List advancement

I have chosen my title with care, as although my list has indeed increased, I don't believe it truly counts as twitching - I will elaborate shortly. I have been Scotland for the past week, the first weekend in Fife (with Bee-eaters en route), the week in the middle at work in Glasgow, and yesterday Aberdeen. Murcar to be precise, which ought to provide a clue as to what I was looking at.

Back in August 2011 I spent a very happy and satisfying day at Murcar searching for a Black Scoter. I found it after a mere seven hours of searching, the task at hand was truly stupefyingly difficult - to find a specific duck amongst thousands of other ducks along a five mile stretch of coastline. Oh, and Scoters of all types dive frequently just to make it that little bit harder. It was monumental, but I stuck to my task and eventually found old apricot bill in order to tuck him away safely on my list. That same year there had been a White-winged Scoter at Murcar too, for a couple of weeks in early June, but by the time I found myself conveniently in Scotland it had disappeared. Instead its slightly commoner cousin was very much appreciated. Last year it or another reappeared in late June but I had properly phased by then and couldn't be bothered.

This year it reappeared again, and this time I had a trip to Scotland booked where I would have the time to devote a day to it, recalling what a good time I had had all those days ago. So after a long week in my Glasgow office I woke up moderately early and drove across to Aberdeen arriving for mid morning. The weather was kind luckily, and after sorting out my birding gear in the car park of Murcar Links golf course I nipped across the fairways to the dunes and started scanning. I was the only person for miles.

This is the first reason I don't think this counts as twitching. Twitches to me conjure up images of lines and crowds. Of jostling and a hum of middle-aged conversation. Green camo clothing, big lenses, and an air of expectant desperation. At Murcar on Saturday there was just me and the odd metallic clink of a golf club thwacking a ball. It was breezy and Sand Martins flew past at eye level along the tops of the dunes. Linnet chupped ahead of me, and out on the sea were raft upon raft of ducks as far as the eye could see in either direction.

At a twitch seeing the bird is often relatively straightforward. You get out of your car and you scan for a line of birders. Find the birders, find the bird. You hoof it over to where they are standing without bothering to even search for the target bird on the way or indeed anything else, and once there you earnestly whisper "is it showing?", or if you are an oaf you loudly ask for directions. Sometimes newcomers will be offered a pre-focused scope to set their frayed nerves at rest, to get that all-important tick. There is no skill required whatsoever. At Murcar however there was nobody to ask, no hints of any kind. It was up to me, and actually that is exactly what I wanted. I didn't want to join a gaggle on the beach with their scopes lined up on the Scoter. I genuinely wanted to spend a lot of time looking for it myself, to see if I could do it. I did not want to simply be handed it on a plate.

I decided to walk south as the last news on the bird had seen it reported in that direction, exactly a week ago. This is another reason why this didn't feel like a bona-fide twitch. Usually you get news every step of the way, a gang of birders on a journey will scan their phones and pagers about every five minutes, possibly more frequently than that if it is a 'big one'. I don't have any form of live bird news at all so I called Bradders Birding Information Services. BBIS was in Cornwall drinking beer during a brief respite from sea-watching, but was able to confirm that the week old news did appear to be the most recent reported sighting. I wasn't worried - at this time of year Scoters have the kind of wings that chickens laugh at, so I was certain it was here somewhere. The only problem was where....

The plan was simple - walk 100m, scan an arc of around 90 degrees back and forth, and then advance another 100m and repeat. With the weak sun on my face and the wind in my hair this was an extremely pleasant way to pass what was left of the morning, but after two hours I had not yet found the White-winged Scoter and I was getting Velvet Scoter fatigue. This is where you squint at a Velvet Scoter for far longer than is actually necessary because you feel that its eye patch is just that little bit bigger than other Velvet Scoters whereas actually it isn't at all as you find again and again when you latch on to another Velvet Scoter to confirm your suspicions and then can't distinguish the bird you were just looking at in the first place. All part of the fun, and whilst doing this I found two Surf Scoters. These are easy, you just scan through Common and Velvet Scoters until you see a Coot preening. A Coot!? It can't be! And of course it isn't, its just the rear neck view of a Surfie, they have this stand-out white patch that in your fevered Velvet Scoter state you think is a Coot's shield.

Coot

Not a Coot after all.

I was probably about a mile and a half down the beach, ie.. a lot of prior scanning, when I came across a decent group of Velvets. Within this group was a bird I kept returning to as it had a genuinely obviously larger white eye patch that really stood out. When I first saw it I immediately lost it for about thirty minutes, but every time I subsequently latched on to it I became more certain. It was quite subtle, really not as different as I had been expecting. It had very dark brown flanks as opposed to the jet black of the other birds, and the bill definitely had an extra lump in it when compared to a normal Velvet Scoter, with less clean bill visible, and that there was appeared a pinkier colour (Velvets = yellow) with a distinctive paler band at the top when viewed head on. I became more and more convinced this was my target, and set out to deliberately lose it to see if I could reliably pick it just on these features alone. I was soon able to pick it time and time again and had some decent and prolonged views. Views which I have completely failed to translate into worthy images. You may just have to trust me on this one! I don't think I'd go as far as to claim it as self-found, however it certainly didn't feel like twitching.

I was at the beach for about five hours all told, though I think I first set eyes on it after about two and a half. It then took that time again to convince myself I wasn't imagining it and get a tolerable photo. Throughout that time I saw one other person, a birder leaving the beach without a White-winged Scoter, though it is possible he may have seen the same bird I was struggling with. The supporting cast was very decent indeed, with gazillions of Eider, Common Scoter, probably 300 Velvet Scoter, 2 Surf Scoters, Mergansers, Gannets, Terns, Gulls and a few Red-throated Divers. A grand day out and exactly what I had been hoping for as entertainment. A veritable needle in a haystack but I had found it. That warm glow from a job well done started to wash over me, and to celebrate I had a banana for lunch. On the way back to the car I went over the Eiders a few times in the hope of finding a King Eider but it wasn't to be, and needing to back in Fife for supper I bade farewell to the ever-profitable Murcar and Blackdog, and headed south. Played-for and got; I have not restarted twitching!

horrible

Family twitching

This Saturday was the mass exodus at the start of the summer holidays. Famille L joined in, driving up to Fife to dump the kids with my parents. I couldn't help noticing that East Leake, currently hosting three families of nesting Bee-eaters, was only about five miles off the M1. We don't have great history of successful family twitches, the only result anyone ever remembers is a massive detour in East Yorkshire followed by a dip and then everyone in the car being really annoyed with me. Natch.

So it was really quite a surprise when Mrs L consented without any fuss whatsoever to my suggestion of a short break in our journey. There was a minor mishap when the satnav insisted on taking us to Loughborough town centre, but I manage to correct this before getting totally snarled up and we were soon at the special RSPB car park (a field). Seeing yellow "AA" style signs advertising Bee-eaters caused some amusement (Oh Dad, birders are so sad), but the five of us were soon walking down a well-trodden path to where the birds were showing. The kids pretended to be uninterested for a while, but eventually all three of them were arguing over who got to use the scope and binoculars. Winning!    

Henry saw the Isle of Wight birds a few summers ago, and I had seen a single bird on Scilly eons ago, but for the rest of them this was a new and exotic bird that they actually thought was pretty cool. Most rare birds would likely not have had the same effect, so this worked out very nicely. And for my daughters, both of whom had accompanied me to the Blue-cheeked version in Kent all those years ago, this neatly completes the set.We saw four birds for sure, and possibly five.  Now I'm not saying this is the start of a new family past-time, but it was very nice indeed to all be enjoying birds together. 

A dip into my twitching past

It is time to dip into the past, mainly as there is nothing happening in the present. I have never really been one for reliving past glories, but I suppose there must come a time. Also everyone else is doing it. As has probably been clear from my most recent posts, I have entirely given up on twitching. No Elegant Tern, Needletail or Amur Falcon for me, nor any of the other stonking birds that have graced our shores recently. I am amazed at the commitment and drive (the operative word here in more ways than one) that hardcore twitchers have – even at the height of my interest in chasing far-flung waifs I couldn’t keep it up. I have not twitched a bird now since the Forster’s Tern in Essex last November and the good news is that I’m not really missing it very much if at all. When Britain’s second Amur Falcon came up recently I just knew I didn’t want to be part of the skiving procession to Cornwall the following day, nor join the long line of green-clad middle-aged road warriors who would no doubt encircle the bird in the dark on Saturday morning. I’ve phased, which is somewhat de rigeur these days. Or grown up. Part of me feels foolish that I burned so many hours and days on seeing all those rare birds only to subsequently completely give up on the list. A much larger part of me is relieved that there is no longer any anxiety associated with not being able to go for birds. Or dipping!

Seven years ago it was all so different. I’m aware that other bloggers have the ability to go back decades, and whilst I really enjoy those stories of yesteryear complete with brass telescopes and cars without seatbelts, I just don’t have anything that historic. Yet. My time will come. Still, from my perspective 2009 seems an age ago - I had lost my job in February that year as a result of the financial crisis that had started the previous year, and so was kicking back as a trainee house husband and domestic goddess. In between ferocious bouts of cleaning and cooking there was just the teensiest bit of birding. Now that I am desk-bound again I can fully appreciate how annoying this must have been to so many of my birding acquaintances, but in the spring of 2009 I enjoyed a purple patch lasting a month and a day, the likes of which I am not sure will ever come again. Let us revisit it just in case there are any NGBs reading.

2nd May

It is early May and only a couple of weeks have passed since I reached the landmark count of 300 BOU with a Hoopoe at Landguard that I twitched with all three children – back then a five year old, a three year old and a one year old. Heroic doesn’t even begin to describe it. Saturday morning comes, no different really to Friday morning for me in many respects, and there is a Crested Lark at Dungeness. My plan had been to go to Portland with Bradders for a Collared Flycatcher, but he had got so twitchy that he had skived off work on the Friday with Howard and seen it already. So instead I was off to Portland by myself, until the Lark turned up that was. So a quick change of plan and instead I’m off to Dungeness, again with Bradders, where I got excellent views on the shingle of what is a dirt bird almost everywhere but here. Flush with this success we returned to London whereupon I got into my own car and drove to Dorset for the Flycatcher. Looking back I must have spent the entire day in the car, something that would be inconceivable now but back then seemed entirely normal. Tick and run!

9th May

The following week was quite quiet but by the weekend I was on the road again, this time for a Red-rumped Swallow at Cley. I hadn’t thought that hirundines were even twitchable, but I made it up there in a couple of hours and the birds (yes, there were two!) were still there hawking above a field near the windmill. The following day I missed a Black-winged Pratincole in the afternoon in north Kent. I had been in Cambridge meeting old friends but was so consumed by twitching that I behaved really badly and curtailed what was a lovely picnic only to then go and dip at Reculver. It was relocated the next day at Grove Ferry and I was able to dip it again there on a quick Monday foray.

12th May

Undeterred I returned for a third time with Charlotte for what turned out be an epic twitch. What I hadn’t realised about Stodmarsh was quite how many ditches and fences there were between the car park and the hides, and after a mile or so my decision to take the buggy was beginning to look more than a little suspect. Various birders helped me hoik the pram over the various stiles, and finally I reached the hide from where the bird was showing to be greeted with my first, glorious, Pratincole. What a bird, I had quite literally never seen anything like it. Much of the time it was hidden from view on the ground below the horizon of vegetation, but every now and again it would take flight and treat those watching to its superbly elegant mastery of flight. The journey back from the hide was somewhat harder with no birders to assist me, and at one stage my hat blew off into a ditch and in retrieving it I fell in up to my waist and thus had to drive back to London in my underpants, quickly change, and then rush to the nursery and school for the pickup – those days my birding was only between 9 and 3.30 – frequently 9.01 to 3.29…….

13th May

The next day, Wednesday I think, I returned to Dungeness in the evening to twitch a Melodious Warbler at Southview followed by an Icterine 20 minutes later at the lighthouse. Or the other way around, I can't remember. Good to be able to compare these two very similar species in short order ahem. I also dipped a Subalpine Warbler that same evening, but since the start of the month I had had six lifers so I could hardly complain. I was on a roll!

16th May

The rest of the week was relatively quiet as I grafted a few Brownie points but on Saturday I found myself at Salthouse on the north Norfolk coast successfully twitching a Collared Pratincole only four days after I had first seen the genus. Amazing! This was a bird that had just missed my catching of the bug, most people I knew had seen a bird at Rainham before I became hooked, and whilst Norfolk isn't as convenient it can hardly be said that I was caring about miles at this point. If I add up the petrol, good grief...

25th May

I couldn't let a trip up to Scotland to see my parents pass by without some more crazy ticking, so I used a day to manically drive all over the highlands. Whilst Scottish Crossbill and Wood Warbler may seem a bit pedestrian in the context of the rest of the line-up, you have to remember that this was just what happened back in those days. Most birds were probably new, and whether it was an eastern Mega or a breeding bird didn't really matter. A numbers game. 

3rd June

Remarkably my next tick was also a Pratincole! Just over a week later rumours began to swirl that a Pratincole at Dungeness might not be a Collared. Which meant it was probably a…… I zipped down there late in the day once Mrs L was back from work and managed twenty minutes with the bird at dusk as it flew around a few final times before settling down to roost on a small island. Sure enough, it was an Oriental. I can’t think that there are many people who ticked all three UK Pratincole species within the space of about three weeks.

So there you have it, a section of my past life as a filthy twitcher. Those were 302-311 respectively, and given I am now on (and likely staying on) 437 there was clearly a lot more twitching to come, but I picked this period because it covered 10 ticks starting and ending at Dungeness in almost exactly a month, about half of which were truly mega, and of which three were all the UK species of Pratincole. Those were the days! Then there was July of course, but nobody needs to know about that. Or at least, not today...

Two nights and a day in Estonia

I'd been to Estonia once before in the depths of winter for a very particular type of birding - woodpeckers at a feeding station, and the Baltic population of Steller's Eider. This trip would be very different, a quick visit in early July to the wetland meadows and forests of southern Estonia. Originally planned as a city break in Tallinn, at some point leading up to the trip I cancelled my hotel booking and reinvested the money in a rental car instead. I arrived in the country at midnight on Saturday, and had until 6am on Monday morning. What could I see and hear? As it happens, loads....

Logistics

• A one day solo trip in early July.
• Spent almost the whole time in Soomaa National Park with a short detour to the coast at Matsalu.
• Finnair flights from LHR via Helsinki on the brand new A350 (geek alert), though there are also direct options with other airlines. I spent Saturday afternoon in Helsinki and then took the short hop over to Tallinn. The return left Tallinn at 6am on Monday morning with an hour in Helsinki in which to have a shower and get some breakfast before carrying on to London for an arrival which saw me get to work only slightly late.
• Car hire from Avis got me a brand new Mini Cooper for about £90, however the booking was very last minute.
• You can guess where I slept...

Hotel in the landscape...

Day 0-1
I arrived in Tallinn at about midnight with only optics as luggage and picked up my car without fuss. Soomaa is about 1h45m south, and the main roads out of the town are straightforward - just head for Parnu in the first instance. An hour and a bit on main roads then saw me head east towards the National Park on much smaller country roads. Here I stopped the car many times just listening to the astonishing cacaphony - Corncrakes everywhere but also River and Grasshopper Warblers reeling away. Thrush Nightingale could be heard too, and also something I wasn't familiar with but that turned out to be Icterine Warbler - I didn't know they sang at night. I eventually arrived at Soomaa at around 3am due to having spent so much time birding by ear on the way, and I was absolutely shattered. I parked the car at the end of a track which had a bird tower and a toilet, and gratefully reclined the seat. River Warbler and Corncrake serenaded me as I drifted off, but I was far too tired to notice.

I woke up at around 5am feeling only a little better. It was pretty light of course, and I could now see that I was exactly where I had aimed at, a lovely landscape of wet meadows surround by forest. I unpacked the optics that hadn't been needed during the night and drove the short distance to the main visitor centre and started off on the well-known Beaver Trail, a part path part boardwalk loop that goes through deep forest before travelling alongside a stream favoured by beavers. I didn't see any of course, but there was plenty of evidence of them with felled logs all over the place. It's a great birding trail, and highlights included loads of Wood Warblers trilling away, as well as Spotted and hard to see Red-breasted Flycatchers. It was however also mosquito heaven and it turns out that without Mrs L by my side I am quite attractive... I also heard what I assume was a Grey-headed Woodpecker but I could not leave the path to look for it.

Fieldfare

The trail took around an hour to pick my way around, after which I spent a little time watching the surrounding area from the car park. Plenty of Whinchat in the scrubby field, Fieldfare feeding on the short grass, and loads of House Martin and Swallow nesting in the centre's outbuildings. A single Hawfinch landed on the track next to me before heading back into the woods, and further away I could hear the flutey calls of Golden Oriole. Cuckoos were seeming everywhere. Heading back out I passed an open meadow with a pair of Crane feeding. As I slowed the car to a halt they started calling to each other, almost impossibly loud bugling, and incredible sound in the stillness of the early morning.

Common Crane

I returned to my bird tower and this time climbed up it. A song I could not place but that reminded me in places of Nuthatch and it took ages peering into the canopy before I finally got onto what was making it - Icterine Warbler! Some mournful calls that sounded like a giant Scops Owl prompted me scan out from the tower, and I was stunned to see an entirely dark and very large woodpecker bounding away into the forest from a dead tree. Black Woodpecker! The first I had seen for an absolute age, and throughout the morning it or another came back out several times. Green Sandpiper was on a stream, Yellowhammers sang everywhere as did Rosefinches, a Red-backed Shrike saw off a Great Grey Shrike in a very noisy encounter and at one point a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker actually landed on the tower. If this isn't fantastic birding then I don't know what is!

Black Woodpecker

Icterine Warbler

Yellowhammer

I returned to the Beaver walk and did another circuit in better light and warmer conditions. Nuthatch and Treecreeper were strongly in evidence, but Woodpeckers were not! As I dawdled near the stream hoping for a beaver a distant raptor on flat wings came in from one side. Honey Buzzard!! Brilliant views of this bird as it came in and then over my head, it is hard to see how they are so frequently strung in the UK. I completed the circuit and realised it was lunchtime and that I had no food or water due to poor planning. On a Sunday my options in the park were zero and so after discovering that the Ingatsi path out to the bog was closed and there was nothing else to do but seek out food I headed to Parnu, back along the same roads I had driven in the night. Endless fields, but fields surrounded by trees and water, and full of birds, including several hunting Montagu's Harrier in the space of just a few kilometers. Brilliant views of these birds, but no photo opportunity - something common to the whole trip actually, loads and loads of quality birds and massive diversity, but none of it very photogenic - the exact opposite of Iceland.

Honey Buzzard

Great Grey Shrike

Restored at Parnu by Hesburger, I headed for the coast. Part two of my plan had been to visit either Lahmeaa RP on the north coast or Matsalu RP on the east, not far from where we had taken the ferry through the ice from Virtsu. I chose the latter as it was no distance at all (albeit that no distances in Estonia are very large) and was soon at another bird tower (Keemu vaatetorn) overlooking a vast bay. Lots of different birds here, including Wheatear and Yellow Wagtails in the fields, and great numbers of Lapwings, Baltic Gulls and Common Terns. The reeds held Sedge and Reed Warblers, but try as I might I couldn't detect a Savi's on this occasion. My hoped-for White-tailed Eagle also never materialised although Marsh Harriers were around, and I spent a very pleasant afternoon chilling out on the coast doing general birding as well as having a nice long nap! Early evening I returned back to Soomaa for some more overnight birding.

I spent most time on this third stint at the original tower, as well as driving some more roads in the park. This time I managed to get very good views of a singing Blyth's Reed Warbler, but best of all was a world lifer in the form of a Hazel Grouse by the side of the road. I drifted to a halt and did a U-turn but when I reached the spot it had gone. Bummer as I would have liked prolonged views of this hard to find species. At the tower a Woodcock was roding, emitting funny little squeaks as it did its circuits, and as ever there were Corncrakes starting up in every corner of every meadow. I left at around 1am for the drive back to Tallinn, taking a slightly different route which I hoped might net more night singers, but I was actually too tired to do much birding. I stopped half-way for a power snooze until I was rudely awakened by bugling Cranes, and thus managed to make Tallinn airport for around 4.30am. My flight left at 6, and at Helsinki airport I grabbed a shower and breakfast before gratefully falling asleep on the flight to London.

It probably wasn't very good for me but again demonstrates how much it is possible to cram in when you don't have much time. That said next time I may go for longer as I quite fancy the old growth forests to the east. There be bears....

Whinchat

Trip List - 86 species
Mute Swan
Greylag
Shelduck
Mallard
Hazel Grouse
Grey Partridge
Little Grebe
Great Crested Grebe
Cormorant
Grey Heron
White Stork
Honey Buzzard
Common Buzzard
Marsh Harrier
Montagu's Harrier
Hobby
Water Rail
Corncrake
Coot
Moorhen
Common Crane
Oystercatcher
Lapwing
Woodcock
Green Sandpiper
Black-headed Gull
Baltic Gull
Herring Gull
Common Tern
Pigeon
Woodpigeon
Cuckoo
Swift
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
Black Woodpecker
Grey-headed Woodpecker
Skylark
Sand Martin
House Martin
Swallow
Yellow Wagtail
White Wagtail
Meadow Pipit
Red-backed Shrike
Great Grey Shrike
Wren
Robin
Thrush Nightingale
Whinchat
Wheatear
Blackbird
Fieldfare
Redwing
Song Thrush
River Warbler
Grasshopper Warbler
Sedge Warbler
Reed Warbler
Blyth's Reed Warbler
Icterine Warbler
Blackcap
Willow Warbler
Chiffchaff
Wood Warbler
Red-breasted Flycatcher
Spotted Flycatcher
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Nuthatch
Treecreeper
Yellowhammer
Reed Bunting
Chaffinch
Greenfinch
Goldfinch
Linnet
Common Rosefinch
Hawfinch
Bullfinch
House Sparrow
Starling
Golden Oriole
Magpie
Jackdaw
Rook
Hooded Crow

A definition of disappointment

Elements of Famille L went to visit some old friends a couple of weekends ago. We had not seen them in ages and in the intervening time they had moved house. Where they used to live they had had a lovely long garden, albeit very thin, and right down the bottom (about a mile and half if I recall) there were a selection of wonderful vegetable beds. Whilst their new place does not have any where near the same amount of outdoor space, their new garden is up and running and one corner has been devoted to a couple of raised beds. In one of these were the remains of this year's strawberry crop, and in the other was the most gigantic clump of rhubarb I think I have ever seen. It resembled a Gunnera in stature.

Anyway, we had a lovely weekend, stayed overnight on the Saturday, and as a parting gift my mate chopped some rhubarb stems out from this clump and sent us on our way. I don't know about you but I love rhubarb, and I especially like it in a crumble. Mmm mmmmm.

So, we arrive home and the rhubarb is stashed in the kitchen. A few days later as I am passing the kitchen door one evening I see Mrs L at the far end just adding crumble topping to the crumble dish. Ah-hah! I know what that is! I started to salivate at the thought of what was to come, it has been a very long time since I had a rhubarb crumble and I couldn't wait! Dinner was served and I gleefully headed to the table. The green crumble dish was there, centre stage. A bit unusual that dessert was out before a main course, but on reflection I would be perfectly happy just eating rhubarb crumble on its own.

It was haloumi and couscous.

What the? I have rarely experienced such crushing disappointment. From a distance, couscous looks a lot like crumble topping, and there was no mistaking the dish. Why did she use the crumble dish? This was last week and I am not sure I have yet recovered. Meanwhile the rhubarb is still on the kitchen counter. Calling me. Taunting me.

I just thought I would mention this in case anyone else has a similar tale of unrequited lust and bitter disappointment that is any way comparable. To be honest I would be surprised, but who knows what lurks out there in blog land? Please do share any thoughts below.   

Ant Day

I expect that many readers may have experienced something similar recently, especially if they live in Wimbledon, but for me in Wanstead on Sunday it was Flying Ant Day. Flying Ant Day is an annual event with no set timetable, it just needs to be hot and muggy and then it will happen. I’d been in the garden all day – a frequent occurrence of late – and was just sitting down to a very well earned G&T when I noticed a small trickle of ants coming from a hole at the corner of the terrace. Soon the trickle became a torrent, and gradually the large winged ones started coming up. They climbed up the brickwork steadily, and once at the top milled around for a while before taking flight and floating into the humid evening sky - it would have been a good evening to be a local Swift. An hour later and there were none left at all and you would never have known that it had happened. I know it is only small scale, and isn’t quite comparable as a wildlife spectacle to the annual migration of the Wildebeest, but it’s always quite a special moment – especially the way that these hidden colonies all of a sudden become incredibly visible.

In a previous house we lived in we had the unfortunate ‘pleasure’ of one of the egresses being indoors. No matter what we tried in terms of blocking up holes or putting down ant poison, once a year in addition to the hordes taking flight in the garden, a steady stream would exit into the house, in the kitchen and conservatory to be precise, and we would then spend the next week either transporting them outside, or more likely hoovering up dessicated carcasses. It makes you wonder what their subterraenean world looks like – somewhere under our house there was clearly this large network of catacombs, home to thousands of tiny creatures going about their lives in total darkness. The kitchen was some way away from either the front or the back, it must have been like the mines of Moria down there, I'd like to think with one super-ant in charge. I wonder how big it was? Shudder. Luckily the Wanstead colonies are all outside. I’d known about three nests as I disturb them from time to time with my potterings, but this one yesterday was a new one on me, and seemingly right below where I like to sit and contemplate. An interesting thing to think about, especially in flip flops…..

Oh, hello

Oh hello, I’m back, at least for now. For one reason or another I have been finding blogging difficult. This has gone hand in hand with also finding birding rather difficult. The end result is that I felt compelled to do neither for quite a while. That’s not to say I haven’t been busy, far from it. In fact I consider that I have been as productive as I have ever been, but unfortunately unless I rename this blog “Wanstead Gardener” then the kinds of things I’ve been up to don’t really fit. There were hints I suppose; a photo of a flower bed at Chateau L earlier on in the summer, and then most recently of a plant in the greenhouse doing its thing, but I did rather feel that those fell on deaf ears so I subsided into silence.

Ah yes, when a hobby goes quiet. Phasing. Most often seen in the context of birding, I’ve seen talk of this surface in a few places lately and it has definitely struck a chord. I am hesitant to label myself a serial phaser, after all the whole 'not birding during June' thing is basically an annual event for many people, however this year I have extended this period of abstention into July as I have been busy digging holes in the garden. I did consider going out and trying to find a Yellow-legged Gull, but then those holes won’t dig themselves will they?

No they won’t! It has been a bit back-breaking actually, and whilst I would love to show you my carefully crossed-out to-do lists as they tell a tale of true graft and considerable effort, it actually bores me as well! In summary however the extensive grounds of Chateau L are undergoing a transformation, and I am very much enjoying the visual results of my labour. But given that this is of interest to, oh let’s see, zero other people, I think I’ll leave it there. Suffice it to say that all my obsessive tendencies have been spent on horticulture (itself a victim of phasing in the past) and as such I have felt no compunction to go out birding at all in the UK. I did manage a weekend in Estonia which I plan to share in due course, but compare this to April and May when I spent several hours a day out on the patch and it must be difficult to understand why something that was so all-consuming can so easily and abruptly be dropped entirely.

It’s the same with the camera, it has barely seen the light of day since I pumped 4000 frames through it in the space of 48 hours in Iceland. When I sit down and think about I’ll admit that it sounds odd, but it is just what happens and I don’t fight it. I don’t have any interests that ever truly die, or at least not any more. I have of course dabbled in many things over the years, but I think I am now down to the few hobbies I know I really like, and whilst they might wax and wane from time to time, they’ll always be there. Take birds for instance, I’ve been interested in them for many years, but there was probably a break of ten years from late teens to my late twenties where they barely registered. In that context a gap of a few months is nothing! I’ll get back out there soon I expect, it is beginning to feel about right.

I'm pleased to say that despite the recent lack of use my binoculars have seen, I remain as sharp as ever. Here is a Cattle Egret from Estonia.

On growing things

No, not my midriff..... Although that said I have recently hopped on my bike again after Mrs L serviced it for me. I took it as a strong hint, what can I say? I cycled all of about five miles and felt none the worse for wear. Anyway, in the absence of much inclination to go birding I have been concentrating on the greenhouse, and I can think of no better way to bore you all rigid now that June has passed by showing you quite how quickly one of my plants has grown new leaves during this hot spell.  

It is of course a Dioon spinulosum, a type of cycad from Mexico. The key to a successful blog is knowing your audience... Here it is in mid-June growing next to a dustbin full of bird seed. The trunk (known as a caudex) is about 30cm from the soil to the tip of the growing point, and the pot is about 40cm across. I bought it cheaply on Ebay of all places, from a nursery in Spain, and it arrived in terrible condition in early March. However under my expert care it has slowly been recovering, and as you can see from the pointy bit in the middle has been gradually planning something....

As you can imagine, I was delighted when three days after this photo I saw this:

20th June

Signs of life! Being somewhat of an obsessive type I've been carefully charting it's progress since then. This was for my benefit and pleasure alone, it was only later on I realised what a fine blog post this would make, hem hem. So here is a short sequence of photos showing the last three weeks.

21st June

23rd June

24th June

26th June

27th June

30th June

4th July

5th July

7th July

This charts a mere 17 days from the first visible sign of leaves to yesterday, when the tallest leaf now reaches my nose! The nice weather has seen the greenhouse hit 30 degrees pretty regularly, and I sure this has contributed to the breakneck speed. I reckon it has a little way to go yet whilst the leaves harden up, but the difference is astounding. I've gone from a boring pineapple-lookalike to a magnificent firework of bright green. The leaves will darken over time to a glossy olive green, unyielding and spiky. Happily for the family it will have to come indoors over winter as this is not a cold-tolerant species and a few days of minus temperatures could see those lovely leaves turn brown and collapse. Nobody wants that...

As I am sure you can tell from the photos I have a lot of plants like this, and thus lots of growth sequences. We had all better hope that I see some birds soon.

Iceland - Day 2

Day 2
Last day! I awoke even earlier and was alongside the Eider colony in beautiful light that money cannot buy, once again driving slowly up and down the road. The local guardians were also up and about, I have to confess I hardly saw the point – what were they hoping to achieve? I was soon joined by Mick who had indeed arrived overnight at some point, and we swapped stories about where we had been and what we had seen. He’d also been sleeping in his car, but had arrived earlier in the week so was even more tired than I was. Although he hadn’t found the Slavs that Shaun and I had been lucky enough to get last year he had photographed almost everything else, including some Arctic Skuas at what seemed like point blank range. He didn’t seem to be feeling the love for the Eiders and Terns as I was though and before long hurried off to the Grebe. I continued with plan A, even jamming my own pale phase Arctic Skua harrowing the colony before it was seen off by the Terns. Easily the best photo of a Skua I have ever taken, little did I know however.

Over the course of a couple of hours the wind started to get up and was making it quite hard, so I quit this location and went up to my favourite toilet at Gardur, and attempted to photograph Fulmars but I could barely hold the camera straight. Some tiny and very plucky Eider ducklings were being taken for a paddle by their parents in the waters around the lighthouse, quite incredible, but they navigated the chop and currents with aplomb. I returned to the Eiders but it was clear that the photographic conditions were not very good anymore, so I too headed off to the Slavonian Grebe.

I found Mick contentedly basking by the lake, the shutter from his 1DX smoking gently…. He had a big grin on his face as I suspected he might. I gave it a go but the wind was up here now as well and the resulting images were not as pleasing as the day before so I didn’t take long. The bird also disappeared which didn’t help, and it took ages to refind – turns out it had gone to sleep in a bit of floating vegetation a bit further out. I seem to have this effect on birds! Maybe on people too…..

It was only 11am by this point and we had both been up for about 8 hours. We made plans to go to Floi, but as we approached the main road I had second thoughts? Where had Mick been the previous day for his close RT Diver and Skuas? I pulled into a layby and we had a conflab. He had been about 90 minutes north of Rekyavik, driving the same side roads that Shaun and I had been on near Borgarnes and which had been very productive in places. We had however not tried the one he had found best, and seeing as he had no objection to going back, we changed plans and the side of the road we were on. Both of us nearly crashed en route we were so tired so we had a roadside coffee at Borgarnes. Five quid might be a bit steep but if it saves your life….

Refreshed we hit the smaller roads. The first one we tried wasn’t very good, and halfway along with the light quite harsh we jacked it in for a roadside kip. With the light now better and feeling even more refreshed, we turned onto a further side road and almost immediately started taking pictures. Having two cars was really convenient, one of us could stop and the other could carry on. In this manner we arrived back at the area favoured by the pair of Arctic Skuas. I didn’t initially work out quite how good these were as I stopped my car before we got there having noticed a small group of Red-necked Phalaropes in a very narrow and sheltered ditch. I cautiously approached but I needn’t have bothered, this species is well known for happily swimming round your feet and these were no exception. I got a bit wet, but I was able to get ridiculously close and right at water level. In fact at one point I misjudged it and water ran into the lens hood – luckily it is all splash-proof and there are also gaps where the hood fixes to the barrel so it flowed out the other end, but it goes to show that having kit that is a little bit more robust can be useful in some situations. There were four birds in total, so there was a bit of fighting as well as a bit of preening, and on one occasion during the latter I got extremely lucky with a freak bit of timing.

I joined Mick a bit further up the road who was photographing a nesting RT Diver from the car. The nest was only a few feet from the road, why the bird had chosen there as the spot was a bit strange, but I suppose these country roads get almost no traffic. I was more interested in the Skuas though, a pale phase and a dark morph bird now both loitering on the track behind my car. I took a few out of the window before deciding I needed to be at ground level and getting out and lying down on the road. What an experience! The birds alternated between loafing on the road and loafing on a patch of sandy grass just to one side, and I was able to crawl very close to them indeed in both of these spots without them moving.

  

For the next few hours Mick and I alternated between these Skuas and a non-nesting pair of Divers on the adjacent lake. However when we attempted to move from the Skuas to the Divers, even if you backed out before getting up, once you got up and started to walk towards the lake and  away, the birds went into full attack mode. They made a fearsome sound as they whipped past our ears – I’m used to being bombed by Arctic Terns, and I usually just hold my camera up, or a tripod, but these birds were a totally different ball game. To cut a long story short  we had to duck, weave and run. Happy enough to let me take their photo from 20ft away if I was lying down, they continue to harry me all the way out until I was at least 80ft away. And then they were happy for me to crawl right back up to them once I was too cold to continue photographing the Divers in the dampness of the water’s edge. Now this following sequence may look a lot like another blog you have read....

By now it was nearly 10pm and the afternoon had disappeared. We agreed that neither of us needed any more Diver or Skua images for a while, and started on the drive back to the capital. Another coffee was needed but we made it by about midnight. With the owner’s permission I had a quick shower at Mick’s hotel – he had booked the last night in order to sort himself out after a week of camping, and with a flight at 10am or so this made it a bit worthwhile. I had planned to raid a campsite or use the airport, so this was much appreciated. My flight left at 6am so I didn’t see the point, and I retired to Hotel VW for the short night. Whilst I could have got another hour or so of photography in, I was completely dead at this point and just needed to go home. I remember nothing at all about the Wow Air flight home, I passed out before we even took off I think. Having only hand luggage I was through Gatwick in under 20 minutes and on a train to London. I slept on that too! I reached my desk by 11:45, changed into my suit that I had cunningly left ready in the office, and 'enjoyed' an afternoon of work. Once home I downloaded the four memory cards and had the best sleep I can remember.