February

What can you say about February, other than that it’s not March? We’re in the grip of a recession which every news bulletin gleefully tells us ‘may be worse than previously thought’, and also the worst winter weather (or ‘snow event’ if you have the intellect of an owl pellet and need perfectly good English translated into media twat-speak) for 18 years. Which is what – 1991? I don’t remember that winter being particularly cold, but then we were used to it being a bit chilly in the winter in those days. That’s why thermal underwear and thick jumpers were invented.

Early 1985 was also cold, with snow on the ground for weeks, but unlike in this minor cold snap (so far, anyway) some interesting birds turned up in Leicestershire. On one day in January it was possible to see all three common divers and all five grebes at Rutland Water, along with Long-tailed Duck, two Velvet Scoters and half a dozen Red-breasted Mergansers. Then in mid-February the juvenile Night Heron, which had been suppressed in the Burley Fishponds area since December 84, was frozen out of hiding and appeared at Whitwell Creek for all to see before dying the following day. There hasn’t been one in the county since. On my fucking list, as they say.

This winter though there has been nothing remotely like that – just a handful of Scaup at the dam, an elusive Bittern around the lagoons and three Black-necked Grebes off Barnsdale, and the two Great Northern Divers that were around earlier in the year seem to have buggered off with the onset of the cold!

But never mind, because I’ve got my new camera and lens to play with, and I’m quite happy taking photos of common stuff. Yes, I know I said in a comment on the last post that I wasn’t going to post any more photos, but I was lying.

A Weasel Coot - surely a much better name than 'redhead Smew'!

A Tailmouse or Bum Barrel

Some sort of Sea Mew I think - probably blown inland by bad weather

Camera bore

In common with many people, I’m sure, I’ve always found bird photography frustrating. My first efforts, many years ago, involved a manual Fujica film camera with a cheap and nasty 500mm lens, which looked impressive in a cock extension kind of way, but was complete crap. Unless the light was absolutely perfect you couldn’t even see what you were trying to photograph through the viewfinder, and I never managed to take anything even bordering on acceptable with it.

After that I had a Pentax ME Super, which was a good camera, but again I was hampered by the lack of a decent lens. And the fact that it used film, which is frankly a ridiculous way to take photos, on a par with using candles to light your home. In 2001 I jumped on the digiscoping bandwagon, firstly with a Panasonic camcorder and then with the ubiquitous Nikon Coolpix 995. If anything, digiscoping was even more frustrating – my scope really wasn’t up to it, adding a hideous blue fringe to everything, and I always found the shutter lag on the Coolpix made taking photos of birds a very hit and miss affair. This was made even worse by the utterly useless (and stupidly expensive) Nikon remote release cable. This rarely worked properly, and eventually stopped working altogether, a far from uncommon occurrence apparently!

A couple of years ago I bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ-30, with a 1.7 x convertor. This was a great improvement on digiscoping, but suffered from a rather slow autofocus which didn’t work at all on anything in flight, and went horribly grainy at anything other than the lowest ISO setting. Nevertheless, I did manage to take some half decent photos with it when conditions were right – i.e. a close bird in good light.

Recently, after many years of pissing around, I finally got myself a proper digital SLR, and a big fuck-off lens to go on it. I’ve just sold my old Panasonic camera on ebay, so I can’t show you a photo of it, but it’s a Canon 450D with a Sigma 150-500mm lens. The lens is pretty heavy, but it’s stabilized, so can be handheld at shutter speeds down to about 1/125th of a second.

Now, before any ‘professionals’ out there start looking down their ten grand 1D Mk IIIs + f4 prime lenses at me, don’t worry, I shan’t be getting any delusions of grandeur, or entering your ‘who can afford the most expensive camera gear?’ competitions. I know it’s only an entry-level DSLR, and a third-party zoom lens, but this is way better than anything I’ve ever owned before, and for the first time in my life I can take bird photos that I’m completely happy with.

And now some examples to bore you with:

New moth book

OK, this is an unusual post in that a) it’s nothing to do with birds, and b) it’s serious! Apologies if that disappoints anyone.

I received my copy of Chris Manley’s new book ‘British Moths and Butterflies’ today. This 350 page paperback, published by A&C Black, contains around 2400 photos of some 850 species of macro moth, 74 butterflies and an impressive 500 micro moths (about a third of the British total). There are also photos of larvae, pupae and eggs covering 314 species. All the images are of living insects photographed in their natural resting positions.

I wouldn’t normally plug a book that I’d had any involvement with, but my contribution to this one was so insignificant (just the two photos of the Concolorous on page 242) that I can honestly say I’m being completely unbiased in recommending it. If you have any interest at all in moths, this book is essential. And if you aren’t interested in moths, buy it to see what you’re missing! I think it’s officially out early next year.

A&C Black are to be congratulated for having the courage to produce a book on Lepidoptera which is mainly concerned with moths rather than the more popular butterflies. A few years ago I tried to interest Dorling Kindersley in something similar, only to be told ‘we don’t think there is a market for such a book.’ Well, DK were wrong, and I’m sure that ‘Manley’ will now become a classic to rank alongside ‘Townsend, Waring & Lewington’ and ‘Skinner’. In fact I’d go so far as to say that it’s possibly even more important than either of those two books because of the coverage it gives to the much neglected micros.

How to get Merlins accepted

The following article is reproduced from Stringing magazine by kind permission of the Editor, Mike Hunt.

I often get letters from birders living in crap counties such as Leicestershire complaining that their local records committee insists on a description for Merlin. This is obviously very annoying for the keen county lister. Merlin is virtually impossible to twitch in a county like Leicestershire, so you’ve got to ‘find’ your own. But there’s a problem – it’s quite rare. Fortunately there is an easy solution – Sparrowhawks look a little bit like Merlins if you don’t see them very well, and they’re very common.

But how do you convince the records committee that your badly seen Sparrowhawk was actually a Merlin? Here’s a list of do’s and don’ts to guide you through the minefield of writing Merlin descriptions:

1. Unless you live out in the sticks somewhere, DON’T claim to have seen a Merlin in your garden. Descriptions along the lines of “a Merlin flew across my garden in the middle of Leicester and landed on the fence, where it remained for 10 minutes” will instantly go in the 'bollocks' pile.

2. DO make sure you at least attempt to age and sex it, even if it’s only the convincingly vague “female/immature.” An unsexed, silhouetted Merlin stands little chance of being accepted.

3. For fuck’s sake DON’T mention “barred underparts.” Yes, it has been known! No, really, it has.

4. DO keep it brief. A ‘textbook’ description including the claw and iris colour of a bird that you saw for 3 seconds as it flew over the road in front of your car is going to look well dodgy. Again, it has been known.

5. DON’T try and be funny by saying it had a pointy hat with stars and moons on it. Records committees are not generally noted for their sense of humour when assessing descriptions.

6. DO make sure you fully eliminate Sparrowhawk (see note 3). Even if it was actually a Sparrowhawk.

7. DON’T include a photocopied page of ‘field notes’ from your notebook. Records committees know damn well that no-one really writes notes in the field any more, and they ALWAYS look fake.

8. Finally, DON’T put the names K***h B*****y, R****t M***s or S***e G****r (sorry, I’ve had to asterisk these for legal reasons) at the top of the description, as that’s just asking for trouble.

As always, look at the text in a good field guide, and re-write it in your own words. Unless you use words like “long sticking out bit at the end” for “tail” or “pointy bits that make it fly” for “wings” of course. These will just make the records committee think you’re retarded (or taking the piss) and reject the record anyway. And if you must trace the pictures and try to pass them off as field sketches, at least make sure you’re tracing the right species.

Good luck, and happy stringing!

Next month – 'Three Species for the Price of One': how the humble Sparrowhawk can also double up as a Goshawk...

New magazine

I was intrigued by a magazine title I saw in WHSmith this morning. I didn’t have time to investigate it fully, so I searched the Internet when I got home and found their website: http://www.stringingmagazine.com/

Sounds interesting - this is the latest edition:

We're not worthy

Last night, during my usual perusal of various birding websites, I discovered a terrible thing. In fact, to use one of John Shuttleworth’s favourite phrases, I was devastated. Why? Because the best, funniest and sweariest birding blogger has decided to call it a day. I’m talking of course about Tom McKinney’s ‘Skills-Bills’ website, which has entertained like-minded spotters for the last three years.

Maybe he simply wants to ‘quit while he’s ahead’ (which he certainly is, by a long way), but if it’s just a case of getting bored with it, then please, Tom, don’t be a cunt – at least give us an occasional update. Or maybe you just need to give it a rest for a few months while you recharge your swearing batteries, and then carry on? But if this really is the end, then all I can do is quote from the Master: Fuck. Tits. Bollocks.