MY dAY aT ThE BiRD ZoO

I was originally going to write this in the style of a small child, but Blogger doesn't give Comic Sans as an option which took most of the fun out of it.

For my birthday last year my girlfriend's parents bought me a Bird of Prey experience at the English School of Falconry, which was a rather cool present. Naturally I booked my day for March time thinking it would be Spring. Silly me.  Still, a day outdoors is a day outdoors.

Gilly, the Peregrine Falcon. Want one.

I opted for the 'bows and birds' split package which, in hindsight, was a mistake. My reasoning was that, as a birdwatcher, I string see loads of some a few of birds of prey in the wild and that 3 hours of holding them might get a bit repetitive. Turns out archery without finger and wrist guards in the freezing wind gets unappealing very quickly. Also, an hour and a half holding and flying raptors feels like 20 minutes.

I started to hate myself about halfway through editing this, but once I came up with the name
'REOwl Speedwagon' I couldn't stop myself. I'm sorry. 

If nothing else though, the day confirmed what I already knew. I bloody love Kestrels. They had a Juvenile called Morgan who still hadn't come into his/her full plumage and it was extremely cute. So delicate compared to the big fat owl. 

Morgan, the Kestrel. Want one.

This can only end with me building an aviary.

How to make friends and influence people

Tell me, dear reader, what you would do in this situation.

Imagine, if you will, that you are walking down the canalside for your lunchtime stroll when you spot someone walking toward you. This person is wearing a shirt, black trousers and shoes and is probably an office worker in the local area. You'd normally pass them without a second glance but, in this case, the person in question is eating a six inch wrap from a paper bag with every sign of enjoyment while some kind of white sauce drips out the bottom all over his coat, his black trousers and his shoes. He seems oblivious.

Do you:

a) Stop him and let him know that he is dripping dodgy looking white stuff all over his office clothes.
b) Just let him go about his merry way, perhaps giving him a slightly odd look as you pass

Apparently the residents of Islington favour option B. I must have looked, to use the vernacular, right fucking special; walking down Regents canal holding a large paper bag and covered in tahini. I think I got the worst of it off, and the people in my office are used to me being a scruff so probably no damage done, but it was a bit embarassing.

Anyway, on the way back I saw a Grey Heron on a narrow boat. Score.

Kicking off 2013

Since I was both gigging and driving on New Year's Eve, I had the unique experience of being stone cold sober and not at all hungover on New Year's morning. However, having got to bed at 4am, morning birding didn't happen. In the end good intentions went out the window and the day's birdwatching ended up being an hour or two round Rainham Marshes. Or as it turned out, Rainham Lake.

In another turn up for the books, girlfriend actually turned out to be better equipped than me since she was wearing wellies and could wade through everything with impunity, while I had to climb along fence railings and and make stupid daring jumps to get round to the Butts hide. With so much water on the reserve the waders were packed into a pleasingly small space within easy scoping distance, but I still didn't pick up anything more than Golden Plover and Lapwing. Still, I got most of the more common wildfowl and some of the easy passerines (and one Wren).

All in all I walked out with 26 on the year list, having not really tried very hard (in my defence the wind was biting and cold and, while she's normally very good about the birdwatching, if I'd stopped every hundred yards to scope up gulls I might not have survived to the finish).

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Today I upped that total to 28 though, unfortunately, for the Feral Pigeon tick this involved looking out of the window and seeing two of the standard London stock humping on the roof of the building next to mine. I don't recommend; I will now be unable to unsee that until next year. Such is London birding.

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I'm going to start keeping a count for this year, though with buying a flat next month I'm not expecting much time in the first quarter of the year. Let's say I'm keeping a list, but not listing.

If the weather carries on like this, birdwatching may require all of us to also take up swimming.

I think Rainham are missing a trick not hiring out volunteers in gondolas

to carry you round the reserve at the moment.

Rattus norvegicus

Disappointingly I haven't been inundated with Kingfishers since picking up Regents Canal as a patch, but I have been getting some mammal action.

If you don't want to see a video of a rat climbing a tree, you have come to the wrong blog and should leave now.



I'd also like to add a big "fuck you" to the folks at AVS video editor for only telling me that a watermark would be added after I'd done all the hard work of creating the video, and for placing it right in the fucking middle. I will be deleting your software as soon as this is uploaded.

The rather awesome rag style version of the Star Wars cantina music is by Jackson.F.Smith. The track is licenced under Creative Commons and can be found here.

Yeah, it's been quiet.

Ich bin ein Berliner

Like Kennedy, I do not consider myself personally to be a jam doughnut, but I do feel a certain solidarity with the citizens of that great city. This is because since Wednesday this week I have been mostly walking round Berlin in sub-zero temperatures and making abortive attempts to order bakery products in German, under the sympathetic eyes of shop staff.

There will be some birds, but first a few words about Berlin. It is a fantastic city, and we didn't get round anywhere near all of it. I reckon you could probably manage with no German at all in most places. In particular I'd like plug Insider Famous Walk tour which cost a mere 9 Euros, lasted 5 hours and felt like half that time, even at -2C all the way round. Very interesting, very worthwhile. Go there, be cultural. You won't regret it.

Birdwise Berlin is less spectacular, but since we walked everywhere we were able to find ourselves a regular Grey Heron which fished the bridge opposite the Hauptbanhof and Reichstag. I was also a bit surprised (which shows how much research I did) to find that Hooded Crow was the local corvid alongside the ubiquitous Magpies.

Hooded crow doing 'bigger than you'.

Since I only saw my first one of these up in Scotland earlier this year from the window of a moving car, it was rather cool to get a closer look and not worry about the tick.

Most encouraging were the House Sparrows. They may be dying back in London, but in Berlin they're like Pigeons - dozens of them underfoot at every city square hopping round the tables and mopping up crumbs. The only place I've seen anything like it is Tower Bridge, and if anything these were more tame.

And did I mention the beer? Excellent beer. I mean really excellent beer.

New patch, Rainham frogs' legs and stupid balloons

Bit of a catchup post - beware the overload of photos.

First up, work have moved me to Islington for the forseeable, so the bad news is that this is no longer my local work patch.

Would you believe after 3 years working here I don't actually have a photo of Tower Bridge? This was nabbed from the Flickr stream of jrawle.

The better news is that this is.

Right next to the eastern entrance of Regents canal. Lots of canal, lots of potential - just staring at that photo I can almost see the Garganey Kingfisher Coots. Beautiful.

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Today was booked out for twitching that Wheatear, but since there's been no news I decided on a consolation trip to Rainham, which has been turning up some good winter regulars over the last couple of weeks. It was also the first time I've taken the girlfriend out 'proper' birding with scope and DSLR. She's long been aware of the geekiness, but has only experienced it so far in diluted form. What I needed was for some kind of charismatic bird to put on a show...

First up - Wigeon. Who doesn't love Wigeon? Cuteness overload.

Had a bit more fun scoping up birds I usually ignore, like Lapwing and Grey Heron, and managed to pick up a distant Black Tailed Godwit when the Lapwing flock went up in a panic.

Star of the show today though was... *drum roll*

Lots of Kestrel love at this point, but it got better. The bird went into a stoop and came up with a frog. It then landed on a pylon and proceeded to eat the frog in front of a large crowd of sadistic birdwatchers.

If you look closely at the second photo you can just about see the feet disappearing.

A short wander round the path and another group of birders was staring at a patch of field about 20 yards away. "We think it's a raptor of some kind, but we're not sure what."

For once, rather than asking the questions, I was able to put them straight and let them know that they were looking at another stunningly showy female Kestrel. We watched for at least 5 minutes and it hadn't moved. Very odd behaviour for a Kestrel, but perfect for photography.

Other birds which resisted photography were a Snipe from the Butts hide and a very flighty but perfectly marked pair of Stonechats.

The non-bird sightings were topped by a Marsh Frog sat in the open on the path.

It's been too long since I took the camera out. I hope you appreciate the restraint I've shown in narrowing down to a mere seven from today's trip.

The downer for today? DON'T RELEASE YOUR BALLOONS. This one will be picked up, most of them just end up littering.

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I miss blogging. I need to do this more often.

In which I am reminded how boring twitching can be

I don't twitch as a rule, but when something turns up just down the road I'm willing to make an exception.

And so I found myself at Rainham Marshes today staring intently at this patch of mud, twitching occasional Marsh Frogs:

I think you'll agree it's just as exciting up close.

The Crake was seen for about 2 seconds going left across that spot about 15 minutes after I arrived, and before I'd zeroed in on this patch, so I missed it. In the next hour and a half I saw:

• Baby Little Grebes
• Coots
• Mud
• An adult Little Grebe making a spirited attempt to drown a juvenile
• Coots
• A Marsh Frog
• Mud
• A Grass Snake swimming across the stream (which was actually quite cool)
• Coots
• Mud
• Baillon's Crake

It was about a 3 second view as it passed across the scope, but it was clear and well earned so I'm having it.

If the gentleman in the hide somehow spotting everything interesting is reading, you have my genuine thanks for sharing so promptly and quietly. Particularly for the Crake (obviously) and the Grass Snake. No drama, no 'look how good I am', just quiet professionalism. I like that.

My advice - bite the bullet, get out of bed and go first thing in the morning. Stare at that patch of mud long enough and it's guaranteed any time of day, but it sounds like the morning showings have been the best by far.