The Leicester Llama

Un-American Activities

2011-12-04T17:34:00.001Z

In case anyone was wondering what was behind the statement on the LROS Bird News page yesterday regarding a reported American Golden Plover at Cossington Meadows, here is a short version of the story.

Basically, the ‘observer’ who reported the plover is known to have claimed a lot of highly unlikely birds in the county recently. I thought Birdguides at least were aware of him, but this one slipped through the net somehow. Unfortunately I didn’t find out who it was until after dark, by which time a lot of people had wasted an afternoon looking for a non-existent bird.

Although I’ve never met him, he has been described to me as a ‘very keen but over-enthusiastic young lad’. I’m not sure how young, but certainly old enough to be able to use a computer and report sightings to Birdguides and LROS. I would also suggest, particularly in view of the fact that he has been warned about reporting fictitious rare birds before, not least by his parents, that he ought to be old enough to realise the possible consequences of his actions.

Before anyone asks, given his previous claims I don't think there is any possibility that he simply ‘made a mistake’ with this bird. It’s not certain that he was even at Cossington Meadows yesterday as about ten later ‘updates’ on the bird in the afternoon all appeared to have been sent from a home computer, along with a later report of a White-billed Diver at the site and a Red-flanked Bluetail & 2 Black-necked Grebes at Priory Water around the same time. And that wasn’t his first Red-flanked Bluetail in the county this autumn.

Over-enthusiasm is one thing, but this seems to be crossing the line into out and out fabrication. All very unfortunate, and sadly symptomatic of our modern rarity-obsessed birding culture. As John Hague pointed out, when we were that age (whatever age he is) we wouldn’t have even heard of birds like Red-flanked Bluetail, let alone thought that we might see one. We can only hope that he will grow out of this and go on to become a proper birder, although I’m afraid it will be a long time before anyone believes anything he reports!

Hoax!

2011-11-15T10:46:00.001Z

Yet again there’s a thread in progress on Birdforum about an apparent hoax – this time an anonymous Twitter report of an Eyebrowed Thrush in a private garden at Hunstanton last weekend. I have to say that on the evidence available so far this one is looking like a hoax, but some of the arguments regularly trotted out on BF on these threads are somewhat spurious, to say the least. In particular a lot of people seem to have become fixated on ‘EXIF data’ whenever a photo of a contentious bird appears. Look at the EXIF data – that proves it’s a hoax. Someone’s removed the EXIF data – must be a hoax. No, it’s gen – the EXIF data fits with the claimed time of the sighting. Etc, etc.

OK, if the bird was claimed to have been seen at a particular time and the EXIF data is completely at odds with this (weeks or months out), then yes, be suspicious, but it doesn’t prove anything on its own. Many cameras will have incorrect times and dates – I just checked mine for the first time since I first set it up nearly three years ago, and although the date was right, the time was an hour and fifteen minutes ahead! Doesn’t say much for the clock chips Canon use. EXIF data can also easily be edited using various free programs, so even if it does fit with the claimed time and date of a sighting it’s completely irrelevant as evidence to support a claim.

But what about a total lack of EXIF data, as is the case with the Eyebrowed Thrush photo? Anyone who knows even a little bit about web design should be aware that photos should ideally be ‘saved for web’ to minimise browser loading times. This is even more important these days with so many people using mobile devices to browse the Internet. Obviously the majority of people don’t know this, which is why you see so many HUGE photos around that take forever to download on a phone. And many photos saved at low jpeg settings, which consequently look a lot worse than they would if they were properly optimized. But people who do know what they’re doing save everything for web in Photoshop. As well as optimizing the image so you get the best possible quality whilst keeping the file size small, this also completely removes the EXIF data. There is absolutely nothing sinister or suspicious about this – in fact in an ideal world it would be normal practice for anyone uploading photos to the web.

If you look at any photo of mine anywhere on the Internet (flickr, LROS website, this blog etc) you will not see any EXIF data, and the date shown will be the date I saved the file (which could be months later), not when the photo was taken.* Does that mean I’m a hoaxer? Well, I was in Hunstanton on Sunday......

* - a perfect example of this is the first Humming-bird Hawk-moth photo on my flickr page - it says authoritatively: 'This photo was taken on November 6th 2011'. No, it wasn't - it was taken on September 27th 2011, but because there's no EXIF data, flickr gives this completely spurious date, which is just the date the file was created. As far as I know there's no way of turning this off - if I could, I would.

Facebook

2011-10-25T14:42:00.000+01:00

This may come as a shock to some people, but I've finally given in and joined Facebook. It seems to be the thing to do these days. So if you know me, you may be getting/have already been sent an invitation to be my friend. This always sounds a bit pathetic and needy to me, but that's what they decided to call it, so who am I to argue. So pleeeease be my friend..... oh, go on....... I'm really not as objectionable as I seem...... I promise I won't keep ringing you up, or emailing you hundreds of amusing pictures of cats, honest......

At some stage, when I get my head round it all, I shall be creating pages on the aforementioned social networking site for my two art websites. I know most of the people who read this crap aren't likely to become customers for artwork, but the point is that friends of friends, or relatives of friends, or friends of relatives might. Sort of like viral, innit. In the modern parlance. I'm dead modern, me. I'm on Twitter as well, you know.

I want to go there!

2011-10-21T22:29:00.000+01:00

On today's Daily Mash - Llamaville Adventure Land!

More Shameless Self-promotion

2011-10-20T22:08:00.001+01:00

As I may have mentioned a while back, I've been intending for a long time to create a separate website for my pet portraits. After a lot of messing about, it's now live, so in the interests of getting at least one in-coming link to it, here it is:

www.ukpetportraits.com

Feel free to link to it, share it, Tweet it, like it on Facebook etc.

Religious Persecution by Mustelids?

2011-10-16T22:00:00.000+01:00

This could easily have been Photoshopped, but I swear this is a genuine screengrab from the BBC's Nature UK page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/uk/) today. No doubt it will have disappeared by Monday.

Shetland Days 9 - 12

2011-10-15T16:42:00.001+01:00

9th

Back to near gale force westerlies, accompanied by heavy showers. There are now pretty much no migrants anywhere (apart from an arrival of Redwings and Fieldfares overnight), and the only bird of note we saw all day was the Buff-bellied Pipit at Quendale.

10th

Decided to go a bit further afield today, so we drove to Lerwick, where several Purple Sandpipers and a Long-tailed Duck were new for the holiday list, but Helendale and Seafield were devoid of migrants. Fladdabister produced the only warblers we've seen for a few days – a Garden Warbler and a Blackcap, and 1 Chiffchaff was the only migrant at Hoswick (as an aside, we've seen more Willow Warblers than Chiffchaffs here since we arrived, which is very unusual).

We were then reduced to twitching the Citrine Wagtail again, and I managed to get a photo for a change, although it was being blown about a lot in the wind. Finally, back at Pool of Virkie, a Curlew Sandpiper was new for the holiday list, and 6 juv Arctic Terns were also here.

11th

Our last full day was mostly spent driving around South Mainland trying to think of somewhere that might be hiding a migrant, but apart from 3 Snow Buntings on the top of Mossy Hill, we largely failed to find any. Saw the American Golden Plover again at Dunrossness, and the Isabelline Shrike again at Fleck.

12th

Mark totally gripped me off this morning with a brief Robin in Exnaboe, the only one of the trip. Apart from that though, our last couple of hours produced nothing in flat calm, sunny weather. Strange how, every time the wind's dropped below about force 7, we've been travelling and haven't been able to take full advantage of it. Our flight from Sumburgh was delayed due to a fault with the plane (we actually had to get off and board a different one after farting about on the runway for half an hour), which meant a fast walk across Glasgow Airport to catch the connecting flight, but apart from that the journey home was uneventful.

So, a bit of a mixed bag this year - saw some good birds (certainly more than in 2008, when we didn't see a single BB rarity!), but nothing really outstanding, and once again we failed to find much, despite trying hard. It would be an understatement to say that the weather wasn't in our favour though! Probably shan't be going next year, so book your flights now - it will no doubt be mega....

Shetland Day 8

2011-10-15T16:25:00.000+01:00

Typically, the day we left Unst it was relatively calm. The wind even went easterly for most of the day, although it wasn't really coming from anywhere, and most of the remaining migrants seem to have taken the opportunity to leave.

Stopped off at a few places on the way south, the most productive of which was the excellent garden and plantation at Sandgarth, where we found a Lesser Redpoll (the rarest of the redpolls in Shetland!), 4 or 5 apparent Mealy Redpolls, a Greenfinch (also scarce here), a Lesser Whitethroat and a few Blackcaps. Kergord was absolutely dead as usual.

Sandgarth plantation

Arriving in the birder-infested south, we quickly cleaned up on all the rarities in the area: juv Citrine Wagtail and American Golden Plover at Fleck, and the Isabelline Shrike at Brake, but decided to give the Buff-bellied Pipit at Quendale a miss until the crowds had died down.

Shetland Day 7

2011-10-15T16:16:00.000+01:00

Went back to Fetlar today to look for the American Golden Plover, Dotterel and Pec Sand Martin Garner's lot saw yesterday at Tresta (where we didn't look on Monday). Found the Golden Plover flock. Nothing else with them.

Golden Plover ignoring the weather and pretending it's still summer

Looked for the Black-headed Bunting at Belmont. No sign.

Last couple of hours of daylight at Norwick – Pied Fly and 2 Rosefinches still at Valyie, and a juv Hen Harrier by the beach, but nothing new.

Forecast still bollocks. Tomorrow we leave Unst and head for the apparently birder-saturated and almost equally birdless South Mainland. I can't wait.

Shetland Day 6

2011-10-15T16:09:00.000+01:00

Notice how the posts get shorter as the week goes on...

More of the same – strong westerly winds and showers. Went to Norwick first thing and saw the same birds that have been there all week – 2 Rosefinches, Pied Flycatcher, Yellow-browed Warbler, Garden Warbler, Willow Warbler and several Bramblings.

South to Uyeasound, where all we could find were a Yellow-browed Warbler and a Spotted Flycatcher (valuable holiday tick). The OBP was still at Baltasound late afternoon, but again no photos worth keeping.

With the forecast is still stuck on strong westerly winds coming from nowhere, it's hard to see anything new turning up at the moment. We may be reduced to twitching Fetlar again tomorrow...

Shetland Day 5

2011-10-15T16:03:00.000+01:00

A disappointing day, with not much seen. Started at Uyeasound, where we wasted over an hour waiting for an interesting juvenile Aythya sp to flap its wings or fly, and hopefully confirm that it was what it looked like, a Lesser Scaup. However, when the Tufted flock did eventually fly, it clearly had white extending on to the primaries. Presumably it was some sort of horrible hybrid (Lesser Scaup x Tufted?), but it did look good apart from the wing pattern. Martin Garner (who arrived just before the flock flew) agreed, which made us feel a little better about it!

After that we checked various sites around Unst, but saw very little apart from a Redstart in the burn at Burrafirth, the two Common Rosefinches at Norwick and a couple of Hen Harriers at Burrafirth and Northdale. We drove past the OBP site, but there were too many people there so we gave that a miss. Weather continues to look unpromising, with more westerlies forecast for the foreseeable future. It may be going more north-westerly by Friday, which is marginally better, but at the moment it doesn't look like we're going to get any easterlies at all.

Shetland Day 4

2011-10-15T15:57:00.000+01:00

The continuing ‘westerly gale and showers’ theme made conditions difficult for birding, but we made the effort to get out reasonably early, and headed to Norwick once more. This time the Pied Flycatcher appeared for us in the Valyie garden, and a Yellow-browed Warbler was calling, but not a lot else. A drive down to Lamba Ness produced even less, but I did manage to get a nice photo of a female Merlin on the ground. A ringtail Hen Harrier, probably the one we saw at Norwick the other day, was battling against the wind here, and yet another shortly afterwards at Haroldswick. Having only ever seen one Hen Harrier in eight previous visits to Shetland, I've now seen probably four different birds in four days! Also at Haroldswick were a late Swallow feeding low over a field, and a juv Arctic Tern in the bay.

After drawing blanks at several sites we found ourselves at Uyeasound, where I had a somewhat overdue Shetland tick – a Richard's Pipit flying over calling. On the way back to Baltasound we had a text from Rob saying 'Rustic Bunting, OBP and Rosefinch around the school'. What?! We'd struggled to find anything all day and someone had seen all that lot in one place! On arrival at the school we discovered that there's a nice stand of conifers there, and the Olive-backed Pipit was soon found, and showed well on the sheltered side. Mark got some good photos, but I spazzed it as usual, only managing to add to my collection of 'world's worst rarity photos'. No sign of the Rustic Bunting, which would have been another Shetland tick.

My 'best' OBP shot - i.e. the only one where it's actually identifiable...

After this we looked at the Setters Hill Estate plantation and Halligarth with renewed optimism, but needless to say saw bugger all.

Shetland Day 3 - Fetlar

2011-10-15T15:46:00.000+01:00

Despite having only been on Unst for a couple of days, we decided to go to Fetlar today to look for the Pallid Harrier and three American Golden Plovers which were near Funzie the other day. All the ferries to and from Unst are free (once you've paid your initial return fare from Yell), so it didn't cost us anything. Not having checked the ferry times before we set off, we were very lucky to arrive just as one was about to depart – a minute later and we wouldn't have got to Fetlar till the afternoon.

As we drove across the island in heavy rain I picked up a ringtail harrier, which obviously we hoped might be the Pallid, but on closer inspection it was yet another Hen. The rain continued for most of the day till about 3pm, and the south-south-west wind steadily increased from about force 5 in the morning to gale force 8 or 9 by late afternoon.

We spent most of the day trying to get good enough views of the Golden Plover flock between Funzie & Everland. This was difficult, as the flock was flighty and kept splitting up into smaller flocks. Eventually we had reasonable views of most of them, but couldn't find any Americans. A Lapland Bunting was at Loch of Funzie, and then in the afternoon the juvenile Pallid Harrier flew across the road and landed at Mires of Funzie. Got some crap flight shots of it, which at least prove that it was a Pallid:

Loch of Funzie

Poor record shots of rare bird caused partly by forgetting to turn the

image stabilizer back on, and partly by general photographic incompetence

Another stroke of luck was arriving at the only shop on the island just as it was closing (at 1pm!) – fortunately the proprieter let us in, and we were able to purchase a couple of Johnson & Wood chicken and bacon pies. Again, a minute later and we would have been left hungry till we got back to Unst!

While we were consuming said pies, we received a text from Rob about a 'probable Black-eared Wheatear' reported on Unst, which we didn't really want to hear, as we couldn't get back till about 17:15 or so. Fortunately it was re-identified, as Rob correctly predicted, as a wet Northern Wheatear.

Very rough crossing back across Bluemull Sound. Forecast for more of the same tomorrow.

Shetland Day 2

2011-10-15T15:35:00.002+01:00

Another warm, sunny and flat calm day here. Up and out by 07:45; as we were putting stuff in the car I picked up a ringtail harrier flying over the field in the front of the chalet. Momentary panic, followed by frustration as it turned and flew off across the sound and disappeared over the hill. Clearly a Hen Harrier on jizz, but one of those 'interesting' dark above/orange below individuals. Others who have seen it over the last couple of weeks think it's a variant Hen rather than a 'Northern Harrier/Marsh Hawk' or whatever you want to call the American race.

The plan for today was to start at Skaw and then work our way south – just one Garden Warbler at Skaw, so on to Norwick, where I had a long overdue and tarty self-found tick: 2 Common Rosefinches with sparrows in a field of oats. There were two here a while ago, but since they haven't been reported for 8 days it's going on my found list. Oh yes. Also around Norwick were 2 Barred Warblers and 2 Yellow-broweds.

Garden Warbler - typical fence-perching Shetland migrant

Rosefinch and House Sparrow friend

Two views of the brilliant Valyie garden at Norwick

Encouraged by this, we then walked around Baltasound for a couple of hours, but saw very little apart from Unst resident Mike Pennington, who greeted us with the words 'get off my island'. One Willow Warbler in Halligarth plantation was the only thing I wrote in my notebook.

Halligarth, Baltasound (can't quite make out the Willow Warbler on this shot)

After a quick cup of tea back at the chalet we headed south to Belmont to try and get better views/photos of the Black-headed Bunting. After a bit of searching it appeared, and I managed to get some semi-decent shots of it.

Another look at Norwick late afternoon produced nothing new apart from another (different) ringtail Hen Harrier, and finally we had good views of an Otter just offshore at Haroldswick.

Shetland

2011-10-15T15:19:00.000+01:00

I've decided that, having made the effort to write something each day we were in Shetland, I might as well upload them. Mainly because I can't be arsed to write a summary now, so it's either this or nothing. Bear in mind though that these were written at the time, so references to the birding looking 'promising' at the start of the holiday may sound like wildly optimistic wishful thinking with the benefit of two weeks' hindsight...

Day 1 (Saturday 1st October)

It was all going so smoothly until we got to the chalet. We arrived at a surprisingly calm and mild Sumburgh on schedule at 10:45, picked up the hire car, quick cup of tea and chat at Rob's, during which Dave found Rob's third garden Yellow-browed Warbler (I found the first two), drove across Mainland, Barred Warbler flew in front of the car at Voe (landed in a rose bush just for confirmation), saw the Black-headed Bunting at Belmont and then.... couldn't get into the chalet. The door was supposed to be open, and the key inside, but no, the door was locked and the key nowhere to be seen. Bollocks.

Fortunately the people in the chalet next door knew where a key might be found, and eventually we got in. Apparently the owner thought we were arriving next week. Good job he hadn't double booked it!!

Next, and more annoying problem – no phone reception either in the chalet or anywhere nearby. Arse. But there are a few places both north and south of here where the phone works, so we should be able to get news out reasonably quickly if necessary.

So, no blog posts until we get to Rob's next Saturday It's also very odd not being able to take the Blackberry out every five minutes to check emails. How quickly we come to regard technology as a basic human right....

Anyway, apart from seeing the Black-headed Bunting near the ferry terminal at Belmont we didn't do a great deal of birding apart from a couple of hours this afternoon at Norwick, where there were at least 6 Yellow-browed Warblers and not a lot else. But with a Siberian Blue Robin (unfortunately killed by a cat) on Foula today, and various other new bits and pieces, it's looking promising. In the absence of any internet access we've had to resort to watching television, writing our blog posts ready for uploading in a week's time, and working our way through a 'catering' sized bottle of Tesco own brand whisky (“A versatile drink which brings enjoyment to every occasion” according to the blurb on the label).

Finally some good news. Mark has brought two compact cameras for some reason, so I have a 'non bird photos' camera for the week.

Back to (semi) civilisation

2011-10-08T18:20:00.000+01:00

It's unlikely I know, but just in case anyone has been wondering where the daily updates from Unst were, here is the answer. I had hoped that we would get a phone signal at the chalet, and that I could therefore tether the phone to the laptop and get onto the Internet that way. But no, neither Vodafone nor O2 work anywhere around Baltasound, except for a very occasional weak signal, good enough to deliver a text or an email, but not to send anything. Apparently Orange does work there, but almost nowhere else in Shetland!

Mark has done a couple of blog updates on his phone when we were elsewhere on Unst, but I couldn't be bothered with that. Having now arrived at Rob's house for the next four days, I will either upload the crap I've been writing each night or, more likely, some sort of round-up of the week on Unst.

Or I could just sum it up in one word: windy.

35.68 million inches due north

2011-09-30T20:08:00.003+01:00

This time tomorrow, all being well, I should be on Unst. If Google Earth is to be believed, I will be 563.16 miles (906.32 kilometres; 991,128.63 yards; 35,681,710.28 inches, or intriguingly 532,562.84 Smoots, whatever a Smoot is*) as near as makes no difference due north of where I am now. To get there I will have travelled by car, airport shuttle bus, two planes and two ferries. From leaving home at 4 am, it will probably take about 12 hours. I shall no doubt be knackered, but looking forward to kicking around ditches and iris beds and peering into people’s gardens in search of birds.

Although we will have no such luxuries as WiFi in our chalet at Baltasound, as long as I can get a reasonable signal on my phone I should still be able to update the blog, but photos may have to wait until we get to Rob’s house next week. There probably won't be many photos actually - having decided to take wellies this year rather than put up with wet feet all the time, I had serious weight issues with my suitcase. As a result, the 50mm lens was one of the things that had to be left out. So it will be just bird photos (hopefully) and possibly a few crap pictures taken on my phone.

Kelda chalets – ours is the white one on the end. Halligarth Plantation just visible in the distance at the extreme left of the picture.

For anyone who knows Unst, or has seen John Shuttleworth’s ‘It’s Nice Up North’, this image shows where the chalet is in relation to the famous Bobby’s bus shelter (chalet just visible in the middle of the picture)

I hardly dare mention the weather, but despite distinctly unpromising wind directions (almost entirely westerly) so far this autumn, Shetland has already had loads of good birds. And there's a Pallas's Gropper on Fair Isle today. That would do....

* 67 inches apparently

Garden hummer

2011-09-27T13:46:00.002+01:00

I first saw this Humming-bird Hawk-moth in the garden on the 18th, then again the following day, but on both occasions it disappeared before I could grab the camera and get outside. Today, however, it fed around the Verbenas for long enough to get a few shots. Very difficult thing to photograph - these were the only two in focus out of about 50 attempts:

Always nice to see - this is only the third one I've ever seen in Leics.

A couple more similar shots when it came back later:

And finally a reasonably sharp one!

The long wait is over!

2011-09-22T09:35:00.004+01:00

After many months of badgering Richard (stop that sniggering at the back) my completely revamped website is finally live:

www.ajm-wildlife-art.co.uk

However, because nothing in life is ever simple, this has unfortunately coincided with Richard's server account being hacked by some piece of retarded lowlife shit in Malaysia. This caused spam links to appear on all the sites Richard is responsible for. Although my site is clean now, this means that all the sites have to be reinstalled and new accounts created, so it will probably disappear for a day or two, or possibly be replaced temporarily by the old one. So please have a look at it while it's there! If it's a blackish/dark grey design with a Short-eared Owl at the top, that's the new one. If it's white with a Ringed Plover on the home page, it's reverted to the crappy old one.

Either way, if anyone wants a pet portrait or anything else doing in time for Christmas, please let me know as soon as possible.

Ad break over.

I'm sure it's very nice, but...

2011-09-21T21:41:00.000+01:00

...you'd think they might have done some market research on the name before launching this range of Indian foods in the UK (seen in Sainsbury's this evening):

Timewaster

2011-09-19T18:20:00.003+01:00

Not content with covering all of Unst on Google Streetview, checking weather forecasts every five minutes and revising the field characters of extremely rare birds that I almost certainly won’t find, I’ve discovered another excellent Shetland-related timewaster:

http://visit.shetland.org/shetland-webcams

The best one is the Sumburgh Head cam – I bet if you watched this long enough you’d see something mega rare. Although it would be frustrating, as the camera follows a set pattern of panning and zooming lasting about six minutes, so you’d have to hope it was still there when the camera returned to the same spot!

If you watch the sequence all the way through, at one stage it zooms in on Rob’s house, although at over two miles away you can’t identify anything in his garden to grip him off with unfortunately.

There’s another one looking back from Exnaboe towards Sumburgh Head, which is a nice view, but it’s static and only updates every two minutes. The Pallid Harrier the other week would probably have been visible on this if it had flown past at the exact time the cam went off!

Edit: Hmm - these all seem to be offline today - probably overloaded the servers with too many people looking at them!

And the answer is....

2011-09-13T16:33:00.000+01:00

As Peter Cook said on that sketch: no.

Or least not anywhere I've been in the last three days. The wind seemed to have dropped considerably this morning, so much so in fact that there were good numbers of Mipits, Chaffinches, hirundines and the odd Skylark and Yellow Wagtail heading south over Eyebrook this morning. So forget about seabirds - it's time to dust off the vismigging hat, gen up on passerine flight calls and get out and string stuff flying over instead!

Will this wind....?

2011-09-10T15:15:00.002+01:00

Every year we get wind in the autumn (actually, I get wind all the time, but that’s another matter), and every year I go out looking for any stray seabirds that might have been blown inland by it. A bit silly when you think about it – if I really wanted to see seabirds I could go to the coast and see thousands of them. But no, I have to go and look for them in Leicestershire and Rutland.

So last week when it had been windy for a day or two, I went to Rutland Water and Eyebrook Res in the hope of finding seabirds. I saw a few bits and pieces – 7 Knot at Eyebrook (the equal fifth biggest flock ever in the county!!!) a Black Tern, an Arctic Tern, a couple of Turnstones and loads of Yellow Wagtails (is anywhere else in the country getting exceptional numbers at the moment, or is it just Rutland Water?). But no seabirds.

This isn’t actually that surprising – in all the years I’ve been going out in autumnal winds looking for inland seabirds (at least 25), I’ve only ever found a few – Sabine’s Gull and Little Auk at Rutland Water (the former on a day when it wasn’t even particularly windy) an Arctic Skua at Swithland Res, a couple of Great Skuas and a few Grey Phalaropes. I’ve seen all the other ‘regulars’ over the years – Fulmar, Gannet, Leach’s Petrel and Manx Shearwater, but not personally found any of them.

Of course the day after I went out last week there was a Manx Shearwater at Eyebrook. Arse. Granted, it was ‘well fucked’ to quote the beast, and predictably found dead the next morning, but a Manx Shearwater nonetheless.

But there is still hope – the forecast for the next few days is for even stronger winds. I shall be out looking from Tuesday/Wednesday onwards I think.

Dear BBC

2011-08-28T17:30:00.000+01:00

I see the BBC is asking for ideas for this year’s Autumnwatch. Personally I don’t agree with all this ‘interactive’ bollocks – it’s just a guaranteed way of ending up with lowest common denominator dross. Did Tony Soper ever ask people what they wanted to see? No, he showed us what he thought was interesting (usually Cormorants, Puffins and Guillemots as I recall), and we were grateful for it. Does David Attenborough ever read out emails and tweets from cretins on his programmes? No, and he's all the more respected for it.

But if the BBC really has run out of ideas, here are a few they might like to consider. Let’s get the most predictable one out of the way first:

Beaver Patrol

Kate Fumble adopts an orphaned beaver and prepares it for release back into the wild. Each week she gets it out for Charlie Hambleton-Peninsula to check on its progress, giving him an excuse to leer disturbingly into the camera whilst using the word 'beaver' as many times as he can (actually, come to think of it, he doesn't need an excuse - he does that anyway).

Peew with Pacman

(Does anyone else get really irritated with the way Packham pronounces ‘poo’? In fact do they even have to keep going on about ‘poo’ all the time? It’s like listening to a bunch of four year olds.)

Pacman gets to indulge his coprophilia by rolling around in shit for ten minutes, after which he has to identify the species that produced it. Just for a laugh, in the final programme of the series the producers get him to roll in his own.

Sorry – I can’t show this, it’s just too gross.

A Shag with Martin (the housewife’s favourite)
Martin Huge-Gains has to try and pronounce ‘Phalacrocorax’ without mugging frantically to the camera or constantly pushing his glasses up into his mane...... with electrodes attached to his gonads to ‘remind’ him if he fails.

Introducing: Lichen Cam!
Never again will viewers complain about non-performing badgers on the webcams after they've suffered the mind-numbing tedium that is Lichen Cam. Watch for a couple of years and you might even see it grow! (thanks to Mrs Llama for this one)

I’m sure I saw it move!

Deer Diary

Simon Thing dons his best camo gear to get as close as he possibly can to Red Deer mating on a remote island where there’s no-one around to stop him.

Oh no, hang on, they’ve done that one. Every fucking year in fact......

World's Worst Rarity Photos

2011-08-19T21:16:00.000+01:00

In my ongoing contest with the Hooded Birder to see who can post the crappest bird photos, I offer below a couple of images which originally appeared on the 'World's Worst Rarity Photos page' on the old Leicester Llamas site. I've got quite a few more like this, but they're all in a shoe box somewhere and I can't be arsed to find/scan them at the moment. But I may do at some stage. Something to look forward to eh?

Richard helpfully points out the Common Rosefinch
feeding on our spilt seed at Gord, Shetland, May 1999

No such help with this one - you'll have to pick out the King Eider for yourselves!
Ythan Estuary, April 1996

Maps, lovely maps

2011-08-12T22:40:00.002+01:00

I love maps. I don’t feel I can really get to grips with a place unless I’ve studied every inch of as large a scale map of the area as I can get my hands on. One that shows each individual tree would be ideal, but they’re very expensive. And very big (cue Steven Wright joke: I have a map of the United States...... it’s actual size. It says ‘one mile equals one mile’. Last summer I folded it.).

Anyway, this October, along with my esteemed colleague of the pie, I will be spending a week on Unst, the most northerly of the main Shetland Isles (there are a few lumps of rock, including Muckle Flugga, further north, but they don’t really count). Surprisingly, although I’ve been to Shetland several times over the last 15 years, I’ve never actually owned a map of the place. Mainly because I’ve always either been with, or stayed with Rob, who has the complete set.

But as we won’t have that ‘luxury’ this year I’ve had to buy my own map of Unst. It arrived today, and very exciting it is too – OS Explorer map number 470, the highest number of all this series, since they started at the bottom this time, unlike the Landrangers which start at the top. A double sided, 1:25000 scale veritable smorgasbord of cartographical delights and birding potential is how I would describe it. The cover photo even shows a pseudo-birder looking down at the Hermaness gannetry, although the blurb inside warns, rather bizarrely ‘...the photograph on the cover is intended merely as an illustration of the type of activity that your map is designed to facilitate...’ Not sure what that’s all about – maybe Ordnance Survey have been sued in the past by people who were disappointed that they didn’t see a Gannet when they went to Shetland?

I can’t quite remember how many times I’ve been to Unst, but I think it’s only twice – once in 1996 when we went for a day and saw nothing, and again in 2006 to see a Red-flanked Bluetail at Westing, then on to Halligarth, where I seem to remember we didn’t see a Bonelli’s Warbler sp. But I can’t find my notebook from that visit, and my memory is worse than that of an expenses-fiddling MP foaming at the mouth about ‘criminal behaviour’.

So it’s all going to be new and exciting. Probably. Right, I’m off to pore over my new map a bit more. In bed. Expect more excessively long posts going on and on about Shetland between now and 1st October....

Digiscoper of the Year

2011-08-10T14:34:00.002+01:00

I see Swarovski are running a Digiscoper of the Year award - here are my entries. I think I've got a good chance of winning a prize:

Greenshank (I think, or it might be a Greater Yellowlegs - the legs do look quite yellow)

Little Egret - taken when they were rare, which is surely worth extra points

Slavonian Grebe - I like the composition of this one

Wood Sandpiper - lovely light on this shot

The Starling Squad

2011-06-21T16:33:00.000+01:00

Many thanks to Jeff Higgott for posting this clip on YouTube – it’s a Central News report from November 1984 on the work of Leicester Polytechnic’s ‘Starling Squad’, which was formed to investigate (and try to get rid of if possible) the huge Starling roost in Leicester’s Abbey Park.

It’s very poignant seeing my old ringing trainer Jim Fowler interviewed here, as sadly he died last month. Strange to think that he was younger than I am now when this was filmed. Also in the clip, pretending to catch roosting Starlings in broad daylight, are Will Peach (holding the net), Jeff (with hair!), Dave ‘Hodders’ Hodson (with head torch.... in daylight) and Richard Seddon. I think I must have got involved with the Starling Squad shortly after this was filmed. This was my first introduction to ringing, and I spent many nights over the next couple of winters with the team in Abbey Park catching and ringing thousands of Starlings. Happy days!

And here’s a scan of my official Starling Squad badge – there can’t be many of these around!

Cull everything!

2011-06-15T11:11:00.000+01:00

Watching a piece on Springwatch last night about Magpies v ‘songbirds’ got me thinking....

The argument of the Songbird Survival Trust (as championed by that intellectual leviathan Jeremy Clarkson) goes like this: We like songbirds – they’re pretty. But songbirds are declining. Magpies eat songbirds. Therefore Magpies must be causing the decline of songbirds. Cull Magpies!

Supposing some members of the Songbird Survival Trust tried to extend that logic to other things....

We like butterflies and moths – they’re pretty. But butterflies and moths are declining. Songbirds eat caterpillars. Therefore songbirds must be causing the decline of butterflies and moths. Cull songbirds!

And if we culled songbirds, then the Magpies would have less available prey, so their numbers would drop as well. Brilliant! Oh, hang on a moment – songbird numbers are falling anyway, and yet predators are.... somehow.... increasing.... and butterflies and moths are.... declining as well.

Shit.

Perhaps we’d better cull everything just to be on the safe side.

When Bellringers go bad...

2011-06-12T17:36:00.005+01:00

From today’s Daily Bollox:

It was once the most mild-mannered of hobbies – but bellringing’s image is being tarnished so much by growing concerns over the bad behaviour of devotees that a “respect” code is now being introduced.

Followers have warned of rising tensions and even outbreaks of violence among bellringers (or “bellers” as many prefer to be known) as they vie for the best ropes to pull.

Traditionalists have become so concerned about damage to the hobby’s reputation that they have drawn up a new code of conduct, published in the belling “bible” Bell Ends, and endorsed by the Royal Society for the Promotion of Bellringing.

The new code calls for Britain’s estimated six hundred bellringers to “respect” others taking part in the hobby, stresses the need to observe “good belfry etiquette” and urges people not to “tug their ropes” too hard. Fights have broken out over limited spaces in bell towers, while there are increasing reports of bellringers interfering with each others clappers in their determination to ring the most bells.

Lee MacAllister, a leading beller who set up the British Belling Association said “many of these newcomers don’t know their Reverse Rounds from their Weasels and just turn up pulling ropes willy-nilly. It’s just got ridiculous.”

He said he personally had been involved in several violent confrontations with other bellers. “I have had lots of serious, physical fights when I have tried to stop people from tugging on my sally while I’m trying to ring Plain Bob Minor. In the last three years the situation has been just awful. The hobby has gone down the pan.”

Comments:

knobcheese said: these peeple need to get a lief

mememememe said: G.E.T. A. L.I.F.E!!!!!

wanker258 said: they need to get a girlfreind, too much tugging on there bellends lol!!!!!!!

fluffyhead said: leeve them allone they arn’t doing no one any harm!

doltbrain said: i never seen a bellriner on xfactor so it must be crap lol

wanker258 said: well they ovbiously wudnt fancy you flufyhead lol!!!!!!!!

fluffyhead said: and how would u know wanker258 you’re name says it all wanker!!!!!

Imsofunny said: “Weasels”? “Plain Bob Minor”? Sounds like something from Monty Python!

pleaselikeme said: bellringing is just wierd. why don’t these people do something normal like going to football or getting pissed or watching tv?

neverhadanoriginalthoughtinmylife said: I agree!!

goosefat said: I’m naked.

Bellman said: Well at least we aren’t as bad as those bloody birdspotters – I heard they all carry knives these days!

sparklyshoes said: omg i cant beleive people waist there lives like ringing bells! wtf is that all about? sad or what?!?!

fluffyhead said: and what do you do with your life thats so grate sparklyshoes? some people oughtto look at there own life before slagging off others all the time!

wanker258 said: ffs ligten up fluffyhed!!!!!

goosefat said: anyone want to ring my bell?

cumface said: This comment has been removed by a moderator

FFS give it a rest

2011-06-12T10:43:00.001+01:00

No doubt this will be commented upon and dissected in detail at great length on Birdforum and elsewhere. I would hope that anyone with a grain of intelligence, whether they know anything about birding or not, will be able to see that it’s largely typical British media sensationalist crap, but I’m going to restrict myself to one comment:

Lee – if you’re genuinely concerned about the image of birding being tarnished, for fuck’s sake next time a journalist rings you up looking for a comment, just politely tell them you’re not interested.

Stop......................Carry On!

2011-06-08T10:33:00.000+01:00

Now there's an obscure catchphrase from the past that probably only about 1% of people reading this (if indeed anyone reads it) will remember! Mass appeal? Bollocks, more like.

Anyway, I got fed up with seeing my moribund blog taunting me with its lack of updates since February every time I switched the computer on so rather than leave it sitting there on the remote chance that inspiration might strike, I deleted it. Fortunately Blogger allows you to undelete a blog for up to 90 days, so in a fit of probably misplaced optimism I decided to do just that and carry on.

Since my last post, spring has been and (just about) gone, the highlights for me being Leics & Rutland's long overdue first Glossy Ibis at Rutland Water in early May, and an equally overdue twitchable Hoopoe at South Kilworth last weekend. Not so good was the Savi's Warbler which sang in the Lagoon 3 reedbed on Monday evening, but hasn't been heard since. At least we heard about it this time, unlike all the previous county records.

Never mind, it'll soon be autumn...

Could Foxes Give Your House Diabetes?

2011-02-14T14:59:00.000Z

Daily Mail-o-matic - the Daily Mail headline generator.

Identification of Slaty-backed Gull

2011-01-15T00:05:00.000Z

Despite what some so-called experts might tell you, this is actually very straightforward. Does the gull in question look like this?

If so, then you’re in luck – that’s a Slaty-backed Gull alright. You can add it to your list and everyone will look up to you.

If, however, it looks like this:

Then someone's fucked up big time. This is the closely related, but sadly much commoner Salty-backed Gull, often found hanging around outside seaside fish and chip shops (OK, it doesn't look much like salt, but what do you expect for 5 minutes pissing around in Photoshop?). And if you still need that, then you’re a fucking tart.

Some lovely Waxwings

2010-12-12T16:37:00.002Z

Until this morning I hadn’t seen a Waxwing for years; usually I can’t be bothered to twitch them when there’s an invasion and then end up not seeing any. I did hear one calling somewhere near my house the other week, but didn’t see it, and there doesn’t seem much chance of another one round here as all the rowans have now been stripped bare by thrushes and Starlings.

So, given that I’d been thinking that I ought to make an effort this time, plus the fact that Mrs Llama wanted to see a Waxwing, news of a flock of 100+ in Loughborough for the last two days seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Most of the flock had buggered off by the time we got there, but we did see about 30, initially in flight and then perched in some trees for about half an hour. They were slightly too distant for any really good photos, and mostly hidden by branches, but these were the best of about 150 shots I took (all heavily cropped, and in some cases edited to remove annoying out of focus twigs!). Just in case you hadn’t seen enough Waxwing photos on the Internet recently....

It's not fair!

2010-11-15T13:24:00.003Z

After the unprecedented autumn passage, I naively thought that when I got home from Shetland there would be Lapland Buntings everywhere. I feverishly imagined vast flocks of them creeping around in every field (maybe even in the field behind my house), blotting out the sun as they migrated over in their countless millions, drowning out every other bird with their calls. Over and over again I visualised myself triumphantly adding that glorious tick to my county list, wiping out the years of hurt. Yes, I would finally see a Lapland Bunting in Leicestershire and everything would be all right.

How wrong I was. In the last month there have been precisely TWO reports in Leics, and one of those was only ‘99% certain’. It’s not as if I haven’t tried – every time I’ve been out I’ve been straining my ears skywards for just the faintest hint of a ‘tickitick’ or a ‘teu’, but not a thing. I even resisted stringing one, foolishly thinking I’d be bound to get a real one flying over eventually.

So where have they all gone? It’s a conspiracy, that’s what it is. Some bastard’s been catching them and putting them all in a big cage somewhere just to stop me adding it to my county list. Just one miserable county tick, that’s all I ask. Everyone else has seen one. It’s not fair.

And don’t try and fob me off with Waxwings. I’ve seen thousands of fucking Waxwings. Although one on the rowan tree outside my house would be nice, please.

Blast From The Past

2010-11-06T22:23:00.008Z

I've absolutely no idea why, but I've just been seized with a sudden urge to post this completely random page from the original Leicester Llamas site (this was written in 2001):

The Stringers Page

Like most counties, Leicestershire and Rutland has a few well-known stringers. However, ours do seem to be rather prolific. The Leicester Llamas have gone undercover into the dim world of stringing to find out what is going on.

[And for some equally inexplicable reason I've decided that I'll leave out 'Case 1' and just post the second part of the original page. I don't know why I've done this, as this bit was probably even more libellous than the first. But fuck it, we got away with it in 2001, so I'll probably get away with it now. I think Richard wrote this anyway, so that's OK.]

Case 2 - the 'Wildlife Writer'

A very sad tale. This individual used to be the county ecologist, but was sacked after a rather dubious incident involving late night nudity in the office. He writes a regular weekly wildlife column in the local paper (which covers the whole county and has a large readership). He sees a wide variety of birds and insects in his normally bird-free, bland, intensively farmed section of the county, and only tells us about them a few weeks later in the paper. This, at least, saves us from having to look for these fantasy birds.

By far the best of his recent claims was only last September, when a few skuas turned up inland. The 'Wildlife Writer' saw a skua at Swithland Res, which is not impossible to believe. Anyone else would have been happy enough with finding a Bonxie, but our man has to find a South Polar Skua! Something in the name of this species suggests, to me at least, that it would be unlikely to be found, for the first time in Europe, at a Leicestershire reservoir.

Almost as good, in early November, was a Lesser Short-toed Lark in a field near his home!

Some of his other 'finds' have included: Rough-legged Buzzard (to which he devoted an entire column in the paper, but didn't see the tail colour!), Honey Buzzards, Ring-billed (which he described as 'the same size and shape as Common Gull') and Bonaparte's Gull together amongst a small group of Black-headed and Common Gulls that one of the Llamas had already looked through, breeding Red-backed Shrikes, Wrynecks and Golden Orioles, a summer-plumaged Great Northern Diver on a farm pond, a Sociable Plover, etc etc. He has also added a couple of species of dragonfly to the county list (on local streams), and found some 'unusual' butterflies. Diagnosis: a disturbing combination of madness and incompetence.

Oh go on then

2010-11-03T13:37:00.001Z

Having initially resisted watching and commenting on the Twitchers programme on Sunday, I cracked and watched it on the iPlayer at lunchtime today. There’s not much to be said that hasn’t already been said at great length elsewhere (life’s too short to read the entire Birdforum thread), so I’ll restrict myself to a few observations.

I was going to say that the programme would have been much more enjoyable without the oppressive presence of Evans, but on reflection, I think it’s good that they included him – hopefully as a result more people will realise what a poisonous individual he is, and how much more pleasant birding would be without him. And don’t say that someone else would just come along and fill his shoes, because there is no-one else like him and hopefully never will be. To sum up in one definitely non-PC word how he came across in the film: retarded. And that’s my honest opinion, rather than just trying to be offensive.

Most sensible thing anyone said in the whole film? Brett Richards: “There’s no point to anything in the universe – we’re all here by accident.”

Least sensible thing? Spoilt for choice, but a good contender would be LGRE, quoted by Garry Bagnell: “Lee said my chance of seeing the bird was less than 41%.” Sums him (Lee) up perfectly, although of course he wouldn’t understand why!

Just a Thought

2010-10-26T17:31:00.002+01:00

@ BirdGuides - would it not be easier to list the places where there aren't any Waxwings at the moment? You could start with Leicester...

Don't say things like that!

2010-10-15T08:48:00.003+01:00

County recorders and records committees everywhere were today bracing themselves for even more bullshit raptor claims than usual after Chris Packham told people to look out for Long-legged and Rough-legged Buzzards migrating with Common Buzzards on last night's Autumnwatch Unsprung. They turn up particularly on the Isle of Sheppey apparently, so watch out KOS....

Edit: Typical! There's me taking the piss as usual, and then a Long-legged Buzzard only goes and flies over my garden! Managed to get a record shot - hopefully this will show other people what to look out for. Certainly makes up for finding fuck-all in Shetland again!!

All the way from Dauria

2010-10-12T21:42:00.007+01:00

The plan today was to twitch pies and Otters, and also to find something rare on the 'Glorious Twelfth'. Two out of three achieved – guess which one we failed with!

Starting at Voe, another furtive entrance was made through the anonymous brown door of the Johnson & Wood bakery (anyone would think they were selling porn in there or something!), resulting in the purchase of another macaroni pie and a cheese, bean and tattie. No birds at Voe apart from a flyover Redpoll sp.

A look around the amazing garden at Sandgarth in absolutely flat calm conditions produced just one Yellow-browed Warbler, and then it was on to the ferry terminal at Toft. This is apparently one of the most reliable places in Shetland to see Otters, and sure enough we saw one almost immediately, just off the jetty. It seemed completely oblivious to our presence about 50 yards away, and continued swimming around, popping up every few minutes with a fish. I rattled off loads of photos, but most weren't worth keeping. This was probably the best:

I think we checked some other places after that, but I can't really remember – when you've looked at one barren patch of bushes you've looked at them all. Kergord was equally birdless, so we headed for Strand Loch, where there was a Spotted Sandpiper yesterday. It wasn't there today, but a Long-tailed Duck was new for the holiday list, and yet another Redpoll sp which didn't land.

Somewhere along the line we received a text about an Isabelline Shrike at Scousburgh. However, Mark also had a text from Birdnet about an Isabelline Wheatear, so we were a little confused. The best thing seemed to be to go and have a look for ourselves, so we did. Arriving at Scousburgh, we discovered that it was actually at Spiggie, having flown across the valley, and was in fact an adult female 'Daurian' Shrike (according to those who know about such esoteric matters). First time I've ever seen anything from Dauria. And I still don't know where it is!

The light was terrible by this time, but I managed to get a few reasonable shots at 800 ISO, of which this was the best:

Leaving the shrike wondering why its carefully cached Blackcap 'larder' had moved from where it left it to a more prominent position (courtesy of a certain photographer, tut, tut), I wandered down the road to Loch of Spiggie in a last desperate attempt to get Coot on the holiday list. Couldn't find a Coot, but I did add Daurian Moorhen, Daurian Mute Swan and 3 Daurian, sorry, Slavonian Grebes.

All that's left to do now is drink the last of the whisky and try not to string anything tomorrow. We may not have found much, but at least we haven't fucked anything up this year!!!

Nearly time to go home

2010-10-11T20:10:00.004+01:00

It was a lovely sunny day today here in Shetland, so we decided to go bird spotting. We saw lots of lovely birds – Robins, Black Caps, Chiff Chaffs and Gold Crests. I took some snaps of the Gold Crests with my camera.

There was also a nasty grey and white bird at Sumburgh Farm eating the other birds. I think it might have been a Shrike. The RSPB should do something about it.

Then we were told about a Bonelli's Warbler at Lerwick, so we went there and looked at it, but it was a bit boring. There were a lot of men in coats chasing it around, so we didn't stay long. I was also pleased to see some Collared Doves here, which was a new bird for my List.

After that we looked at some other places, but didn't see many other birds. Then we came home and had our tea and now I'm drinking some whisky. Tomorrow we are going to go to some other places to look at birds.

Where's our Bluetail then?

2010-10-10T19:18:00.000+01:00

Another nine hours in the field today, including walking all the way from Virkie to the lighthouse, in apparently ideal weather conditions, and for what? Pretty much fuck-all, that's what. At least it wasn't just us though – the only new rarity found anywhere in Shetland today was a Black-throated Thrush near Scalloway. Can't be arsed to write anything else tonight. Maybe it will happen tomorrow....

Nine hour marathon

2010-10-09T20:45:00.002+01:00

A look round the crop fields first thing produced not a lot other than 9 Lapland Buntings and a Greenland-type Common Redpoll. Then, stopping only to stock up on provisions for the day at the Toab shop, Mark and I set off heroically to walk to Quendale. We already knew there had been a Dusky Warbler there earlier, and we did manage to see it, but views were poor. In the same area we found this obliging Red-breasted Flycatcher, and also a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers.

But that was about it for all our efforts. We narrowly missed finding an Olive-backed Pipit at the bottom end of the burn; presumably it had dropped in after we'd walked that section. Or maybe we're just not very good at finding rare birds. Either way, we didn't see it, and it was found by the usual Quendale suspects, Paul Harvey and Roger Riddington, accompanied by Martin Garner. On hearing this news we walked back up the burn for a second time with them, mainly because we were worried they would find something else we'd missed! We had further crap views of the Dusky Warbler, but nothing new.

With birds continuing to arrive all over Shetland today, and more easterlies forecast for tomorrow, all we can do is keep plugging away and hope that eventually we will find something good.

Persistence pays off

2010-10-08T21:45:00.003+01:00

So, what did you do on the 8th of October in Shetland in a perfect south-easterly? Um, I took some nice photos of a Twite, a couple of Shags and a Turnstone:

In between taking photos of common birds we thrashed around the crops at Toab and saw a Yellow-browed Warbler and not much else, then went down to the Sumburgh area. I read recently on a blog that shall be nameless that there are '160 observers scouring every nook and cranny of Shetland' at the moment. Well if there are that many people here I haven't seen them - there were precisely three of us scouring the entire area between Grutness and Sumburgh Head this afternoon. Maybe the other 157 were all off twitching all the rare birds which turned up all over the place today and gave us the motivation to carry on, even though we hadn't seen much other than lots of Goldcrests.

After several laps of the farm, we walked down the 'White's Thrush ditch' towards the hotel, and stumbled upon a nice Pallas's Warbler feeding behind a wall with two Yellow-broweds, two Chiffchaffs and two Spotted Flycatchers. Didn't manage to get any keepable photos of it though because, as has been noted before, I can't take photos of rare birds.

After this we went up to the lighthouse, where, apart from lots more Goldcrests, we didn't see a lot apart from this newly-arrived Short-eared Owl:

The weather looks even better tomorrow, so we'll probably do it all again, although I suspect that being a Saturday there will be a few more people around.

Halfway House

2010-10-07T20:00:00.002+01:00

Six days gone; another six to go.

Another quiet day with continuing 'nothingy' moderate southerly winds. Walked round the Toab crop fields/iris beds/ditches several times, but nothing new apart from a Barred Warbler. Got a reasonable photo of a Lapland Bunting perched on a fence first thing, and also a nice Shetland Starling (1st-winter male for anyone who's interested in that sort of thing) in Rob's garden this evening. Tomorrow, however, looks like a totally different kettle of halibut, with the wind going round to south-east again, and then full-on easterly for several days. Early night tonight, and no whisky. Mainly because we finished it last night!

I was going to keep this and pretend I'd taken it in Leicestershire when I got back, but I thought that might have been a bit too obvious...

Gratuitous Twitching

2010-10-06T20:19:00.002+01:00

With the weather looking unpromising for finding anything round here, we headed north today for a spot of twitching. First stop was Voe, where there were a few birds, but nothing terribly exciting. However, a major discovery was that pies are available for sale direct from the bakery there. Enquiries were made, and – result! – the 'King of Pies', the fabled macaroni cheese and bean was 'obtained', along with a cheese, bean and tattie. Having eaten the macaroni pie, I am in full agreement with Mark that this is unbeatable (at least in Shetland – I think the Lochinver Larder's offerings might top it, at least in the pastry department!).

On to Eshaness, where the Buff-bellied Pipit at Tangwick initially only showed itself to Mark before disappearing. So we went off to the lighthouse to look at the 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers – I got my regulation piss-poor photo of one of them:

We then went back to where the Buff-bellied Pipit had been earlier, and had crippling views of it from the car. This time even I couldn't fuck it up – this is undoubtedly the best photo of a BB rarity I've ever taken, although that's not saying much. It was also my 200th Shetland bird – damn, I forgot to get that T-shirt made up!

After this we didn't see a great deal, my first Yellow-browed Warbler of the holiday and a Jack Snipe, both at Isbister, being the only birds of any note.

Silly photos of the day – Mark being attacked by a ravenous pie-eating cat at Orbister:

Filling a hole

2010-10-05T22:28:00.003+01:00

Not much to write about today – the two highlights of a very windy day were 1) filling in a gaping and extremely tarty hole (oo-er) on my 'insufferably smug, self-righteous bastard' (in other words self-found) list: a Barred Warbler briefly behind the Toab shop this afternoon – get in! and 2) the even briefer appearance of a lasagne pie in the Toab shop shortly afterwards, which was a fitting celebration.

I managed to get possibly the worst photo ever of a Barred Warbler to satisfy any doubters of my claim before it fucked off over the fields towards Quendale Bay, never to be seen again.

Apart from that, it was a case of slogging round the Greater Virkie area all day seeing very little. Given the weather forecast of continuing strong southerly winds, I suspect this will be the case until Friday/Saturday. And then it will all kick off big time if the current forecast is correct.

In the meantime, here's a nice photo of a Brambling:

Still all to play for

2010-10-04T18:05:00.005+01:00

Fortunately we decided to give the Pallas's Gropper a miss first thing this morning and wait for the inevitable crowd to bugger off before heading to Levenwick. As a result, we were not in any way involved in the debacle that was to follow. The Great Grey Shrike was still in the willows first thing, and then we finally caught up with the Radde's Warbler at Sumburgh Farm. This was showing quite well and I managed to get a half decent photo of it:

Mark was getting increasingly twitchy though, and we were beginning to think we might have to take him to the doctor for some Ritalin. Eventually we gave in and set off for Levenwick via the Toab shop (still no pies!). But all Mark's pre-tick nerves were in vain: just as we arrived the first doubts were beginning to be expressed about the bird, and on viewing photos on John's laptop, it was obvious that it was in fact just a Grasshopper Warbler. Arse. I need Gropper for my Shetland list, but couldn't raise the enthusiasm to give the irises more than a half-hearted kick before giving up.

As we were walking back up the hill, news came through that the Booted Warbler at Channerwick had been re-identified (or rather confirmed, as the original observers apparently suspected that's what it was) as a Sykes' Warbler. As that was going to be our next port of call anyway, we shot off to see that. After half a dozen flight views it finally showed reasonably well down near the beach, but not for long enough to get any photos. Hurrah. A splendid tick, which made up for not seeing a Pallas's Gropper. And I'm sure I'll see one of those eventually if I keep coming to Shetland for long enough!

Next on the agenda was a pie twitch to Sandwick. Arriving just after those bastards from Levenwick had cleaned out the shelves, it looked like we had dipped again, but no, Mark in his role as self-styled President of the British Pie Munching Association, did his 'do you know who I am?' routine to the woman behind the counter and as if by magic a batch of lasagne pies appeared! Unfortunately by this time I had already purchased a Chinese chicken sandwich, which was very nice, but no substitute for a lasagne pie. A quick look around a very windy Hoswick produced nothing more than a Pied Flycatcher, so it was back to the house for a cup of tea. Back at Virkie there was a 1st-winter Little Gull on the Pool – another Shetland tick for me.

And so to the 'score' (or should that be skor?) – does a misidentification count as an own goal? If so, it's 1-1, or perhaps 0-0 if the Gropper cancels out the Swainson's? No doubt the Levenwick Lepers will argue that it's really back to 1-0, but either way there's still plenty of time (9 days to be precise) for us to come back. We'll just have to be doubly on our guard now to avoid joining the ever-growing list of 'gurners' (see Brown Flycatcher thread on Birdforum!) this autumn.

Post-pub edit: I felt John Hague's description of the Sykes' Warbler's supercilium deserved a wider audience: "it sort of peters out behind the eye like a dribble of spunk." I'd love to see the finders include that gem in their BBRC description!

Sack the Manager!

2010-10-03T21:28:00.004+01:00

Not content with their Swainson's Thrush yesterday, the Levenwick Leviathans (can't really call them the Levenwick Losers any more!) gripped us off again with a Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler in the irises at South Punds just as it was getting dark this evening! Can we come back from 2-0 down? Hmmm.

Meanwhile, down here in the Virkie/Sumburgh area, despite apparently perfect south-easterlies and showers, there were far fewer birds today. We tried to see the Radde's Warbler at Sumburgh Farm, but failed (it reappeared after we left of course), and the only bird of any note was a very flighty Great Grey Shrike around the Virkie Willows (and briefly in Rob's garden), which I managed to get this poor photo of as it landed briefly about 200 yards away. At least you can tell what it is.

Lots of birds; lots of birders

2010-10-02T21:38:00.004+01:00

We arrived at Sumburgh at 11:00 today after an uneventful journey to find Shetland literally sinking under the weight of birds. I can't remember there being so many migrants around in early October as there are at the moment. A fairly thorough flog of the crop fields around Toab and Exnaboe produced: Short-toed Lark, Bluethroat, Black Redstart, 4 Lapland Buntings, Redstart, 4+ Whinchats, Stonechat, loads of Bramblings, Garden Warbler, 2 Reed Buntings and lots of Goldcrests.

Around 5pm, Mark and I were at Sumburgh Head, where there was a very skulking Sedge Warbler in the rosebushes (Shetland tick!) when we were startled by a loud noise coming from the direction of Levenwick. It was the sound of a gauntlet being forcefully thrown down by John Hague, Andy Lawson & Dave Gray who had found a fucking Swainson's Thrush! If I'd been wearing a hat I'd have taken it off to them. You may have to wait a while for John's gripping account and photo though, as the WiFi where they are staying is currently not working.

As both of us had only ever seen one Swainson's (mine was 20 years ago and Mark's even longer than that) we thought we ought to go and have a look at it. Arriving at Levenwick we were greeted by a scene more reminiscent of Scilly than Shetland – there are about 50 people visible in this photo, and by the time we left I reckon the crowd had about doubled in size – unprecedented!

Anyway, we did see it, although not very well – I only saw it in flight a couple of times, but managed to see the distinctive Catharus underwing the second time.

One other notable sighting today was the Exnaboe 'Hitler cat', which some people may remember from my old blog a few years ago. He's still going strong, and was obviously contemplating a bit of trampolining when we saw him.

Will the challenge be taken up by the Sunnydell-ites? Stay tuned to find out....

Like it or lump it!

2010-09-26T11:07:00.002+01:00

So the second big talking point of the autumn is another flycatcher. Ho hum. No doubt reams of crap will be written about the Empidonax currently residing on Blakeney Point, so here's my two penn'orth. Not that I shall be going to see it of course!

I've already heard several people say that they don't want to see it as it will never be identified. Although I have no interest in seeing it anyway, I have to say I don't understand this attitude at all. Most twitchers are more than happy to split species to suit their lists (and let's be honest, it isn't for any other reason) without any official endorsement from 'the authorities', so why not lump for the same reason? If it comes down, as now seems likely, to one of either Alder or Willow, just call it a Traill's Flycatcher for listing purposes. No more debate and everyone's happy.

If you don't like that idea, just stop for a minute and consider the parallel example of Grey-cheeked & Bicknell's Thrush. To the best of my knowledge no-one has Bicknell's Thrush on their British list, but everyone's quite happy to tick Grey-cheeked. Nor have I heard of anyone taking it off their list when the two were split. This is exactly the same situation as Alder/Willow Flycatcher - they are not separable in the field. The only difference is that 'Grey-cheeked Thrush' had already occurred in Britain before it was split, whereas 'Traill's Flycatcher' hadn't. If it had, I'm damn sure everyone who had it on their list would have kept it right there. I know I would!

Well that was a waste of time

2010-09-23T10:25:00.002+01:00

The BBC weather forecast yesterday evening suggested that this morning might be good vismigging weather, with a light SW wind and any rain clearing by about 7am. In fact I distinctly remember the forecaster saying 'and if you're going to Burrough Hill tomorrow morning, take an extra pencil to write down all the migrants that will be passing over - and I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few Laps as well. So make sure you set your alarm nice and early!'

Lying bastard - it was a strong, almost directly southerly wind, there was fuck-all going over apart from a few Mipits, Chaffinches and Swallows, and after about an hour it absolutely pissed it down. After standing under a tree swearing at the rain for half an hour I gave up and came home.

Worrying increase in tedious birding blogs and websites

2010-09-22T17:40:00.000+01:00

I am being directed to more and more dreary and pointless ‘birding diary’ type blog sites being created on the British Birding scene which I find very distressing, disturbing and sad about. Just what is it with British and the odd Irish birder [Is there only the one odd Irish birder? Surely not!]? Others may find this puerile attempt at nature writing interesting but I for one find it highly monotonous and tiresome. I have spent a birding lifetime trying to inject a little humour into birding and do not really expect to have to put up with this nonsense, nor do I expect to see every single migrating Meadow Pipit and Chaffinch counted and listed in detail in the way that is becoming fashionable. I am also very concerned to see that Birdforum only this past week had a sensible thread about moult in which no-one made an even slightly sarcastic comment, let alone escalated things into a full-blown slanging match. British birding needs to clean up its act – it has never been as dull and anorakish as it is currently on the web.

P.S. Come back tomorrow for full vis mig counts from Burrough Hill!

Gull cull?

2010-09-21T10:46:00.005+01:00

I see Alan Tilmouth has already picked up on this - http://dustybins.blogspot.com/2010/09/caspian-gulls-new-birdflu.html - but just to add that (as you'd expect really) I'm all in favour of culling Yellow-legged and Caspian Gulls - then I don't have to try and identify the fuckers. Not that I do anyway, but getting rid of them would mean I don't even have to think about it. Or see any more photos of them on Surfbirds.

But seriously, if they did try and cull them (which I'm sure they won't, as it would be totally impractical and never-ending) who would they get to do it? Given that 99% of birders (including me) can't identify most of the large gulls they see these days, how the fuck would DEFRA's half-witted gunslingers manage? Is this just an undercover way of getting rid of all 'dirty seagulls' dreamt up by the Daily Mail? Or a devious attempt by the hired guns to create a new gravy train now that they've finished with the Ruddy Ducks?

As Alan says, no doubt this will get ramped up by the Great British Press into the next bullshit health scare, and we'll have to put up with weeks of lurid headlines and ridiculous articles screaming about how migratory birds are going to kill us all, until everyone forgets about it and the media vultures move on to the next stinking corpse of a story they can find to pick over.

DEADLY VIRUSES AND BACTERIA FOUND IN AIR - PUBLIC ADVISED NOT TO BREATHE!

Or, as the classic Daily Mash headline said: EVERYONE DEAD BY TEATIME!

We want to hear from

2010-09-20T10:04:00.002+01:00

Following the recent Llamas reunion, I had a trawl through the old site (I’ve still got its final incarnation on my computer) and thought I’d update one of the old features. I think the idea was nicked from some football magazine in the first place, so this is a re-hash of an idea we nicked from someone else. Nothing new under the sun, as they say.

We want to hear from:

Garry Bagnell’s geography teacher – Ofsted want a word with you.
The birder who thought that reporting a ‘heard only’ Honey Buzzard in Worcestershire the other day would in some way enhance their reputation.
Anyone who’s actually paid money to join the British Birding Association.
Anyone who voted for the so-called President of the aforesaid organisation.
The other Presidential candidates.
Anyone who knows the true identity of ‘Mr White’.
Someone who can tell us what ‘skor’ means.
The birding advisers for Bill Bailey’s Big Birdwatch – Tim Appleton wants a word with you.

We don’t want to hear from:

Anyone who has anything more to say about House Finch moult.
Anyone who gets excited by putative 1st-winter Thayer’s Gulls, or indeed 1st-winters of any large gull. It’s just not right.
The October 2009 ‘Shetland Stringer’ – fucking hell, I hope he’s not going again this year!

And we still haven’t heard from:

Anyone who actually witnessed L.Y.R.E. ticking the Pacific Swift at Cley.

In Town For One Night Only

2010-09-17T09:20:00.004+01:00

I had planned to go to Burrough Hill this morning for a spot of vismigging now that the wind of the last few days has finally dropped, but a combination of Beacon, Cobra, Jack Daniels (so much for the rehab!), curry and getting to bed at about 1.30 put paid to that idea. No doubt the Laps are streaming over in their hundreds as I type....

Anyway, John has already written up last night’s Llama reunion in far funnier style than I can manage this morning, but suffice to say it was an excellent evening. It’s sad that it took Rob & Richard’s granny’s funeral to get us all together in the same place for the first time since 2002, but such is the way of things now we’re scattered across the globe.

Unfortunately the photos John took with my camera didn’t come out too well, but as a comparison to the ones on his blog, I offer these dreadful old camcorder shots from the original Llamas site. It’s quite scary to think these were only taken about ten years ago (I think they were either 2000 or 2001), both in terms of how we’ve aged (and expanded in my case!), but also the pace of digital change. It really is only ten years since we all excitedly bought our first digital camcorders, and were amazed by the blurry 640 x 480 pixel images we got through our scopes. But now of course they look utterly shite compared with modern multi-megapixel cameras. I might dig out a few old favourites from those early digiscoping days and post them some time.

Don’t bother clicking on these, by the way – this is about as big as they get!

Saved the best one till last!

Unfit

2010-09-03T13:42:00.002+01:00

Having done very little birding (or anything else much) over the summer, I thought I ought to make a start on trying to get into some sort of shape before Shetland. Otherwise I won’t even be able to make it to the Toab shop before Mark eats all the pies, let alone slog round South Mainland looking for rares for ten days!

So, there’s been an easterly wind for several days, loads of stuff on the east coast – time to check out Burrough Hill again. I’m sure if someone was able to do Burrough Hill every day, it would produce something really good. I know it’s in the middle of boring Leicestershire farmland about 40 miles from the coast, and it doesn’t even stick up that much from the east (it’s more of an escarpment than a hill), but it does seem to have an attraction for migrants.

What I was really hoping for of course was a flyover Lapland Bunting, a species I still need for my county list. John and Dave had one here in October 2008, so it’s not an outrageous thing to hope for, especially given the unprecedented numbers around the country at the moment. But on arriving at about 08:00 it was immediately obvious that nothing at all was flying over as the early morning fog cleared. So I turned my attention to the bushes on the south side of the hill fort, which is where most of the migrants usually are. One of the first birds I saw was this female Redstart, which I was well pleased with, not having seen one in the county since 2002. Even better, I then found another three nearby (including two males which I couldn’t get near enough to photograph), plus Tree Pipit, Spotted Flycatcher, 2 Wheatears and a good assortment of warblers including 2 Garden Warblers.

I’ve always thought the southern slope of the hill looks perfect for a Wryneck, so I was slightly annoyed to get an email about one in Great Glen whilst actually walking through this bit. It should have been here! Fortunately I don’t need Wryneck for my county list, so I was able to ignore it (after putting it out on Twitter) and carry on.

Climbing up the ramparts of the hill fort and then back up the valley on the north side of the hill proved to me just how unfit I really am – I was well and truly fucked by the time I got back to the car. I’ve got a lot of work to do in the next month....

Whatever happened to Swithland Res?

2010-08-02T12:54:00.004+01:00

Inspired by the BUBO Listing badge which recently appeared on John's blog, I decided to join the site and add a couple of my lists. There are only two lists I care about these days - my British self-found list and my Leicestershire list, so those were the ones I added.

Two things struck me as I was entering the records for these: firstly, that I haven't added anything to my found list for about two years, and secondly, how many good county birds I first saw at Swithland Res.

When I started birding, Swithland was my main local patch, and I used to spend a lot of time there, often with Jeff Higgott and/or Steve Close. Like all the best inland local patches, most of the time it was crap. I have notebooks full of records of exceptionally dull visits in the 1980s and 90s which make me wonder why I spent so much time there. The answer, of course, is that every now and then it would be worthwhile. A quick skim through my county list reveals the following species I county ticked at Swithland: Long-tailed Duck, Red-throated Diver, Red-necked Grebe, Shag, Bittern, Red-necked and Grey Phalaropes, Arctic Skua, Great Skua, Ring-billed Gull, Iceland and Glaucous Gulls, White-winged Black Tern, Sandwich Tern, Crag Martin, Red-rumped Swallow, Rock Pipit, Firecrest and Hooded Crow. And that's just the ones that were county ticks; there were plenty of other good birds that I'd previously seen elsewhere.

And what has Swithland had in the last few years? Lesser Scaup and Leach's Petrel in 2006, and, er, can't think of anything else off the top of my head. And the reason is because it doesn't get the coverage it used to 20 years ago. I hardly ever go there now I live on the other side of the city, and Rutland Water and Eyebrook Res are easier to get to. Yes, people do look at Swithland, but I don't think anyone spends the amount of time there that we used to. An opportunity waiting for someone to rediscover how good it can be?

P.S. Corn Bunting isn't really the most recent species I've added to my found list - I just did it in checklist order.

Holiday highlights

2010-07-28T12:56:00.012+01:00

I’ve been home for a week now, and I’ve just about finished going through all my photos from our Scotland holiday. I can’t be arsed to write a day-by-day account of it now, so here are just a few highlights in pictures.

On the way up, this lasagne sandwich caught my eye while we were stocking up on provisions at the last proper supermarket en route to Sutherland. It was duly purchased and eaten for lunch in a layby overlooking the Kyle of Sutherland. Verdict: 6/10 – a nice idea, but the meat was a bit tough.

I was delighted to find a colony of Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries just down the road from Laxford Bridge – a new butterfly species for me. Being towards the end of the flight period, most were a bit tatty, but I managed to find this reasonable specimen, which kindly sat still for some photos.

The Fritillaries were in the boggy, grassy area on the right of this photo. About 20 were seen in total. There were also half a dozen Golden-ringed Dragonflies zipping around this area.

Laxford House itself was superb – massive (6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 sitting rooms, huge kitchen with Rayburn etc, etc), fantastic views overlooking Laxford River and completely hidden from the road by trees. This is another place which must get rarities in the autumn, being an oasis of trees in the middle of miles and miles of mountain and moorland. There is a record of Red-breasted Flycatcher from here a few years ago, which shows it does have potential. Breeding birds around the house included Spotted Flycatcher, Redpoll and Siskin; other birds seen from the house included Black-throated and Red-throated Divers on the river, Common Sandpiper, Greenshank and Red-breasted Merganser. We also found Otter spraint not far from the house, but didn’t manage to see the actual animal. In case anyone was wondering, we didn’t have the whole house to ourselves; there were eight of us – me, Sophie, my parents, my brother, his wife and two kids.

The world-famous Lochinver Larder pie shop has already made an appearance on Mark’s blog, but just for the record, here are the photos again. If you’re a pie fan, it’s worth making the long trip north just for these.

The stunning beach at Balnakeil on the north coast. Another area which has had a few rarities in the past. These photos make it look a nicer day than it really was!

Nearby is the John Lennon memorial in Durness, where the Beatle spent his childhood holidays at the house of his cousin in Sangomore.

From the sublime to the ridiculous: this bizarre waxwork of that well-known Scot Mohammed Al MacFayed greets visitors as they enter the gift shop at Falls of Shin. The falls are a brilliant place to see Salmon leaping up the waterfalls as they return to their breeding grounds. No, I didn’t manage to get a photo of one.

We did a tour of the Glenmorangie distillery at Tain, on the east coast, one day – great value at just £2.50 each, which included a generous-sized dram afterwards (at least a pub double), and then you got the £2.50 off any purchase over £16 from the shop! I was amused to see this plaque on the door:

On our last full day we went on a boat trip round Handa island. You had to sit astride the seats like a motorbike, and also get dressed up in rather ridiculous waterproofs. I’ve got a photo of Sophie in these as well, but I’ll get into trouble if I put it on here! Having walked round Handa at the start of the holiday, it was fantastic to see the seabird cliffs from the bottom. The smell was even stronger down here too! The ride back to Scourie was fast and exhilarating, but the waterproofs were almost totally pointless – despite the speed of the boat and the heavy swell, there was virtually no spray at all.

I didn’t take many bird photos – apart from the first and last days it was generally grey and wet. Also my Sigma 150-500 seemed to be playing up the day we went to Handa, resulting in most of the photos I took that day being slightly out of focus. I think it was just the contacts, as after I cleaned them it seemed to be OK. Here are some of the better ones:

Other highlights I didn’t manage to get photos of included a sub-adult Golden Eagle soaring over the hills just north of Loch Assynt and a Pine Marten disappearing into roadside vegetation just outside Lochinver. Total bird list for the holiday was exactly 100.

Finally, here’s a panorama of the view from the house in Achriesgill where my Granddad was born. One of my favourite views in Britain...

Speyside

2010-07-11T20:44:00.002+01:00

Balancing out the perfect dragonfly weather at Chartley Moss earlier in the year, the weather today in Speyside was complete crap for dragonflies - cool, showery and windy. As a result I didn't see a great deal at the various pools around Abernethy Forest which are known to be good for the two species I particularly wanted to see - Northern Emerald and Northern Damselfly. At the first pool I checked I did find a male Northern Damsel cowering in the grass - I managed to coax it onto my finger, but it flew off before I could get a photo. The only other Odonata species on the pool were an ovipositing female Common Hawker and a pair of Large Red Damsels. All the other pools were far too exposed to the wind, and no further dragons or damsels were seen. No birds of note either apart from a Crossbill sp heard flying over at Loch Garten.

The forecast for tomorrow is similarly poor, so we've decided to give Beinn Eighe (a 100+ mile detour) a miss and just have a look for dolphins off North Kessock instead.

Hit the North

2010-07-09T08:23:00.005+01:00

Tomorrow we're heading for Sutherland for 12 days - via Speyside and Beinn Eighe (weather permitting) to look for the Scottish dragonfly specialities. On Monday we should arrive at Laxford Bridge, where we'll be staying until the following Tuesday.

I strongly suspect that there will be no mobile phone signal here, at least not a good enough data signal to access the Internet, so blog updates will probably have to wait until I get back. In the meantime, here are some Google Streetview shots of Laxford Bridge:

Looking north: the house we're staying in is hidden behind the trees on the left, just over the bridge. The blob in the top right corner is probably one of the notorious Highland midges trying to eat the camera lens!

Looking north-east. The mountains in the distance are Foinaven and Arkle (as in the famous 1960s racehorses, which were named after them).

The north-west coast of Sutherland is very much like Shetland in habitat, and almost completely unwatched most of the time. Just imagine what must be turning up in isolated gardens like this one (at Oldshoremore, where there was a Black-headed Bunting the other day) in the autumn:

I'm sure the horizon doesn't really slope like that, but you get the idea

Or these gardens a few miles down the coast at Achriesgill. The white house in the first picture is where my grandfather was born, by the way:

Looking inland from the same spot (Foinaven again in the distance)

OK, it's in the shadow of the Isle of Lewis (but only just) as far as Yanks are concerned, but eastern vagrants must turn up along this coast. Someone needs to be brave and get up there one October...

P.S. I've enabled comment moderation while I'm away, to thwart the bastard Chinese spammers. Hopefully they might then fuck off altogether.

The Happy Moth

2010-07-03T12:22:00.006+01:00

OK, maybe only hardcore Divine Comedy fans will get the title joke, but here are a couple of photos of a Buff-tip moth with a 'smiley face' caught last night in the garden (and spotted by Sophie. I just scribbled 'Buff-t 1' in my moth notebook, and then carried on going through the other 80-odd species in the traps). It looks a bit like Thomas the Tank Engine from the side.... if Thomas the Tank Engine was about 3 cm long and had wings. And legs instead of wheels. And had evolved to look like a broken birch twig.

New look

2010-06-21T21:47:00.007+01:00

It seems to be fashionable to change one's blog template at the moment, so being a mindless herd-follower I thought I'd change mine as well.

Uncanny

2010-06-17T08:01:00.001+01:00

Many thanks to John Judge for discovering that a well-known Leicestershire birder, blogger, comedian and now star of local radio is in fact a reincarnation of early twentieth-century German playwright, Bertolt Brecht:

A lucky escape?

2010-06-02T22:31:00.002+01:00

Lagoon 4's recent run of form continues, with another county first this evening - a Broad-billed Sandpiper. I found out at about 20:50 when I looked at my phone and saw that I'd got five missed calls - it had been on silent for some reason. Arse. The last time this happened there was a Whiskered Tern at Eyebrook (also a county first) - technology's great, but it helps if it's switched on.

However, there was a huge silver lining to what at first appeared to be a very large and very dark grey cloud - just as I was cursing my luck, I got a message saying that it had flown off north-west at about 20:40. Had I got the first call from Matthew (at 20:00) I would certainly have set off for Rutland Water.... and missed it by a matter of minutes.

The fact that it's gone also means that I don't have to set my alarm for about 3 a.m. tomorrow morning. Hurrah.

See Matthew's gripping photos here.

More media nonsense

2010-05-27T12:26:00.003+01:00

From last Saturday's Grauniad - a bit late but I've only just got round to scanning it in:

The article didn't say how they were going to persuade Bar-headed Geese to winter in Scotland rather than India so that farmers could be paid to tolerate them.

On the bog

2010-05-23T11:55:00.007+01:00

An excellent afternoon at the Natural England/British Dragonfly Society event at Chartley Moss NNR in Staffordshire. This superb reserve, one of the few examples of a floating peat bog in the UK, is rarely open to the public, so we were very fortunate that our visit coincided with a hot sunny day, ideal for watching dragonflies.

The main object of the day was to see White-faced Darter, which was a new species for me, and we saw about ten in total, mostly over the pools. I totally failed to get close enough to any of these to photograph them, having a) opted to take only my 105mm macro lens rather than the big zoom, and b) very generously lent John my wellies after he forgot to bring his, which meant that I had the choice of either staying away from the edge of the water on the slightly drier bits, or getting wet feet!

John wearing my wellies

Skev (wearing his own wellies) slowly sinks into the bog

Some people looking at dragonflies

However, after a lot of searching I finally found this approachable teneral (newly emerged) darter perched on some heather away from the pool, and was then very glad that I had brought the macro lens:

All in all a very enjoyable day; thanks to John, Mark and Jim for their company, and to John for booking the places on the event. And of course the weather gods for giving us perfect weather for a change!

BBS UTB OML ETC

2010-05-18T13:25:00.002+01:00

The flying pig had departed before I arrived at Rutland Water at about 06:45 this morning, but luckily the Buff-breasted Sandpiper was still present on Lagoon 4. No photos as usual, as it was too far away. But very nice all the same. Thanks for another good find Matthew!

, , , & ******!

2010-05-17T21:42:00.005+01:00

Just as I'm finishing my tea this evening my phone rings. I look at the screen - it's Matthew. Shit (sorry Matthew!) - that can only mean there's a good bird at Rutland Water. Let's hope it's something I don't need as I've got to go to a meeting about the LROS interpretative boards in about 15 minutes.

I answer it. "Do you want a first for the County?" says Matthew. No, no, no, no! I get at most two county ticks a year these days; I don't need one to turn up at 7pm on a night when I've got to go to a fucking meeting. "What is it?" "Buff-breasted Sandpiper on Lagoon 4!" Bollocks, bollocks and more bollocks.

Now, if it had been 'just' some sort of committee meeting I'd have been off to Rutland Water like a shot. But as I'm being paid to do these boards I feel it would be unprofessional not to go, especially as this particular meeting has already been postponed twice. So I put the news out on Twitter, turn my phone off and go to the meeting.

Oh well, perhaps it will still be there tomorrow. And there might be a flying pig perched on the Osprey nesting platform as well. Although as Richard Bayldon has just pointed out to me, the last two Cambs birds stayed for a few days, so you never know. The difficult decision now is whether to get out there early tomorrow or wait for news..... (I must stop ending all my blog posts with ..... - it's very lazy!)

National No-moth Night

2010-05-16T16:10:00.002+01:00

Last night was National Moth Night. For anyone not familiar with the arcane world of moths and mothing, this is an annual event which is supposed to provide a 'snapshot' of the moths occurring throughout the country on whatever date is set (it changes from year to year). It goes without saying that whichever night is chosen, the weather will inevitably be poor, and last night was no exception, being clear and cold. Any sensible moths will have been down the pub, or tucked up in bed with a good book, depending on their age.

I had the good sense not to go out mothing anywhere, but I did at least run my two garden traps (one 80W mercury vapour and one 11W actinic for anyone who cares about such things). I wasn't expecting much, and had it not been NMN I probably wouldn't have bothered at all, but I certainly wasn't expecting a zero catch, which is what greeted me this morning when I went to inspect the traps. I don't recall ever catching nothing on a night in May, which just shows how poor this spring has been so far for insects.

Hope it warms up a bit for next Saturday's White-faced Darter trip to Chartley Moss....

The T word

2010-05-14T16:48:00.004+01:00

Spurred on mainly by the Drunkbirder’s gripping photos and account of the Oriental Pratincole showing down to a few millimetres earlier in the week, I took the momentous decision this morning to end my nine year twitching celibacy, and headed for Frampton Marsh. I’m not quite sure why – some sort of lame mid-life crisis perhaps. Or maybe I just fancied a day out somewhere different but not too far away, with a high probability of seeing a very rare bird. And I like pratincoles, despite the fact that they don’t seem to like me.

On arriving at the reserve I began to wonder whether this had been such a good idea after all – the car park was completely full, and I had to park on the verge outside the visitor centre. And this for a bird which had already been present for a week! Or maybe all RSPB reserves are like that these days – Titchwell certainly is. But at least (being the tight part-Scottish bastard that I am) I didn’t have to pay to park or buy a permit. And the bird was apparently still present, which was a relief given my long history of dipping on pratincoles.

As I entered the hide my doubts increased further – it was standing room only, and mostly dudes who didn’t have a clue what they were looking at (but again, this is more likely just the norm at RSPB reserves rather than an indictment of 21st century twitching). Eventually I managed to work my way to the front of the hide and quickly got onto the pratincole, which was flying around over the meadow at the back of the scrape. And that’s where it stayed, never coming anywhere near close enough to get even a record shot. But the scope views were perfectly adequate.

Also on view from the hide were a couple of summer plumaged Curlew Sandpipers and two 1st-summer Little Gulls, and a drake Garganey from the Reedbed hide. John had assured me that I couldn’t fail to get good views of the ‘quite tame’ Corn Buntings here as well, which sounded promising as I haven’t seen one for about ten years. However, I only saw two, one in flight and one perched on a bush about half a mile away.

But what a superb reserve Frampton Marsh is. Definitely worth a visit again when there are fewer people around. This panorama shows about a third of the reserve, and was taken from the sea wall behind the East hide (6 shots with the Sigma 150-500 on 150mm, ‘photomerged’ in Photoshop). The pratincole was somewhere to the left of this view (click for larger image):

I had further, slightly closer scope views of the bird from this bank, before heading back to the car for some lunch, accompanied by a ‘grandstand’ view of the visitor centre’s septic tank being emptied. That bloke's just taking the piss, I thought....

Llamas in the news!

2010-04-27T18:02:00.004+01:00

Not just any old news story about llamas, but llamas and birds - fantastic!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/8645757.stm

Let's hope this splendid idea of using llamas to scare off predators on nature reserves catches on - wouldn't it be great to have llamas roaming around Rutland Water or Cossington Meadows rather than boring old cows, sheep or horses? Perhaps they could be trained to spit at stringers as well as predators...

Fact-finding

2010-04-16T16:56:00.006+01:00

This morning I had to go on an important fact-finding mission to Albert Village Lake, which as its name suggests is a lake near Albert Village, an outpost in the badlands of the Leicestershire/Derbyshire border. The village itself is so-called because 95% of its male inhabitants have cock rings. You may have seen the site mentioned on your pager recently after the appearance there of a 'potential first for Britain'.

The reason I had to undertake this vital work was that I've been commissioned to put together some interpretatatatative boards for various sites in Leicestershire, starting with AVL. As I didn't need Common Gull for my county list, I had never visited the site, so I thought I ought to go and have a look at it (putting the mileage down as an allowable business expense of course: a round trip of 65 miles at HMRC's approved rate for private cars of 40p per mile, let's see, that'll be £26.00 off my 2010/11 tax liability thank you very much).

Anyway, the main fact I found was this: Albert Village Lake is a large lake with lots of gulls on it and not much else.

I think it could be a rather boring interpretatative board....

Is Mark Reeder working for the Guardian?

2010-04-04T15:38:00.003+01:00

The header of yesterday's Travel section:

Too much time on your hands?

2010-03-23T18:37:00.006Z

Fed up with Wheatears and Sand Martins already?

Then why not try the new craze that’s sweeping the country: Google Street View birding!

Just like the real thing, but cheaper! Now you can ‘drive’ round the whole country from the comfort of your computer chair, and without paying extortionate petrol prices.

Start off with the easy species like Canada Goose, Mute Swan, Black-headed Gull and Mallard:

Experience the thrill of finding smaller species such as Magpie and Woodpigeon!

String anything that’s a bit too far away to identify properly. Even get gripped off!!

What are they looking at? Surely one of those white blobs must be a Little Egret?

Who knows, you might even find a BB rarity (it would have to be quite a big one though).

Failing that, you could revisit scenes of past glories:

PACIFIC SWIFT!!!! No, too late, it’s gone. Actually, I did see the Little Whimbrel in this field, so there.

Or you could just get a life....

The Horn

2010-03-11T21:23:00.005Z

Having failed to find them when we were in Norfolk in January, I was pleased to catch up with the two long-staying Shore Larks at Snettisham today. And despite completely crap light and not being too approachable, I managed to get a couple of reasonable shots of them. Always nice birds to see, and both were starting to show small horns, although these were only really visible from behind.

Not a lot else of note, apart from a Woodcock flying over the A149, and a Weasel which ran across the path at Titchwell.

Owlage

2010-02-20T21:57:00.005Z

Some quality owlage (of the Short-eared variety) at Cossington Meadows this afternoon, and about time too - I've been several times over the winter and not seen the bastards at all. Today, however, they performed very well in nice evening light. I even managed to get some reasonable photos of them, despite feeling decidedly inadequate in the company of at least half a dozen camouflage-jacketed 'proper' photographers with their matching camouflage-jacketed 'bucket' lenses:

At least three birds were present, and probably four, although I never saw all of them together. There were also two Barn Owls, but I didn't manage to get any shots of them.

It was nothing to do with me!

2010-02-10T21:42:00.003Z

Before anyone starts accusing me of interfering with elderly llamas....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/local/leicester/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8504000/8504150.stm

And if anyone has arrived on this blog by searching for leicester + llama or something similar, I'm afraid there are no cute photos of baby llamas in red pyjamas here. Just very occasional and often not very interesting stuff about birds. Sorry.

Bill Bailey’s Big Bag of ********

2010-01-15T07:50:00.003Z

I probably should have known better than to expect too much from a programme about birds made by Sky, but the first two instalments of Bill Bailey’s Big Birdwatching Bonanza (Thursdays, 9pm, Sky1) have been disappointing.

As with anything I’ve ever seen him in, Bill is funny, and enthusiastic, but the show’s biggest problem, from a birder's point of view, is that he doesn’t actually know very much about birds. I wasn’t keeping notes, so I can’t remember any specific examples, but I remember sitting there constantly correcting his bird factoids and, on several occasions, identifications.

Worst of all, one of last night celebrity ‘challenges’ was to digiscope some waders out on the mud at Snettisham. The winning team managed to photograph three species, which were named as: Ringed Plover, Redshank and Golden Plover. The first one was indeed a Ringed Plover, but the Redshank looked like a Dunlin (I think – they didn’t show it for very long) and the Golden Plover was definitely a breeding plumaged Grey Plover. The photos had been printed out, so these weren’t just snap identifications – there must have been plenty of time (probably days, knowing how TV programmes are made) for someone to have correctly identified them.

Other things which rankled include the running joke in the first programme about the contestants continually flushing big flocks of waders and geese on the Solway Firth (yeah, that’s fucking hilarious isn’t it); terrible grainy old stock footage of birds that looks like it was shot in the 1960s (obviously keeps the cost down) and the so-called ‘celebrities’ (most of whom I've never heard of), who seem to have absolutely no interest in or knowledge of birds.

In short it’s not very good, but I shall keep watching it, if only to find out exactly what they were doing flushing all those ducks at Rutland Water last September...

What I did in my holidays

2010-01-01T17:17:00.008Z

What with one thing and another (having several commissions to complete, going away for Christmas and having two fecking colds, not to mention snow, ice and general winter apathy) I haven't done much birding recently. I did ~~string~~ see a Merlin flying over the A6 on my way home from not seeing the Bittern at Swithland Res last week, but that's about it.

So it was nice to get out to Rutland Water today for the first time since the middle of December. After successfully negotiating Leicestershire's new skating rink (which used to be called the A47, but is obviously no longer considered important enough to be worth wasting grit on!) I arrived at Whitwell to find the Great Northern Diver reasonably close in, and the Red-throated Diver miles away in the middle.

The Egleton reserve was absolutely heaving with punters, but I gritted my teeth and headed for Lagoon 3, where I had distant views of one of the Bitterns at the back of the lagoon. A solitary male Ruddy Duck was out in South Arm III, looking nervous, and a nice Short-eared Owl perched on a post by Lagoon 1. I got some crap record shots of the latter, which I shan't bore you with, and some blurred Kingfisher shots which weren't even worth keeping. Oh yes, and I heard a Brambling behind the visitor centre. And in the North Arm were 12 Red-crested Pochards.

Updates here will probably be even more sporadic for the next three months, as I'm working full time in the Leicestershire Museum's Collections Resources Centre (which sounds impressive but is actually an anonymous-looking unit on an industrial estate in Barrow on Soar) from next Monday until the end of March, doing stuff with dead moths and butterflies. Happy New Year!

Edit: on second thoughts I think I will bore you with the Short-eared Owl photo after all, because it's actually not bad considering the distance and the light:

Let's see if this works then

2009-12-17T12:56:00.001Z

Having acquired a fancy new phone yesterday, I'm now going through the process of finding out what I can do with it!

I've already set up a Twitter feed for local bird news - http://twitter.com/lrosbirdnews - and now I'm seeing if blog posting via email from my phone works.

I'm not sure why I would want to, but it might be useful one day.

Apparently you can upload photos as attachments, so let's give that a go as well:

Before the Drunkbirder beats me to it...

2009-12-15T13:59:00.004Z

RAF Cottesmore in Rutland is to close as part of MOD cuts, it was revealed today. Whilst the news was greeted with dismay by those who depend on the base for their living, others welcomed the decision. Ms Dot Terel, spokesperson for the Union of Transvestite Waders said “this is excellent news for our members who have often attempted to stop at this site in the past, only to be tragically sucked into the engines of Tornados and Harriers or shot at by bored Military Police thinking they were Red-legged Partridges.”

Local birdwatchers were also jubilant on hearing that the base is to close. “Hopefully we can now set up our expensive spotting scopes and huge telephoto lenses and look onto the airfield without being arrested and interrogated as terrorists or mistaken for sad, socially inadequate plane spotters,” said Mr Eric Twatt of the Leicestershire and Rutland Otorhinolaryngological Society.

Cottesmore’s oldest resident, Ezekiel Clunge, 97, was more forthright. “That’s grand. Now I might get some fucking peace and quiet without those bastard planes thundering over all the time,” he said.

Their delight may be short-lived, however: scores of greed-crazed property developers have already been reported snouting around the area like truffle pigs, on the scent of obscene profits to be made from turning the airfield into ‘affordable housing’.

Should've stayed in bed

2009-11-25T20:39:00.003Z

With increasing numbers of Leach’s Petrels and other seabirds being reported flying up the Severn yesterday, and strong winds overnight, it seemed like a good idea to get out and check a few local sites today. So I was out before first light this morning (I know, it's not difficult at this time of year!), and news of Leach’s at both Grafham and Staines this morning was initially encouraging. But despite thoroughly grilling Swithland, Cropston, Watermead and most of Rutland Water, I couldn’t even rustle up a friggin’ Kittiwake, let alone a frigatebird (or a Fregatta petrel). Oh well, at least I tried.

Highlight of the day was 'Harold' (well it's as good a name as any for a Whooper Swan) the ridiculously tame (but BTO ringed) Whooper Swan, still coming to bread with the Mutes at Watermead:

And again I say...

2009-11-08T16:45:00.002Z

... arse.

Another county tick at Cossington Meadows heard about just too late to be able to get there before dusk! This time Leicestershire’s third (if accepted) Richard’s Pipit, which apparently flew over and then landed in Swan Meadow some time this afternoon. Both the previous records were one day birds – the first, at Cropston Reservoir in 1990, was only seen by the finder (Steve Close); the second (Bardon Hill, October 2006) was seen by a few people, but not me as I was in Shetland at the time. But to be positive, it’s getting quite late for Richard’s so hopefully this one might be thinking about wintering, or at least hanging around for a while. Or perhaps it’s a Blyth’s. And even if it isn’t a Blyth’s I’m sure someone will try and turn it into one if it’s seen again.

However, I shan't be there at first light tomorrow as I have to get some background reference photos for a couple of commissions I'm working on, and tomorrow looks like being the only day of decent light this week. Plus I've got a cold at the moment, and don't really fancy being anywhere other than in bed at first light. Which brings me neatly to:

Quote of the day from Morrissey, explaining why he has had to cancel several gigs recently: “I have endured a titanic struggle with an intolerable virus”. A pronouncement which reminded me of the classic Viz headline: Morrissey - still a twat!

Flushing hell

2009-11-04T17:03:00.003Z

I was at Eyebrook Res this afternoon, on the Leics side, looking over the ‘unlawfully trimmed’ section of the hedge*, when all the Golden Plovers, Lapwings and Dunlin suddenly got up. My first thought was naturally ‘Eleonora’s Falcon!’, and I scanned the sky excitedly, but no, it was just a pair of posh middle-aged twats strolling along with their brightly coloured jackets and stupid 'walking poles', inside the reservoir grounds.

As they approached I politely (honestly!) asked them if it was really necessary to walk on that side of the hedge when there was a perfectly good road to walk on that didn’t involve trespassing on a nature reserve or scaring all the birds away. And their excuse? ‘It’s better for our legs to walk on this side rather than on the road.’

After a further exchange of words, which I’m afraid was rather less polite on my part, I left and went to Rutland Water instead.

At Rutland Water I saw a Black-necked Grebe, 5 Common Scoters, 5 Whooper Swans and 7 Red-crested Pochards, all in the North Arm. Couldn’t find the Red-throated Diver(s) though, despite much searching.

* - ref the ongoing battle of wills between English Naturists, or whatever they’ve decided to call themselves this week, and local birders, who, whilst fully understanding the need to conserve hedgerows, would not unreasonably like to be able to see at least some of the fucking birds at Eyebrook!

The Men Who Stare at Falcons

2009-11-02T19:34:00.005Z

There was another report today of a possible/probable/putative Eleonora’s Falcon in ‘Area 51’ (also known as Dreamland). This was at least the eighth report in the area since the middle of September. At least three different birds have been involved – a dark morph, a pale morph and now a juvenile. Just what is going on down there? Is there something we’re not being told?

The Leicester Llama has obtained the following classified document which may shed some light on the matter:

I think it may have been said before, but...

2009-10-27T16:47:00.002Z

...arse.

A phone call from Steve Lister this morning had me heading to Rutland Water (in my much improved car which no longer goes ‘clunge’ just before coming to a standstill, ‘rerrp, rerrp, rerrp’ when pulling away or ‘tikka-tikka-tikka-tikka-tikka’ when going round corners – thanks to Rob’s dad’s garage! *) hoping to see the county’s third ever Shore Lark. However, just like the previous two, this one had only shown itself to the finder before promptly buggering off. We searched all the shoreline around Whitwell where he’d seen it, and both sides of the Hambleton Peninsula before reluctantly accepting that it must have flown straight through.

Now, whilst obviously offering sincere congratulations to Steve on an excellent find, I do think this is just a little unfair after he gripped us all off with the Little Bittern the other week. Especially as I rang him about that and didn’t have to time to get there myself before it got dark! In fact I think I should be allowed to add one to my county list as well, as I would have seen the Little Bittern had it been identified as such when I first heard about it.

* – for anyone interested in the technical details, the clunge-ing, rerrp rerrp-ing and tikka-tikka-ing were apparently due to a broken tooth on the ABS reluctor ring on the front offside CV joint. I just nodded and tried to look like I knew what he was talking about.

Don't you just love the tabloids

2009-10-24T21:10:00.004+01:00

Thanks to Matthew Berriman for alerting me to this gem:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/135870/Rare-warbler-has-twitchers-in-a-real-flap

'Cretin' is too kind a word for the journalist who wrote this and the picture editor who came up with that photo...

Christmas is coming...

2009-10-22T08:02:00.005+01:00

...and I’m skint. Plus I need a new scope as my old one is terminally broken. So I make no apologies for advertising my professional services here, in particular my pet portraits, which make an ideal Christmas gift, as they say:

Prices start at a very reasonable £95 (unframed, including p&p) for an 8 x 8 inch head and shoulders portrait, but you can have any size you like (within reason – a 100 foot square picture would take me several years and cost you £144,000 at the same rate per square inch as an 8 x 8 inch one!).

Please see the pet portraits section of my website if you’re interested – www.ajm-wildlife-art.co.uk/pet_portraits.htm but bear in mind you’ll need to order as soon as possible for delivery in time for Christmas.

And if you haven’t got pets I also have lots of bird pictures for sale, including the cover painting and line drawings from the recently published Birds of Leicestershire and Rutland. Again, please see my website for details.

That’s it – thank you for your time. Normal service will be resumed shortly...

What?

2009-10-20T21:33:00.002+01:00

"St Mary's: Black Redstart - one of the paradoxus morph at Old Town today."

What in the name of fuck is the 'paradoxus morph' of Black Redstart? A red one with a black tail? Or is it more likely yet another 'trying too hard to turn a common bird into something interesting because we've run out of things to tick/write ID articles about in Birding World' type of thing?

Just stop it please - I'm too old to learn anything new. I don't want to know about Daurian this and Caspian that and weird new made-up 'morphs' of birds. And I don't like the ducks being at the beginning either. Everyone knows divers come first, then grebes. Ducks are somewhere in the middle of the non-passerines, just before the raptors and just after the herons.

And talking of herons (I knew there was some point to this rambling nonsense), there was a rare heron in Leicestershire yesterday, and it wasn't there today. Arse. I think I'd better go to bed now.

You couldn't make it up

2009-10-18T21:29:00.006+01:00

I was told this Scilly story today by Andy Brett. I can't remember which island he said it was on, but I think it was St Agnes.

There was a crowd of about 50 or 60 people (I won't dignify them by calling them birders or even birdwatchers) watching a bird which none of them could identify. On asking a few people what was going on, Andy was told that some of them thought it was an Arctic Warbler, some thought it was a Bobolink and some thought it was a Philadelphia Vireo! Remember, all these opinions referred to the same bird. Apart from those who were there or who have already heard the story, I bet no-one can guess what the bird actually was.

I will reveal all in a day or two...

Last day

2009-10-15T14:07:00.006+01:00

With low cloud and drizzle shrouding Sumburgh yesterday we thought we weren’t going to get off for much of the day, but fortunately the fog lifted for long enough to get our plane in (taking off in fog is a lot easier than landing). Several incoming flights weren’t so lucky, and throughout the day we heard planes going over without landing.

Yesterday morning’s birding was restricted to kicking around south Mainland for a few hours. We didn’t see much until we got to Sumburgh Head, when the following 'incident' occurred...

At about 12:20 Rob found a thrush skulking under the rose bushes, and after some manoeuvring Mark and I managed to get onto it as well. The views were terrible – the bird was sitting hunched up with its back to the wall, under the roses, and behind some chicken wire, but from what we could see we were certain it was a 1st-winter male Black-throated Thrush. Result! And bang in the middle of my ‘window of opportunity’ theory (otherwise known as ‘WOO’) that good birds turn up at the lighthouse around midday.

But then things went very wrong. While we were trying to get better views of it, a thrush came up out of the rose bushes and flew off towards the lighthouse. Assuming that this was the bird, we ran after it, but after about 15 minutes searching in the fog all we could find was a rather drab 1st-winter Ring Ouzel! Could this have been what we’d seen? Surely not, especially as it had a completely dark bill, and Rob and I are both sure that we saw a largely yellow bill on the original bird under the roses. But doubts had set in, and we were now beginning to wonder whether we had somehow fucked up big time. Confused, we fled the scene to try and collect our thoughts, using our flight off Shetland as an excuse for not hanging around longer. After some discussion we decided that, rather than try to push such a brief sighting, we could only honestly say that we now weren’t sure about the bird. Mark and I got on our plane and left Rob alone to face any ‘music’ that might be forthcoming (‘stringing in the rain’ probably).

However, on our arrival at Edinburgh airport the story was given a further twist when Rob texted to say that Steve Minton had briefly seen a Black-throated Thrush perched on the wall by the roses after we left! This gave rise to a variation on the ‘two bird theory’: presumably we had initially seen a Black-throated Thrush, then wrongly assumed that the Ring Ouzel which flew out was the bird we’d been watching and that therefore we'd made a mistake. But in yet another twist there’s strangely no mention of it on his blog, so I’m wondering whether he now isn’t sure what he saw either. Unless it reappears somewhere, it’s probably best forgotten about really, whilst remembering in future that the bird that flies out of the bush isn’t necessarily the bird you were watching in the bush!

Anyway, thrush stringing aside, the holiday list finished on an untidy 98, two more than last year, although the quality this year was in an altogether different league. Total haul for the 12 days was 7 BB rarities of 6 species: Taiga Flycatcher, Lanceolated Warbler, Red-flanked Bluetail, Western Bonelli's Warbler, Spotted Sandpiper and 2 Arctic Redpolls. Scarce migrants consisted of: Short-toed Lark, 2 Little Buntings, 2 Bluethroats, 2 Common Rosefinches, Ring-necked Duck and about 15 Yellow-browed Warblers. Of course, the latter aren't really scarce any more, but I'm old enough to remember when they were, so they still feel like something good when you see one.

Had I been so inclined, I could have had another two ticks: Veery and Blyth's Reed Warbler, of which there were at least three twitchable individuals. And without even going to any other islands we could also have seen at least 3 Pechora Pipits, 3 Olive-backed Pipits and 3 Arctic Warblers.

In terms of numbers of good birds, this was my best Shetland trip ever, the only disappointment being that we found absolutely nothing ourselves. Although there have been over 50 BB rarities in Shetland since the beginning of October, for some strange reason hardly any were in south Mainland where we were based. And it wasn't just us – the area has been pretty well covered, but no-one else has found much either, the honourable exception being Steve Minton with the Lancy at Scatness.

I have no idea why south Mainland hasn't produced the goods this autumn – the weather has looked perfect several times, but each time there has been nothing here and rarities a-plenty further north. It just goes to show that you never can tell with rare birds. In 2007 everything was down here and there was very little further north. Maybe next time it will be the other way round again. And we’ll probably be going to central Mainland every day...

Shock Shetland string scandal!

2009-10-13T20:26:00.002+01:00

It is now my solemn duty to act as judge, jury and executioner in the matter of Shetland birders (both resident and visiting) v an unknown stringer.

It has come to our attention that, over the last week or so, one person has been responsible for all of the following single observer records: Lanceolated Warbler, Pechora Pipit, Black-throated Thrush, Arctic Warbler, Black-bellied Dipper, Red-throated Pipit and Firecrest (which is considerably rarer than Lancy, Pechora, Arctic Warbler or Red-throated Pipit in Shetland).

Other people have looked for most of these birds, but not one has been confirmed by anyone else. Now, it's been a pretty good October in Shetland, with around 50 BB rarities so far (compared with one [Long-billed Dowitcher] in Scilly – just thought I'd throw that in), but for one person to have found all that lot would be amazing. To have claimed all that lot with a single observer rate of 100% is nothing less than utter bollocks.

Apparently when someone met this bloke and showed him an Arctic Warbler at Wester Quarff the other day he said “Oh, that's an Arctic Warbler is it? It doesn't look like the one I saw at Kergord yesterday.” No, because that was a Chiffchaff.

Verdict: guilty as charged. You are hereby sentenced to spend all of next October on Muckle Flugga with no bins or mobile phone.

Twitching in the rain

2009-10-13T18:32:00.002+01:00

The general plan today was to see the Spotted Sandpiper and Bonelli's Warbler first thing this morning, then work our way north and try to find something. But the weather had other ideas. It was raining heavily when we woke up this morning, and it's still raining heavily now as I type this at 18:30. In between – it rained heavily. Constantly. All day. Without a break.

What we should have done was either stay in bed or start building an ark, but we foolishly thought there might be some birds around in the south (it was also south-easterly this morning), so we had a good look around Grutness and Sumburgh Farm. Whilst getting soaked we realised that yet again nothing new had arrived. After drying out and drinking tea we went back out and headed for Ellister, between Maywick and Bigton. Despite the pouring rain, the Western Bonelli's Warbler was feeding unconcerned in the sycamores and showing well. Sort of a tick for me, as the only other one I've seen (on Bryher in 1995) was only accepted as Bonelli's Warbler sp when the two species were split.

We then drove round Loch of Spiggie, adding Moorhen to the holiday list (yes!) before walking in the rain to Burn of Garth, where we easily found the Spotted Sandpiper feeding along the burn. If it had been nice weather, and if I had had my camera with me, I would have got some award-winning photos, but as it was I had to be content with just watching it.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is for more rain, plus Rob has had a letter telling him that the electricity will be off from 9 till 3 tomorrow. I don't fancy getting soaked again before packing and going home, so I shall probably stay in bed and leave the ark building to Gary.

Twitching

2009-10-12T19:32:00.010+01:00

It's become clear over the last 9 days that we can't find our own arses with both hands, let alone any rare birds, so rather than go home having not seen much we decided to twitch a few things today. First off was the Taiga Flycatcher at the splendidly named Gloup (pronounced gloop) on Yell. This was a British tick for me, so I was pleased to find that it was still there and showing well. It was 'doing a circuit' as they say, but eventually it stopped flitting about long enough to get some photos:

This is my kind of twitching - a third for Britain with just three of us watching it! A Lapland Bunting flew over calling, and there were 5 Bramblings in a nearby field, but that was about it, so we headed south, checking various gardens on Yell, which were mostly devoid of birds. At Mid Yell we stopped at the leisure centre car park, and were just about to leave when Rob spotted the Arctic Redpoll feeding in a weedy patch by the car. We leapt out again and got a few shots of it feeding with its friend the Mealy Redpoll. The size comparison was interesting, the Arctic appearing about a third bigger!

A stop at the aptly named Graven (which consisted of a graveyard and a house) produced a nice Bluethroat, a Yellow-browed Warbler and this Pied Fly:

Next on the twitching agenda was a Red-flanked Bluetail at Sandgarth, which we saw but didn't manage to photograph as it was flying around all over the place and never staying still for very long. Always a nice species to see though. Finally on the way home we caught up with an old favourite, the drake Ring-necked Duck at Loch of Tingwall.

We also had a half hearted go at the Catfirth plantations, but it was getting dark by then, and the most important thing was to get to the shop before it closed. There we found a splendid selection of pies, including the 'Holy Grail' – the fabled macaroni pie (see Mark's blog for a full write up with photos). I had a very nice cheese, bean and tattie pie, which rounded off the day nicely.

Tomorrow is our last full day; we intend to continue with the twitching, the targets being the Quendale Spotted Sandpiper and the Bigton Western Bonelli's Warbler if they're still there.

Frustrating

2009-10-11T18:54:00.004+01:00

I took the first train to Toabsville this morning, and witnessed an interesting phenomenon. Well I thought it was interesting anyway. As I walked up the road through the village, the gardens were (relatively) leaping with birds – a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers, a Redstart and several Willow Warblers, Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Robins, Goldcrests etc. But they were all moving steadily north, feeding in a garden for a few minutes and then flitting on to the next one. And when I walked back down the road an hour or so later, they had all gone, apart from one Yellow-browed which has been in the same garden for several days.

I presume these were birds which arrived in the strong SSE wind and heavy rain yesterday and overnight, trying to find shelter and/or suitable habitat in which to feed.

After this promising start, as usual we looked in various places, and as usual we saw pretty much bugger all. Highlights were a couple of Ring Ouzels at Levenwick and this obliging Little Bunting at Sumburgh Farm:

Rare birds were once again appearing in front of other people, and around mid afternoon we attempted to twitch the Blyth's Reed Warbler at Hoswick, just so we could say we'd seen something, but there was no sign of it.

Tomorrow is the 'Glorious 12th' and once again we shall be having our 'change of scenery' day. Last year this involved seeing fuck-all at Eshaness; this year's itinerary is as yet undecided, but will probably involve seeing fuck-all in central and north Mainland. Or we might just decide to stop being whingeing martyrs and twitch all the rarities that are around.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot to have a rant about this piece of utter idiocy seen on one of the news services today: why the fuck is a pair of Cape Shelducks in Herefordshire of any interest whatsoever to anyone? They even included directions on where to park, for fuck's sake. What kind of fucking imbecile thinks that's worth reporting to the news services, and more to the point what kind of arse-witted twat is going to twitch them?! Answers on a postcard please. Unless you're the person who reported them, in which case don't bother.

Last Train to Toabsville

2009-10-10T23:07:00.003+01:00

Take the last train to Toabsville,
And I'll meet you in the crop field.
'Cause we've seen a skulking warbler
With some contrast in the tertials.
Don't be slow, oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!

'Cause we've only had some flight views
And I must see it again.
It's looking like a Lancy,
But it could be just a Wren.
Well I don't know, oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
And I don't know if I'm ever coming home.

Take the last train to Toabsville,
I'll be waiting in the crop field.
And I'll blast it with my i-pod
Till I get some clinching photos.
Oh... Oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!

Take the last train to Toabsville,
It's just popped up on the wall.
And it's got no sign of breast streaks –
It's a Gropper after all.
I'm feelin' low. Oh, no, no, no!
Oh, no, no, no!
And I don't know if I'm ever coming home.

Take the last train to Toabsville,
Take the last train to Toabsville,
[repeat and fade]

Wet

2009-10-10T19:08:00.003+01:00

I could probably sum up today in one word: wet, but as this isn't Twitter I suppose I ought to pad it out a bit.

Taking my regular morning walk around Toabsville it was obvious that birds had arrived overnight, with Redwings everywhere and a few Goldcrests. This seemed a good sign, so we went 'down south' to do the Grutness/Sumburgh area. There were even more Redwings and Goldcrests here, most of the latter searching for food on the cliffs, but not much else. Robin was new for the holiday list, and the old faithful Bluethroat was still in exactly the same spot in the Grutness crop.

After that... um... I can't remember what we did after that – went back to the house and drank tea probably. Yes, that was it, and then round Toab again. While we were in Toab Rob had a call from Steve Minton who had seen another 'interesting' warbler just behind the beach at Scord. I had to change my trousers at this point, not because of the excitement, but because I hadn't put my waterproofs on before going out.

We arrived at Scord and proceeded to walk the area of marram grass where Steve had seen the bird. The first thing we flushed was a Long-eared Owl which jumped out of the marram and flew off across the bay towards Toab. What happened next is slightly embarassing – seven of us, including two ex Fair Isle wardens, flushed something that none of us could put a name to. Our excuse is that is was absolutely pissing with rain, combined with a strong south-south-east wind, and it was only visible for a second or two in the thistles before disappearing, never to be seen again. It looked like a dark Phyllosc, and was most likely either a Radde's or Dusky Warbler. Or it could just have been a wet Chiffchaff.

Back to the house to change clothes for the second time (my 'waterproof' trousers aren't) and put coats in the tumble dryer, after which I really couldn't be arsed to go out again. The weather of the last two days must have brought something in (White's Thrush on Fair Isle today); it's just a matter of finding it if and when the wind drops and it stops fucking raining.

Highlight of the day: stew and dumplings for tea. It's still raining, by the way.

It's only a theory

2009-10-09T17:25:00.005+01:00

Halfwit 'creationists' are fond of dismissing Darwin's theory of evolution with the phrase 'it's only a theory', as if that were good enough justification for taking everything in the Bible at face value. Well maybe they're right and it's actually God who makes rare birds turn up in Shetland, as the 'theory' that south-easterly winds = good birds has been proved to be false (or at least an over-simplification) today.

It was south-easterly when we got up this morning, and it's still south-easterly now, but despite thrashing the Toab/Scatness/Sumburgh area to within an inch of its life all day, absolutely fuck-nothing new has been unearthed. There was a brief scare with a report of a Lancy in Toab early afternoon, but that turned out to be someone jumping the gun as it was later re-identified as a Gropper. It was nothing to do with us, by the way!

Perhaps some rain will help, in which case tomorrow could be the day, as it's forecast to be strong south-easterly and wet overnight and for most of tomorrow.

Never mind – here's a nice photo of a Snow Bunting at Sumburgh Head:

And we're having a consolation Chinese takeaway tonight – one of the restaurants in Lerwick is doing a 'Chinese night' at Boddam village hall, so we've put our order in.