Dwindling

Blogging is not going well. Quantity is well down, but more worryingly so is quality. All I seem to be able to dredge up is "I saw this" or "My Wanstead year list is now x" type posts. It's 113 in case you were wondering, but as I'm even beginning to bore myself I hadn't planned on mentioning it. It was a Garden Warbler by the way. Or a Common Sandpiper, did I mention that one? No?

I have no news, which is definitely a sub-optimal way in which to start a blog post.  Hmmm. Ah, I know, yes!  My dreams of salad self-sufficiency in 2021 are in tatters. Yes, that's much better. If you are reading this in the UK then you will not need me to tell you that the weather in May has been nothing short of abysmal. It is so bad that some of my tomato plants died, and those which didn't are looking utterly dismal. Meanwhile the lashings of rain have encouraged legions of slugs and snails to emerge from wherever they have been hiding and beat a path direct to my tastiest nascent/ailing vegetables. I have hundreds of plants in my garden, how can it be that both I and a million molluscs are only interested in eating the same ones? I am not sure I am going to win this war.

Talking of wars I have other news. I made the mistake of briefly joining the "culture war" and called out somebody on Twitter for a bit of casual racism, as you do. I also pointed out various very basic spelling inaccuracies while I was at it which probably exacerbated my mistake. Anyway, by way of response I am pleased to tell you that I have been labelled a Marxist Communist turd. There is no better sign that I'm winning frankly, although I am curious to understand if one can be a Marxist without being a Communist? Honestly I don't know why I bothered, what was I hoping to achieve. Well I do actually. I knew I would achieve nothing, just like when I confront dog walkers. And like those encounters, this one would probably only end in abuse and indeed that is exactly what happened. Occasionally I make a foray into this unfriendly territory and I almost always immediately regret it. The alternative is stark. Say nothing, do nothing. 

I am not a warrior. Far from it. I don't champion causes, I don't go on marches, I don't chant slogans. For the most part I keep my head down and I mind my own business. There are, I suspect, many people like me. People who hate a lot of what they see happening. Either in person or in the press, or, more likely these days, on social media. I - we - despair at the entrenched attitudes prevailing in this country and indeed more widely. I sometimes feel as if I could write for a month without stopping about the current levels of stupidity, greed, self-harm, corruption, lying, conniving, injustice, outrage, persecution, racism, exclusion.....the list just goes on and on for so long that it becomes exhausting even thinking about it. I have other things to do, and perhaps more importantly it upsets me - I saw somebody call themselves a worrier rather than warrior and I knew exactly what they meant. And so largely - and this is pathetic but I hope nonetheless that it will resonate - largely I ignore a great deal of it. Some sections of society will no doubt castigate me for my inaction despite being of the same general ethos. If you're not out at the barricades then you're basically a tool of the State, à la JFK, Burke or John Stuart Mill (opinions vary apparently).

All I can say is that every opportunity I get to make my democratic feelings known on a ballot paper, I take. I vote for whoever I think can bring about change, whoever can dial back the assault on nature, humanity, humility and basic decency. My feeling is that hope lies with young people. The fire burns far more strongly within them and they're the future. If I think about that long list of things that upsets me at the moment, a lot of it is perpetuated by the older generation. Not all of course, but it seems to me that it is a meaningful amount, and to bring this back to birds for a moment, if you happen to chance upon an online argument or (more likely) slanging match about inclusion, diversity and - whisper it - change within birding, then the dissenters are almost certainly going to be old white men repeating the same old tired clichés. I'm generalising of course, it is unavoidable, but the same is true of Brexit, politics, the environment, immigration, migration, COVID - on almost every issue of the day battle lines are drawn with surprising regularity along the same demographic boundaries. I find this fascinating but I think I have written enough for one day, and strayed somewhat from the stated brief.

I would sum it up as follows. The groups of people who want things to stay as they are are the ones who have had their time. The world is moving on - with or without them - and they're upset that their stars are waning. They're clinging on and they know it, and so they're lashing out. That's all they can do and if I get called a turd then so be it. That is not to say that there are not young people who want to perpetuate the status quo, who don't believe in equality or in science, but within my admittedly narrow bubble I'm not seeing that at all and that gives me a lot of hope. The thing I am most afraid of is disengagement, particularly when it comes to politics, and of the amount of time young people spend on vacuous celebrity and image to the exclusion of almost everything else. And on that note, I am off to lecture my kids on some or all of the above. 

Week off

Reed Warbler, Wicken Fen

I've just returned to work after a week off. The plan was to relentlessly twitch an incredible run of rarities the likes of which have never graced these shores. Instead what happened is that other than a Calandra Lark on Fair Isle nothing I "needed" turned up. The rarities that did turn up promptly buggered off again, in some instances before I even found out about them, although obviously as none of them were Calandra Larks I was fairly sanguine about that. It also rained quite a lot and as a consequence I had a far more relaxed week than I anticipated.

But I did see some birds. I've sat at home for a very long time now, despite the weather I was keen to go further afield. I visited Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire, as well as a fair amount of birding here in Wanstead on the days where I needed to be at home (more school-related COVID fun and games).

Reed Bunting, Fen Drayton

The biggest news I have is that I have now seen a Blackbird in Cambridgeshire. Although I lived in Cambridge for the first twenty or so years of my life and surely saw many Blackbirds there was no record of this. My eBird list for Cambridgeshire is basically the product of a few trips between 2008 and 2012, largely twitching rarities in the fens like Black-winged Pratincole and Pallid Harrier. This glaring omission is now rectified along with quite a few others although none quite as basic. More importantly it provided the kick up the backside I needed to actually get in the car and go somewhere, and that truly is the value of having targets however daft they appear to be. The result is two days of non-stop birding around some of my old haunts, driving through villages which prompted repeated flashbacks about who it was that I had known as a child that had lived there, where had my Mum taught, which of their friends had lived where and things like that. Swavesey, Oakington, Over, Histon, Cottenham, Burwell, Witchford, March, Harston, Foxton, Great Shelford, Stapleford.... I knew all of these places, knew the village ponds, the colour of the bricks, where the bend in the road was. And now where a good spot for Grey Wagtail is, where I'm likely to hear Bittern, where might be good for winter Swans. A lot of these places are less than an hour away - I have not moved very far during my lifetime it appears yet it seems a world away. 

Stonechat, Cottenham

I won't bore you with a list of what I saw where, although the Woodchat Shrike in Rochford was an absolute beauty and I wish I could have spent more time watching it. It is now very much back to the daily grind - so the odd foray onto the patch, a bit of nocmig, a bit of skywatching. Familiarity. Ease. No pressure. This is 2021. This is the new normal.

The Wanstead 'Akiapola'au

I had a mooch around the Park yesterday, my week off has ended up being something of a damp squib versus my admittedly lofty aspirations. I've seen some nice birds, including a stonker of a Woodchat Shrike in Essex, but given the time of year I was really hoping for some stellar quality. I had the time and the means, normally so hard to achieve, but the birding Gods did not see fit to deliver.

Or at least not until yesterday, when I discovered Wanstead's first endemic Honeycreeper in the Park. Ooof, what a stunner. We are rather lacking in Māmane here, but it seems to find the bushes around Heronry to its liking.

It is of course a House Sparrow with a rather incredible beak deformity. I've seen all sorts of birds with elongated mandibles, normally the upper one for some reason - Blue Tits, various Gulls and a Starling all spring to mind, but this one beats the lot. At first I thought the bird was carrying some prey, a worm or a slug perhaps, but soon realised this was a permanent fixture. It seems able to eat still, and has adapted its technique by picking up food sideways. What this means for its long term health is anyone's guess and I can't help but feel sorry for it, life must be tough.

From the Park I carried on to the long-staying Black-necked Grebe, hoping for another chance at some photos. It was not to be, a photographer was already there unfortunately. Her main technique seemed to be standing right in the open at the nearest spot to the bird which very sensibly stayed right at the other side as far away as it could get, and so I am not hopeful of her images being much cop. However she seemed to be having fun, and so not wanting to get in her way I left her to it and pottered off to the brooms where I saw nothing at all. Well, not nothing, more photographers actually. They were after Little Owl so I gave them a bit of help, not too much though as the birds are probably breeding. Mind you, the arctic theme camo jacket with red maple leaf highlights would likely have rendered them fully invisible.

Black-necked Grebe

The smart Black-necked Grebe is still here over a week later, bobbing about very incongruously on Alexandra Lake. I dashed to see if it was still there as soon as saw the initial photo of it, and as soon as the word got out it sparked a mass rush to the Flats from all the local birders. We need not have bothered to cancel meetings, abandon wives and children and so on, anyone could have just strolled up and seen it at their leisure. Which is what a lot of people from all over east London have been doing, although I have typically been there so early that I have seen very few of them.

I think I have had three looks at it now beyond the initial one, and it has been showing better and better each time. Or more likely I am understanding the bird better, what it likes to do, when it likes to do it, and where the best spots to intercept it for a photo are. Where I can get a black background, where I can introduce green, where I can avoid twigs and so on. I've used almost all my various cameras and lenses at this point, but I won't bore you with all of that. The bird seems very healthy, diving very frequently for food. It is relentlessly bullied by the many Little Grebes on the pond, and seems to find itself in the middle of Swan vs Canada Goose agro or full-on Coot warfare quite frequently. More than once I've been on the verge of a promising situation only to have other birds intervene and send the Grebe skittering back to the shelter and safety of the overhanging vegetation. Still, I am quite pleased with these - I have not had to join the throngs up at Swillington Ings, I've not had to worry about the restrictions surrounding breeding birds, I've just been crouched on the edge of my local pond making intelligent decisions about when to move and when to stay very still. This is probably one of my favourite birds to ever grace the patch, a real star performer.

Wheatear interlude

I have not seen very many Wheatears this "season" and photographed only a handful. Some swine put up a fence and it is now impossible to get anywhere near them. Pffffff. Just kidding! The fence does preclude birding quite a large area, but I would take that any day in order to retain (and hopefully grow) our nearly extinct Skylark population. I've been hearing birds signing nearly every day, but my sense is that there are now two pairs, possibly three, and I have seen birds collecting nesting material in the long grass, so fingers crossed! Our new worry is the seemingly complete disappearance of our breeding Meadow Pipits, which in theory also benefit from the protection offered by the fence. I have not seen a single song-flighting bird, and only hear calls very occasionally, and nobody knows why.

You can see the Skylark fence in the background

Yellow Wagtail on the deck

I got a proper soaking this morning for very little reward. Hopes of Waders, Terns and southern overshoots went unfulfilled, and my waterproof trousers proved not to be waterproof any more. At the Alex the Black-necked Grebe was still in situ, and much closer to the bank than before. Did I have my camera? No I did not! I returned with it once the rain had eased, but the wind had got up and the Grebe was likely sheltering under the bank somewhere. On my fruitless tour of the edge however I came across all three regular Wagtails. I managed to briefly get ahead of the brightest one as it pottered along - I very rarely see these like this, normally there is an invisible tseeep from on high somewhere as I strain into an empty blue sky. It probably stayed for less than a minute, mostly feeding around the base of a tree, and then was off. Would that it had not been blowing a gale under a grey sky, but you take what you can get. I suppose that had it been nice and calm and sunny then this bird would have been a heard only as it sailed through.

Good news

Good news - the Swan fence has been dramatically improved, the whole of the southern section now has webbing, albeit that the northern half still just has the rope and signs. Further good news is that there has been loads of rain and there is loads more forecast, which tops up the levels, increases the distance dogs and foxes would need to travel. Also the Swans on Heronry now have fledged young so perhaps the Angel birds are now not that far away - I first saw the pair there on the 6th March, then again my earliest report of sitting on eggs was the 18th April. If that was the start then they still have a long way to go, but I did not visit every day so they may well have started a lot earlier. Let's hope so.

After yesterday's Osprey excitement today was only ever going to be very dull and so it proved. Here is a Jackdaw.