 2 Great Northern Diver, a Black-necked Grebe, 7 Great White Egret, 2 Cattle Egret, 2 Rough-legged Buzzard, a Merlin, 4 Hen Harrier, 11 Marsh Harrier, a Siberian Stonechat, a Grey-bellied Brent and an Eastern Yellow Wagtail have convinced me that there is perhaps more to birding than repeated visits to Wanstead Flats. Add to that a supporting cast of thousands upon thousands of seven other species of geese, and countless waders and ducks in fabulous scenery, and I am sold. Re-sold. 

This of course is something I used to do a lot, but for whatever reason I fell out of love with it. I have no idea why, it was terrific. There was some driving of course, but not the mind-numbing hours and hours that a long-distance twitch incurs, and most of it was done in the dark. And the rewards at the end of the journeys was frankly staggering for someone numbed by the weekly routine of urban birding.

That is not to say that the weekend was perfect in every way. My metaphorical spectacles are not so rose-tinted as to be able to deny some of the more unavoidable aspects of birding the North Norfolk coast in early January - that is to say that I felt rather as if we were in a procession of sorts for most of the day, seeing the same birds as everyone else. A shuffling doddery green-clad procession...  One man I saw four times, and to be fair he could have said the same about us. Were I to spend all of my time up there I expect that it would drive me stark-raving bonkers, however the excitement of a fresh year list will no doubt wane shortly and my next visit, whenever that is, will probably be rather calmer. The birds were good enough that none of this really mattered, and the landscape vast. At any other time of year you could probably find a few spots that get no visitors at all.

Out here were 7 Marsh Harrier, 3 Hen Harrier, 1 Merlin, 1 Peregrine and 1 Sparrowhawk. 

Suffolk and Essex were far less busy, neither are on the birding map in quite the same way, and I suspect that I will head back there first. Abberton, immense, was exceptionally good. Freezing but excellent. Wanstead has had so few ducks of late, Abberton has thousands, and I spent a happy hour or picking through flocks of Teal in the hope of a vertical stripe. A vain hope... Neither could we dredge up the Black-throated Diver.

This of course was before I remembered to buy a Double Decker. This delectable confectionery is often thought of as an autumn staple, but its mythical power can be unleashed at any time of year. As soon as there was one in the car we were unstoppable. Rough-legged Buzzards in the gloom, the Grey-bellied Brent after less than a minute of scanning an immense flock of Pink-feet, the Stonechat on view immediately - everything simply fell into place. The Wagtail showed brilliantly - a UK tick. Although there have been loads recently I have felt no urge to twitch any of them, but as a part of a big day out seeing gazillions of birds I didn't mind in the slightest.

So why was it so good? Because it was refreshing. I have not done any UK birding like this for simply ages and it felt really good, just like birding abroad. My last visits to Norfolk, Suffolk and coastal Essex were all in 2016, and very simply I was ready again.

Here's to 2020.

So what is the approach in 2020?

2020 did not start as I intended. I had visions of keenly starting the New Year out on the coast seeing tons of glorious birds. This fitted neatly with my resolution of sorts, which was to spend more time birding in this country - terribly neglected of late. Then I discovered that the family car was required for less frivolous purposes and had to scale back my plans. So, Rainham then, I would get dropped off or take the train and spend the whole day birding there, hurrah! It is a semi patch of mine that I used to devote a lot of time to, I would very much like to get back to it, this could be the perfect backup start to 2020! Great, I'll get the stuff ready. What's that? My middle daughter has arranged to go to see a friend which would leave the youngest one home alone...

So I guess I'll stay local then. Pah! It was nice to spend time on Wanstead Flats and in the Park seeking out birds - for a brief moment everything is interesting again - but it felt slightly laboured. Of course it was also pleasant spending time with Rob and Nick and others, the shared joy of finally finding a Greenfinch, the amusement of repeatedly missing flyover Collared Doves and so on, but I question whether it is sustainable. In the sense of will this keep me going all year. 

The answer is a big fat no.

Once upon a time, but no longer. The same goes for blogging. You may know that I very nearly jacked it in on the 10th anniversary. I had a post typed up and ready to go about a month before I intended to publish it. It is still there in draft status, tempting me. For whatever reason I had second thoughts and carried on, and 100 posts later here I am. It has been hard. Very hard. And oddly so, I cannot put my finger on it. I am still the same person I was 11 years ago. I am older of course, slightly more jaded, heavier.... but fundamentally I am still me and if - to steal an acronym from modern lexicon - if you knew me IRL I would hope you think that I have not changed a great deal. I am still very juvenile and delight in small acts of stupidity. I have learned to keep a lid on it in certain situations, namely work, but personality is and should be irrepressible. I also think I lead quite an interesting life, and I am quite happy with my lot. Mrs L of course would say that I could contend for the Dull Men of Great Britain title, but I disagree. Yes of course a lot of is spent behind a desk etc, but that is the case for many people even if it sometimes does not feel like it. In the brief snippets where that is not the case I think I do pretty well. I have lots of hobbies and interests, too many in fact. I read lots of books, I travel to fabulous places, I potter around at home being domestic and I enjoy that too. You would think therefore that I have a wealth of material to write about.

And yet.

It gets harder and I cannot put my finger on why. And it used to be easy, effortlessly easy. Now I am not looking here for all blog readers to jump in with a comment saying don't give up etc. I like a bit of interaction, all bloggers do, but this is a deeper question that maybe only I can answer. I am busier than I have ever been, or at least it feels that way to me - possibly nothing has changed other than I used to be 33 and now I'm 44 - I have a huge amount that I could talk about across many different facets and subjects. Why can't I? Am I worried about what people think suddenly? Worried about being dull and boring? Maybe I am. I thought I wrote for me, because I had to, because I needed to - this belief drove me for a very long time. Now I am not so sure. I find that I can easily not write something for several weeks and it doesn't bother me at all.

And this is not just about writing. It is everything. I can ignore the patch for several weeks and not feel like I am missing it. I can (and in the past have) let the greenhouse rot. Similarly I can go for a month without reading a book even though I really like reading. All the things I like I can discard with little care, at least for a while. And yet I am perfectly happy and content. I am not having a mid life crisis, or at least not that I am aware of. This makes no sense.

I am sure I wrote about this before either last year or the year before but I cannot now find it, it was called "The Spark" or something like that. Whenever that was I think my slant was writing, but actually I now realise it is applicable to much more than that. If it was a spark I have not yet managed to refind it. And that is what 2020 will be about.