mostlybirdingwithray

Spanish Map Mystery....

2012-02-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

I bought this map of Spain a while ago in a junk shop.... and recently I had a look at it....remember you can enlarge these images by clicking on them....

Well, a little bit more interesting is these labelled spots on the map.... I wonder what they could be about....

and there are a few more labels further north.... all very mysterious...

But the REALLY interesting this is this set of birdfinding notes sellotaped onto the bottom of the map linking to the locations.... AND it is addressed to a person named GUY, and even oddlier still, it was written by someone called RAY.

So who were these two planning a Spanish birding trip? Could the Guy have been Guy Mountford? The "Ray" certainly wasn't me... I've only been to Lithuania. Whatever and whoever it was, the map was published in 1986 so it must be later than that. Any ideas?? It would be fascinating to know.

Maybe this Spanish lot saw them... it's ages since we've featured the magnificent Cola Jet Set....

Celebrity Big Garden Birdwatch part 1.....

2012-02-01T09:18:00.000-08:00

That Harry Redknapp eh!

Tries to get off a charge of tax evasion and suchlike by claimimg he is virtually illiterate and writes like a 2-year-old.

Well, I doubted all that hogwash ...but the other day a brown envelope arrived at Ray Towers, and inside was this.....

Amazingly, this seems to be a leaked copy of Harry Redknapp's Big Garden Birdwatch results!!

It's good stuff... you can click on it a couple of times , to get a much closer look.
Here's some more detailed snaps of selected portions...

Here's a lovely bit of music and a great video... it's Zahara and Pregúntale al polvo

ain't that smashing?

Varied-nosed Tripelet.....

2012-01-30T06:01:00.000-08:00

Strange incident in Programmer's Wood !

Here's an exciting story, in which all the names, places and bird species have been changed to avoid embarrassment... and I really mean ALL the names,places and bird species.

The Librarian and me ( OK, one of those is real) were walking through Programmer's Wood when a little ahead of us we saw a birdwatcher watching what was, presumably, a bird.
Indeed it was. "X" told us that there was a rare bird to be seen ,and that it was a Varied-nosed Tripelet.

I had a look, and saw that in fact it was the much less rare, in fact, dead common Flat-eared Dobbin.

However, being a polite soul, I said nothing, but carried on along our allotted path.

[ Yes, I know, you can't believe that a noisy bighead like me didn't say anything, but what do you say? ]

Anyhow, a while later we returned and X was still there, talking on that gadget called a mobile phone about the Varied-nosed Tripelet in Programmer's Wood.

Oh dear, I thought, before you know it there will be 88000 of those twitcher-folk turning up to see a not a rare bird at all but a measly, useless Flat-eared Dobbin.

So I had to say something to avert this impending fiasco.

Scanning thoughtfully, I remarked that ,in my opinion, it could actually be a Flat-eared Dobbin, but admitting that it was a really odd-looking bird and really really easy to mistake for the Varied-nosed Tripelet.

However, X insisted that it was most definitely a Tripelet, and that a "gentleman with proper binoculars" had come along and confirmed that it was not only a Tripelet but an actual Varied-nosed Tripelet to boot. This gentleman with proper binoculars had seen lots of Tripelets in Patagonia, X said.

In spite of this vicious assault on my equipment, I remained calm.

" Look, I said, it is definitely a Flat-eared Dobbin."

I didn't think I could put it much more bluntly than that, in the peace and serenity of Programmer's Wood.

So I took the Librarian by the hand and carried on with my non-proper binoculars and shameful lack of Patagonian experience.

X carried on mobiling or whatever it is called.

So, dear readers, what SHOULD I have done in this situation?

In the meantime, back to normality with a spot of music....

This is MULTIPASS with a lovely video and song about snow.... and it features lots of beautiful images, some involving birds.
in case of any sniggering in the back row, "shagem" comes from the Russian root word "shag" = a step or pace..... and not what you are thinking.

2012-01-23T11:40:00.001-08:00

HUZZAH!!!! The might new improved BROADBAND is back.

So just to celebrate..... here's a terrific rainbow over the Aldcliffe Flood this [23rd January] morning....

What about that Mr. Carter!

But now a new feature based on ripping off bits of Autumnwatch and Stargazing Live, adding water, mixing them up into a thick paste, and moulding them into the shape of a mathematician/physicist/scientist/boffin/egghead sort of thing.... here he is...

His name is Prof Treska and he has agreed to answer your bird-related astrophysics questions.

SO... get thinking, and get sending them in.

SHORT PAUSE......

Stap me if a question hasn't turned up, from our old friend RAMJET PRESH!

Prof Treska.... here's one for you. Ever since that Dr. Pontzen on Skywatching Live told the waiting world that the solar system or the universe, or something, was going to come to a sticky end after a few billion years, I have been wondering why I bother to rush around listing rare birds at all. It's all pointless, isn't it?

Prof Treska replies ...

Thankyou for my first question on this illustrious blog. I tend to go to Voltaire on this one, and assert that, in the face of a universe which we have no control over, and seems impenetrably mysterious and hostile, we can only "cultivate our own gardens."
So, Mr, Presh, list if you like, or chase after unsuitable women, or play table tennis, or collect photographs of buses. Or don't ! It will all come to the same in the end.

Here is a photograph of an unsuitable woman,and a bus, just for imformation...

If you have any swaps in your collection, let me know.

Right... more from Prof Treska later, but it is music time, and it's THE CHAMELEONS... a band me and the Librarion were very keen on as spritely young things.. this is them with... Up the Down Escalator. In my mind they're all linked up with Half Man Half Biscuit, The Sound, The Cure..... all right, all right, here they are...

Tup stuff... but a word of advice... don't actually try going up the down escalator, or in fact down the up escalator.

2012... the BIG QUIZ !!

2012-01-01T08:42:00.001-08:00

[NOTE.... ray is currently changing internet providers... depending on how this goes etc, there might be a bit of a gap until the next post. Just twiddle your thumbs or something.]

Yes readers, here is the traditional January 1st NEW YEAR QUIZ.....

[1] HORSE or BIRD. Yep, all you have to do is decide whether each of these is a racehorse or a bird. Before you complain, let me tell you that "moth or Horse" is much much harder.... so think yourselves fortunate...

[a] Tigerbill
[b] Sweet Mirasol
[c] Kylenoe Fairy
[d] Inca Blue
[e] Ghostwing
[f] Mollyow
[g] Alabanda
[h] Karrical
[i] Little Eaglet.

[2] Talking of birds, each of these phrases ( well, almost phrases) is an anagram of 3 common British birds....

[a] Joinery brawn
[b] Weird feet , tails.
[c] Unthatched petrel krisp.

[3] Now it's the traditional ID quiz.... let's get going!!

[4] Birders in the news.....

In 2011 there appeared in a well-known local paper a picture of two-thirds of a well-known local birder. Who was this fractional person ?

[5] Like the Higgs Boson, but not actually the Higgs Boson.

[a] A particular sort of hide cannot be found at Leighton Moss, despite its potential undoubted popularity. What is it? For a bonus point, can anyone remember what allegedly happens when these hides are installed ?

[b] A popular and widely-advertised bird seems strangely absent from a certain local bird reserve during the summer months. What could it be?

[c] A popular summer migrant is strangely not being encouraged to stay on and nest at a certain popular local bird reserve. What could it be?

[d] The control lever which governs the water levels at a certain local popular bird reserve seems to have gone missing. Cynical people have remarked that some people might prefer the reserve to become a huge duck pond rather than a nice expanse of mud for spring and autumn migrants. Does anyone know where the control lever is?

[e] There is a widespread rumour that a two important photographs have gone missing from the BBC archives. These photographs have a huge rarity value and may have been stolen. Maybe they never even existed. So... look out for these two snaps...
[1] A photo of Kate Humble with her her head upright and not tilted over.
[2] A photo of Michaela Strachan without a stupid grin all over her hamster face.

MUSIC TIME... OK, this is a bit noisy at the start, but it's a brilliant song... it's Вместо Жизни by Блондинка КсЮ ... lovely ringing arpeggios, light and shade, emotion, anthemic... plus it's about Kurt Cobain....and it's got a superb Juchzer or two...perfect...

Одна

2011-12-25T10:36:00.001-08:00

To get us started... remember a little while ago I showed you a few pages of my current notebook... well, here's some from 2005, in an Alwych notebook....the music , by the way, is Kate Bush... Aerial.....

and here is a short video of some pinkfeet flying low over Conder Green.....

and now for something completely different.... I was going to write some more about birds in the bible... you might recall the bit I wrote a while ago about the Bittern and ( I think) the Vulture which was quite illuminating. However. whilst researching it all I found this from the pen of Dr. Joe Temple, which goes way beyond anything I could write... so.... here we go, Dr. Joe, the floor is yours....

Introduction
Sparrow

Bird watchers are usually presented as people who don't have it all quite together and can't do anything other than what they are doing. In the light of that statement, I wonder how many of you would be willing to say that you are bird watchers since you are supposed to be a little bit different if you bird watch?

I am going to suggest that we learn about scriptural bird watching. Four years ago the Lord gave me a verse to rest on when I needed some special strengthening from Him. That verse was Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 31:
Isaiah 40
31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

After He gave me that verse and I began to study what the Scriptures had to say about eagles, my appetite was whetted to see what the Bible had to say about birds. I was amazed at the number of men in the Bible who were bird watchers. The thing that amazed me as I examined this in the Word of God is the number of times birds are mentioned, not as factual information, but presented to us in the Word of God on the basis of lessons that these individuals learned from their bird watching.

For example, the eagle is mentioned twenty-eight times in the Bible. Twenty-six of those times, it is mentioned as teaching some lesson. To me, that is significant, and that is the reason I think we should do some bird watching.

To encourage you to do some bird watching in the Scripture, let me remind you that Job said we ought to do it. Turn in your Bibles to the book of Job, chapter 12. As you turn to that portion of the Word of God, you will keep in mind that Job had three friends who really loved him, but he felt that they knew more about his situation than he did himself. When I read the book of Job, I am impressed with the fact that Job's friends were much harder to endure than his boils. His friends were much harder to endure than his suffering because they thought they had the solution to his problem, and he had to listen to them spout off when he knew very well that they didn't know what they were talking about.

Job answered one of his friends in chapter 12, and I have always appreciated the contempt or the disgust that was in these words:
Job 12
2 No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.

That was about the most withering thing I think he could say after his friends produced the eloquent speeches they presented. In verse 3, Job says:
Job 12
3 But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
4 I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.
5 He that is ready to slip with his feet is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.
6 The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure; into whose hand God bringeth abundantly.

All of these men are wise in their own conceit is what Job is saying, and then he said:
Job 12
7 But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:
8 Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.
9 Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?

The chapter goes on to say what you will be taught if you observe these creatures of nature; namely, God is in control of everything. He knows what is going on.

Reason for Spiritual Bird Watching

For the purposes of our discussion, the reason we can do some scriptural bird watching, glance again at the last part of verse 7:
Job 12
7 …and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee:

The word tell here is a translation of a Hebrew word that involves the idea of an explanation by way of illustration. He is saying, “Study the birds. They can tell you a lot of things that you can't be told any other way,” obviously spiritual lessons in the light of how the Word of God deals with birds.

Job, in the Old Testament, said that we ought to be bird watchers. The Lord Jesus Christ, in the New Testament, said that we ought to be bird watchers. Turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, and notice a portion of the Word that I am sure you have noticed many, many times; you probably have quoted a portion of the paragraph at some time or other, but in doing so, missed the real suggestion that the Lord made. I know I did. For any number of years, I have quoted some portion of this paragraph and yet have missed how the paragraph opened. Notice, Matthew, chapter 6, verse 26:
Matthew 6
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

The rest of the paragraph is what we usually think about, but I would like for us to zero in on the statement of the Lord Jesus Christ: “Behold the fowls of the air.” This word behold is from a Greek word that speaks of doing more than taking a passing glance. It involves the idea of studying the fowls of the air.

Because men in the Word of God were bird watchers, we wrote down a number of lessons just in relation to fowls or birds in general, and I would like for us to notice a few of those general lessons. Turn to Psalm 11, and as we look at these passages of Scripture, let me emphasize what I have suggested any number of times when I am teaching the Word—that I believe you need to learn to read the Word of God with what I call a sanctified imagination . You need to be able to look behind the word and see actually what was said.

The Lord is In Charge

Notice what David said in Psalm 11:
Psalm 11
1 In the LORD put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?
2 For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.

What is David talking about? He said, “One day I was out watching the birds. I saw some men with their bows and their arrows aimed at a little bird, and that little bird flew away to the mountain and escaped being killed by the archers.”

No, it is not there just like I said it, but it is there if you read the words with a sanctified imagination. What lesson did David give us from that? You don't need to flee like a helpless little bird to a mountain retreat to escape the arrow of the enemy because you have the Lord. “Don't tell me to flee like the little bird to the mountain. I have put my trust in the Lord. True, people are shooting at me and making it difficult for me, but even if the foundations of the earth are destroyed, the Lord is in His holy temple. He is still in charge of things. I don't have to run.”

Turn, please, to Psalm 124, and these are just a few of the illustrations that David has recorded in the Word concerning his bird watching experiences. In Psalm 124, you will notice he is talking about the difficult times he had with his enemies. The Psalm begins:
Psalm 124
1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, now may Israel say;
2 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us:
3 Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us:
4 Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul:
5 Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.
6 Blessed be the LORD, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.

Then he remembered one time when he was watching the birds and he saw a bird caught in a snare. He watched that bird flutter around, trying to get loose from the snare, and he realized the bird was not going to get loose, so he went and let the bird out of the snare and then he broke the snare. As he thought back on that experience, he said, “You know, that is exactly what has happened in our lives.” Look at verse 7:
Psalm 124
7 Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.

Nobody could like that if they had not seen a bird ensnared, helpless, fluttering, trying to get loose and then released, soaring off up into the sky; and because he was a lover of birds and it was unfair to snare them, he broke the snare. He said, “You know, that is what has happened to us.”

Do you realize that is what has happened to every one of us who has been redeemed? Every one of us who has found Jesus Christ as our Savior has escaped from the snare of the fowler. To me, the wonderful thing about it is that the snare is broken. I am glad that the Scriptures say that sin shall not have dominion over us. Of course, if you know the Word, you know that that is not teaching us that you will never sin after you are born again; but it does teach you that the snare is broken. You do not have to be a slave to sin. You do not have to let Satan direct your life.

It would be a sad thing, indeed, if we had escaped only to fall prey to the enemy again. I am grateful that the Word of God teaches us that the wicked one cannot touch us because He Who is begotten of God keeps us. The One Who is begotten of God is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Solomon's Observation

David must have passed on to his son his interest in bird watching, because he did it, too. If you will turn to Proverbs, chapter 27, you will notice an observation that Solomon made concerning lessons he had learned in relation to bird watching. Notice verse 8:
Proverbs 27
8 As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.

You will want to compare that with what you find in Isaiah, chapter 16. The best way to understand the Word of God is to compare Scripture with Scripture, and in Isaiah, chapter 16, the prophet is speaking of the trouble that is going to come upon Moab because she dared to oppose the people of God. He said in Isaiah, chapter 16, verse 2:
Isaiah 16
2 For it shall be, that, as a wandering bird…

You see, Solomon saw a wandering bird. Isaiah saw a wandering bird. The reason that I wanted you to turn to this passage of Scripture is that Isaiah tells us why that bird was wandering: “…a wandering bird cast out of the nest.” Literally, it was a wandering bird which had fallen out of the nest. There is nothing quite so helpless as a little bird that has fallen out of the nest. Perhaps the mother bird knew nothing about it, and there it was, on the ground, absolutely helpless.

One day Solomon was thinking about men who did not keep their place, about men who did not remember their high and their holy calling, and he said, “Do you know what that reminds me of? A little bird that has fallen out of its nest and is absolutely helpless.” When he saw the bird that had fallen out of its nest and was helpless, he was reminded of men who forget God and leave the place that God has given them and are wandering helplessly about.

The Speckled Bird

Turn with me, please, to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 12, and notice another man. We have notice several of them, but even this is only a sampling, actually. We see several of them who were bird watchers and profited from their watching of birds and wrote down the lessons that they learned. In Jeremiah, chapter 12, verse 9:
Jeremiah 12
9 Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour.

We don't have time for an exposition of this chapter, but put very briefly, the nation of Israel had been in such constant disobedience to God that the enemies all around were turned against them at the hand of God. “Mine heritage” here refers to the nation of Israel. This is God speaking. God says: “Mine heritage is as a speckled bird.”

Jeremiah had been bird watching, and he noticed how often when a speckled bird was hatched and eventually the feathers came so they knew that it was a speckled bird, all the other birds in the nest, even the mother, refused to accept it. They all pounced upon that bird from every corner and pecked it to death. Jeremiah says that is the way the nation of Israel is. Because of Israel's disobedience and willfulness, God has permitted all the nations of the world to come and peck at her as a speckled bird.

Let's take that out of the national level and put it down to a personal level and let me ask you, “Has there been a time in your life when you felt like a speckled bird, and you felt like everything and everyone was against you? Have you felt like nobody cared anything about you, when you felt like every turn that you made there was someone there to oppose you? That is a speckled bird, and God is interested in speckled birds.”

Do you know what God said in the book of Deuteronomy? He said that if you were walking down the road and you saw a bird's nest, you shouldn't disturb it. If you need to plow around it, plow around it, but don't disturb it. Why do you suppose He said that? Because He is interested in birds and because if He is interested in birds, He is interested in you.

The Sparrow and the Swallow

I would like for us to think specifically about a particular kind of bird. I want us to think about the sparrow and the swallow. The reason that I am putting these two together is that the Scripture often combines them and Scripture often uses the two words interchangeably.

The sparrow is not the sparrow that we know about, though it could be included in that. The Hebrew word for sparrow simply means “a very small bird.” That is the main thrust of this particular lesson in bird watching. We are going to talk about those small birds and the lessons that can be learned from them.

Let me begin by saying that the sparrow, the kind in the Word of God, is a lonely bird. You never see the sparrow in groups; you see him alone. One day David noticed that. Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 102. David is speaking here about the difficult situation in which he was. He began the Psalm by saying:
Psalm 102
1 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee.
2 Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble…

The Sparrow is Lonely

That indicates the theme of the Psalm. David was in trouble, and he felt like even God had turned His back on him. He felt utterly alone. In verse 7, he said:
Psalm 102
7 I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.

How often had he seen a lonely sparrow sitting on the top of the house and had said to himself, “My what a lonely looking bird that is.” Then he had this deep, spiritual exercise of soul when he felt utterly alone, and he said, “I am like that sparrow—alone on the house top.”

Have you ever been lonely? Notice what I say: Have you ever been lonely—not alone, but lonely? You know, you can be in the midst of a whole crowd of people and be lonely because you can be impressed with the fact that nobody really cares about you; nobody is really interested in you, and you are alone. Some of us have been, in the wisdom of God, called upon to live alone. I have been living alone for four years. My wife went to be with the Lord four years ago, in the wisdom of God, because God never makes a mistake. I know what David is talking about here when he said, “I feel like a sparrow alone upon a house top.” Not because I am not around people all of the time. I am doing this sort of thing all of the time. I am around people, and I love to be around people; but there is a loneliness that some people are called upon to go through that makes you think about this sparrow upon the house top, and I have felt that way many, many times.

We must recognize that sometimes when we feel alone, we don't need to. Turn in your Bibles to Romans, chapter 11. Sometimes we feel like that sparrow—alone upon the house top because we are more interested in ourselves and in our own sorrows than we are in fact. In chapter 11 of the book of Romans, Paul is emphasizing the fact that God is not through with the nation of Israel, that He still has another plan; but he says, “Sometimes you people feel that way.” Notice in verse 2:
Romans 11
2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias [that is Elijah] ? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying,
3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.

Sometimes, because we are lopsided in our view of things, we can feel that we are alone, that nobody else is interested in the things of God or living for Him. Of course, you know the rest of the story. Look at verse 4:
Romans 11
4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.

Let's recognize that it is possible for us to feel like we are alone when we are not; but having stated that and eliminated that possibility, let me remind you of a passage of Scripture found in Hebrews, chapter 13. Just as certainly as I am sharing the Word of God with you at this moment, I can say that there will come a time in your life when you will be like a sparrow—alone upon the house top. This is not to discourage any one and it is not to frighten anyone; it is simply to prepare you for that time that is going to come, because it will come. You do not need to become pessimistic like Elijah and say, “I would rather die than live.” Rather, as Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 5, says, “Let your life be without covetousness.”

Covetousness is usually related to money and things, but in the light of the text that is before us, I think it is referring here to a life situation that you would like to be different. You covet what some other person has as far as life situations are concerned. Notice the verse again:
Hebrews 13
5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

If he had been talking about the accumulation of goods, it seems to me it would have been better for the Scripture to have read, “…for he hath said I will supply all of your needs,” but that isn't what it says, is it? It says, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Notice verse 6:
Hebrews 13
6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

If God has permitted you to be in a situation that is comparable to that sparrow alone on the house top, don't complain; rest on the Word of God. Sometimes when you have time, read verse 6 in the original text and notice grammatically how the emphasis is placed. We do not have time to go into it in detail, but let me paraphrase it for you rather roughly. It reads, “I will never, never, never leave you nor let you down.” Did you ever have someone let you down, somebody you trusted, somebody that you counted on? I think that we have all had an experience similar to that, and God has said in the Word of God, “You can count on Me. I am never going to let you down.”

The Sparrow is Wise

Let me suggest something else to you about the sparrow. The sparrow is not only a lonely bird, but the sparrow is a wise bird. Turn, please, to Psalm 84. In this Psalm, David is describing his longing to be with the people of God. At the particular time that he wrote this, he was a wanderer; he was a fugitive. He was not able to be in a place where he could have fellowship with God or other people, and he wrote Psalm 84. Notice verse 1:
Psalm 84
1 How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.

Have you ever felt that way for fellowship with the Lord? That is what it meant to David. Then, he remembered one of his bird watching experiences. He remembered how, at one time when he was in the house of God, he looked up toward the altar and he noticed some movement. When he looked closer, he found a sparrow building her nest, so he wrote in verse 3:
Psalm 84
3 Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.

He said, “I wish I could be like that sparrow. I wish I could be like that swallow that is able to build its nest at the very altar of God.”

What David is saying here is, “Can you think of anything better than to have your home in the altar of God in the sanctuary?”

Here is something, because I am always so vitally interested in the family, that I cannot pass over. Did you notice this swallow chose the altar of God to build a nest for her family? She could have chosen any place to build a nest, but she chose the altar of God.

Build Your Nest In the Sanctuary

I believe that things are put here for application and for instructions, so I am going to suggest to you if you want your family to be all that God wants it to be, build your nest, figuratively speaking, at the altar. Build your nest in the sanctuary because in the sanctuary is the answer to every question that you have. Surely you understand that I am not talking about a church building. Surely you understand that I am talking about your fellowship with God.

Let's go back to Psalm 77 for just a moment to see why I say that the sparrow is such a wise bird. In Psalm 77, we have the story of Asaph. Asaph is very much like us. He was in trouble, and he describes his trouble. He couldn't sleep at night because of his trouble, and when he thought about God, he didn't get any comfort; he felt more miserable. He reached the place where he said, in verse 7:
Psalm 77
7 Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?
8 Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?

I hope you haven't had to go through experiences like this, but if you live very long and live very deep, you will. There is nothing wrong with you when you go through that phase of your life, when you wonder if God has forgotten to be gracious. That is what Asaph was saying. If you haven't reached a place like that, you just haven't been tried enough. When you are tried enough, you will say, “I wonder if God has forgotten to be gracious.”

He answers his own question in verse 10:
Psalm 77
10 And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
11 I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.
12 I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.

He is saying, “No, of course God has not forgotten to be gracious. God hasn't passed off forevermore. That is my weakness. That is my lack of faith. I will remember all of these answers to prayer that I have had in times past.” Then notice verse 13. This is the reason for my drawing your attention to this passage of Scripture:
Psalm 77
13 Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary…

It is when you are in unbroken communion with Him that you understand His ways. Did you notice what he said? As soon as he said, “Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary,” he said, “…who is a great God like unto Thee?” A little bit before he thought God didn't care; now he says, “God is great. God is good.” Where did he learn that? The same place the sparrow built her nest. It might be wise to learn a lesson from the sparrow.

A Sparrow is Valuable

One last thing about the sparrow. The sparrow is a valuable bird. As I make that statement, you have every right to question it. A valuable bird, yes, but [listen closely] not to man, but to God. Turn, please, to Matthew, chapter 10, and notice what the Lord Jesus Christ has to say about sparrows. I am sure the Lord Jesus Christ did bird watching out in the open, but this particular incident that He records is in the temple. As He went into the temple one day, He saw a whole pile of sparrows (keep in mind we are talking about a small bird. It could have been turtledoves, pigeons, or whatever) with their legs tied together, and they were being sold for a sacrifice in the temple. As He looked at those sparrows, He said, in verse 29: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?” That was the least expensive offering that anybody could make.

If we were to stop there, we would say what we ordinarily say, “What is a sparrow? They are not worth anything at all,” but the Lord Jesus Christ said, in the last part of verse 29:
Matthew 10
29 …and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

That is how valuable they are. Not one sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing about it.

What do you think when you see a dead sparrow? Do you just kick it out of the way and go on? That would be a fairly normal reaction, but evidently when the Lord Jesus Christ saw the sparrow, He said, “My Father knows about that sparrow, and My Father cares about it.” Then notice what He says:
Matthew 10
30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

A sparrow is so important to God that it doesn't fall to the ground without God's knowing about it, and you are of more value than many sparrows.

Go back to Matthew, chapter 6. We glanced at it a bit earlier, and we suggested to you that the Lord Jesus Christ suggested that we do some bird watching in the sense that in verse 26, He said:
Matthew 6
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

The word fowls here is the Greek word for “sparrow.” Notice verse 27:
Matthew 6
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more [notice the emphasis there] clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought [no anxious thought] , saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought [no anxious thought] for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

The next time that you see a sparrow, remember God is interested in that sparrow. An eloquent preacher said one time that there is never a sparrow dies but that God goes to its funeral. I am not that eloquent, so I don't usually talk like that, but it impressed me—not a sparrow dies, but that God goes to its funeral.

God is interested in you. The next time you see a sparrow, remember God cares about you so much more than about that sparrow.

Thanks to Dr. Joe Temple for that, from his livingbiblestudies blog.

I hope you agree that this all chimes in very well with the time of year.

Now, what about a bit of foreign music ? Well ,here's Дакота with Одна ... ostensibly a catchy pop song... but the backing has a beautiful Cure-like descending riff... I love it.....

piggybacking, ibistracking

2011-12-15T06:27:00.000-08:00

You know how much all these massive lenses and cameras cost.... not to mention lugging them around all over the place through mud, dust, tropical heat etc, to get ace snaps like the one above.

So... here's a neat way of avoiding all of that, but still getting those amazing shots.

You let the person next to you take a brilliant snap, then you get out your tinky digital camera and photograph his screen!!

Piggybacking, I think I will call it.

Not only do you get a great photo at minimal cost, but you can also get unintentional but lovely "effects." You can see these best if you click on the photo to enlarge it.

Win win or what?

Thanks to the intrepid Phil Boardman for allowing me to pioneer this terrific birding breakthrough with a photo he had just taken as 3 Snow Geese tootled over us while we waited fruitlessly (I had forgotten to bring a banana) on an especially muddy spot near the Leighton Moss railway crossing for "the" Glossy Ibis.

We whiled away the time with a great game of " Tower Hide Trumps."

Someone, probably me, mentioned how good and wonderful a Tower Hide would be at Leighton Moss. and before I knew it, a bigger and better TH was mentioned by somebody else... then an even more sumptuous and far-flung one was posited, and so it went on, until we had recommendations for 340m skyscraper Tower Hides in furthest Tasmania.

It's a great game if you can stand the competition.

Just in case anyone at LM isn't quite sure what a Tower Hide is, here are a few examples.... some of which might have come up in our informal game of Tower Hide Trumps...

here's one in Singapore...

here's a rather rustic but scenic one at Loch of Strathbeg...

This one is in the Hgoksu Delta...

...here's one at Hortobagy....

here's a map showing you how to find the very popular Tower Hide at Albufera... I couldn't find a picture of it..

Aren't they all just dandy?

We never did find that Glossy Ibis, despite tracking it for yonks, yea, even unto Arnside, which is near enough foreign climes for people like me.

Here's Talking heads with Psycho Killer...those of the older persuasion may remember their terrific film... which started with David Byrne coming on stage with a little tape player and a guitar and doing this song perfectly.

and while we're on about Talking heads, everyone should see this before they die... or after, or during....

How to carry your stuff.......

2011-12-14T01:27:00.000-08:00

We all know how tricky it can be to carry around with you all the stuff the modern bird-lover needs... notebooks, sketchbooks, pagers, cameras, batteries, chargers, bins, scope, tripod, sunscreen, lipsalve, Kendal Mint Cake, spare hat, spare socks, spare shoelaces, Collins, Peterson, Svennssonnn, iPOD, digital recorder,first aid kit, insect repellent, dubbin, dubbin remover,energy bars, energy drinks, hyperactivity pills, maps, compass, GPS, ... the list goes on and on.

In the winter things aren't too bad... big jacket, big pockets.....

...but in the summer.... phew!

Anyhow, here's a neat solution to this problem which I came across, purely by chance you understand, whilst I was looking for, er, something else.

Serendipity I suppose....

There you go!!

On a completely different tack.....

This brilliant thing is Florence and the Machine and a live version of "Cosmic Love."

What wonderful things harps are.
Songs... they're remarkable things when you come to think about it.

General Jumbo...

2011-12-13T06:23:00.001-08:00

It's nostalgia time here at mostlybirdingwithray,and you can see up there the wonderful Beano character, General Jumbo.

For my younger readers, General Jumbo was a jumped-up little shit whose misguided father had made him a miniature "army" which his fat-headed donkey of a fascist Pol Pot son could control by pressing "certain buttons" on his wrist-mounted control pad.

Even as a 10-year-old, the whole set-up seemed highly unlikely and deeply dubious to me.

Every week he would send his armies, helicopters and tanks to do his bidding... I can't actually remember what they did, but if it was anything like armies throughout history it wouldn't have been an edifying spectacle.

Mind you, in those days we all had model soldiers and Dinky-toy tanks and so on.... the very idea of bird-watching and "nature study" would be right off the scale of acceptability, especially for boys... perish the thought!

Luckily, these days we can enjoy the gentle, peaceful and democratic pastime of birdwatching, where the very idea of somebody trying to get us to do their bidding or exercise control over us at the press of a button would be laughably absurd!!

Yes readers, at least we can laugh at the very idea!!

Whilst we are all having a good old chortle at this ridiculous scenario, let's have a bit of a listen to a rather remarkably awful slavic ensemble, машина времени. Watch out especially for the bastard offspring of Benny Hill, a ridiculous J. Hendrix lookalike ... and the rest! Rather like General Jumbo, fascinatingly dreadful.....

If anyone wants to sing along, here are the words...

Ты можешь ходить, как запущенный сад
А можешь все наголо сбрить
И то, и другое я видел не раз
Кого ты хотел удивить?

Ты верил в гитару, "Битлов" и цветы
Мечтая весь мир возлюбить
Но все эти песни придумал не ты
Кого ты хотел удивить?

Припев:
Скажи мне, чему ты рад?
Постой, оглянись назад
Постой, оглянись назад, и ты увидишь
Как вянет листопад
И вороны кружат
Там, где раньше был цветущий сад.

Ты стал бунтарем, и дрогнула тьма,
Весь мир ты хотел изменить
Но всех бунтарей ожидает тюрьма
Кого ты хотел удивить?

Теперь ты устал, и тебе все равно,
Как жизни остаток дожить
И тут на тебя все похожи давно,
Кого ты хотел удивить?

Припев:
Скажи мне, чему ты рад?
Постой, оглянись назад
Постой, оглянись назад, и ты увидишь
Как вянет листопад
И вороны кружат
Там, где раньше был цветущий сад.

Notebooks ...............

2011-12-08T23:40:00.000-08:00

All us birders just love our notebooks.... just take a look at this one which I found on youtube.... it's not actually about birds but what the hell....

What about that!!

There's loads and loads of these amazing Moleskine notebook users on youtube.... but Moleskines are really expensive though, of course. of top-end quality!

Unlike mine, which these days tend to be A5 sketchbooks from WH Smiths..good size, very versatile, inexpensive. Anyway, I thought I could copy their idea and show you the last month's-worth of my current notebook complete with wobbly filming and duffly-focussed bits as well.

As you might be able to tell, my notebooks are about all sorts of things,but mostly birds, weather and doodlings/rubbish.

As well as the WH Smiths. I've used those Alwych notebooks sometimes, and I've also got loads and loads... nearly a boxful... of those little policeman's notebooks that are handy to carry around.Years and years ago I used big "Baberton notebooks, I've got a lot of those, and then went on to loose-leaf files.... in fact I've probably a fairly uninterrupted record of whatever rubbish I've been thinking about or doing right back to about 1973 or so.

My dear wife, the librarian, is always happy to inform me that the whole lot will be going on the skip when I've gone ( me too perhaps) along with all the rest of the twaddleometers,slide rules ( a suitcase -full), books, dozens and dozens of pocket chess sets, Go boards, bits of scribbled-on paper, rocks, pebbles, weather charts,hundreds of back numbers of British Birds, bird rings, feathers, ...... the thing is with all this stuff, it's only of the slightest interest to me and me only.

Which makes it a bit odd that I would think that you lot would be interested really!!

Keeping in the rather surreal spirit of things, here's Datblygu and Santa y Barbara....

My boomerang won't come back......

2011-11-30T05:58:00.001-08:00

Here's something to cheer you up!

This morning as I was motoring towards the estuary, I went by the canal, where "they" are fixing a bridge... the canal is blocked there while they are doing it, but a boat had trundled up to the barrier and there was a "discussion" going on between the boat person and the bridge-fixing person.

Basically, he had to turn round and go back where he came from.

But you'll never guess what the boat was called!

Here's a strange thing... I got down to the estuary, which was cold and muddy, and set off in bird-spotting mode.

Then my ears perked up ( what!!) at strange call... you know how it is, you just can't imagine what the hell it could be.

It sounded pretty close... and there were at least 2 birds doing it.

I mentally scrolled through every bird-call I had ever heard in my entire life.

It didn't come up with any match at all. The nearest I could compare it to was a slowed-down, and therefore deeper in tone, version of the bubbling call of a Nuthatch.

I hope that helps. Anyhow, the annoying thing was, I just couldn't find the little beggars that were producing this tantalisingly rarity-type din.

Not a sausage. So I hung around for a while, the calls fell away, and so did I. The total hoodwink experience.... and the blasted things were not there on the way back either.... though Steve and his bike and his telescope were.... but my time had run out.

Hey... maybe it was a Spring Crosby.... you could google it and see if the call is described.

I'll tell you another strange thing, and rather unusually it is totally unbird-related, though wildlife comes into it.

At the top of Queen Street there used to be an office of some sort, with a lovely brass name-plate outside with the names of the 3 people who worked there.

SALMON
BOTTOM
HUDSON.

Yes, you've spotted it... they can each be prefaced with the word " Rock."

It's totally ridiculous, but it's true. And the name of that boat that got told to go back where it had come from was.... BOOOMERANG.

You just couldn't make it up.

And after all that strange stuff, here's top Russian band Lumen with Гореть which, by the way, means "shine."

A New World Record.....

2011-11-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

Recently I set a new world record. All I needed was an idea, a tin of Alphabetti Spaghetti, a spoon, a fork, a baking tray and a dinky digital camera.

My incredible plan was not only to do what nobody had ever done before, but to please all those people who seem to like nice lists of birds.... you know the sort.

From just 1 ( one) randomly bought tin of Alphabetti Spaghetti I attempted to list as many birds on the UK list as possible!!

I know... you're bowled over with the sheer inventiveness and brilliance of my idea.

Me too.

First off, I tipped the contents out and sorted them out letter by letter to see what I'd got. Obviously!!

Sorted! As they say.

But look at those crappy letters.... loads of Q's, hardly any E's, loads of K's.... ridiculous. Obviously vowels were going to be scarce, so I looked up birds with 1 or two vowels in them... wren, robin, scaup etc and tried to stick to those... but I soon ran out of N's and S's !

Plus, the W's and M's all looked the same ( rubbish, in fact), and there were loads left over which didn't seem to be any letters known to mankind 9 the dog liked them though).

As you can see ( just about), in the end I got 15 species.. Coot, Wren, Robin, Jay, Teal, Knot, Ruff, Swift, Skylark, Dunnock, Fulmar, Osprey, Scaup, Goldcrest, Swallow.

This must surely be a World Record becasue I don't suppose anyone has tried it before... but i am sure better could be done with this set of letters... if you want to try, here's what was in the tin, I think..

A = 6, B = 12, C = 15, E = 6, F = 5, G = 7, H = 3, I = 11, J = 6, K = 11, L = 9, M + W =19, N = 5, O = 8 , P = 10, Q = 8, R = 7, S = 6, T = 17, U = 7, V = 9, X = 6, Y = 7, Z = 5.

With the 15 birds I got, I ran totally out of A, N, O, R, S.

As for the record bid, I used 37% of the recognisable letters in the tin.

Which is good... but msybe other tins would have more of those vital letters,,, E, N, S etc.

Music time son....... in the meantime, here's a terrific Starling display filmed at Leighton Moss island Mere last night ( Tuesday). The display ebbs and flows, with some spectacular swoops and twisys.. look out for the brief appearance of a hedgehog.... and towards the end, a huge Conger eel seems to be floating over the reserve....

Later on that Great White Egret turned up. If you go there yourself, watch out... there was an accident thereabouts a few evenings ago.

Here's the remarkable The Joy Formidable" and a delightful acoustic very live version of "Whirring."

What the papers say.....

2011-11-13T10:32:00.000-08:00

LOCAL MAN IN NUT FRACAS !

On Friday afternoon, a well-known local man and popular lecturer at a local college, who cannot be named because he wouldn't tell us his name, was involved in what has been described by local police as " a contretemps" and by local residents as a " fracas."

The local man, who claims he "does not come out on photographs" is alleged to have become irked when officials turned up at his front door locally on Saturday afternoon.

They are alleged to have been sent to his house ( which we believe is called " The House Next Door" on the nameplate) when a local man contacted another local man who got in touch with local quango "THAT" ... [Tree Huggers Against Troublemakers] who in turn contacted regional quango "QUANGO" [ Quite Annoyed Government Officials"].

A local who saw the alleged ensuing skirmish sent us this mobile phone footage... which we show here for information, though it may not be relevant in this particular case....

Another concerned local man ( allegedly.. he might be neither man or local) sent this still photograph taken locally at the time...

Perhaps of more relevance is this reported conversation, released by QUANGO in a press release, purporting to be the discussion between themselves and the alleged "troublemaker and loner."

MAN " Jehovah's Witnesses is it then?

1st Official... "No sir, we have called because it has been reported to us that you are not feeding the birds in your garden and, in addition, you don't have a CRAP."

MAN ... "A what?"

2nd Official... CRAP, sir... A Certificate of Reasonable Avian Provision."

MAN.. "Who the hell are you anyway?"

2nd Official .. " I am your Regional Avian Gender-issues Busybody ( Advisory Grade)... or RAGBAG to the likes of you sir."

1st Official... " And I am your CRAP provider at local level... now sir, are you or are you not not feeding your garden birds?.. Answer Yes or No."

TROUBLEMAKER/LONER/MAN .. " Yes or No"

CRAP provider .... " Don't get smart with us matey."

RAGBAG.... " No... you are in breach of European Feathered Friends Objectives : Fat - Feeders paragraph 203i.

TROUBLEMAKER .. " ah.... EFFOFF"

CRAP provider... " Your unreasonable attitude now entitles us to inspect your garden avian provision arrangements as of now, instanter, ad hoc, pro tem and post hoc ergo propter hoc... make way... come on you lot!!"

At this point the CRAP provider, the RAGBAG, two Gender Issues Negotiators ( pictured), two Health and Safety ( Feeding Devices) Advisors and an an off-duty Gas Inspector who happened to be passing tried to enter the property of the alleged loner/troublemaker/popular college lecturer... it was at this point that the situation got somewhat out of control...

Naturally we have no more actual accounts of the upshot of all this, but we gather from local neighbours locally that a series of scuffles took place, a popular local lecturer was wrestled to the floor and sat on by his local friendly Gender Issues Negotiator and the Gas Inspector, while the CRAP provider and the RAGBAG effectively broke into his garden to see if he was indeed in breach of current European law which has made feeding your garden birds compulsory since April 1st 2010.

At some point a local man managed to break free and rugby-tackled one of the Health and Safety ( Feeding Devices) Advisors as he inspected an ( allegedly) empty mesh peanut feeder, resulting in said ( allegedly) empty mesh feeder becoming jammed firmly over his head to such an extent that it could only be removed by a crack team of 3 fire officers ( local).

It took them over an hour to arrive because they kept calling at the house next door.

In his summimg up,a popular local Judge summed up the case against the defendant by remarking that it seemed absurd that feeding one's garden birds could be compulsory but the law is the law notwithstanding ...however the defendant's claim that he did in fact feed the birds and that fragments of peanuts were found in the Health and Safety Advisor's hair after the feeder had been removed were indeed proof of his assertion.Even so, as shown in Nectarson v. Prumble-Prince ( 1977) , Neglecting to Feed is tantamount to Intention to Starve.

He asked the jury to note that, as yet, being a loner and/or troublemaker is not actually against the law.Also, the Gender Issues Advisors could have been slightly alarming on opening one's front door.

However, there is a move to make "being in the wrong place at the wrong time" against the law, as this would shift the culpability in the case of, say, mugging, to the mugged rather than the mugger... a situation which would save a lot of time all round.

He passed the case to the European Court in Strasbourg, where the World's Press is expected to be in attendance for this most important crucial test case.

In the meantime, the Inspector and the popular college lecturer have apparently allegedly made up..

Well, it's all very worrying isn't it readers.... I know I am.

Anyway, to lighten our mood , here's a little local movie I made featuring top non-local band Datblygu singing " Dafydd Iwan yn y Glaw"

Remarkably, the song title means " Dafydd Iwan in the rain" so maybe I just got lucky!!

UPDATE TUESDAY... oddly, it seems that a ridiculous total of 304 first-time readers of this blog tuned in yesterday.... why? What have I done? What have I said? The norm is about 20.

What the BBRC wants to see.....

2011-11-11T11:38:00.000-08:00

The BBRC are forever telling us mere mortals that drawings done on the spot are a massive help to their decision-making when it comes to rarities, acceptance of.

It's absolutely true. But a lot of people are put off, because they think that their drawing skills are just not up to scratch. People are reluctant to submit their sketches and artwork.... but they shouldn't be.

To give you an idea of the sort of standard they are hoping for, here is a recent rarity submission for a Pelican seen in a Lancaster back garden...

It's got everything you need, even though, technically, it is a bit below the Lewington standard.

You've got your "other species for size comparison."

They've shown the all-important eye colour of the Pelican, and the key ID features which were obviously well seen.

They've even described one of common comparison species....impressively thorough.... including the season where it is most likely to be seen.

You've got some "behaviour notes" to show that you're not just some mindless ticker.

They've also gone to the trouble of explaining the various places where these birds can be found.

Admittedly, the spelling is a trifle insecure, and the colouring-in is not of Peter Scott's level, but this lovely drawing captures the moment beautifully and no doubt enhanced the chances of the record being accepted by the rare men/women.

I especially liked the slight crumpling of the paper... evidence, of any is needed, of the nervous state of the observer on seeing..and trying to draw in field conditions... this rather spiffing bird.

To get the full effect, you will do best to click on the artwork to enlarge it so that the fine detail and the in-depth descriptions can be savoured.

I hope you found that all really helpful.... don't be shy, give drawing a try.

Here's a great song with a stunning video... featuring artwork too... it's Love of Lesbian with Te Hiero Mucho... it features Lisa Hannigan-style pop-ups...

This example of humour is technically known as "bathos."..... though quite what the 3 musketeers had to do with it I can't imagine.

My cunning plan.....

2011-11-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

As you can see, I have thought of a clever and completely original and effective way to warn certain people away from this utter load of crap I like to call my own.

I've changed the "intro" at the top of the blog ( see above) to something rather more direct, hard-hitting and to the point.

Actually, that's all I've got to say for the moment, as I've been rather busy.. I've actually been to "work" several times recently pushing back the boundaries of ignorance lurking in the minds of the local youth, and I feel a bit knackered... as do they, I expect.

Here's a bit of music anyhow.... it's Camarillo Brillo by Frank Zappa... it pretty much sums up my attitude to "things."

moments of pleasure....

2011-11-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, one of the local birders/birdwatchers, rather an important one actually, had a go at me about this blog.

Basically, he/she told me that he/she was frustrated and annoyed that it was very difficult to search it and find out what I had seen and where.

I pointed out that it does say up there at the top of the blog that it will " rarely be of use to those writing annual reports."

I think that's pretty clear.

Then he/she went on to say that it was really important that these records were available and, er, "recorded."

" No it isn't" was my reply.

It isn't important AT ALL.

I really really get annoyed that people think they can/should try to impose their ideas of what birding should be about onto other people. I just want to do it my way, and I want to write about it like this. I'm not responsible to anyone to provide sighting or information... or anything at all.

Nobody has to read it if they don't want to.

Now, I have great respect for the person who had a go at me, I have known them for years, he/she is brilliant at what they do, and I am pretty upset that they felt the need to criticise what I do. Because this is exactly why I will no longer contribute to any of the local birding sites... because some people didn't like the way I did it. Maybe they think birding is just a load of lists, a sort of science.

I started this completely separate blog so I could be free of all that.... and yet I still get this bother...which I don't need, and don't deserve.

The upshot of all this, is that this blog is finishing right now. So, well done all those people who have had a go at me in the past.

A fydd yr un olaf i adael roi'r goleuadau allan.

Anyway, I know I've shown you this before, but what the hell... here it is again... after all, all we have is the odd moment of pleasure....

Bless the weather....

2011-10-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

I trudged around the slag Tips this afternoon, with little in the way of birding interest, but some lovely weather for late October... including this excellent cloud street, which is show in the picture above.... click on it to get the full effect.

While I was downloading this off the camera, I had a look through my file of cloud pictures and thought it would be good to show you a few of them.

Ckoud photography, by the way, is an excellent fallback when birds are thin on the ground... it hardly requires any special lenses, or fancy equipment. Plus, there's a bucket-load of physics going on in even the most mundane clouds... and often it can be tricky to work out what the hell is going on.

Anyway, I hope you like this lot.... I apologise in advance for any I've shown before...

Hey... they're taking ages to load up... I think some Americans might be on the blasted net... I'm pretty sure I've put this one on before, but it's a real corker so maybe a lot of newer readers haven't seen it... remember to click on it to get the full effect folks...

Contrails tell us a lot about the airstream 5 miles up!

Here's a beautifully coloured 22 degree halo.... in a thin cirrostratus layer....

It's too slow to load any more just now.... as for music, I thought a bit of thematic John Martyn would be appropriate, but I prefer Solid Air to Bless the weather... so here it is... he breaks a string early on, so if you don't want to watch him changing it and retuning, slide it on to about 3.5 minutes ...

All in a dream, all in a dream.......

2011-10-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a brilliant mini-video I made at Aldclife this morning ( Wed 26th).
The real star is the massive cumulonimbus cloud over in the west... but the 2 ravens flying by make an excellent diversion to maintain interest.

As well as those two there were about a dozen Fieldfares and 2 Redwings lurking around Walled Field, and in the same area were some migrant-type Song Thrushes and Blackbirds buzzing around. 1 Little Egret on the marsh... they've been a bit more frequent in the last few weeks.

Later in the day I went up to the slag tips to make my usual rounds without finding anything of note... then I went to LM.

Blimey, crumbs and Help m'Bob ! Everybody in Northern Britain was there, it was like the Somme but with fewer available facilities.

David Mower was having a bit of fun by parking his biggest tractor-trailer combination slap in the middle of the Car Park. I'll tell you, there aren't that many reserve executives named after extinct birds.

Eventually they realised upstairs who I was and moved me to the front of the queue where I ordered my usual Vodka and Complan... the perfect combination for someone on the verge of being 62 for the first time.

Then I was interviewed by Radio Lancashire, with a man called Widgy or Wiggy or Squidgy or something. Just for a laugh I told the awaiting nation that children should be banned from all nature reserves, that in 5 years time LM would consist of a small duck pond surrounded by a massive "outlet" , that later this year all the staff were to be replaced by robots, that 89% of all RSPB takings went to pay fat cat management, that the staff all had to take home all the stock every night after work to prevent thieving, that this winter a motor-boat was going to buzz round all the pools flogging pie and chips and cans at each of the hides, that the water in the EM pools came direct from the nuclear power station outlet pipes, that one of the volunteers, Tom Walkington, had been adopted by Madonna on a recent visit to the tea-rooms, that using binoculars causes dyslexia, that using telescopes causes dyspepsia ... but then it was somebody else's turn.

All that seemed to surprise old Widgy... doesn't he read this bloody blog or what?

Hey.. I've just woken up ..that Complan and Vodka is fierce stuff.... I suppose that last bit was all a nasty dream.

And on that topic, hwre's that nice Neil Young...

This dream is in a telescope now....

2011-10-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

NATURE NOTES.... yesterday (Thursday) 9 Whoopers flew upriver at Aldcliffe and landed on the river out of sight. For further excitement, a Tree Sparrow came into my garden for a while... not the first time I've had this species on the house list, but they're an excellent bird to get in downtown Lancaster.
This morning ( Friday) 8 Whoopers flew up from somewhere and cirled round rather aimlessly for ages before disappearing in the Morecambe/Heyshan direction.Presumably the same lot minus 1.There were over350 Golden Plovers with the Lapwings on Gull Bank.

But enough of this serious stuff.Let's have some utterly brilliant pop music shall we?

This is The Joy Formidable... a band I've been following on my Welsh blog, though they mostly sing in English as they are here. They're going to be big soon... they've been on the Letterman show in the USA. But here they are in outdoor acoustic mode with " The greatest light is the greatest shade."

I am sure all you regular readers out there know what a soppy beggar I am when it comes to acoustic stuff. It's bloody lovely....

Is Michaela Strachan a CIA hybrid ?

2011-10-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

Music first for once.....

Yes... it's a song, by Scouting for Girls, about Michaela Strachan.

THAT Michaela Strachan who is on Autumnwatch.....

I was wondering.... why does she always wear that terrible ( and useless) furry body-warmer thing? It makes her look like a scrunched-up giant hamster.

She scuttles around like a hamster, and has a high-pitched, squeaky voice, and never stops grinning.

In fact, I had this theory that she was actually a human/hamster hybrid, specially created by US intelligence to be trained up as a "nature lover" and then get transplanted at an opportune moment into a "nature programme" and take over.

Yes... my theory was that she was one of the CIA's "hamster clan."

Go on... scroll back to the Michaela pic at the top... spot the difference if you can.

So wasn't I amazed when I noticed recently that Michaela Strachan is an anagram of..

Ah !... C. I. A. Hamster Clan.

There's proof if ever anyone doubted it.

BUT WHY?????

Well, I then developed theory 2.

You know how America doesn't want to believe in Global Warming or Climate Change?

It's true... they really really don't.

My theory is that the CIA created this Hamster/Human hybrid, in the shape of Michaela Strachan, to worm her way into the nation's hearts and then persuade them that there was no such thing as Climate Change AT ALL.

Stap me, if I found out that Michaela Strachan was also an anagram of.....

A Climate Crash..... Nah!

Blimey.. it's all looking like it might be horribly true.

I mean, what are the chances eh??

Anyway, I set to thinking about all this.... isn't it odd, when you come to think of it, that not one but TWO Spring/Autumnwatch presenters have "gone" and been replaced by "others?"

I reckoned this needed a deeper analysis, so I looked up Michaela Strachan's full name.

It's Michaela Ann Evelyn Strachan.

Naturally, I set to work unravelling the real meaning of all this.

There were, of course, a false starts...

I was tempted by the fact that this longer name contains the very telling phrase " Silent Charm Avalanche."

But that was dead end... the other letters just didn't make anything.

I followed up an idea that what she actually was doing, was attempting to undermine that Jeremy Clarkson. I found that her letters ,rearranged, spell out...

HA! MEAN NASTY VILE CAR CHANNEL !

But really... would "they" go to all that trouble ? Nah !

I had to find a link with all this "eco-climate change" business.

Suppose "they" wanted to convince us that all these droughts and the like were sent down from "heaven." Just suppose.

Well, lo and behold, her longer name can be shuffled around to spell out..

Heavenly Hat Man Cancels Rain.

Now that is paydirt... but who is this "hat man?"

Is it a mis-spelling of Mahatma?? Is it a coded version of " Manhattan ?"

I looked up "heavenly hat man" on the net... could it be this bloke, enshrined as a statue in Thailand ??

No.. it just doesn't work, does it. So I kept on looking.

I mean, surely Michaela is a climate change believer.... assuming she isn't a CIA robot of some sort. Surely she should be trying to tell us that we aren't going to be saved from global famine etc by some miracle from the skies/God/other deities are available.

So... at last I found one last, totally convincing affirmation of this.... her name spells out..

I CANCEL HEAVENLY MANNA TRASH !!!

Remember how all those people in the desert in the Bible were saved by a miracle... manna fell from the skies and sustained them.

She is telling us... no way mate, not this time. We've got to get ourselves out of this mess.

Frankly, I was a bit disappointed that she had turned out to be a goodie ( hey... so was Bill) and not an agent of the USA.... but maybe I still haven't got to the bottom of things.

SO... what did I do?

I wrote, in my favourite green ink, to the Government.

I told them all about it, and about her squeaky voice and her permanent grin and her scuttling about and everything, and all about what her name really means.

They've probably been too busy just lately with all that Mr. Fox and his False Friends business, which is why there's been no reply yet.

I'm a bit worried in case they fiddle around a bit and find out that Michaela Strachan is also an anagram of " Ha ! It's a Camel Ranch" which would rather ruin my main point, but I'm sure that's just a typical CIA-style false trail.

Here's a bit of the government.... Michael Gove.

Just a minute... surely that fizog up there must be another of that Hamster Clan I told you about... yep, I've just scrolled back and looked at the Hamster picture... check.... then I went back a bit further and looked at the Michaela Strachan picture... bloody hell....

I WAS RIGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE..... the CIA Hamster Clan is everywhere.

He looks awfully... er... small on that picture too.

Goodnight all... sleep well.

Downturn Abbey

2011-10-01T12:39:00.001-07:00

Well, these are recessionary times, and everyone... well, nearly everyone... is feeling a little under-resourced... skint in fact.

Here we will follow the fortunes of a typical noughties birder, whom I shall dub Downturn Abbey....

Abbey used to find whizzing around the country to tick rare birds quite affordable. But with those nasty rogue traders having gambled all our money away, times are hard.

So what is Abbey to do......here's some of the things she had a go at to finance her interest in all things far-flung and feathery...

The Scope scam..

We've all been there... you go to see a Variegated Wiglet in the far-flung climes of North Ronaldino ,and having duly ticked the beggar you start to wander round a bit and talk to birding acquaintances.... often leaving your £1800 scope behind.

Abbey had frequently noticed this, and found it startlingly easy to detach said scopes from their tripods and bugger off with them.

In her first 3 months she had stolen 18 scopes and flogged them for a hefty total of around £6000.

Naturally this couldn't really go on for too long... so she changed tack and tried..

The Article Scam....

Open any birding magazine these days and you will find mouthwatering articles about trips to Bahrain, Nova Scotia, Mull, Western Australia and the like.

Abbey decided she could make a bit of a killing here, so she started making up birding visits to all sorts of places , and selling the resulting completely fictional accounts of these non-existent trips to those very magazines.

It's incredibly easy to do these days... pick any location and you can easily find out not just the birding spots and what you can see there, but you can even find out what the weather was on each day of your entirely made-up visit to add that vital authenticity.

After all, it worked for Marco Polo and Donald Crowhurst, so why shouldn't it work for her?

And it did.

But you can't risk that sort of think for too long so, after counting the £5000 quid she had raked in, she moved on to.....

Rare stuff, finding of!... You know how everyone wants to find something RARE and get their moniker in the British Birds Rarities issue.. oh yes.

Abbey got this great idea! She remembered that when "they" find a new species of Antworm in the depths of the Sumatran cocoa dumps, "they" "sell" the right to put a name to it to whoever bids the most money. Hence the recent name for a new species of Tardigrade turned out ot be KatyBrandus Vacuosa.

Well, thought our plucky heroine, why not "sell" the claim to have found a rare bird. What she did was, she set up an sort of link-up agency so that someone who had found a rare bird could link up with someone who really really wanted to... money would change hands... they would get their name on the sighting!! Abbey took a commission..and both parties are happy.

She "sold" the finding rights of 113 rarities over two years with this scam, and made a cool £18000 in commission.

But you can't do that sort of thing for ever can you?

No. So the next thing she did was....

No, I can't tell you...because she is still doing it!

But it won't last long.... so she needs another birding-related source of income... any suggestions?

Here's some music while you are thinking about it.... I hadn/t realised how far-flung was the influence of Blackadder.... it's Los Nikis with a memorable performance..

By the way, if any of the issues raised in this frankly scurrilous article have affected you in any way, please get in touch with our helpline at I.fell.for.it.helpline.org

In which ray answers your questions...

2011-09-19T03:40:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of fuss about lazy MPs lately, who never answer letters and don't have those meetingy things where their constituents get a chance to whack them round the noddle with a can of beans.

SO... I thought I would answer some questions right here and now....

[a] Mr. P. Soup of Cheltenham writes in to ask why I hardly ever write about actual birdwatching. He has the cheek to say that my blog is a cheat and a fabrication!

ANSWER... Well, I do do some birdwatching. This very morning I have already spotted a Coal Tit in my garden, and then I went down to the Estuary despite the threat of rain and spotted a Kingfisher on the Flood, then there was a trickle of vis. mig. with a few mipits and quite a few Swallows, some reet high up, a few probably local albas, and on the mud there were upwards of ( nicely vague that) 76 Curlews,

lots and lots ( whatever that means) of Lapwings. A few very high Skylarks went over. I also spotted Dan with his trusty telescope and (t)rusty bicycle and he settled down on his (c)rusty folding chair.
Then I got shouted at by a recumbent bicyclist because my dog hadn't got out of his way quickly enough, then I went home.
I did some birdwatching yesterday as well, but can't actually remember much about it.
Of course, I don't normally write any of this on the blog becasue it isn't very interesting. I can only make it slightly diverting by putting in lots of silly remarks, wordplay and general hokum.

[b] Miss Amy Scopescrap writes.... why don't you write helpful hints for beginners. All you do is invent loads of useless drivel, which, to be frankm is a waste of everyone's time. I would like some hints on using a telescope, or knowing what a heron is.

ANSWER.... Why indeed!! Well, I used to write quite a lot about actual birdwatching, but the thing sort of drifted off into pure fantasy. Writing made-up crap like I do doesn't require any actual birdwatching at all actually so it's far easier to do. I did write some advice to that Pixie Lott person who now seems to have drifted off herself, but the advice I gave her was a load of crap as well. I have also written some lists of birdwatching jargon, but that's nearly all made up as well. If you want the truth about telescopes, I would advise you to look into it yourself ( ha ha). As for herons, the way to attract them is to fill up a barrel with water and fish, and stick the whole thing on a 10 metre pole like a giant bird table, and sit and wait.

[c] A Mr. Stan Deer asks..... Who the hell is Ramjet Presh?

ANSWER.... Well, he is just a made-up but fascinating character. As you know, he is Britain's leading Buddhist Birder. I have a clear picture of him on my head, but in reality he probably looks nothing like that. If he really existed he would be on Radio 4 whenever there was a bird-related story in the news.

[d] Miss S M Artypants asks... What is your fertile brain going to come up with next ray?

ANSWER..Well, for these lean financial times we are entering, I am going to write about Downturn Abbey, a dedicated twitcher who needs new ways to finance her addiction. You read it first here...

That's enough bloody questions for one day. Here's another silly picture,

and some music.

Here's Captain Beefheart with some poor nutritional advice.....

hey, while we're on the subject of complaints, why has nobody written in any glowing comments about that brilliant book thing I wrote last time?

Ales of a Tabloid Twitcher...

2011-09-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

There's an old saying that in life, all the mistakes are there just waiting to be made.

Few people know the laughable cock-up involving Stuart Winter... he got a phone call from his agent, asking him to write what he misheard as " Ales of a Tabloid Twitcher" and, on the strength of this, spent a year visiting, and writing about, all the pubs, boozy evenings and twitches that he had been on. He then cleverly weaves all these strands into a gripping account of the life of , as stated in the title, a Tabloid Twitcher.

Well, he sent the manuscript in, and was rather irked to discover that he had been barking up the incorrect tree...

BUT... what the hell, he thought... and published the whole thing unchanged under its correct title....

Here's a strange on... Lars Johnsson got a letter from the BTO years ago asking him to write a new and ground-breaking work ... " Dentification Guide to European Passerines."

Well, he thought it was a bit odd, especially as birds don't actually have teeth, but, like a good lad, he got on with it... researching into such esoteric topics as the teeth of their ancestors, the Dinosaurs, the evolutionary pathways by which birds might have lost their teeth, tooth structure past and present, folklore with pertinence to toothed birds and suchlike.

Anyway, is was all a waste of time, and he just had to ditch it all and spend a further three long years writing this instead.....

Then there's the stupefyingly risible case of the letter asking Hilary Fry to write a book all about those celebrated guardians of Buckingham Palace. Rather on his uppers and in the throes of an acute cash-flow crisis, Hilary was in no position to question the commission, but got on with it sharpish.

Three toil-filled years later, he had delved into the archives and written a definitive history of those bastions of England and delivered it to his publishers... only to be stunned by a phone call telling him he had somehow got the
inappropriate end of the stick..... seven years later the correct book hit the bookstalls.....

Those New Naturalist people fared little better... you might not recall the disaster of poor old Ian Newton and his brave attempt to write a bird book entitled " Inches".

Luckily, after much research into the dimensions of all the birds of the world, it dawned on him that something must be wrong... after all, wasn't he an expert on...?

Yes, he was.... eventually the right book was written and published...

An even more mystifying project was that gripping tome, " Are Birds in Britain and Ireland" ... good old Dymond/Fraser/Gantlett got asked to write that one.

Naturally, they thought this was supposed to be some sort of philosophical work, along the lines of " Does a tree exist if no-one is looking at it?" or " What is the sound of one hand clapping" or even " What is the real table?"

The three of them bought a copy of Bertie Russell's " Problems of Philosophy" and set to work writing a really serious account of the philosophical dilemmas of the birdwatching business.

Anyway, they found out the truth by chance about 18 months later and sheepishly knocked out their seminal work....

Now, imagine if you will the puzzlement of poor old Juniper and Parr when given the task of writing " Carrots" .... a sweeping study of orangy root vegetables throughout the world.

A big ask you might think, but their 5 years work on it was to be rooted in disappointment ( ha ha) when they had to redirect their attention to the rather more popular book that they should have been compiling....

Well, I could go on.... the ridiculous " Ketches of Bird Life" by Tunnicliffe,

Here to Watch Birds in Britain" by poor old Harrop and Redmond......

David Lack wasted years researching and writing " Copulation Studies of Birds"

..the ridiculous British Birds offshoot publication " Rest Days with British Birds, the stupendous " The Biggest Witch" by Davies and Miller

You couldn't make it up, could you?

Anyway, I'm off to read the latest county report, " Went Birding" now, so here's a rather enigmatic bit of pop music for you to savour, by the oddball musician Michel Polnareff...

Hey... this was/is my 200th appearance. Ciel !!

Egregium spectaculum capessite oculum

2011-09-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

Take in a splendid sight with your eyes...

I heard on the radio this morning about a supernova that should be seeable IF we get clear skies.... but despite what they saod on the news item it seems it is pretty faint ( about magnitude 10) so you will need a decent telescope, a dark clear sky and an absence of city lights.

As you can see on the star map, it forms a more or less neat equilateral triangle with the first 2 stars of the Plough handle, and it's actually in a distant galaxy [ M101] which shows as a little hazy blob.

From where I am in south Lancaster the plough is low down in the North,slap bang over the city... so if the skies are clear I will need to travel elsewhere to get the city out of the way. Ho hum.

I unearthed/found an old notebook of mine a few days ago, and it was back in the times when I used to spend ages parked in whatever car it was with the jellyscope propped up against the open window... drawing. Conder Green has some choice spots to do this... this was one of the results.

But the odd thing is... I never seem to get to do this any more. All my daytimes seem to get swallowed up somehow or other... what went wrong?

NATURE NOTES... a Crane has appeared outside my attic window... but before you get too excited, it's the industrial type.

But it doesn't matter. because Crane is already on my house list!!

Aha!

That's gripped a few people off.

NATURE NOTES FROM ROMAN TIMES... Instabili gressu metitur litora cornix.

Thanks to old SENECA for that one.... no Cranes on his list I notice.

As for music, here's a real lowtech endeavour from top Welsh popster Mr. Huw and his song is called Pethau bach.... [ little things...]

This is real life you know...

I think I'll take another look at that Crane.... maybe the skies will clear later on a allow a little bit of supernova spotting....

Mr. Pastry

2011-09-02T03:44:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you all remember that pseudo-skull I showed you a while back, washed up on the Aldcliffe shore.

Well, here's a real corker of a wash-up in a grander scale... snapped with my dinky pocket camera through the jellyscope.It's straight out of the Iliad or something similar, like a giant squid or hydra... and it looked even more impressive in real life.

you can probably whizz it up to screen-filling proportions by clicking on it, or as a last resort by holding down the CTRL key while twiddling the mouse-wheely thing.

I found out something else while I was trying to take the picture. My initial efforts were v. poor, v. fuzzy etc. So, as an experiment, I tried using the close-up mode... which on my camera you get by pressing SC and selecting a sort of leafy icon. . I usually uswe this for photographing spiders, woodlice and the like...

Anyhow, that turned out far far better, losing most of the fuzzyness. SO... maybe it would work for you.... mind you, I espect you have all got those special attachment thingys.

Absolutely nobody has shown the tinkiest flicker of interest in all that Colin's Field Guide stuff... I think most of you thought it was a joke.

So I thought I would continue to bore you with a few more of the "celebrities" who were on the CD Rom.... here we go...

Two of The Three Johns, a Mr. Pastry impersonator, Ringo Starr, Noel Fielding, that girl who used to be on Tiswas... Sally something, Nerys Hughes, Nelly Furtado, someone from Z Z Top, The Man with the Stick, Charity Dingle, someone who looked a lot like Marty Feldman but wasn't, King Creosote, that Bat for Lashes woman, Sister Sledge, Arsene Wenger... that's all I can remember for now.

Noel Fielding gave me a bunch of flowers once. Happy days!

And talking of the Three Johns.....

Here is/are The Three Johns with Death of the European.... a lovely lovely song with wonderful riffs throughout... not much of a video though, but it was all a long long time ago..

Here IS the new Colin's Field Guide....

2011-08-28T04:25:00.000-07:00

So, here we are at last... the New Colin's Field Guide arrived a few days ago ( an exclusive preview copy, only available to people who have a certain standing in the world of "nature.") and YOU are going to be able to share my excitement at this new addition to the "stable."

Mine, of course, is the " Northern Edition" which mainly deals with Fields of type M, S, B, T and D... to the uninitiated, that's Mud, Shit, Burnt-out Cars, Tractors ( rusting) and Drug paraphernalia.

The "Southern Edition" which is of course a Softback, and is not provided with a weatherproof cover, mainly encompasses Fields of type S, C, O, A and G [ Sand, Crops (profitable), Outdoor bonkers, Ancient monuments and Gold (swords, viking helmets etc).

Well, the first thing you will notice is that Colin's have broken new ground by getting a child to draw the cover in a nationwide competition. The talented winner, a certain 6th-calendar-year juv named Penny Nerhand has done a sterling job with her wonderful cover.To win, Penny had to beat a huge field of child artists drawn ( ha ha) from Mrs Witcherley's Year 3 class at Bargain Booze All-Comers Free School (the nearest primary school to the publishers)....have a look for yourselves...

Looking inside the new guide, you will find a user-friendly introduction to identifying all your local fields.

Basically, field types are classified using the Welsh village names where each type of field was first discovered... here's a quick run-through of the basic types...

Nantpig..... very very muddy, quite a lot of shit.

Anelog....... as above + broken bottles

Alltybrain.....as above, with old syringes and/or abundant junk food packaging

Rhooks........ very muddy, 50% shit, aggressive farmer

Milo.......... mostly shit with little mud, at least 3 dead sheep on an average visit.

Tumble......... as above, but more than 10 dead sheep.

Bodychain....... as above + dead cows.

This covers most types of Northern Field you are likely to encounter.... but then of course you have the subclassifications which require a detailed analysis of mud and shit content...

Here's the graph.... blow it up by clicking on it to study it carefully...

It is no coincidence, by the way, that this bears a close resemblance to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram for star classification.... but that's a whole other story!!

ANYWAY.... let's supppose you've got an obvious Alltybrain-type field, and your detailed analysis reveals a sludge index of 40 and a Shit index of 45, then the graph show it to be subtype A.

Think how handy that will be when you see a Cream-coloured Courser in there.... CCC, spotted in Field Type Alltybrain A.... how impressive is that?

a few errors...

[a] they've got the author's name wrong... it is actually W. Ellington ... William Ellington has been an absolute pioneer for Field recognition and classification in the UK and dererves better.
Also, the usual tradition of including a photograph of the author on the inside back cover has been ignored for this book... rather contorversially, as William was a life-long victim of the condition popularly known as " Human Sperm Syndrome" and no doubt Colin's felt this was not a good image..

Actually, this condition has been ideal for someone who, in the main course of his work, has to crawl arounf fields all day!

[b] They have also made another error, rather a clanger, by mis-spelling the publisher's name ( understandably I suppose) as "Collins" ... surely someone could have spotted this.

Yes, it is odd that Collins were recently taken over by someone called Colin, but there you go...deal with it folks!!

[c] All the photographs are captioned out of sequence... basically, 1 out! so laughably, picture 12, which shows a meeting of 12 field workers taking a break during a "survey day" is captioned.." This level of shit content merits a Nantpig classification."

[d] The index has, I suspect, been swapped with the index for an entirely different book.... most of the entries seem to refer to multiple infidelitiy in New Towns such as Milton Keynes and the like.So when you look in the index for "Fields, uses of" you don't get what you would expect.... lots of entries, but of a different sort if you see what I mean.

There are a number of unusual features... the introduction by Jordan, the final chapter is entirely in Urdu, and then there is the CD Rom..!!

This is really quite good... it's basically a detailed tour of loads of fields... every type is represented! The odd thing is, each field type is explained ( quite capably) by various celebrities... Kate Nash, David Bowie, Katharine Jenkins, Nigel Kennedy, Nigel Short, Pete Briquette, Cerys Matthews, Nicolas Parsons, Kate Bush (grrr), Nigel Farrage and so on.

The most amazing appearance, however, is by that "extra" Jedward brother, the one who was locked in the garden shed for months when he was deemed so utterly lacking in talent (??) as to be a hindrance to the famous two.

I was the first to find out about him, and wrote a rather interesting piece about his "Shed List."

I dubbed him " Shedward" for obvious reasons.

You can probably find him in that " Cloud" of mine....

Anyway, he does a damned good job, tramping round a Rhooks type K !! By the time he had finished he could more fairly be called Shitward!

What a brave lad!

Another surprise was to see Gary Numan traipsing round a Login type N, dressed in his stage gear! Few people know that he has now reinvented himself and has a new career in Germany as pop Svengali Hubert Kah.... and here he is....

NOTE... I didn't mention the Login field type earlier, becasue I though you wouldn't believe that there was any such Welsh village... but after seeing this video, I reckon you will believe anything.

Anyway, I reckon the book is worth it for the CD-Rom alone... and surely that panoply of "stars" will pull in loads of extra buyers.

The New Colin's Field Guide is out......

2011-08-24T03:55:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you all remember the " Observers" books... little gems they were, and for many of my generation they were almost the only books available to ID stuff... birds, butterflies, flowers, trees, cacti, mammals, cathedrals, cars, aeroplanes, fungi, lichens, dogs, cats, weather,fish,geology...... but the sad thing is... they were rubbish!

They also looked very staid and academic.

With ONE exception... for one of the books, they chickened out and jazzed the cover up a bit to make it look more exciting and fun and modern and "wiv du yoof."

This is because they were shit scared it wouldn't sell.

But I bought it....... and here is my cherished copy....

Yes, I'm sure many of you have got it too.... probably hardly opened after getting it as a Christmas present in 1987. And yes, it was rubbish.... only half the bloody fields were in colour for a start, the rest were in black and white! how can anyone ID a field in black and white?

But it wasn't all their fault.... at that time "Field Theory" was not even in its infancy... the classic iconic " Feldentwicklungdiagramm" [ Field Development diagram ] was years away... so there was no underlying logic to the field classification system.

We Field enthusiasts just had to muddle on as best we could.

I remember vividly my huge disappointment when I first got hold of a copy of " The Field."
What a bloody rip-off!!

WELL... the thing is, Colin's have now updated and vastly improved the whole thing, and produced a magnificent COLIN'S FIELD GUIDE..... and it does just what it says on the tin.

I'm lucky enough to have obtained an advance copy due to my pre-eminence in the field of Fields, if you see what I mean.

I will show it to you next time, and tell you all about the modern Field classification system and everything, but I will tell you now the only two jokes in the book....

[a] What is the name of a field that every one uses as a toilet?

[b] What is the name of a field which once had a pub in it owned by an American president?

The answers are at the bottom.....

But apart from that, it's all deadly serious stuff.

And here is Herbstrock with a neat live rendering of Herz Lauf...

and while we are looking at low-tech performances, here's the lovely Klee ( or two of them) doing Zwei Herzen in some sort of shopping mall.....

Oh... I will tell you about the " Fields Medal" as well.

ANSWERS.... [a] W.C.Fields [b] Lincolns Inn Fields

Hug a Hoity-Toity !!

2011-08-18T03:31:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you are all au fait with my new experiment, brought on by the current financial crisis on World Banking.

On a trial basis, I am splitting the blog into a " Safe Blog" where there will be no dodgy stuff, and a "Toxic Blog" where I can say what I like.

Last time, I tried out the "safe" option... scroll down to have a look if you haven't read it yet.

SO... this s a trial run for the toxic blog, mostlytoxicbirdingwithray

WHY WHY WHY are we feeding the blasted BIRDS.... peanuts are an energy-rich food and vast numbers of people all over the world are STARVING.

Let's think a moment... how many years is it that birds managed all by themselves without soppy drippy oversentimental human beings to help them?????

QUITE A FEW..... 100,000,000 ?? More?

All LTT's ever do is block up drainage pipes and post boxes with their stupid long tails....surely we could catch the bastards and make them into pipe-cleaners.

And what about this! A bloody Little Bittern... or something... and what happens?

Thousands of gormless halfwits "want" it for the UK so they all pile into their petrol-guzzling particulate-producing CO2-generating whizz-boxes and go pointlessly all over the blasted place to "tick" it.

THEY ARE FILLING OUR LUNGS WITH CANCER-INDUCING CRAP, TURNING THE WORLD INTO VENUS and FOR NOTHING AT ALL.

All heron species are crap anyway, catching and torturing harmless fish and RUINING our fishing industry which is on its knees already and all the unemployed sons and daughters of fisherman are left on the streets taking drugs and going binge-drinking and hanging around outside supermarkets trying to persuade innocent shoppers to buy those special offer 8-for-the-price-of-7 crate-of-beer offers which I THOUGHT THE GOVERNMENT SAID THEY WERE GOING TO STOP.

See that bloke up there... we should show these upper class people a sight more respect... it's THEY who provide all this stuff the supermarkets are full of with their entrepreneurial skills, start-up money and all-round 24/7 selfless attitude and financial clout which is the only way that wealth will trickle down to those less advantagised than they.

Come on!! Hug a Hoity-Toity today.

Right... what about these useless bastards in the next picture.....

What do they do all day, eh? Bugger all, that's what...just loitering around in tree-tops waiting for US to come along and feed the lazy gits.

In my view they should all be rounded up and put to work.... maybe weaving baskets in which we could send all the bloody niger seed they won't be skiving off us any more to all those people out there who are actually starving.

NO... that's too good for them. Just tazer the lazy creeps. That's show them that we are no longer going to tolerate their " me-me-me" slacker so-called "morality."

And don't get me started on sodding pop music... here that Joanna Newsom with Swansea.... need I say more.

[Actually I've broken out of toxicblog mood now.. this is such a beautiful song I can't bring myself to take the piss out of it]

and here for your complete amusement is a cover version by the rather odd but interesting Bombay Bicycle Club...

Bloody Pop Music! Lazy Gits!

Actually I don't think this safe blog/toxic blog thing is such a good idea after all...

toxic.....

2011-08-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

It has been suggested that, in view of the danger of the World Financial Collapse and the like, that I ought to split my blog into a "SAFE" blog and a "TOXIC" blog.

Yes, I can see their point.

So today. I will do the SAFE BLOG and see how it goes....

Part 1 of mostlysafebirdingwithray......

I hope you all love the little birds like I do.... aren't they absolutely cuddly and darling little things?

It's really lovely to share the garden with these little sprites... I looked them up in my bird book and they must be Red-backed Shrikes. How lovely!

This morning the whole family ( Mummy, Daddy, Little Hugo and "big sister" Anemone) all cycled down to the stream at the bottom of our cosy little garden to see the Heron.... and sure enough, there he was. I like to think that we are part of his day, and that he looks forward to our visit... what do you think?

There's a cute little snap of it that our Head Gardener took the other day. I looked it up in the bird book and it looks a little bit different to the Heron in the book... isn't it lovely how they all have their own little unique special look. Lovely.

I love the little birds, I really do. I love all wild creatures, and I would cuddle them all if I could. I'm sure you would too, dear readers.

Little Anemone ( now all of 8 !) says she wants to be a lawyer, and Daddy has already put her name down for a really really good school so she can realise her potential , and when she is a top lawyer she can help the wild creatures all over Gloucestershire.

Hugo, ( only a mere 5) of course, wants to be a commodities broker just like Daddy, and he's is already on the list to go to top boarding school Snotters and loves walking around in his uniform already. What a dear. Like daddy, he will be a "green" commodities broker and will make sure that 2% of his income ( which will be an awful lot!) will go to preventing something or other, or putting a stop to something.

Last summer the whole family went on an expedition... totally spur of the moment of course...we're absolutly bonkers here!... we just loaded up Daddy's plane and flew straight to Galapagos... bit of a bumpy landing, ha ha, but we all tumbled out and had a lovely picnic. Some nasty big birds tried to eat Anemone's vol-au-vents but Daddy hit them over the head with a hefty copy of The Field so it was all right.

Oh... almost forgot... I just MUST show you the dear little Waxwings we had in the garden all winter.

There's two Daddy Waxwings and a Mummy Waxwing there, posing just like they do in the bird book. Amazingly, a few of the males seem to stayed on for the summer!

We're off to France next week in Daddy's plane, so here's a lovely bit of French music for you all... don't you just love everything about France?

Yes, it's AqME and " A Chaque Seconde". How sweet!

of mugwumps and....

2011-08-08T13:11:00.001-07:00

What about that thing then? After much research, partially involving a complete and total inability to find ANY of my various wonderful Fungus books in the rather remarkable chaos of my " office" , I have narrowed this down to " Fungus species."

Just to make things clear, it's the thing on the left I am referring to... the other thing on the right I know even less about.

I was intending to write some stunning revelations about birding things but am now too tired after a busy day ferrying the Librarian around all over Cumbria and back. Maybe tomorrow, as I think the Yardbirds once intoned.

And talking of music, here's top French band Dolly with a cracking song. "Je ne veux pas rester sage." I know the feeling....

I'm expecting an ID by return of post folks......

UPDATE... preliminary research ( looking in a book at LM) shows it just might be Giant Funnel, Leucopaxillus giganteus.

Mike Bubbins and his Settee List.......

2011-08-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Librarian's recent trip to Edinburgh reminded me that I never did get round to writing a review of the THIRD bird-related fringe show I saw last year.

I am sure that my faithful readers have not forgotten the other two shows I reviewed. If you can't quite bring them to mind, you can easily read them by copying and pasting their titles ( below) into google, where you will be instantly transported to last August.

The Last Wild Owl in Edinburgh

Indiana Zaltzman and his Tremendously Impressive 494 British List.

OK.... so now you are up to speed.

Well, the other bird-related show I saw was pretty hard to track down.... the flyer for it ( see above) had no dates, no venue, no times... nothing!!

I soon found out why this was.....

The whereabouts of the Mike Bubbins in question seemed to be common knowledge all over Edinburgh... at least by the Fringe crowd. He was spending the whole of the Festival "living" on an abandoned settee by some railings near East Crosscauseway, and his "show" consisted of compiling a "day list" every day, with or without the help of his reasonably numerous visitors, and also inviting people onto the settee to talk about birding, twitching, birds, twitches, twitching and, er, twitching.

Both of these "strands" to his show were more entertaining than you might think, because the reviews I had read all featured the constant arguments and ID battles which not only became rather heated ( because a lot of his audience didn't realise he was trying to get arguments going) but went on rumbling throughout each day.

Some of this went on during my 40-minute visit to his "show" .... here's what happened...roughly..

When I arrived, there were 3 "visitors", all talking fairly amiably about themselves, when suddenly Mr. Bubbins shouted out " Day Tick... Hooded Crow!"

We all looked up, and eventually latched onto a little speck a few 100 feet up flying away into the distance towards Arthur's Seat.

I said straight off that it wasn't any such thing, and one of the others said they didn't have them in Edinburgh, and ,needless to say, an argument got going... Mr. Bubbins was waving his clip-board rather fiercely, but then he looked over my shoulder and shouted " Here we go... Grey Wag calling, there it is, Grey Wag, day tick!!

I heard no such thing, and the only bird I could see was probably a Chaffinch, but that got another row going, and so things went on...

Every few minutes Mr. Bubbins claimed some new rather marginal sighting and everyone rose to the bait. By this time a quick look at the clipboard showed a day list of 87 so far, including Night Heron, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and Serin!

The lying toad!

People came and went, arguments waxed and waned, stories were exchanged in calmer intervals, genuine species were seen and listed... all great but rather weird fun.... once you realised what he was up to.

In some ways it resembled a rather anarchic afternoon in Lilians more than anything else... but considerable noisier.

Today's music was sparked by a random find. I went to the library and spotted this superb CD cover by a band I had never heard of......

So, here is (The) Notwist and " Pick up the phone" ....

Naturally, this brings up the question... are there CD covers even more birdy than this one.. more species, more exotic, less coherent??

Mikado Pheasant....

2011-07-24T11:07:00.001-07:00

I'm sure ALL of my devoted readers will know about that much-loved word game, Mornington Crescent.
If you don't remember, or never knew, the rules for Mornington Crescent, copy and paste this into google to read more... http://www.mornington-crescent-rule.fsnet.co.uk/mornington-crescent-rules.htm

Plus... copy and paste this for further information http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A769395

Sorted!

For several years now I have been playing the birdwatcher's version of the game, "Mikado Pheasant." I'm still nowhere near an expert, and indeed there is an old saying.. " One must lose 1000 games of Mikado Pheasant before its true face reveals itself."

Exactly.

Here's one of my more recent games, when I was soundly drubbed by " Quetzal471" ... my moniker, by the way, is "Mr. Crummles"

Remember, we are both trying to reach " Mikado Pheasant" whilst also having to stick to all 314 " Transformation Rules" which limit one's possibilities at each stage.

Here we go then... under Rule 58 I get to choose the starter-species.....

Mr. Crummles : Gull-Billed Tern ( Rule 44)

Quetzal471 : Rufous Whistler ( Rule 287 + Nottler's Shunt)

Mr. Crummles : Streaky Canary ( This was challenged under subrule 206)

Quetzal471 : Abdim's Stork ( Crabtree's sub-Gambit Reversed + Rule 297)

Mr. Crummles : Lizard Buzzard ( I was sailing a bit close to the wind here)

Quetzal471: Goodfellow's Whiteye ( He has underthrummed me here using Spig)

Mr. Crummles: Oleaginous Hemispingus (Semi-Schübs + Grimple )

Quetzal471: Dimorphic Fantail ( Oh no - a half-Helsey with Nottler)

Mr. Crummles: Mistletoebird ( A clever intervention - Wänkel's Trunktrick )

Quetzal471: Jacky Winter ( He's good isn't he... Rules 12, 46 and 118)

Mr. Crummles: Rose Robin ( Challenged under rule 307c)!)

Quetzal471: Dollar Roller ( Crumbs.. a Grimshaw Trap with Underslunk )

Mr Crummles: Smoky Melipotes ( He's left me only 1 choice under Frubley)

Quetzal471: Mikado Pheasant !! ( A crafty Dobereimer's Triad. Ouch!)

Well, I lost again... but I got hit with some subtle plays... mind you, had he used Mybug's Junket on move 5, or even worse, he could have floored me early on with a cunning interpretation of Rule 103 known these days as Leggy's Neck. Vicious.

Now come on readers... can anyone see how I could have beaten him at any stage of this brief encounter?

I've looked over each of my plays over and over. Possibly I could have tried Pragler's Knee-Trembler early on... but it doesn't look good does it?

Think it over and see if you can help me out.

While you're thinking about all that... here's a beautiful thing... Be good Tanyas and " Scattered Leaves."

Oh.. one more thing.. don't forget to give any improvements etc using the modified Screggs notation ( you know,, the one with subscripted Prengs).Many thanks.

ID Meltdown......

2011-07-20T05:55:00.000-07:00

Just imagine the chaos if this thing went past Flamborough 2 miles out!

Slide this one along to 1min 25 secs for the best bits.... imagine this thing 800 feet up over St. Mary's!!

Slide this next one to about 2mins 20 seconds to get to the good bit...

Two miles out to sea, this next one might be a bit of a problem...

This one is less of an ID challenge...

Ask yourselves... are we birders up to speed on this sort of thing?

Should all distantly-viewed rare birds over the last 5 years be re-thunk by the rarities committee people?

Is the News of the World involved?

The Moa is NOT an extinct bird.

2011-07-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

Before you start wondering why I have used that strange title, you might remember I wrote a post ages ago which pretended that the Moa was not extinct... that it had been recreated by interbreeding two other species which each had half of the moa DNA.... it was all a joke of course, but top observers have noticed that that particular article has been stuck firmly at the top of my " all-time most visited posts" list seemingly for ever.

You can read it by clicking on the top of the sidebar where that cowboy is wielding a rifle.

You'll need to read it anyway to find out why!

Well, the other day I found out how to find out exactly how many people had read the " fake Moa" article and it turns out that it has been read more than 3500 times!

SO... just for a laugh, I thought I'd use a similar title and see what happens.... we will, indeed, see....

Right, on to normal business...

Here's an interesting bird list...

Spouse Harrow..... constantly bothers married people... nobody knows why.

OldenGeye.... that old gaffer you always see with WW1 binoculars in a case at Titchwell

Dock Rove.... forever checking out the local harbour for rare gulls.

WedRing..... often seen on the fingers of married folk.Hangs round churches.

CrawlWeeper .... frequently drunk as a newt and found blubbing by the roadside.

Crown Beeper ... a foreign bird which hogs the middle of the road and constantly hoots at you.

BuffPack... another foreigner, it goes around naked, carrying its clothes on its back.

Well readers, this was all going along fine until I got to Corn Bunting and decided to leave it right there.

I wasn't over-happy about Hummingbird either actually.

Having narrowly avoided upsetting all those Moa-mad potential readers of this little offering, here's a nice little number by top Welsh band Llwybr Llaethog .. "Specs melyn"

Eat your heart out Goldie lookin' Chain.

Sky News... dramatic pictures!

2011-07-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

During the infamous "Pink Swan" holiday in the Loch Erne area I took these two dramatic cloud photographs from the house we stayed in near Beleek. Just thought you might like to see them... here's the other one...

They looked even more dramatic in real life.

As for a spot of music, here is the excellent Zahara with " chica pop"... the end of the song has been cut off, but it's a cracker all the same....

The Pink Swan...

2011-07-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

I've been to Fermanagh for a week... amazingly, and despite all my direst predictons, the weather was mostly OK and things went reasonably well family-wise. Not many birds about though... very little seen from the boat in either direction.We were close to the border and actually dipped into the South a few times without making any sort of significant addition to my minuscule Eire list.

Here's what happened one sunny afternoon....

The Librarian and me, plus that dog, had a little stroll along the shore of Loch something-or-other, and then sat on a handy bench on a little promontory commanding a huge view over said innominate Loch.

How jolly.

I started to scan around with my magnificent Zeiss bins.

I wasn't expecting too much.... Fermanagh is the Land Of Lakes, every one of them seemingly devoid of bird life though apparently teeming with fish. Sure enough, there were 2 Tufted Ducks in view... and that was all. Never one to give up, I continued to scrutinise every little nook and cranny of Loch X and its various attractive, mediaeval-monument-bedecked islands.

Those are on Boa Island... which isn't an island any more.They're pretty creepy.

Aha... my eyes lit upon a Swan. And not just any Swan. A bright pink Swan. Blimey.

It was sitting on a wooden jetty.

I carried on looking. It was way way off, but certainly a Swan. And it was certainly pink.

Here's a picture of one I found on the internet.....

Maybe it was one of those plastic Swans you can buy in Water Feature Emporia to float in your pond. After all, on just one mast in the nearby marina were an Eagle Owl, a Peregrine and a Magpie... all made of plastic.

But no.... its ( pink) neck was clearly moving in a Swanny, sinuous sort of way.

Crumbs.

The Librarian had a look... unusually, we agreed... it was a pink Swan.Very pink.

The Librarian helpfully suggested that it had been eating something that turned it pink.

I had another look... Yep, it was still moving that neck about...maybe there was a local Swan-dying scheme that I hadn't heard about. Were there any pink Swans in the world? Could it be a rare Russian Pink Swan, or the legendary Chameleon Swan that could turn whatever colour it fancied just for a laugh?

Somehow, even at that distance, the bill didn't look right... hard to tell, but it looked darkish and too thin.... hard to be sure though. What the hell was it?

We each watched it, swapping the miraculously good Zeiss bins, and eventually the Librarian said....

" Oh.... it's standing up."

" It's walking along the jetty...it's not a Swan.. it's a man with no clothes on!!!!"

I politely grabbed the wonderful Zeiss bins and watched dumbstruck as the "pink Swan" strolled along the jetty and climbed into the boat moored at the end. Swans don't generally do that.

It was indeed a naked man...shortish, thin, but definitely NOT a Swan, even a rare Russian one.

How the hell was he lying down in such a way as to look like a Swan? Just think about it.... was he a contortionist from the nearby circus, or what?

I felt a complete chump...and the Librarian was happy to agree with me.

Still, it was a long way off. To show you how far it was, I'm not totally sure it was a man.

Cripes... it's probably a good job I didn't bring the jellyscope along, or we'd both have been in front of the beak the next day at least.

This ridiculous set of events beats my previous astounding misidentifications hands down..

There was my famous gaff when I mistook a bus for a Willow Warbler. It could happen to anyone.

The wing formula is completely different for a start.

There was the Golden Oriole that a few seconds later was reidentified as a boy whistling happily on a bicycle. Not really my fault.

In the days when Little Egrets were rare, I spent quite a while scoping a white plastic bucket with hope in my heart.

There was the really weird duck on Hare Tarn which I eventually realised was actually a plastic one. I blame the manufacturers personally.

Now then pop-piqueurs... here's Daran and Une Sorte D'Eglise. Great song, ace video...

By the way, the French use the expression " Gone Boating" to mean a person is mad... hence the picture at the top. I'm beginning to wonder myself.....

Posh Prangs

2011-06-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

There's no stopping the fun up here at Castle Ray.

A while ago we read a news story about someone who had turned up at A & E with their head stuck in a Tuba.... and we thought..

" blimey... what a middle-class injury that is."

Ever since, we've been thinking up other accidents/injuries that will generally only happen to the relatively posh... I told you the fun never stops.....

Cracking your head open when a flower-press falls on your head.

A violin string snaps and cuts your cheek.

You fall out of your box at the Royal Opera House.

Fingers broken when the piano-lid unexpectedly slams down.

Paper-cuts incurred whilst flicking through Paradise Lost.

Your 4x4 rolls over on top of you while you are trying to get your autogyro on the roof.

Repetitive Strain Injury from too much Lute-playing

Your head falls off whilst watching a long match on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Falling off your yacht.

Heatstroke from travelling in a hot horse-box.

Bursting while playing the oboe. ( Messy)

Choking on a Mah-Jong tile.

Well... you get the idea,

And that leads us to.....

WHAT SORT OF INJURIES DO BIRDWATCHERS GET ?

I thought I would have to make a load of them up, but I hardly need to... it seems that birding in all its forms is downright lethal.We go to dangerous, lonely places, often very isolated, in all weathers and all over the world... except me.

Anyhow, some of these ARE made up, and I think you will spot them easily enough....

[a] I got lost as night fell in a sudden dense fog on top of Ward's Stone. I was lucky to get down alive I reckon.No map, no compass, no mobile, no nothing.

[b] I almost died of hypothermia whilst seawatching at Llanfairfechen.... after over an hour crouching on the "beach" in a freezing wind, I found when I set off back to the car that I could barely move. I had to crawl about 200m back to the car on my hands and knees as I literally couldn't get up!

[c] Me and Pete Ashcroft had a near-death experience when suddenly attacked by a mob of mad bullocks... we just got over the fence about a second before they trampled us to death.

[d] I have on many occasions stood far too near to the edge of many cliffs... most hazardously at Flamborough while watching 2 Pallid Swifts. How the myriad kids that were running around shoving each other didn't go over the edge I don't know... it scared me half to death just watching them.

[e] I have crossed the horribly exposed and rickety Carrick-a-Rede "bridge" several times.. I must have been mad.

In two ultra-mad occasions I crossed it complete with telescope and tripod, which needless to say got tangled up with the bridge several times on the way.

[f] Scilly Helicopters... on one dramatic occasion the pilot, approaching Penzance, decided to give us passengers the fright of our lives by tipping the heli up at 70 degrees and whizzing around St Michael's Mount so close we could see down the chimneys.Ooooooh!

[g] I have often been way out in the open during a sudden thunderstorm complete with METAL tripod and METAL telescope. Not a good idea.

[h] Many years ago I and several others went for a rare duck on a certain very large body of water in Bowland. . On arrival, we saw that it was frozen over... on scanning, no ducks could be seen so we decided to walk over the ice, go round the island and see if the target species was in possibly open water on the other side. Eek.
We did. It was. We must have been barking mad.

[i] Then there was the time when we were twitching a White-billed Diver on Anglesey years ago... a certain over-eager passenger ( codename Trebor Regnits) was so keen to see the thing, he decided to get out of the car before it had stopped and the back wheel took a good chunk of the flesh off his foot. Ouch! He put a brave face on things however... I expect when he got home that night he hoofed straight round to A & E to get it glued back or something.

[j] Here's a good one... some years ago I and a.n.other were looking for a certain bird in a certain set of fields. These fields were bordered with an electric fence. Anyhow, my companion , who was some way ahead of me, decided to try to get over this fence. I had particularly impressed on him the need to keep quiet and to be inconspicuous for reasons the reader might understand... anyhow, laughing boy managed to get himself stuck on the electric fence, with a particularly sensitive part of his anatomy recieving a hefty shock every few seconds. I've never heard more squealing since I used to pass by the slaughterhouse on the way to school! I went over and eventually managed to drag him off the fence, getting a good few hefty shocks myself. Don't do it lads! Here's a picture of some poor chap who seems to have had a similar encounter......

Well, that's all pretty exciting isn't it... I think I'll save some for part 2.

In the meantime, here is Aberystwyth band Poppies with a smashing video ... Cam....

Springwatch Tickbox Hotchpotch!!

2011-06-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, today I am going to tell you how you can enjoy that Sprigwash programme a whole lot more.... which isn't much of an ask really is it?

Here's a whole host of things to watch out for... and everything you DO manage to spot will earn you POINTS.

Even though it is like shooting huge fish in a small barrel....

[A] Ten points if you spot our 3 presenters lined up in a line with BIG TALL Crisp Ackham at one end, medium-sized Humble Pie in the middle and tiny little Rupert Winfield-Hayes at the titchy dinky persons end looking like a garden gnome.

[B] 3 big points every time you manage to glimpse Little Miss Muffet actually NOT TILTING HER HEAD OVER TO ONE SIDE and just holding it up vertically like NORMAL people do.

[C] 4 points can be earned if you spot one of the presenters running huff-puff to get somewhere else in time for something. Anything. Nothing.

[D] Whenever any of the presenters talks about Beavers, you can earn an easy 7 points if you spot any of the Big Three desperately trying to not grin sheepishly.

[E] You pick up 2 points if you can spot BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY SEE IT the moment in the program where "Statto" Packem gets his blasted chart out.

[F] A big 10 points when you notice that the aforesaid Packem trots out a line from the wonderful Tom Jones song " It's not Unusual." In the past he has done a load of quotes from the Smiths ( William, it was really nothing) and The Cure ( Like Cockatoos).

To help you out on this one, here ARE the words to It's Not Unusual....

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone
It's not unusual to have fun with anyone
but when I see you hanging about with anyone
It's not unusual to see me cry,
oh I wanna' die
It's not unusual to go out at any time
but when I see you out and about it's such a crime
if you should ever want to be loved by anyone,
It's not unusual it happens every day no matter what you say
you find it happens all the time
love will never do what you want it to
why can't this crazy love be mine
It's not unusual, to be mad with anyone
It's not unusual, to be sad with anyone
but if I ever find that you've changed at anytime
it's not unusual to find out that I'm in love with you
whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh

I've also helped you a bit by italicising the bits I think he has used already... though maybe has has done the "whoa-whoa" bit without me noticing.

[G] Flirting! If you spot Mr. P flirting with Mrs H, you get 2 points per flirt.Easy points there.

[H] You get a rather pathetic 1 point every time they look around and say how lovely it is.

[I] 2 points every time they ask you to get involved.

[J] 3 points when they tell you how amazing and dedicated anybody is... the camerapersons, the " story development team,", the person who colours in the bar charts, some amazing naturalist they have dug up from a bog in AberBunkUp or similar.

[K] A massive 8 points if you can predict which scene they are going to close the show with... this is a tricky one and a bit of a nailbiter...

[L] Watch closely during Arthur Rackham's " GEEK" section... he has made some terrific clangers in the past, and many minor ones. His worst by far was his completely and utterly WRONG explanation for the occurrence of seasons at out latitudes. It was enough to make any Geography teacher or anyone with a half a grain of sense at all turn a whiter shade of pale.

Always worth a gander.... points awarded on a sliding scale from 1 ( mispronouncing Nictitating Membrane as he did last night) to 8000 ( see above).

[M] This is a real stonker... that Martin Huge-Games is normally such a happy chap even when he is sent off on some crappy errand... but he can occasionally get slightly irked!

If YOU spot the slightest hint of irkdom... 12 points!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[N] Easy points to finish with... there's CP and KH , and KH is talking, and CP is facing us with a little smile... then suddenly he decides to show he is really listening so he turns his whole body towards her! Really obviously! 2 points!

That'll do for now .... the music has GOT to be Tom Jones....

What a cheesy load of old parboiled tosh... and a crap jacket as well.

Inuit Tit

2011-05-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

I'm working on it! It's GOT to eat whale blubber for a start....and it will have a little ruff round its head like the fringe on a parka... and of course it will be threatened by the melting of the ice-caps and there will be boatloads of researchers and conservationists zooming over to rescue it, and............ well ,watch this space! Anybody got any photographs or drawings of Unuit Tit? email them to me at ray2718@hotmail.co.uk.....you know you want to!

Of course, the discovery of the Inuit Tit was entirely due to the recent surge in interest in birds whose name you can't colour in... and the Inuit Tit is just bthe most celebrated of a whole host of newly-discovered and as yet undiscovered Tit species.. all totally un-colour-inable!

Here's a quick run-through of a few of the main discoveries and projected species to date...

A surprising number of Tit species seem to inhabit the darker side of the spectrum..

Murky Tit
Sly Tit
Slum Tit
Clink Tit
Scum Tit
Surly Tit
Junky Tit
Illicit Tit
Crusty Tit
Trash Tit
Unruly Tit
Iffy Tit

Quite a few, most of them as yet unfound, seem to be a little on the loose side...

Lusty Tit
Funky Tit
Hussy Tit
Fit Tit
Scrummy Tit
Smutty Tit
Curvy Tit
Frisky Tit
Hunky Tit
Kinky Tit
Thrusty Tit
Slinky Tit
Husky Tit

Few seem to be sporty at all...

Stilt Tit
rink Tit
Tutu Tit
Nifty Tit
and some totally unsporty...

Unfit Tit
runt Tit
Clumsy Tit

But many are well off...

Mink Tit
rich Tit
Swish Tit
Lucky Tit
Luxury Tit
Silky Tit
Furry Tit

and quite a few are downright unsociable or just down on their luck...

Unlucky Tit
Skint Tit
Scruffy Tit
Skunk Tit
Whiffy Tit
Crummy Tit
Witch Tit
Sulky Tit
Shitty Tit
Stinky Tit
Fussy tit
Hissy-Fit-tit
Surly Tit
Stuffy Tit

some are unclassifiable as yet..

Stuck Tit
Mist Tit
Unfunny Tit
Jiffy Tit
Fist Tit
Mint Tit
Unjust Tit
Unfussy Tit
Husky Tit
Sky tit
Slush Tit
Yuck Tit
Wrist Tit
Churn Tit
Tufty Tit
Immunity Tit

Some like a drink..

Whisky Tit
rum Tit
Gin Tit [if you allow the capital G to escape in lower-case colour-in g].
Milk Tit

Some come in easy-to assemble form...

Kit Tit
Knit Tit

One species is confined to Scotland...

Kilt Tit

one species lives down Scottish chimneys..

Lum Tit

And one that only lives on a Scottish island...

Mull Tit

Some could do with a decent meal...

Thin Tit
Flimsy Tit
Skinny Tit

One species is just tiny..

Itsy-Witsy Tit

A few have been eating fermented fruit..

Fizzy tit

And some have had no fruit at all...

Scurvy Tit

There is one species that always does the right thing...

Just Tit

Some are just nice ...

Mumsy Tit
Luvvy Tit
Scrummy Tit
Chummy Tit
Trusty Tit

One has a sense of humour..

Witty Tit

Some are still troubled about their identity...

Which Tit
Isn't Tit
Shy Tit

Some are for twitchers only

Twitch Tit
List Tit
Wish-List Tit

LATE LATE NEWS.... it's not just Tits..... apparently the boffins have just recognised a new species, the Cliff Swift.

Not only that, but apparently a subspecies of Cliff Swift lives on the beach elevator at Saltburn.. it's the Cliff Lift Swift!

If you fancy twitching it....

and here is a video of a 90% genuine NCI ( not colourable-in except for the "a".. the nearest NCI Swift species I could find!) species, Vaux's Swift...

and to round off this very long article with a spot of music, here is Cerys Matthews singing " Arlington Way"...

Ian Strontium Lamplugh

2011-05-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

Ian Strontium Lamplugh was the only son of well-known local birdwatcher Ernest Lamplugh. As we all know, poor old Ernest was run over by an ice-cream van whilst attempting to avoid paying for a bacon sandwich by being the first to see a Dunnock after a challenge from his old birdwatching companion Ramjet Presh.

Ernest had always been keen on chemistry, and as Strontium was by far his favourite element, he thought it would make an ideal middle name for poor old Ian.... and so it was.He was called Ian because Ernest was the archetypal skinflint and thought he would save oceans of cash on icing Birthday cakes etc.

We can forget Ernest now, as everyone else has.

Ian was quite a keen birdwatcher too.... but, like many of his ilk, he never saw much of any importance, and certainly never found anything exceptional. Well, that all changed just a few weeks after he met his first girlfriend!

Alice knew that Ian was the man for her, when she realised that he was none too bright and was desperate enough not to inquire too deeply into her past. It only took about 8 seconds for her to realise this, and she closed in on her prey immediately and within 10 minutes they were "courting strong" as Mrs Lamplugh used to say.

Everything was wonderful! Alice, on hearing his woes about never seeing or finding any good birds, went out and bought him the best binoculars money could buy, and proudly presented them to him on their " one month anniversary." She wanted desperately for him to be happy, and for her to be the source of his happiness.

That same afternoon,Ian, with his new binoculars around his neck, plus Alice of course, set off for Smolten Leighs Bird Reserve ( you'll remember it, it's Carnforth Interchange Services and Retail Outlet nowadays). Entering the " Chunky Cheese and Chips" Hide they settled into position in front of the " Brutes and Bitches Tanning Parlour" Lagoon and Ian proudly raised his new bins to his eyes.

Stap me if the first bird he set eyes on wasn't a Green Heron skulking in the reeds close by... our intrepid hero scrabbled in his jacket for his bird book.... yes, he checked off all the ID features and IT WAS A BLOODY GREEN HERON!

Luckily for him, a proper birder came into the hide... Ian told him the good news... and within half an hour the bird had been photographed, the news was out, and already 37 people had turned up to see it. Ian was on Cloud 10, the ID was in the bag, he had actually found something.

If only, thought Ian, I had bought some bins like this 5 years ago. He knew now what had been holding him back... it wasn't him.... it was the pathetic, cheap and nasty equipment that had let him down.

Alice too was so pleased that her timely gift had come up with the goods straight way.

Well, readers, over the next few months Ian found a Franklin's Gull, a Penduline Tit, A Sora Rail, two Black Kites and a Zitting Cisticola!

Alice was with him for all these triumphs, and shared his happiness.

Only two things troubled Ian a little in the dark early hours....

It was very odd, but whenever he was out and about with Alice his friends seemed to be shunning him... but he put this down to a sort of jealousy... that they didn't see how he could have attracted such a beauty... as Alice undoubtedly was. Several of them had actually backed away when they first saw them together...strange.

The second thing he found odd was that he only found anything rare when she was with him.... but he put that down to coincidence.. a happy coincidence, because it was her timely gift which had brought him all this good fortune and acclaim.

.................. END OF PART ONE........................................................

First to see......

2011-05-25T03:34:00.000-07:00

There's loads of games to play for us intrepid birdwatchers... all of them totally for fun and avoiding anything remotely scientific or useful of course.

Pure hedonism in fact! The shame of it!!!!

Some are very simple and can be played at anytime, on your own or with like -minded doddery old shufflers like myself.....

There's the ever-popular " How many species can I see at once through my binoculars?"

Here's somebody playing this thrilling game....

Plus its up-market companion, " How many species can I see at once in my telescope?"

If you have taken my previous advice and haven't actually invested in any optical aids, you can just play.. " How many species can I see now?"... Currently as I type this I can see 1 ( Swift) and hear one ( Wren).

Whilst ambling through our major cities, you can see how long you can go without seeing any bird at all... or can get your " model birds in charity shops" list going.

Now that is a really exciting thing to do... your trips into Preston will from now on be non-stop excitement!

If you are in prison, you can while away the hours with word-games like..

... which bird names have no letters you can colour in?
....how many bird names begin and end with the same letter?
... which bird name is the most inappropriate?
... which single-word bird name would score the most at Scrabble?

BUT... all of these are just piddling games for sad old loners ... what we need to shove the screaming and kicking corpse of top-level birdwatching into the 21st Century is a true blockbuster of a game that will rival " Deal or No Deal" and " Strictly come Dancing" and even " The Apprentice" with non-stop thrills and spills, scandal, cheating, overambitious morons making their first million, superinjunctions,wardrobe malfunctions, high-speed car chases, class A drugs, and all-round family entertainment.

And here it is... the new birdwatching game " FIRST TO SEE " [ patent pending].

Basically, a bunch of birdwatchers of all persuasions ( dimwits, geared-up prats, "ecologists" , " nature-lovers" , raving out-and-out twitchers,retired vicars,washed-up comedians,drips,tree-huggers,Ramjet Presh, precocious schoolkids etc etc all sit round a table in the Smolten Leighs Tea-Rooms ( patent pending) and the super-computer " BIRDBRAIN 2000 " makes a lot of beeping noises and suddenly the name of a bird pops up on the screen!

OK... the first one to see it wins!

Simple as that. It's got to be in the wild, it's got to be in the UK.

Everything else is allowed!

Eye-gouging, engine-tampering, misinformation, disinformation, forging sick-notes,petrol-siphoning, fake road blocks, turning signs round, dressing up as a policeman, spreading superglue on the seats, ... whatever.

Each contestant has his/her/its film crew which tracks and films their every move until and beyond the magic climax as the target bird is seen!

Yes folks, that's EVERY MOVE!!

You will be able to gamble online on all aspects of the competition... the eventual winner of course, but also..

... who will be first to burst into tears
... who will be first to shout " this is not for the camera"
... who will be first to hire a helicopter
... who will be the first to fall asleep at the wheel with hilarious consequences
... who will be first to be filmed pissing behind a tree
... who will be the first to be told.. " Go and get some rest" ?
... who will be first to say " It's a game of two halves" ?
... Who will be first to say " I've staked my reputation on this " ?

Imagine the excitement... and as 10% of the profits go to the RSPB, it's all in a good cause!!

Win-win!!

The nice thing with this gameis that, even after it has gone international, the lowly birdwatcher can play it as well.

There you are at the Cafe de Lune with your old mate Ernest Lamplugh, and you suddenly say... eh-up, Ernie, last one to see a Dunnock buys the next bacon sandwich.

The gloom is lifted and you're off on a little adventure!

And remember... it was MY IDEA!

So, while I wait for Channel 28 to get in touch and offer me a deal, I will listen to this terrific song by Wir sind Helden, Kreise.... it's not much of a video, but the sing itself is what I would call an absolute corker.

There. ain't that something?

Right... I'm off for a quick game of " how long will it take me to see a black-headed gull" while I hsve my dinner at the kitchen window... my spread bet is " 5 to 10 minutes".
UPDATE... I've lost my bet... it's now 70minutes and 13 seconds since I started and I STILL haven't spotted a bloody bhg... though 4 LBBs have drifted by. That's the excitement and unpredictability of " First to See."

That horrible feeling....

2011-05-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

Yes
... THAT horrible feeling.

For many days now I have trundled around Aldcliffe scanning the skies hopefully for a certain bird beginning with O.

All totally fruitless.

Anyway, this afternoon I arrive home, weary, footsore, a trifle irked.. and my neighbour over the road cheerfully came over with some good news.

RAY!! he beams... guess what I saw over the house... yes, a [bird beginning with O] flew right over, got mobbed by a few Crows... brilliant!

My well-being quotient immediately plummeted to -407 as I looked into his beaming, happy visage... I could feel my innards turning to the consistency of porridge and molten lead, and I desperately wanted to give him a solid boot up the arse.

" Oh, excellent" I croaked.. " that IS a good sighting"

As I watched him striding jauntily to his house I wished I had an AK47 filled with special dum-dum bullets. Or one of those teeth-fillings made of Cyanide that I could chew on and say goodbye to this world.

I was irked,pissed off, totally and utterly dejected.

My day, such as it, was ruined.

In fact MY ENTIRE LIFE WAS NOW NOT WORTH A SHIT.

Even if the Sun exploded RIGHT NOW, the 8 and a half minutes wait till it reached me would be FAR TOO LONG.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

Why do I watch these stupid bloody birds that fly over SOMEONE ELSE.

What am I thinking of?

Why am I wasting my time?

What's the use of my 78000000000 years of experience if the stupid things fly past the WRONG people ?

Well,at the moment I don't know and I don't care.

Music... Joy division... disorder....

Floaters at the Sewage Works!

2011-04-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

I've been away... to Norfolk... and now I am back...and the Librarian's foot is almost better and soon I won't have to spend all my time ferrying her about and carrying cups of tea all over the place... because. one thing that is very difficult to do when you are on crutches is carrying things like cups of tea.

We were in Norfolk a bit early birdwise, plus our mobility was pretty restricted.

Here's an excellent snap of the distant Librarian plus wheelchair { pushed all the way along the Titchwell embankment by ME) plus stupid dog.She's only about 30m from a superb pair of those Garganey things... they were a life tick for many of the scoped-up throng... that's Titchwell for you.

That photo took about 10 minutes to load up... there must be 8 million people logging on to look at the evening Royal wedding update or some such stuff.

Here's a photo of me on that East Bank thingy they have at Cley.... note lead for errant stupid dog which the librarian couldn't hold due to only one leg and my daughter couldn't hold due to broken wrist. This was NOT conducive to top birding.

I think I will postpone further pics until the web has returned to normal.

LOCAL NATURE NOTES... On Tuesday, at the well-named Sewage Works Picnic Site there were 6 male and 3 female Eiders floating about on the river... and then yesterday ( Thursday) there were 13 males (!) and 6 females. Blimey.

Attempts to spot any local passing Ospreys have failed despite much looking-upwards behaviour... all rather irksome. Swifts 0, Lincoln City 3.. late result.

Behaviour notes... a few days ago I got a remarkable sighting of well-known local birder Tom Wilmer walking up Queen Street in a suit! Plus a large red flowery thing in his buttonhole . Could this be some sort of nuptual behaviour? Should I write to BB or B W or B ?

This sparkling bit of pop music is Bukkushan and Alles war aus Gold. I really like it.

and I hope you will too... a hint of open tunings here I think...

Hello Seahorse

2011-04-03T11:29:00.001-07:00

Some years ago I did something that most people think you can't do any more.
I walked around the stones at Stonehenge.... actually inside the perimeter fence, touching the actual stony things.

You can do this if you ring up Stonehenge well in advance and book... they are obliged to let a limited number of people in, and they do it before and after closing time. Brilliant!

Anyway, while this limited band of people were there, a bloke was demonstrating dowsing with bent metal rods.... Everybody had a go, including me, and I could do it!

Here's a handy video...

Which is odd, because I can't really agree with the idea... it doesn't make much sense scientifically.

So.... a long gap, then two days ago I was wandering along and there lying on the path was a nice, dowsing-fit-for-pupose forked stick.

Reader, I carried it. [ Literary pun.... I'm impressed]

And needless to say, but I have, I tried it out... and wouldn't you just know it, it worked again. I thought it must be me, and not the twig.... so I wandered along a bit more and when it went down, I marked the spot by impaling a bit of paper on the nearby fence.

Then I walked a good way along, turned round, shut my eyes, grasped el twig, and ambled forwards hopefully. Eventually I felt the twig pulling downwards sharply, opened my eyes... and stap my vitals if I wasn't slap bang next to the bit of paper.

I did it a few more times... it worked every time.

This is not in any way a proof of anything, but it's odd.

Where is this all going, you might ask.

Well, even more years ago I read with great interest various books by an archaeologist called T C Lethbridge.... here he is in action..

.......... a highly respected academic, but with a few odd facets to his character... one being that he claimed to be able to find all sorts of under-the-ground old stuff ( coins, potsherds, cannon-balls, etc etc ) by dowsing.

And he did it too. ....

The exciting thing is, that he also claimed to be able to do this without ever going out into " the field", but merely by opening a map, thinking of what he was looking for, and dowsing it ( he used a pendulum rather than a twig, but hey ho..)

Here's a picture of somebody "map dowsing"...

RIGHT... I am getting to the point, if such it can be called.

IF... and it's only a vague "if" .. I can dowse, then why can't I get out a map of a juicy bit of the East Coast ( or wherever) and think hard about Radde's Warblers, and dowse the map to see if there is one ??

Why not indeed! Where's my map of Sunderland Point??????

The Librarian objected to this idea, on the grounds that only underground things seem to get dowsed.

It's a good point... I don't think Radde's Warblers spend a great deal of their time undergound, although Puffins do.

Now the title for this little article WAS going to be " A new sort of Twitching" but this next band have such a jolly name ( Hello Seahorse) that I couldn't resist it!

They are a Mexican band, and this bit of music is a bit like a weird hybrid of the Cocteau Twins and Joy Division... and that's a bloody fine pedigree.

It's absolutely lovely, though rather rough around the edges...

Wow!

DropWatching...

2011-03-26T14:02:00.001-07:00

In view of the future gloomy prospects for Smolten Leighs ( see previous post) I have invented yet another great pastime ( see "Moorwatching" for one of my earlier innovations).... DropWatching!

Yes, it's DropWatching with Ray.

Here's the sort of thing you can expect in an average 4 - 5 minutes of DropWatching...it gets off to a pretty slow start but livens up quite a bit. That's mainly due to careful stalking and top dropcraft by me. ...

[update.... that describes the video I WAS going to put on... made by me using a nifty microscope attachment.... but the resulting blockbuster seems to take hours and hours to load up... no doubt to the amazing HD resolution... so I have borrowed this off youtube instead... to give you the true flavour of dropwatching... ]

Non-stop Dropwatching action there.

NATURE NOTES.... the other day me and the dog wandered down to Stodday Sewage works picnic site... a lovely spot.... and all the way down the path were regaled by the call of a Nuthatch.... not a bird one usually spots in those parts,Haverbreaks being the nearest outlet I would think.

Anyhow, at said Picnic Spot I came across another of the " Crucial Three" who mamaged to get themselves thrown off Heysham Nature Reserve early one morning many years ago .... I was one of them by the way. I've never really recovered from the shock of that dreadful scenario!

He too had been amazed at this intrusive Nuthatch. Meanwhile, the noise of a cruising Peregrine could be heard inland of us, and then it appeared on the usual Pylon and seemed to be having a wee snack.

We wondered if it could be that Nuthatch... it had mysteriously shut up!

So I walked back, and lo and behold, no sign of said Nuthatch. Oh dear.

And here is a bit of music for you..

This is a very whimsical little song by Radio Luxembourg... it's called Glo ac Oren.......but look at 2:02.... what do you reckon?

MORE NATURE NOTES.....

Blackcap singing around garden... presumably one of the 2 males which overwintered.

Chiffchaffs are considerably "in"

It's almost time to go up to the moors to look for the Merkin..... maybe even the Busticle.

A top podiatrist had a look at my right ( wrong) thumb today and declared it a prime biodiversity site, and a site of special scientific interest.True.... up to a point.

The Librarian got both UP and DOWN the Leighton Moss tearoom stairs on those stilts* the other day... lured in both directions by chunks of cake and cheese on toast on every other step.

* = crutches... she's broken her foot.

INTERNET FACT... if you google INTRUSIVE NUTHATCH.... (see above) this thingy I've just written comes up first on the list. I feel quite faint!

The MotorWay Way .......

2011-03-20T14:21:00.001-07:00

Being almost retired, I have time to think, extrapolate, intuit, cast the runes, haruscipate, scry..... and all that sort of thing.

I was thinking, as I have done many times before, of the future of well-known local bird reserve Smolten Leighs.....

Recently the marketing men have been giving it the once-over, and with their usual clear-sightedness and acumen have developed a business plan which will guarantee the future of the reserve with the implementation of a few simple, bold and fit-for-purpose targetted targets.

The truth is, and it's been staring us in the face for years, there is just too much non-profitable rubbish in the current Smolten Leighs set-up.

Bitterns, Bearded Tits, Deer, Water, Lakes, Bogs, Reeds, Frogs, Pathways, reed Buntings, Marsh Harriers etc... all total losers in the financial arena.

As they say in the world of Rugby... GET RID!!

Why not model your SL2.1 reserve/outlet on top M-way services Annandale Waters.....

Now this would be an intermediate stage, but already you can see the plus points.... only ONE bit of water for a start, and you optimise the customer experience by buying in a load of Canade Geese, Swans ( assorted) and a few crates of Chaffinches from Greece or somewhere like that.

Cheap as chips.

You've got your Hotel Complex, Conference Facilities, Catering, Nick-Nack Outlets, Decking, Petrol, Ice Creams etc all laid on.... but NO loss-making rubbish that no-one ever sees anyway ( Bitterns, etc etc.)

After 5 years, nobody of any importance will even remember what the old SL used to look like, or what it used to contain.

Then we move on to SL2.2...this time with Oxford Services as our Key Model...

This new system can be leveraged in with a perfect storm of Health and Safety, Ethnic Diversity Enhancement Profiling, Multi-platform Synergies and an impressive Green agenda.... including a windmill-powered ice-cream machine and a few solar-powered displays showing how much solar power they are capturing.

In the Nick-Nack Emporium you can sell little sepia-toned books with mythical stories about ridiculous old legends of the Smolten Leighs Lakes and the mythical creatures that lived in the swampy, disease ridden Swamps.

Even though the loss-making features have been largely cut out, those fountains are not exactly raking in the shekels are they... so after another 5 years of progress, synergy, leverage, forward planning, corporate strategies and lying, we can move on to the truly wonderful SL2.3.... modelled on the super-profitable Newport Pagnell Services...

This is truly the apex, the veritable Nirvana to which our aprirations have ,er, aspired.

No bloody loss-making water.

No blasted smelly, disease-ridden birds.

No parsimonious, penny-pinching Oxfam-beclothed semi-morons wandering around scaring off the Big Spenders and keeping away those Key Investors.

We have seen how the advent of big-spending foreign investors has propelled to world of Football kicking and screaming into the Brave New World that is the Premiership.

No reason why this can't be done with Smolten Leighs.... now, of course, rechristend as Excelsis Experience PLC.

For Today.... For Tomorrow.... For Everyone

OK.... if you want to while away a few minutes while you are agog with excitement, here's a little video you might want to take on board.

and here's a lovely bit of music by pop rebel John Cale...

I Love Excelsis Experience PLC.

The Viking is coming...

2011-03-13T13:22:00.000-07:00

Today I went completely mad, bonkers and right peculiar!!

A bit like that.

I'd better explain... a while ago, one of my offsprings showed a slight interest in those pesky feathery things, and I gave her my second-best mini-bins wot were quite good considering they were about tuppence from a junk shop.

SO.... that was OK because I had the No. 1 bins to use.

But then the LIBRARIAN busted her foot, and it's still bust by the way, and so she was lounging around the house all day so I rather foolishly let her have my No. 1 bins as mentioned above.

Both incipient signs of complete madness.

BUT... today I went utterly loopy and actually spent some money on a new pr. of 2nd-best binoculars.

OUCH.

I have never ever bought a new optical anything before....I must indeed be mad.

However... in my defence, m'lud, they were the cheapest binoculars in the history of binoculars, and they are not at all bad. They are indeed the world-beating, as used on all the Apollo missions (to Tewkesbury) Viking Traveller 8x21 superbins

I was determined to get a nice bird first up, so I zoomed along to Whinfell Drive where there were supposed to bew some Waxwings but Waxwings there were none so I then whooshed to a well-known Tree sparrow spot, took out top new bins, pointed them at suitable sparrow-like feathery things and lo... they were all House Sparrows.

Viking traveller tick 1.... House Sparrow.

I was utterly determined to get a decent bird next, so I tucked them away, and later in the day went down to Aldcliffe and spotted a Raven... I like Ravens... and so it was that RAVEN was the Viking Traveller tick 2... and the cost per species had hoofed right down to about £12 per species.

Brilliant.

That's not a Raven of course, it's a certain Beverley Craven... but it's close.

By now I have seen a few more species through the Vikings, including Wood Pigeon and Chaffinch.

The price per species has PLUMMETED down to about £1.40 or suchlike.

I have also. looked at the Moon several times, and projected the Sun onto a page of my notebook.

NATURE NOTES by "Viking" Having heard that various Sand Martins had been spotted in various parts of the country by the " binocular brigade" I decided to have a look at well-known Sand-Martin-Magnet Pine Lake and there indded were 3 of the little beggars, whizzing about like anything just above tree-top height at 10:30.

NOW it is music time, and I think it will be that jolly Klee lot and LiebemichLeben...

They're German so I suppose there is a vague Viking link....

Not all news is good news.

2011-03-10T12:47:00.001-08:00

I don't know whether any of you heard this on the news.... watch the video...

* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 March 2011 00.26 GMT

A Panamanian player, Luís Moreno, has caused an uproar and faces severe punishment after kicking an owl which was lying on the pitch during a Colombian championship match at the weekend. Video footage showed that the bird was first struck by the ball near the Pereira penalty area during the match at Atlético Junior, prompting the referee to stop play.

As the referee and players discussed what to do, the Pereira defender Moreno – apparently impatient over the delay, as his team were losing 2-1 – was seen to kick the bird towards the touchline with his left foot.

"The player should be severely punished for this painful, horrible act of intolerance," Ramón Jesurum, the president of the Colombian league, said in a radio interview. He added that the case would go before the league's disciplinary committee.

Atlético Junior fans chanted "murderer" at the Panamanian player, according to Colombian media. Moreno was also reprimanded by opponents and he apologised after the game.

"I apologise to the fans, it wasn't my intention," he said, as he left the field escorted by radio reporters and police.

Colombian media said the owl had been rescued by ground staff and taken to a vet. Its condition was reported to be serious.

UPDATE.... apparently the owl died a couple of days after this incident.

Now I'm not usually the soft-hearted type, but this is appalling to watch.... as I am sure all will agree. Aren't there any national laws about this sort of thing in Colombia, or are footballers immune from the law once on a footy pitch.... as seems to be the case in this country?

Film Night

2011-03-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

Here's a gripping little film I made involving coupled pendulums.... when it begins, there are 2 pendulums suspended from a sort of "washing-line" pieceo of string, so that the movement of one pendulum influences the other a little bit.

At the start of the film, a mystery hand ( me) sets just one of the pendulums going.. the CAT. The other one the PYRAMID) is stationary at the start.

Get the thing started and watch the first few seconds, then pause it and try to guess what is going to happen over the next few minutes.

Then watch it to see if you were right.

By the way, for some reason the thing has come out sideways, so it does add a rather bizarre touch to the proceedings.

Well, how did you do?

I hope you noticed that the music ( M C Mabon) ends in birdsong.

It sounds like " Jungles of Sumatra" to me, but no doubt someone out there will know what they are.

Understanding the interactions of these " coupled systems" is vital to the correct prediction of many natural physical systems... and such understanding is not easy. Think about what happened to this relatively simple set-up, and imagine the sheer unpredictablility of a set-up with 30 pendulums of various lengths, at a variety of distances along the " clothes-line" which in itself has different tensions along its length.... and consider also the difficulty of predicting the effect of any small change in one or many of the pendulums.

Add to this the realisation that the motions of pendulums are relatively well known compared, to ,say, the movements of ocean currents and their interaction ( coupling) with other global and local phenomena such as tides, gaseous exchange, temperature patterns, wave/wind interactions, pressure systems, variations in solar activity and output, cloud cover, varying albedos... the list goes on and on.

Thank goodness nobody would be silly enough to hope that a vastly oversimplified computer model with frankly inadequate input data could possibly predict the outcomes within such a potentially chaotic set of interacting, coupled systems!

Whew! Anyway, to cheer us up, here's a smashing pop song from The Joy Formidable ... "Cradle".... it's what the NME used to call an Adrenaline rush...

Forest Dump

2011-02-17T02:57:00.000-08:00

Ha!! the so-called elected government has dumped its ill-conceived "sell off the forests then gradually change all the caveats so that the purchasers can do what they like" policy.

Who believes all that? Obviously this was one of those " fake policies" which makes the government look compassionate when they say they won't do it after all.

Like saying you will raise VAT to 25% then only raising it to 20%. oh good, we all say.

By the way, Forest Dump doesn't seem to have used as a headline anywhere. It is especially neat because..

[a] I thought of it this morning
[b] They could have used it twice.... once when the policy was announced and again when it was denounced. Economy of thought or what?
[c] It was my idea.... but I might have mentioned that before.
[d] It implies a certain degree of idiocy or gormlessness.

Anyway, my "ear to the ground" in government circles Minty Binns has leaked mt the NEW policy which is going to reduce domestic running costs, increase biodiversity, improve interpersonal relations, make the Big Society even bigger, create a new industry and more jobs, increase the confidence of teenage boys and .. well, everything really.

Also... it's my idea.

Here's what you do...

[A] Create a new personal hygiene product, which will be a spray or something which will cover up your body smells and allow the purchaser not to have a bath for another week.

[B] Brilliant... I'm going to call it GETAWAY because you can get away with not having a bath for another week.

[C] I have trialled the concept at a local Further Education establishment... and I can report that all the girls knew exactly what I meant and felt that, yes, boys would definitely go mad for it. Result!

[D] Once this product is firmly established, we then make new laws restricting washing of any kind to the 1st of the month. We justify this by pointing out that the price of water is going to rise tenfold next week so you had better stop using it, and also saying that it will save the planet ,stop flooding of upper-class homes and keep the reservoirs full so that the little fishes will be fine and the lovely heron will roam the land of plenty once again.

[E] Thousands of "Washing Inspectors" on mimimum wage will also roam the land with sweeping powers under the new "Slaughter Water Wasters" legislation. That means JOBS!!

Luckily those two blokes haven't had a wash for yonks!

[F] This new no-washing policy will mean that girls will start using GETAWAY as well!

[G] Further growth of the GETAWAY factories will provide yet more jobs for all the people who haven't been slaughtered ( see above).

[H] By this time girls will have noticed that all the boys smell OK, and not absolutely filthy like they used to. This will encourage nterpersonal relations... especially as old gaffers will now smell OK as well ...because pensioners will get GETAWAY on free prescriptions, little realising that 5% of the cans contain a special junk DNA rotting agent which will finish them off inside 2 years to the mystification of everyone.

[h] This will free up thousands of houses selfishly occupied by just 1 selfish old doddler... there will be so much empty housing that many of the properties will become derelict and the gardens overgrown, thereby increasing biodiversity.

[i] Eventually some do-goody busybodies will discover that GETAWAY is the culprit. Once that is banned, it will be OK because nobody will be allowed to wash ( even if they could afford it) so EVERYBODY will stink which will be fine.... just like those good old days Mr. Cameron yearns for....

[j] Old people will die of spontaneous combustion instead, in the good old-fashioned Victorian manner ( see Bleak House). The conservatives are always yearning for those old Victorian values like child prostitution, beggars on every street , mass homelessness, a mean life expectancy of 37 and queues for work outside factories.

[K] As in good old Victorian Times, there will be oceans of teenage sex, incest,back-street abortions and other enterprising cottage industries, and very few of the offspring will survive due to murder, cholera, typhoid,rickets, ( all most effective at killing off the poor painfully as a warning to others) syphilis ( which sometimes got the rich as well!!) etc and there will be no doctors or police available except to the rich.

[L] All these corpses, plus the smelly, fungus encrusted people will increase biodiversity no end... old GETAWAY factories will be inhabited by Owls, Bats, rabid dogs, woodlice, lizards, ex-big-brother contestants... biodiversity or what?

[M] At this point my World Simulation Model collapsed under the torrent of good-news-for-the-environment stories.... it had reached the year 2043 by then.

[N] In the final readout there were only 215 people over the age of 50, and the child mortality rate was 77%. Everyone smelt disgusting but nobody noticed, and all the reservoirs were full to the top. Microorganisms had never had it so good! All the stored GETAWAY they couldn't sell was released into the atmosphere turning the UK back into the Triassic desert you can still see to this day where that Snow Bunting is at Cockersands Abbey.

We need a change from all this good news....

Well, here's MC Saizmundo with Pentre Marw which translates as Death Village... how appropriate...

Hold on!

2011-02-12T12:52:00.000-08:00

What about that!! Now all I've got to do is think of something to write about it.

But while I wait for that little spark...here's the remarkable Bonnie " Prince" Billy with the simple but lovely " I see a Darkness" ...

Coeur de Bombe

2011-02-06T10:19:00.000-08:00

You will hardly have forgotten my 1st home-made video.... shown to the waiting world a few articles ago... which showed a remarkable optical phenomenon.

I thought not.

Well, here is my 2nd production, shot up in Williamson's park on a very very windy day ( Friday) which not only illustrates some of the central issues of turbulent flow/chaos theory, but also features a bird.

Yes, a bird.

Now a fluid-flow expert with the best computers in the world + flow monitors every 50cm over the entire 3D space around the park could not predict with any accuracy at all what those plastic stremers were going to do.

In broad outline, they could describe the sort of movements which could take place, and over time could gather enough information to be able to give return periods for certain magnitudes and types of movement, but that's about all...and none of them would stake their house on the results.

Have you spotted that bird yet?

As for birds, I managed track down that Snow Bunting at Cockersands today, and it was incredibly windy.... it nearly blew me over a few times.Anyhow, I once again employed my trusty mini-digital camera thingy to take some top photographs of this bird.... as you all know, i just can't understand why people spend so much money on cameras, big lenses, tripods etc when resluts like this can be obtained so easily...you will hardly need to, but if you should feel the need to enlarge these images you can click on them... sometimes you can go even further by clicking on the little plus sign thingy...

If a clue is required, it's on the top of the slab somewhere...

As for music, it's the remarkable Diam's... Coeur de Bombe.

Ransomites..

2011-02-06T04:06:00.000-08:00

Milneism.

You might remember that some time ago I recommended Milneism as the ideal religion for birders/birdwatchers/whatever.

I wouldn't like to think that I was only giving you the one option.... other religions are available,... but recently I have been more aware of the merits, birding-wise, of the Ransomites.

Now the Ransomites believe in the absolute truth of the 12 key texts written by Arthur Ransome.... Swallows and Amazons, Peter Duck, Swallowdale, Winter Holiday, Coot Club, Pigeon Post, We Didn't Mean to go to Sea, Secret Water, The Big Six, Missee Lee, The Picts and the Martyrs and Great Northern.

Let's look closely at some relevant features of the Ransome Canon..

[a] Ransome's books are all sited in places of strong birding interest.. Norfolk/Suffolk + the Broads, Northern Scotland, The Lakes, The Sea, the Far East.

[b] Several of his books are themed around bird conservation... Coot Club and Great Northern especially.

[c] Ransome has a most pragmatic approach to life, and " adventuring" in general... when his children want to sail across the North Sea, their ( always distant) father replies.. " Better drowned that Duffers, if not Duffers won't Drown".
If only this robust approach to Health and Safety prevailed today!

[d] Rather controversially, the "Ship's Naturalist" is Dick... nowadays he would be labelled a "nerd".His sister is called Titty... no wonder they had to go to Public Schools.

He writes scientific stuff in a notebook ( Mars is the red one), he wears glasses, he is rather diffident, he goes to a public school ( they all do).

[e] There is also a robust approach to "talking to strangers"... it always amazes me how all these characters in childrens' books go off with all and sundry... Rupert Bear hangs around with wizards and goes up into the clouds to their palaces and then goes home to his rather unimaginative parents.

Would you let your offspring wander off with this unruly gaggle of ruffians, paedophiles and animals??
This lots of Ransome's seem to be entirely left to their own devices for weeks on end... rather well satirised in " Five Go Mad in Dorset" which portrayed, in a satirical vein, the antics of the Famous Five.

The Comic Strip Presents... Five Go Mad In Dorset - Part 3:4
Uploaded by deathbyplastic. - Check out other Film & TV videos.

William Brown roams the neighbourhood causing havoc, lying to strangers, catching lunatics, breaking windows, frightening old ladies to death etc...

he would be a treble-ASBO candidate these days.

[f] Ransomites are enthralled by Ransome's "simple pleasures" view of life... sailing yachts ( very democratic) fishing ( fish-torturing more like) sailing around the oceans with scant regard for their ( or others') safety, making maps of private property, casting off boats of which they do not like the occupants, calling at farmhouses demanding bacon and eggs... the list of these Simple pleasures is endless.

[g] One point where I am at odds with Ransome is his abhorrence of the classics... Latin and Greek and other " dead languages."
This is forcefully demonstrated in " Missee Lee" in whch they get kidnapped by "oriental" pirates and forced to learn Latin!!
Absolute bastards, those pirates.

I could go on... obviously... but I think, taking the rough with the smooth, looking at it from all sides, I can say that the Ransomites, and the Ransomite religion, could well be attractive to the adventurous devil-may-care arm of the birding population.

Or not.

Right... music time... Nena Daconte... Marta....

the Flip-Flop effect...

2011-01-30T04:11:00.000-08:00

Years ago there was a most interesting news story about Flip-Flops being found on the far tropical shores of remote islands in the Pacific.

The strange thing was, some islands seemed to get loads of left-footed flip-flops, and others got mostly right-footed flip-flops.

It didn't seem to matter whether the island were close together or far apart... the flip-flop effect seemed to be pretty random.

I don't think anyone ever worked out why.

Ever since then I have enhanced the excitement and scientific value of my trundles along the Aldcliffe shore by noting down the " footedness" of any footwear I happen to find.

Gripping.

Here's my results..

Boots ( left-footed) 88
Boots ( right-footed) 103
Shoes ( left-footed) 427
Shoes ( right-footed)441
Flop-flops ( left) 38
Flip-flops ( right) 44

I think this demonstrates that Aldcliffe is NOT a Polynesian island.... although there is a faint bias to the right, extensive statisitcal analysis showed that this was the wrong side of the 5% significance level.

Hey... this is science in the raw... the sort of thing the bastard right-wing "government" wants to put a stop to.

Anyhow, a recent copy of ADAR, the Welsh birding magazine of world-wide repute, published an amazing article about some strange anomolous findings on the Isles of Scilly.

Ringing analysis had noticed that there seemed to a bias towards birds ringed on the left leg on the most westerly islands ( St. Agnes, Bryher ) and a complementary bias towards birds ringed on the right leg over on the more easterly islands ( most of St. Mary's, Tresco, St. Martin's)

The approximate watershed for this effect runs up from Peninnis Head and up through the middle of Tresco.

Of the 28 left-ringed migrants observed over the years, 24 of them were seen west of this line, and only 4 to the east.

Conversely, of the 14 right-ringed migrants, 10 were to the east of the line, 4 to the left.

Have a gander at this nifty map....the little black blobs are the birds ringed on the left leg, the big black blobs are the birds ringed on the right leg.

You'll need to click on it to see any detail... I cobbled this together myself form the coordinates ( cyfesurynau) in the article.

Isn't that remarkable!

Here's a summary of the article..

'Angen cydweithio'
Dywedodd llefarydd ar ran Llywodraeth y Cynulliad: "Yn yr hinsawdd economaidd sydd ohoni, rhaid i awdurdodau weithio'n agosach gyda'u cymdogion.
"Dros y flwyddyn ddiwethaf fe ddaeth yn amlwg fod rhai awdurdodau lleol yn fwy parod i wneud hyn nag eraill.
"Er mwyn arbed arian ac amddiffyn gwasanaethau rydym angen y gallu i sicrhau bod hyn yn digwydd.
"Mae'r mesur llywodraeth leol yn rhoi cyfle amserol i ni gael y grym sy'n amlwg yn angenrheidiol erbyn hyn.
"Mae sibrydion fod hyn yn cyfeirio at unrhyw awdurdod lleol penodol yng Nghymru yn bell o'r gwir."
Ychwanegodd y byddai gan Aelodau Cynulliad gyfle i archwilio'r mesur ymhellach wrth i'r mesur fynd drwy'r pwyllgorau.

If you want to read it properly you will need to learn Welsh... here's a handy video to set you on your way...

Even more remarkable was the non-skull I found this morning on said non-Polynesian shore...

What a shame... I had my sights set on the Giant Rat of Sumatra.

NATURE NOTES. I thought all the Barnacles had gone from Aldcliffe ( none seen by me for over a week) BUT this morning there was just 1 showing very well with a load of Greylags more or less opposite the Golden Ball.
I took a risk and didn't do the BGBW... I figured if that "enforcement officer" came round to ask where my form was, I could just slip a bin-liner over his/its "head" and leave him/her/it to get on with it.

Anyway, it's usually time for a bit of music like what I usually have..but I thought we cold have a spot of uplifting poetry instead... this is ace poet R.S.Thomas reading hos own poem, "I was the vicar of large things"... aren't we all, matey!

Actually it's a weird old poem, very elemental, as is the accompanying video.

Strangely coloured life forms

2011-01-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

I went back to the " Shore Lark Location" yesterday... and there were about 4 other birders there... this amounts to a big twitch at a lovely spot like Warton Slag Tips.

I had trouble here keeping the camera steady what with all the jostling/shoving etc to get to the front.

Obviously, the actual target bird was nowhere to be seen.I knew I should not have bothered to lug my increasingly heavy jellyscope all the way there. How foolish of me.

But we can't spend all of our time looking at birds. Sometimes one inspects other things...
The moon hoves into view... you can clearly see the Mare Sybarite on the upper right, and just below Svennson's Ridge is the recently discovered little crater known as the Ars Poetica.

Here's some lovely evening clouds...

Strangely coloured life forms...

NATURE NOTES. Recently in my garden there have been 2 male and 1 female Blackcaps, frequent visits by Jays, further sightings of the 2 Bramblings by the next door lot, and a Goldcrest. today I walked out onto Aldcliffe Marsh despite the soggy conditions to inspect a dead Mute Swan on the off-chance that it might be wearing rings.
It wasn't.
This always happens when I forget myself and try to do something useful or scientific.

Just to round of this largely vacuous article with something life-affirming and jolly, here's Coti + Nena Daconte and "Perdóname"... especially featuring Mai Meneses and her cute vertical dancing as also seen on " Ay Amor!

Wasn't I right?

... a little tinkling noise

2011-01-22T11:17:00.000-08:00

If you really want to know about it...

There I was, Warton Slag Tips, freezing cold, 2pm, total birding interest hovering around zero....

..... when a bird flew by, and landed, serendipitously, about 40 m away....

NO.... not that one....

...and , even better, before it landed it called... a little tinkling noise.

... no, that can't be right....anyway, I had a look through my terrific bins and lo and behold, 'twas an actual SHORE LARK... blimey.

This. pop-pickers, should have been a moment ,or even a minute or two, of joy.Around our neck of the woods this is a very rare thingy.

... yes, a bit like that... but actually, as I stood there, I thought... oh dear.... oh dear oh dear... my mobile is busted, so I've only got the Librarian's mobile, and it hasn't got any contact numbers on it, and anyway there's no reception, so I'll have to walk all the way back which will take half an hour,and I'll be the only one who sees it and my name will be mud, or something worse than mud, and I'm very cold, and ... blast, it's flown off.

... strictly speaking, she isn't actually flying.... no aerofoil is involved... but yes readers, it flew off down the "beach" and off I set after it.

Anyway, I found it twice more over the next 20 minutes or so, simultaneously trying to contact people with very very limited success.And all the time instead of being pleased at the lovely bird I had found, I was getting more and more worried... the bird was elusive, flighty, it was a long way away for anyone to walk, I was getting colder and colder, especially my texting finger... it was a thoroughly joyless experience.

It shouldn't be like this.

Really.

Now this has happened to me before, with various degrees of Angst involved.

Anyhow, thanks to Tom Walkington, who took the trouble to zip down there and see it ( and Jean) my name won't be totally mud-encrusted.

now here's a picture of someone looking through my jellyscope and actually enjoying birdwatching. It can be done.

..and here's a lovely quirky song and video by Camille, called Ta Douleur, and it's all about taking someone's sadness away, and sort of giving a practical demonstration of the sort of things that might do the trick.. How kind.

I'm a sentimental old Hector!

The Stones of Emptiness

2011-01-15T04:12:00.000-08:00

Why do people spend so much hard-earned money on ridiculously expensive gear, or kit, or whatever "they" called "equipment" these days?

Just to show you the futility of these Aztecs* here are some photos I took a few days ago of a Bittern... and I only used my little pocket digital camera held up to the eye-lens of my extrememly battered Kowa on its fantastic 2.5- legged tripod.

That was more of a "trial shot" you understand... now take a gander at these...

This really shows up those wonks who throw away their money on fancy lenses.

If anyone wants to know the technical details for these images, just ask.

OK... now there has been a big fuss lately about some anniversary of the King James Bible... so I thought you might like a quote from said publication... here we go...

But the Cormorant and the Bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the Raven shall dwell in it; and he shall stretch out upon it in the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortress thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.

Isiah, 34; 11-15

I think a few words of explanation could be required, so I looked it up in " Hassell's Bible Concordance: being a full and scholarly exposition of those passages which may confound the student or Lay Reader."

[a] Presumably the owl and the Raven will be liable for rent , payable to the Bittern and the Cormorant.

[b] "The Line of Confusion" is an expression used by seawatchers ( vide supra) to describe that distance beyond which such tricky species as imm. Skuas, Petrels and Auks cannot with confidence be identified.

[c] "The Stones of Emptiness" is actually a mis-translation from the Greek. It should read "The Scones of Emptiness" which are those big ones that look really good but are sort of all fluffy and powdery inside.

[d] " The Habitation of Dragons" is now known to refer to the lodging-houses at Cley,Titchwell, St. Mary's etc , wherein reptilian landladies are found, yeah unto the fourth generation.

[e] "The Court for Owls" should read "The Court for Fowls". After all, did Chaucer not write a long poem on this subject, " The Parliament of Fowls"... yes he did.

There is plenty of other stuff in the Bible, but not all of it is about birds, unfortunately. Nothing is tetradded either, which is a pity... some of those bramble microspecies have virtually no dots at all on the distribution maps.Records in Palaces and Fortesses are also pretty unusual, so it's an opportunity lost.

Well, that's plenty of nonsense for the minute, as I am very busy at the moment... but there's always time for a bit of music isn't there.... I think it's time for a slice of Cerys Matthews with a lovely intimate acoustic rendering of one of her waxings, " Y Corryn A'r Pry "

* An Aztec is a person who only sees birds through a camera lens... from the band Aztec Camera.... see picture at the top of the Blog.

LATE NEWS... there's more about that Bible quote at

http://www.thevillageskeptic.com/bible-fun-pop-quiz-2

Just copy and paste it into Google... have fun. Question 5 is especially relevant as you will see!!!

All Change at Leighton Moss!

2010-12-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

New Initiative at Leighton Moss!!

As we all know, we live in difficult times financially, and the powers that be at LM have been working on ways to reduce costs while enhancing the customer experience, and naturally have come up with a whole tranch of stunning and innovative innovative stunners to stun us consumers with their sheer innovativeness.

In short, they are investigating the possibility of using robots to replace/improve on their current workforce... wardens, shop personnel, customer interface executives, wardens, vols, assistant wardens, bittern imitators, motorised otter operatives and all the other essential workers... wizard!!

In this leaked document I am going to reveal to you the sort of things they have in mind......

This was their first go at a "robot vol."In many ways it was very very like an actual vol, as you can see, including its dislike of moist conditions, general lack of durability and low battery life... but, vol-like, it was pretty cheap to run.

After a few rather laughable "dry" runs they came up with a new improved version...

This scored highly with the public, who loved its cheery little grin, and the flag , which often waved gaily in the far distance above the reeds, was variously identified as a Bearded Tit ( 88%) , Bittern (8%) and John Wilson ( 4%). Unfotunately it consumed far too much lighter fuel and eventually fled the reserve to join the Orange People, turning up at Glastonbury and the Latitude Festival.

Then they turned their attention to the Initial Customer Interface Executive, and after extensive trialling came up with this...

Mounted on the Customer Interface Desk ( yes, that's what it says here) she proved an instant hit with 88% of LM attendees, and you can probably guess who they were. "Roberta" as she is cunningly called, can tell you all about LM in 14 different languages, but unfortunatlely these are Yiddish, Catalan, Cornish, Tagalog, Albanian, Linear B, Old Testament Greek, Sanskrit, Interglossa, Farsi, Icelandic , Khoe, Amharic and Astronesian.

Despite this, all the male visitors were keen to talk to her and seemed to know instinctively what she was saying to them. Roberta is going onstream in February 2011.

Then they turned their attention to wardens. Their first go at this looked like this...

"Dave" scored highly on entertainment, value for money and visibility, but did badly on versatility. He failed completely on his primary mission, attracting Bearded Tits despite his valiant flute-based efforts day and night. His sole success was when he was partially beheaded by a Red Deer who was fed up with his continual tootling.

A sad failure, but they swiflty moved on to Warden: version 2...

This was a stunning piece of technology and programming, but continually misidentified everything on the reserve.... especially bananas, which it persistently reported as Bitterns.... just after this photograph was taken it phoned Birdline and reported Ad. Bittern in the hand at Lilians, causing a stampede of 78 folk who had been going to the reserve for 48 years and had never seen one.

Sadly, 64 of them ticked it. Such is birdwatching at the sharp end.

Their next effort was a distinct improvement...

... in some ways. However, so realistic was this little chap that he ran up a huge bill in the cafe amounting to some £38,278 , mostly spent on Soup of the Day amd Flapjack. I knew that would happen, I've seen his sort before. His bird ID was first class though, but sometimes your face just doesn't fit, if you know what I mean.

The next one had a similar problem...

Hesheit, as it was christened, was perfect in nearly every way, but just couldn't see over the bloody reeds! They tried everthing... prams, step-ladders, but wouldn't go the final inch to give Hesheit his/her/its own Tower Hide. So Hesheit had to go.

They needed to come up with something with a friendly demeanor, Swedish-style ID skills, top interpersonal skills and the ability to hide in the reeds for weeks unseen....

Meet " Mr. Charles" , an instant hit with such focus groups as the blind, the stupid, the misguided and the desperate ( they're all moths I think.. ED).
However, he scored well at deterring egg collectors and keeping the reserve free of children, which is a bonus. His big rival was...

And you can see why can't you! Dubbed " Caliban" on first arrival, he performed well in the all-important interview and on his first tour of the reserve caught 703 flies, attracted and was nearly eaten by 7 Bitterns and impressed all those present with his ability to stay underwater for over 2 hours.

Come February you can look forward to seeing both Caliban and Mr. Charles around LM as they battle it out in a " Bitterns Got Talent"-style job-off.

Who got the other jobs ? Well, here's what they eventually decided on as the "Events Co-ordinator" ... in the interview he revealed himself as a man of many parts, who would give an arm and a leg to get the job...

and yes, he was chuffed to bits of course, but as he is Liverpuddlian he said he was " made up."

They just had to find a suitable niche for this little dear ...

and from February he is your new Big Garden Birdwatch Enforcement Officer.Expect to see him at your front door when you fail to send in your results on time...

Here is the new Reserve Clearance Operative Grade 3b....

... and Cyril here is going to wander through the reed-beds to try and find a bloody Bittern.... good luck matey!.

As you know, I like to finish my Wikileaks-style exposees with a little light music, and here we go. I thought you might like to see the wonderful Estrella Morente nad brill flamenco guitar player Juan Habichuela in a more formal setting... so off we go... Olé!!