Gull cull?

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

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

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

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?

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

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...