Sound advice

I didn't watch this video on the Grauniad website, as it appears to be about the American presidential election, and therefore likely to be coma inducing, but the headline says it all really.

And if you choose not to follow the advice, you've only got yourself to blame if, like one recent hapless contributor to the Surfbirds Stop Press Rarity Photos Page, you find yourself paying £130 to see a Red-backed Shrike...

Just say no.

Official - celebrities to blame for cold snap

A perfect example of the ridiculous ‘blame culture’ in which we now live: on the BBC’s interactive TV news this morning was the headline ‘Cold snap blamed on Arctic air’. Really? And there was me thinking it was the fault of Jonathan Ross and Russell ‘No honestly, I’ve fucked every woman in the world even though I sound like Frank Spencer and look like Amy Winehouse with a beard’ Brand.

Obviously I was wrong. But is it really the fault of the Arctic air? Clearly not, but since the BBC is now officially the televisual wing of the Daily Mail, someone or something must be to blame! Who shall we blame for the recession? I know – Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand! Yeah – it was all their fault for earning too much and having silly hair. I say sack the fuckers!

Whatever the reason, it was certainly cold this morning, and cold weather often equals good birds. There’s probably an equation for it, but being completely useless at maths I have no idea what it might be. So I went to Rutland Water, hoping to find a diver or a seaduck or something. But the most exciting bird I saw was a Rock Pipit at the dam. Actually that is pretty exciting in Leicestershire. I wrote it down in my spotter’s book. Also at the dam were a pair of Scaup and a rather late Swallow. After that I saw nothing else apart from this friendly Stonechat at Eyebrook, and I was back home by early afternoon.


Oh dear. I seem to have got stuck in ‘tedious birding diary type wank’ mode. Don’t worry - it’ll probably wear off soon.

Glad I'm not on Shetland now

I had a text from Rob this afternoon saying that the wind had recently gusted to 93mph in Lerwick (that's pretty fucking windy), and that he was currently without electricity. However, it wasn't all doom and gloom, as he'd added Grey Phalarope and Leach's Petrel to his house list! Who needs power when you can see birds like that from your house? What did you have for tea, Rob - that Wryneck in between two pieces of dry bread? We had a lovely toad-in-the-hole, with roast potatoes, glazed carrots, peas and gravy, and for pudding... sorry, I turned into John Hague there for a moment... where was I? Oh yes, he also found a White-rumped Sand on the pool, but that wasn't new for the house.

By the way, if you haven't looked recently, the waster's finally got round to updating his blog with all his gripping tales from September... and some rather less gripping tales from October.

Another thing to be glad about is that (unlike some) I didn't go to South Wales today to look for a dodgy-sounding Little Blue Heron. No, I stayed in all day, looking out of my window in case the Merlin that 'Beast' saw at Stoughton Airfield yesterday decided to fly past. It didn't.

P.S. we had some wine as well.

Funny bird

Well it obviously wasn't a Blackburnian Warbler or a Mugimaki Flycatcher, but I'm still not sure what my auntie saw in her garden the other day. Further 'pumping' has elicited the following additional information (bear in mind that she originally said the nearest thing in the book was Pied Wagtail): it was perched on top of a hedge, then flew down into next door's garden; it was about the size of a Blackbird or slightly larger, with quite a long tail; its plumage was 'more striped than a Magpie', and the orange was 'underneath'.

If you took that description at face value, you would have to conclude that it wasn't anything on the British List, and possibly not even anything known to science. Now, the chances of my auntie finding something new to Britain in her garden are remote, and the chance of it being new to science is zero. So, unless it was an escaped cagebird, it was probably something common.

But what? Bill Oddie said in his Little Black Bird Book that "99 per cent of laymen's funny birds refer to Jays." That's always a possibility, but the Pied Wagtail bit makes me think it was more black and white than that, and I think I'm coming round to the view that Great Spotted Woodpecker is the most likely candidate.

All of which only goes to show just how hard bird identification really is, and how much most of us take it for granted that we can quickly and easily identify most of what we see.

Is it spring yet?

No, thought not, but as I'm awake now I might as well post some drivel here.

Apparently my auntie had a funny bird in her garden the other day. Nothing unusual in that, you might say; most birders' relatives have had funny birds in their gardens at one time or another. My granny reckoned she had an American Robin in her garden in Rugby once! However, this particular auntie lives in Paignton, south Devon, so it might possibly have been something out of the ordinary.

"The nearest bird in the book was a Pied Wagtail, [so presumably it was basically black and white] but it had a flash of bright orange on it when it flew off."

I know that's a very brief description (and pretty typical for a non-birder) but what the fuck was that?!!

Answers on a postcard please, or if you're not still living in the 19th century, via comments in the usual way.

And anyone who lives near Paignton might want to go and have a nose around Swincombe Drive just in case it was a Blackburnian Warbler. Or a Mugimaki Flycatcher.

Home

Had Rob been at home this morning, he would have had a third house tick found by me, but as he wasn't, he didn't. Does that make sense? It's been a long day. Anyway, there was a Great Grey Shrike in the Virkie Willows first thing this morning, but it had flown off towards Scatness by the time Rob got there. The reason for his delay was that he'd relocated yesterday's Coal Tit in Toab, and was helping the assembled masses to look for it.

However, he did have one house tick today - there was a Goosander on the Pool just after I left. I looked for it out of the plane window when we took off, but I couldn't see it.

When I got in to Birmingham airport this evening I switched my phone on to find a message from Rob saying that he'd caught up with the Long-tailed Tit at Sumburgh Hotel today as well - photos on the Shetland website.

I'm going to hibernate now - next post will probably be in the spring...

Two tit dip day

With one or two obvious exceptions (which I won't go into), tits are rare in Shetland, so it was a surprise to hear of a Long-tailed Tit at the lighthouse this morning. It was only about the 5th Shetland record, so despite the fact that I see them in my garden every day we went to have look for it. Unfortunately it was only seen by the finder, and then promptly disappeared.

Amazingly, Rob found a Coal Tit later in the day, probably only the 5th record for Mainland Shetland, although there have been a few on other islands (about 15 records in total). As you'll have guessed from the title of today's post, I didn't manage to see that either.

However, before all this, almost the first bird I saw when I left the house this morning was this Long-eared Owl in the Virkie Willows. It was very approachable, but difficult to photograph as there were so many branches in the way. Mark (visible at the bottom left of the second image) got some better ones.

Definitely drinking in the Last Chance Saloon, Mark and I went to Levenwick this afternoon, where this stunning adult male Red-breasted Flycatcher jumped out in front of us. Only 'scarce' maybe, but a cracking little bird, and only the second one I've ever seen that actually had a red breast.

The rest of the day was spent not seeing tits and generally farting around in the south, but we didn't see anything else of note.

So that's it for another year - we saw a few common migrants, a handful of scarce and not a single BB rarity. Unless I see anything else tomorrow morning, my holiday list finished on 96, 12 down on last year. All that's left to do now is pack and get on the plane tomorrow morning, leaving Rob to a Shetland winter of alcoholism, Long-tailed Ducks and vitamin deficiency now that Mark won't be here to cook for him.