counting coots

Postscript - Famous at last

2011-06-13T13:07:00.000+01:00

The old patch was on the telly the other night, on an episode of The Apprentice where the madheads had to make money from scrap. In Fulham - luxury scrap if you will. The helicopter view drifted over the waste site, showing the Wandle Creek at high tide in the top of the image along with some of the paths in the old stomping ground. Incredible.

If you look carefully, you can pick out a retarded Coot watching it's nest being washed away...

Wandle Creek doing quite lush actually...

Further adventures in patch birding misery continue if you click on these words........

that really is it.

2010-11-08T08:00:00.009Z

Honestly.

This blog is no more. I no longer watch my humble little patch in Fulham and therefore have no more to post.

Thank you for arriving. Feel free to flick through the previous posts, it's not entirely full of drivvle. If you get bored of the ornithological history of Fulham, click on the links on the right. They are generally rather good...

Thanks to all that have read this over the last couple of years and commented and linked and all of that. It's been emotional

If you still feel the need to read what little I am up to - go here Norfolk'n Birds

a final word on starlings

2010-11-05T11:04:00.002Z

It seems that the Wandsworth Bridge Starlings get together a little up river before moving in as there were a couple of thousand on the ~~dump~~ waste transfer station this evening.

In my recent travels criss-crossing the river over the past couple of months I've noticed Starling activity on other bridges. Tower Bridge has some, as does Battersea Bridge (a similar construction to Wandsworth Bridge - the Starlings roost underneath remember) and there have been a couple of other dusky encounters.

The question is - are all (or the majority) London Starlings roosting on the bridges over the Thames? With 4500 regular under Wandsworth Bridge, it isn't too much of a stretch to extrapolate that up to the 10,000 mark for the whole city. If I wasn't moving out I may have considered trying to get counts for each of the bridges over the course of the winter, but that may have to wait for later in life.

better late than never

2010-10-22T16:16:00.000+01:00

Maybe.

That Wheatear what I found, like ages ago, may appear below this sentence (blogger is playing up like stupid).

If it doesn't, your dose of stunning photography can be found here...a wheatear picture on the wrong blog

Not only was it a patch tick, it also goes on the London List. Cracking little boid.

like buses

2010-10-13T08:38:00.000+01:00

Wheatears that is. You wait five years for one to come along, and then two turn up in the same week. Found another this morning, all perched up and everything. Incredible. Totally.

I even took a rubbish picture.

If you can handle this kind of excitement I'll be uploading it later...

67 and rising

2010-10-12T13:30:00.000+01:00

Yep, 67 - that is now the stunning year's total for 2010. A stunning 4 more more species than last year, and the remainder of October to add to the total.

The Wheatear yesterday was a complete surprise. Although it was moving with determination southwards, I was lucky enough to see it close in (and without optical aids - naked birding I believe it is called) as it first came past. That's a Wheatear I said to myself. Bloody hell, I also thought.

Apropos nothing at all, have a picture of a gull that won't load properly.

MEGA!

2010-10-11T15:42:00.002+01:00

Just had a Wheatear flying south across the river.

Patch tick mega and everything! Result! Fulham continues it's run as vis-mig hotspot!

Sort of.

n-n-n-n-nineteen

2010-10-07T11:13:00.000+01:00

Migrating Magpies. Really? Well it would seem so, as less than an hour ago there was a rag-tag stream of Magpies steadily moving south over the river. There were nineteen of them. There are not that many Magpies round here. Yet more vis-mig in the on fire patch...

mega year tick

2010-10-06T10:33:00.002+01:00

The patch has been quiet, and to be honest I haven’t been expecting much of late as the tide is high at lunchtime and the weather not great. Have been in the patch of course but there has been little to report, despite cracking birds being found all over the show. Ring Ouzels a couple of miles up the road. Little Gulls. Terns. That sort of thing, but obviously not likely to show up in humble Fulham of course. Or could they?

Whilst time wasting by the river yesterday afternoon, I saw a bird flying up river which is not unusual in itself, but was unusual specifically as it was a bloody Sandwich Tern! Patch Mega! Year tick! 66 for the year now. I’ve seen one of these rarities in this location only once before and that was years ago so it was thoroughly unexpected. Get on in!

tube strike list update

2010-10-05T15:32:00.000+01:00

Well in the end it was if nothing was happening underneath the streets, and the traffic was more normal than usual. But for the sake of completion, here is yesterday evenings list.

Black Headed Gull

Cormorant

Herring Gull

Crow, Carrion – not Bob

Wood Pigeon

Mallard

Starling

Canada Goose

Kestrel

Magpie

Jay

Stunning, eh?

No owls unfortunately, nor could I see much bombing past Rainham at 70mph in the failing light....

how to beat the tube strike revisited

2010-10-04T14:07:00.000+01:00

Some time ago I wrote about how I (internally) beat the tube strike - read it here if inclined.

So we find ourselves in the same position today, but with considerably less pleasant weather and largely darkness as a companion. But I have three times the distance to travel and a metropolis to cross. Bitching doesn't even get half way to describing the commute this morning. However, when a river has to be crossed there are birds to be seen. Somehow this morning I found myself on the Woolwich Ferry, and while on said ferry there were three Common Terns to watch around the side of the boat. A nice interlude.

I'll count the birds on the way home tonight but don't have my hopes up for 26 species, or for that matter finishing the journey within two hours.

Nice.

vis-mig in Fulham

2010-09-30T14:10:00.000+01:00

No, really - full on proper vis-mig. Not just Woodpigeons chuffiing over all about the place that may or may not be from round here but summer birds moving in a southerly direction one after the other.

Swallows they were too, which are pretty unusual in this locale, making it more special. First six flew over Hurlingham Park to Wandsworth park, then three, then one then three more and two more. That's like, loads.

Proper visible migration at the end of September. Lovely.

i did birding

2010-09-28T11:00:00.000+01:00

No, really.

I went into the patch and I stood there and watched birds. First time for ages, and it was brilliant. Relatively.

The Yellow Legged Gull was knocking about for twenty minutes or so, and other than that there wasn't much. A few Common Gulls, the returned Jackdaws in the distance.

And that's about it.

Better than nowt.

do have a picture this time

2010-09-23T13:42:00.000+01:00

The one that I couldn't load up, but is now compressed so doesn't look as it did when it wasn't. Anyway, the patch is wet, the tide is high so there is little going on.

Whitlingham doing swan cliche photo.

don't have a picture

2010-09-21T07:52:00.000+01:00

Three weeks in Norfolk. Not really a birding trip per se, but some birding was done. Most notably was going to Whitlingham CP and finding 4 Black Terns doing lengths of the water in the late evening. Much pleased.

I would give you a picture, but for some reason by computer is reluctant to let anything be uploaded. Once fixed I'll proffer some cliched sunsets etc.

Back to the patch today. Not expecting Black Terns though...

a week off

2010-09-01T11:55:00.004+01:00

This is the blogging equivalent of the out of office reply. But prettier.

I'm away from the big smoke this week, preparing for life in the other place. Did I mention the new patch?

I did?

Oh.

Here's a picture of it. Just in case anyone missed it the first few times.

A Norfolk beach doing rubbing it in...

peter scott's house for sale

2010-08-27T09:32:00.000+01:00

A snip at £435,000!

See more by clicking this link - ooh get me with my parallel blogging!

what I will miss part 2

2010-08-26T07:59:00.000+01:00

I’m going to miss a website. As the website is not closing that may sound a bit strange, but I will miss it because it will cease to be entirely relevant to my new patch and I will have little cause to read it.

The website is the Londonbirders Wiki.

You may think that as London is a generally a more frosty place to live on an interpersonal level that you would have more coherence amongst birders in the idyllic flatlands of Norfolk than you do in London. It is my opinion that the reverse is true. Londonbirders seem to be able to work better as a unit in spite of the difficulties that the city presents whereas the individuals in the Norfolk birding scene don’t seem to be able to get it together to maintain a project as good as the wiki, which is a pity. They have yahoo groups and what not but they don’t seem to be able to unite behind a common technowebical cause. As far as I know the most popular venue for discussion is a thread on Birdforum that is as long as it is chaotic, and I’m willing to be corrected. Yes, it is true that the Londonbirders mail group does have the odd barny, and a certain Mr Evans of the parish of Amersham has been, erm ‘deselected’ but that was a rarity. I suppose it could be that Norfolk birders are all out in the field seeing birds, and London birders are all keeping the interweb up to date rather than doing their employers will. Something that I would obviously have no truck with. No that would be very naughty indeed. The nub of my point is that the birders in London have got all this interweb thing all sorted and have an excellent resource. I will miss it.

Meanwhile in another land, a listers list is listed.

what i will miss - part 1

2010-08-24T07:20:00.000+01:00

Part 1 of how many, I don't know. But certainly at least two.

When I leave this patch to go here, I will miss this.

Yep, that is the view of the shopping trolley Coot nest from Friday. Empty, no eggs or chicks visible but the adults were still knocking about (as they always are). The nest really is enormous now, and is likely to last the winter to leave a much better base for earlier success next year.

I would think that this is the last time that I will set eyes on this (eventually painful) scene for two reasons. Firstly is that there is little point in going this far up the Wandle if the Coots are not nesting, and secondly the Coots are not nesting.

It has been quite a rollercoaster watching these bloody birds over the last few years, and to a certain extent they have come to represent the the blog itself (although the image that adorned the header for quite some time was from a bird that lives some 8 miles away), although qualifying that statement might be a bit tricky to be honest. What I do know however, is that the day that I found that they had actually produced young was as high as the day was low when I found that they had all gone to the big shopping trolley in the sky. Which might tell you something.

Anyway that's enough navel-picking-shoe-gazing-introspective nonsense for one day. Yes I'll miss them but they bollocked my nut in for most of each year, see ya!

don't watch that...

2010-08-23T08:59:00.003+01:00

...watch this!

A stag party at cley...

if i build it...

2010-08-21T17:05:00.004+01:00

Did I mention that I've got a new patch coming? I did?

Well, I reckon that a new patch deserves a new blog (might have mentioned that too).

It's still in it's infancy, and lots of honourable links are yet to be added and all that kind of malarkey, but for the moment feel free to enjoy the first, and reasonably uninspiring entry to Norfolk'n Birds.

Click on the bluey bit - it's a link...

a gull eats a balloon

2010-08-20T08:06:00.000+01:00

Have you ever been asked the question "will a gull eat a balloon?". No, nor me. Now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology you can answer that question. Read on.

Initially I thought it intersting that a gull had found a balloon on the foreshore (and ironically only a few days after Thames21 had done a big clean up in the area) and thought that it might be investigating this new thing in it's life.

But it decided that it needed a wash, becuase it probably mistook it for a lugworm or something similar.

At this point I thought that it had realised it's folly and was going to leave it alone. Sensibly.

But it picked it up again, and with a flick of it's head it had it in the correct place for an efficient swallow...

It was at this point that I realised that the bird was actually going to eat the bloody thing. By waving my hands in the area and swearing loudly at the gull, I thought that it might be persuaded to take flight and drop it. But with what it thought was a lugworm that big though, it wasn't going to budge. With hindsight, I should have known that it may well of flown off, but it wouldn't have dropped it as that isn't what gulls tend to do.

It swallowed it.

Completely. Bloody thing.

It then proceeded to have a little drink and carried on feeding in the river.

Then it had a preen.

And then it had a kip.

Unless it regurgitates it (which I have seen in gulls before) it's shortly going to be a very, very, dead gull indeed. I know it's only a gull, and not an uncommon one and that I am not one for shying away from nature when it is at it's most raw and unforgiving. If this gull was killed by a Peregrine I would have loved it. But this is at the other end of the scale, the shitty end of urban birding.

it's ok, they are only gulls

2010-08-19T08:25:00.000+01:00

If you look at the Birdguides reports of rarities that are knocking about these fair isles, you will occasionally see that there are entries for Yellow Legged Gulls. That means that they are unusual. So I should make more of a song and dance about this bird as it is still hanging about in Fulham and seen yesterday.

Of course, just because it is on Birdguides (other rare bird information services are available) doesn't necessarily mean that the birds are hard to find or that significant. How many times in a day do people need to tell everyone else that there are Spoonbills at Cley for example?

Anyhow, elsewhere in the patch, Common Gull numbers are on the rise, as there were two yesterday. Here is one, ain't it purdy?

Else-elsewhere in the patch, this ringed Herring Gull (white A6LK) has been seen. I'm not the first to have seen it but it's the first time I've seen it.

Now if you think that me moving to a new patch means that I'll stop yapping on about Larids, think again (even if I'm able to find the time to do it, it will depend on servers and monitoring and stuff). So it might not be Norfolk'n Birds, it might well be Norfolk'n Posts! I digress, regardless of the blogability of my situation, this photo of the new patch gives you an idea of what kind of gullage I'll be up to.

Now ain't that purdy?

I can't bloody wait.

a list of birds what i saw

2010-08-18T08:06:00.000+01:00

You know those waffle free posts where someone that birds in a patch actually puts up a list of birds they saw in the patch? The ones like what I don't do very often? Lets have one for yesterday.

Mute Swan - 2 adults, 5 cygnets
Mallard - loads
Tufted Duck - 1 female, 6 ducklings (no, really)
Grey Heron - 7
Cormorant - c15
Lesser Black Backed Gull - 5+
Herring Gull - 15+
Common Gull - 1
Black-headed Gull - 30+
Long Tailed Tit - c7
Blue Tit - 1
Goldfinch - 3
Magpie - 5
Carrion Crow - loads
Starling - c20
Moorhen - 2
Coot - 4
Pigeons - loads
Wood Pigeon - 10+
Ring-necked Parakeet - 3
Pied Wagtail - 1
Blackbird - 2
House Sparrow - 6+
Canada Goose - 2

Not very exciting I grant you. The only notable from that list is the Tufted Duck with ducklings. If they stay loyal to the site over the coming weeks it may be proof of breeding, which will be a first. But there are Tufties on Wandsworth Common, and it is not unknown for ducks to take their progeny for a walk. But round here it seems a little unlikely.

Tufted Ducks doing activity

the dalai lama and me

2010-08-16T08:11:00.000+01:00

What was the relevance of the title of Friday's post? What is the relevance of this one? Firstly, none whatsoever and secondly none until I'm done here today. You still with me?

Here is how it all ties together. Trying to find witty or even slightly different titles for posts can be a bit taxing. Now, on the way to work on Friday, rather than the dulcit tones of John Humphreys, I was listening to some of Screamadelica by Primal Scream, as you do. In the track Don't Fight It, Feel It the backing singer(s) sing the line (taken from the superb Rocket Reducer No. 62 by the MC5 as some of you know) 'Rama Lama Lama Fa Fa Fa'. And it stuck in my head. So for my own amusement, I put it as the title of the post. So far so innocent. That's the first bit out of the way. The second answer, and a little installment of wierdness is that because of that post title a link to my blog ended up on a kind of daily whereabouts blog thing for the Dalai Lama.

No shit - click here.

How totally bizarre.

Erm, have a picture?

A Heron doing itchin' an' scratchin'

another sparrowhawk post

2010-08-14T11:09:00.003+01:00

Don't worry, I'll stop soon.

However, if you want to know what a decent picture of a Sparrowhawk looks like check this out.

Birdguides photo of the week

rama lama fa fa fa

2010-08-13T07:53:00.000+01:00

So I've been ~~discussing with much erudition~~ waffling on about how there are a couple of Sparrowhawks in Fulham and that I reckon that they are juveniles but they are never very close so I can't be certain that there is breeding in the patch and that I was waiting or looking for a third bird right so that I could confidently state that there was breeding, yeah?

[pauses for breath]

Well yesterday lunchtime I was going through the exact same routine as the previous days (standing, watching, waiting). And I was watching one Sparrowhawk, which was calling a lot, and I could hear another which also was calling a lot. So far, so the same, so fine - I'm not complaining. After a while there was some man made disturbance at the bottom of the tree that they had been sitting in. I cynically hoped that perhaps this would make them fly, perhaps revealing the toid boid. It didn't produce da toid boid.

It produced FOUR! Four bloody Sparrowhawks!

Patch gold, no doubt about it. Four Sparrowhawks circling above me and proof of breeding (as far as I am concerned). Nice.

Have some pictures (It was a bit dingy, so if I say that I was trying to do arty farty silhouette pictures I might get away with the distinct lack of quality).

Three Sparrowhawks

A Sparrowhawk

Yes, I know I said that there were four, but they don't exactly understand how to pose for a family photo you know.

mobbing in the morning

2010-08-12T10:21:00.002+01:00

What do you do if you know where to find Sparrowhawks in your patch? Easily. Well, if you are me, you just keep going to go and watch them. At every available moment. So I did again yesterday, and have done so already this morning. I mean why not? What’s not to like about watching a couple of raptors in your patch? What could be better? Not much is the answer. Not much at all. Still not seen a definite toid boid, but I'm hoping that it is only a matter of time before a parent pops up with some food while I'm there. Either way, the two regulars are still well worth the effort. Yesterday lunchtime they were pretty static, but again this morning the Magpies were giving it some (do Magpies prefer mobbing in the morning?) and they were flying about lots and calling all the while.

Other than this excellent bit of patch birderism, there was an Egyptian Goose on the Thames this morning and a Common Sandpiper yesterday. Haven’t seen a Swift for ages, which is a bummer.

Have a picture.

A Meadow Pipit doing calling

da toid boid

2010-08-11T11:05:00.000+01:00

On Monday I spent about 40 minutes watching a Sparrowhawk in a tree. It didn’t do much other than sitting in the tree and calling incessantly while looking west.

Yesterday, from a different vantage point, I watched what I assumed to be the same bird doing much the same thing. Occasionally I could see another Sparrowhawk moving around the area. From this bird’s behaviour, and reasonably shabby plumage, I have assumed that it is a juvenile. This is good. It makes me think that the Sparrowhawks that I have seen over the year in one particular area have bred again (again assuming that the juvenile that was seen last autumn was a local bird).

But this is an assumption. One reasonably distant and shabby bird acting up isn’t much proof of breeding. Ideally, I need at least a second bird.

This morning I was at my place of employ quite early. I considered getting stuck in for the good of the cause and all that, but as I will be leaving soon I felt more inclined to go and look for Sparrowhawks. So I did. Again I found a second bird, but this time it was sitting with the original bird and doing much the same thing as the first – calling a lot and facing west – and it looked pretty much identical. Like this.

Hmmm. That makes me think that there are two juveniles (which is very good) but they are still distant and shabby. Not quite the proof I was after. So now I need a third bird. Not quite a three bird theory, but certainly a three bird proposition. I thought that I might have found it at one point this morning. While the two probable juveniles were sitting on the tree they attracted the attention of some Magpies and after a short while there was at least half a dozen Magpies mobbing the hawks, who were giving plenty back. There ensued about half an hour of flying around at each other with some lovely views of the two hawks. Sometimes visible, sometimes not, but always audible. During the aerial skirmish I was certain that I saw a slaty-backed bird pop out of the foliage which may have been bigger than the other two. The third bird. I’m now reasonably confident that Sparrowhawks have been breeding on my patch in 2010. I do intend to chase the third bird for a while though. For the sake of proof.

Magpies doing mobbing.

The Heron ignored everything.

not what I had intended

2010-08-10T12:48:00.001+01:00

I was going to ~~waffle on about~~ discuss imprinting in wildfowl. I was perhaps going to mention Konrad Lorenz (younger viewers may not remember black and white film of a bloke walking around with loads of geese following him). I might have even mentioned his membership of the Nazi Party. I was going to read some books and get some info and stuff. To elucidate and enlighten and perhaps entertain. Unfortunately, to justify all that nonsense, I needed a second view of a bird at a local park to check that my initial assumption was correct. Basically, because the initial assumption was interesting, but unproven (that's science kids).

Instead of all that, I proffer a picture and a brief synopsis (an abstract mayhaps) of what I might have ~~waffled on about~~ discussed had I found this bird last night, when in fact I found not much at all.

You see that Tufted Duckling? It thinks that the Mallard is it's mother.

Perhaps.

woody

2010-08-09T08:16:00.000+01:00

A brief visit to Brent Res on Saturday produced the goods that I had been hoping for in the shape of a small mainly brown bird. On the way to the hide, there was a nice warbler frenzy and I managed to pick up a Lesser Whitethroat, juvenile Blackcap and Garden Warbler. Once in the hide I set about finding the mainly brown bird, which took some time as it may have been sheltering from the recent showers. However, once it was out, it stayed out. It's name? Wood Sandpiper - patch tick. Nice.

A Wood Sandpiper doing nice.

There is a Wood Sandpiper in that shot. No, really. There is a small possibility that that was my last visit to Brent Res as I will obviously be moving to the new patch later in the year.

Tomorrow I intend to discuss imprinting behaviour in ducks. Don't say you weren't warned.

juxtaposition

2010-08-05T07:44:00.000+01:00

To assuage some kind of guilt regarding the eponymous Coots of this blog and the lack of interest I was showing (what, when there are Redshanks all over the show?) I went to check them out yesterday. I hadn't been to the shopping trolley since the end of the family that appeared against all belief earlier in the year. Not once. Which is a bit pants, but that particluar drama had left me a bit flat. And besides, I had a fair idea of what was going to happen. The days are still long, the sun is still warm, there is still plenty of food about. What is a Coot supposed to do?

Nest, that's what.

A Coot doing sitting tight. Yesterday.

And I reckon that this is high enough for success too. Perhaps they have learned something after all. Note the amount of vegetation that is now associated with this nest. It has been there so long that it is turning into an island in it's own right. A shopping trolley microclimate if you will. Chicks may be only a week away.

I bet you never thought you'd see the words 'shopping trolley microclimate' juxtaposed did you?

An ending (Ascent)

2010-08-03T15:20:00.000+01:00

I went to see a man last week right, and we had a chat about some stuff. He liked what I said, and I was intrigued by what he said. “We should have another chat” he said. “That’s a good idea” I said. So earlier this week, suitably attired, I went and had another chat with him. Another man was there too. We all chatted for, like, ages yeah? Then the other chap showed me around this place that we were at, which was nice of him.

Subsequent to all this chatting and stuff, they only went and offered me a bloody job. With money and benefits and stuff. I've only then gone and accepted the bloody job.

Way.

There is still the due diligence and what not to go through, but essentially I'm hired. Professionally this really is very good news. But this blog is not about my chosen profession. Never has been, never will be. It’s about patch birding, and largely about the inadequacies of this particular patch by the Thames in Fulham. But it cannot be thus for ever dear reader, and nor will it be. This new job, you see, is nowhere near Fulham and thus nowhere near this patch. So I will need to go somewhere in the breaks between the times when I'm not contractually obliged to be sitting behind a desk or pointing at things and telling people to do stuff (I believe they call it 'managing').

“Now just hang on one cotton pickin' minute...” I hear you cry dear reader “...your patch isn’t that bad really, what with it being by the river and everything. Will you have anywhere to go in your new job? What could possibly be right outside the front door of your new place of employment that could compare? How lucky can one person get? I mean really, what’s the likelihood of finding something like that somewhere else?”

Exactly. Life isn't like that. I'm supposed to be resigned to the futility of modern life, in that I am forced to work for 'the man' and take the tainted dollar and abandoning what little morality I have left for the sake of an easy life. I couldn't realistically apply for a job based on how close the birds are at lunchtime, that would be silly and financially I don't think it entirely sensible. But what if it works out that both job and birding can reach some convenient geographical integration. Yeah, right. What are the chances of that happening, eh? What are the real chances of being a hundred yards or so from somewhere worth watching on a daily basis?

Oh, I dunno.

Maybe this picture of the new patch answers the question...

A new patch, doing rock the fuck on!.

Steady. Interesting, but steady.

2010-07-30T10:29:00.000+01:00

On Wednesday morning I found the Yellow Legged Gull again so it is looking like it is doing what it normally does and should hang about for a month or so. Which is nice. It briefly showed yesterday lunchtime. That’s the steady bit. The only interest has come from Gulls. I had quite a long look over a flock yesterday lunchtime, and it was quite varied. Black-headed Gulls loafing, including a couple of juvs, there were a few juvenile Herrrings, some of which would be classed as first winter types as well as other summer or winter 'types'. There was also a big 2nd summer GBB, and nearly every variation of LBB on show including a cracking looking 3rd winter type – nice fresh feathers on all but the secondaries. Peachy. Did I say interesting? Well, if you don’t dig gulls it is was pretty boring I guess. Your loss.

While we are on the subject of books, I have two things that I just have to get off my chest. Firstly, The Big Gull Book (which really is brilliant) is a bit disappointing with some of the coverage of argenteus Herring Gulls – it’s really good for argentatus and all the rest but we don’t have them much over here. I just find it disappointing, and a little annoying that a book that is obviously going to sell very well in blighty is a bit light on one of the trickier ID’s and a bit 'Scando-centric'. So there.

Secondly, in that Big Year book about the ~~mad twitchers~~ rare bird enthusiasts, right, the author reckons that Al Levantin (one of the three protagonists) cannot smell. He was evidently an industrial chemist and after many years in the lab his nose packed up. This meant that when he went to a place called Brownsville Dump to look for Tamaulipas Crows (whatever they are) he had a distinct advantage over the other birders because he couldn’t smell the detritus that was attracting the crows. However, earlier in the book he was on a pelagic and could smell the cod liver oil and chum as it went over the side. Now, either he could smell or he couldn’t. Which one is it? How do you expect me to believe all the other tales in the book if you can't tell me if for sure if a mans nose works or not? Eh? Answer that for me.

There, I feel better already.

Have a picture of some gulls. On a beach.

Gulls on a beach doing spot the Med. Yummy.

letting the days go by

2010-07-28T10:10:00.000+01:00

After all of last week’s patch tick craziness, it is back to normal. The days roll on, the tide rises and falls, and the same birds fly about a bit when they can be bothered.

Admittedly I did briefly see a Common Sandpiper again on Monday but that is by far and away the most interesting thing that has happened. There does seem to be a small increase in the amount of Woodpigeons flying through, and yesterday I heard a Robin sing – now that was a novelty. Due to recent reports of a Med Gull in the vicinity, every single gull in the patch has been getting a lot of attention. Normally optics need not be raised to eliminate the flying Black Headed from a Med search, but as most of them are moulting, most of the secondaries are all over the place at the moment so the wing profile is a bit wrong. So I have been birding furiously, but to no avail.

On Sunday I was watching Red Kites. This was very enjoyable. While I was in the area there was a Jackdaw with no tail. When in flight it looked like a small black owl. This also was enjoyable.

A gull doing an example of wing moult patterns in late summer with particular attention being paid to the secondaries to illustrate what I meant in the rambling text.

Kings of Leon and pigeon poo

2010-07-27T08:39:00.002+01:00

You might have heard about this, you might not. The story is told here. I think it is quite funny.

how do i work this?

2010-07-26T08:04:00.000+01:00

So the year list for the patch is now higher than last year by one. In fact I am now in the biggest year of my patch life for this patch. And it’s only July. I was in the 29th best patch in London last year, but even with last years total beaten, I'm only in the mid thirties. And that's assuming that all the other worthy patch birders have updated their lists. So to maintain the top 30 status pop-pickers I need a big year.

Funnily enough, I’ve just finished reading The Big Year by Mark Obmascik, which if you have any lists of birds that you see, you will enjoy. Three now legendary birders in America try to break the record for the most birds seen in America in a year. The winner (Sandy Komito) ended up with 745. If you haven’t read it (regardless of which side of the pond you sit on), get hold of it. It’s a ruddy good read. Their antics would make the most mental UK ~~twitcher~~ rare bird enthusiast look like a reasoned patch birder. Kind of.

The interweb also informs me that this subject is now being made into a comedy film with Jack Black, Angelica Houston and Steve Martin along with a load of actors that I’ve never heard of but are probably regarded as celebrities. I suspect that this will be rubbish. I digress. This is now the patch Big Year, I’ve already broken the record due to the recent run and the good fortune that the severe winter weather brought at the beginning of the year. So what should I have, and what might I get, to move further into unknown territory?

Here are six species that I had last two years that have yet to appear this year.

Goldcrest – should be a cert in the Autumn/Winter
Collared Dove – rare but annual, only a matter of time
Brambling – a previous one off
Green Sandpiper – not wholly unlikely
Greenshank – a previous one off
Oystercatcher – a previous one off, but not uncommon in West London.

So out of that lot let’s say that I’ll get two more - 67 for sure.

Now, for the Brambling, let’s assume that there is a finch of somer sort knocking about for the year – either that or a Siskin, a Bullfinch or maybe even a Reed Bunting. 68

For the waders, let’s assume that one of the above will drop in at some point – 69

Which leaves me one off the heady heights of 70. So we need to spread the net a bit wider.

Ducks. I have never seen a Pochard on this patch, which is slightly odd. Other candidates in this area are Shelduck and/or Shoveler. So let’s call that a nice round 70.

Gulls. I’m never short of Gulls in the winter, so it’s only a matter of time before something from the top drawer pops in . Med is my best bet (there was one in Chiswick over the weekend - hubba hubba!). – 71

Accidentals. This is where I need to be really lucky. But the following are seen on occasion within a couple of miles, Warblers, Osprey, Hobby, Sand Martin, Snipe, Dunlin, Plovers, Godwits, etc etc etc

Extrapolate from that lot, and in the spirit of the Big Year, nothing less than 73 will be accepted. The chances of getting it though is another matter...

A Swallow, doing into the blue again.

well, how did i get here?

2010-07-23T09:13:00.001+01:00

I think that I may have been in the wrong patch this morning. I got uncommon birds and a patch tick par excellence.

The tides have been high at lunchtime this week, so the only good birding is in the morning. Obviously, this being this particular patch, good birding means that the birds that are not there at lunchtime are there in the morning. Which is fine. It's a patch, and that's what it is all about. Or is it?

I got to the river this morning, spied a couple of Grebes close in and some gulls. So far, so really very normal indeed. Then a Common Sandpiper flew past calling, and it was close in. That'll do me. Waders on this patch are very hard to come by so I was more than happy to try and follow this shivery winged rarity for half an hour or so. Except that as I turned in one direction, I heard a familiar call behind me. If I was at Cley, I wouldn't think twice about it. Well maybe to check if something rarer was with it, maybe with spots. But in the context of the patch I knew this was special. I was stopped in my tracks and the adrenalin started to flow. It called again - tyu-yu-yu - "holy shit I've got a Redshank". There have been reports of one in the same borough, but just up river so I was hoping against all hope that one might come past, but as I spun round and eyeballed the foreshore there were five. FIVE! "Holy shit - there's five Redshanks". Five lovely little patch ticks all in a row. I was staggered. And still am. Of course, they flew off. Record shots below.

Bloody hell. I'll go and look for this sandpiper then. Two wader species in a day. Remarkable. I got further down river and didn't find a sandpiper, but did find a Yellow-legged Gull. And there was a Common Tern, and a summer plumage Common Gull (niiiiice..).

What is going on? It's like the birding equivalent of Once In A Lifetime...

You may find yourself birding in a half decent patch

You may find yourself in another part of the Thames

You may find yourself in a beautiful patch, with a beautiful tick

You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here?

loo list update

2010-07-21T08:03:00.001+01:00

This morning I was incredibly not excited when I saw a female Mallard flying across the wide vista that can be seen from the loo window. 'Oh' I thought, 'that is a mallard' I continued internally. 'Hang on a minute', I continued again, and internally again, 'thats a bloody loo tick!'. And so it was. This brings the loo list to a staggering 32 species.

The patch continues to do little. Loafing Black-headed Gulls now regularly over 100. 5+ LBB. The odd Tern. Only a Wren sings. I Redshank upriver refuses to show itself. I can almost smell the imminent Med Gull.

'A Med Gull?' you say. 'What does that look like?' you continue.

Well if you insist...

A Med Gull doing what it looks like.

no pictures of flying ants

2010-07-20T08:16:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was Flying Ant Day in Fulham. That day in the year that flying ants come out and kamikaze style whack into everything, largely including my head.

It is of course on flying ant day that people walk around going "it's flying ant day - look at all those ants". All day. And to everyone that they know. As if we all know why it is that the ants take to the air, and that we care. Or that we have some affinity with the ants, or even that we had been looking forward to flying ant day. Although it has no cultural significance, it never gets on the news, everyone was talking about flying ants yesterday. I suppose it beats going around saying "it is hot" all day which is equally inane. Maybe it's the company I keep during the day. Anyway, I didn't take any photos of the ants, but instead I proffer some random buggage that I have come across recently.

Exhibit 1

Harpalus affinus

According to my book...

The elytra range from metallic green or blue, through bronzy red, to almost black with the outer areas punctate and slightly pubescent.

I have no idea what that means.

It is small and it looks like this.

Exhibit 2

Yellow Shell. Camptogramma bilineata

It's a moth.

Exhibit 3.

Ringlet. Aphantopus hyperantus.

It's a butterfly.

I have recently found a spider with a pink back but I cannot discuss this here as spiders, as I am sure you know dear reader, are not bugs.

I did see some birds yesterday. But it wasn't very exciting.

they're back

2010-07-16T08:01:00.000+01:00

Stop! To ensure that the atmospherics of todays offering are correct, go back to the title of the post and put on your horror-movie-trailer-voiceover-voice on. Go on. The super deep gravelly voice that scares children but makes adults laugh because it is a bit stoopid really. You know, the one that you can only do for a couple of words before it hurts your throat. And makes you cough. But is occasionally worth it. Now try again.

They're - baaack....

Excellent.

Now see if you can read the next paragraph out loud (or if you must, internally) - but still with the horror-movie-trailer-voiceover-voice on. If you don't follow the instructions, you will not get the most out of the post. Now come on, play along!

In a world where everything was tidal, he was a humble patch birder. He thought that they had gone, but this winter they have returned. To haunt his dreams.... They are back, and this time they have abraded tertials. He, armed with nothing more than a copy of the the old Collins and the Big Gull Book, must I-D them all. Before. They. Send. Him. Insane. From the maker of Death On the Wandle, and I Know What You Moulted Last Summer, coming to a patch near you - Thing stars in Dodgy Gulls Of Winter Part II - The Hunt For The Cachinnans....

A Common Gull doing first of the winter in a second summer progressing to second winter progression situation.

more kestrel food

2010-07-14T08:21:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned, and you've probably forgotten already, gull numbers rise. Interestingly (in the context of not much being of interest) a couple of juvenile Black Headed Gulls are knocking about. Their inconsistent wing pattern does occasionally give microseconds of excitement as nothing similar has been seen round here quite some time. In other gull action, the GBB's were back on the barge, but are doing nothing more exciting than standing up, moving a bit, and sitting back down.

A juvenile gull doing floating.

There is more fresh Kestrel food in the patch too, with a lovely new batch of a half dozen Mallard ducklings knocking about by the houseboats and a single duckling in the Wandle delta. Here is the obligatory rubbish picture of one of them on a handy bit of river detritus.

A duckling doing fattening itself up for a Kestrels lunch.

All of this incredible patch action paled into insignificance yesterday when it transpired that Mrs Thing has been awarded (and earned) a 1st Class degree. To say that this is very good news is really understating the fact by a country mile. Good on you kiddo.

patch tick!

2010-07-13T07:13:00.000+01:00

That's right kids - another first for the patch. Hot on the heels of the two year ticks (when it was decreed that this patch is now on fire) my next sojourn brought an excellent first for the patch!

Behoooooold!

Yes, I can see that it isn't a bird. In fact my identification skills lead me to believe that this is, in fact, a butterfly. I can also confirm that it is a Speckled Wood and I have not seen one of these in this here patch before. And yes, it is not where it should be as it should be (as it's name suggests) in a wood, being speckled. Not on a sandy bit of almost waste ground next to a big river.

Yes, I would have preferred to witter on about birds. But if the highlight of a visit is 'oh, there are now more than 30 Black Headed Gulls knocking about' then the butterfly gets the nod.

another day, another year tick

2010-07-08T13:43:00.000+01:00

Oh yes.

This patch is now officially on fire. Common Sandpiper swiftly followed by a returning Yellow Legged Gull. Why do I say returning? Becuase likes to sit on this bouy. Just like it did before.

64 for the year. And climbing.

Yesterday there was a Red Kite over the Wetland Centre. I think it's my turn now. That or something else year ticky or patch ticky. Anyone seen a funny looking Lapwing?

A Gull doing returning.

A Gull doing taking off.

year tick!

2010-07-07T15:15:00.000+01:00

And about time too. This one is pretty straightforward.

I went to the river yesterday. When I was there I saw a Common Sandpiper fly across the river and land on the foreshore. It then flew back across the river (all shivery winged and that) and I didn’t see it again.

And that’s how it happens. Year tick. 63 for the year.

This picture shows you the area that the Sandpiper was in. Just imagine that the gull in the picture is a small wader. And that it is bobbing about. And that will be approximately what I saw.

A Gull doing imaginary bobbing.

another series of random observations...

2010-07-06T08:15:00.000+01:00

...and another moth free post.

There have not been many blog posts here lately, because not much is happening. Unless you call grebes flying 'a happening'. I've looked, but I haven't found much. Not much happening, not much blogging. That's how it works, innit.

A Yellow-legged Gull was recently seen on the patch, not by me either - see here. Usually, if they stay for a little while, they stay for a long while. If you get me.

There is a Chaffinch by my house that cheeps for most of the evening, almost constantly. It is getting annoying.

I don't know anyone who wants Uruguay to win tonight.

That oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is still leaking.

Home made scotch eggs are quite lovely.

There is a programme on the telly on Thursday about Harpy Eagles. It is an hour long. Yummy.

The moths from the other day were a European Corn-borer and Dark Arches. One is a pest, and the other looks nothing like the picture in my book.

Birdlife now have a blog going on called the Birdlife Community. It's ace. Get on it. It's not just conservation, or doom and gloom. Just check out this Woodpecker. And their tag cloud is immense.

Micro moths are not necessarily really small.

This picture is of a butterfly, not a moth.

A tatty White Admiral doing, phwoar look at that underwing!

I lied about this being a moth free post.

do me a favour

2010-07-02T07:25:00.000+01:00

Someone please tell me what these bloody moths are! I've been through my book at least 10 times trying to find something that is fits and have come close, but not close enough. They are doing my bonce in. Twisting my melons in fact.

Moth 1. Not quite a Broken Barred Carpet, or is it.

Moth 2 - I can't even remember what I thought this was.

Yes, the quality isn't great, but no moths were harmed or chilled in the making of this blogpost.

anything about?

2010-06-30T17:10:00.000+01:00

Basically, no.

At 5pm in the evening, it would seem that no birds have been seen in London today ...

the dream is over

2010-06-29T08:09:00.000+01:00

Yes dear reader, the dream is over. I checked site yesterday and there are no young, just two adults. One of them aimlessly feeding, one of them standing on the nest and looking down through its legs, clucking away and expecting the little bald pates to appear from underneath it. They don’t, and won’t.

Now, one could anthropomorphise this whole situation, and if you did you would be sad because the Coots put in the effort to produce the eggs and one didn’t hatch, one nearly did, three did hatch but one chick didn’t last long. The two that were left were getting nicely plump just before they were eaten. If however, you don’t anthropomorphise the situation you will be glad to know that there is a Kestrel chick nearby with a nice fat stomach, full of Coot. Yummy.

With the loss of this nest, the birding interest on the patch is well and truly grinding to a summery halt.

Moths then.
Damselflies for sure.
Bugs if necessary.

Gulls anyone?

A Gull doing suddenly very interesting again.

sick as a parrot

2010-06-28T08:40:00.000+01:00

Patch news, but not from me...

On the Wiki...

Friday 25 June 2010

Wandsworth: Hobby hunting over Wandle Creek at 5.30

Comment on this here blog from Michael Mac...

26 Jun (2 days ago)

I was looking at this nest today and saw no young only the pair of adults - there was another coot nest much futher down the river - so I take it the young have been predated?

A bloody Hobby! FFS! It won't come back, as there are no hirundines or dragonflies to eat. I am as gutted as Frank Lampard. Truly, truly pissed off. A Hobby in the patch, and I missed it. Gutted.

And as for the Coots, that really is bad news. I'll be back, but what I'll have to show only the patch will tell...

A Whitethroat doing nervy

a post regarding farting noises

2010-06-25T13:34:00.000+01:00

Nothing to do with the wonderfully flatulent Johnny Fartpants I assure you, but it is to do with another kind of seemingly audible flatus.

Farting hirundines. The evocative and once widespread summer sound of a flying wet fart. Or more accurately the lack of hirundines round here and therefore the lack of wet farting noises. Or even more accurately the lack of a particular type of wet farting noise, as there are other birds that make wettish (damp?) farting noises that are similar to the wet farting noises that I wanted to hear, but hadn't heard, that on occasion sounded exactly like the wet farting noises I did want to hear. It got to such a point that the wet farting noises I was hearing were being dismissed as farting imposters without being considered properly. I refer to the wet farting noises I was hearing in the sky of course and not necessarily anything that was generated by your esteemed host's trouser department. Absolutely not, no.

However, I remain convinced that I didn’t rule out any wet farting noises without good reason (a birders farting jizz if you like), and until yesterday all wet farting noises were definitely the wrong farts. That's right, yesterday I heard wet farting noises in the sky and eventually, after much potty-mouthed mutterings, found the wet farting culprits and finally got the wet farting noise creators on the year list.

62 – House Martin x 3

Phew.

And the Coots? No problems, they even have a drinking straw each.

Coots doing paaarp.

bored?

2010-06-24T08:24:00.002+01:00

It's late June. There isn't much doing. If you are sitting in front of a computer wondering what to do, preparing another blog post on moths just because you can't find any birds but don't really want to, here is some reading material for you. Or if you are just looking for some web based work avoidance it will work just fine.

I and the bird 128

And just look at this bonkers bird!

There is more of that here...

fledged grey wagtails

2010-06-23T08:46:00.000+01:00

Grey Wagtails have fledged for (at least) the second year in a row. Last year they fledged at the end of May, the two that I found yesterday were fresh out of the nest and there may be another to come. Nearly a months difference on the fledging time, so this time round I suspect that the first nest failed – and they didn’t nest in the same site as last year.

Here is one that has found a home on a mattress that was once in a Caravan.

Here is the other in a bush.

A Grey Wagtail doing fluff.

A Grey Wagtail doing don’t worry about the Coots they are fine.

i knew before

2010-06-22T09:05:00.000+01:00

I still haven’t found the Grey Wagtail nest. There is one, of that I am sure. There is a female and a male Grey Wagtail, the male sings a lot and the female wasn’t seen for a while. Yesterday I saw both of them, in the same area at the same time and both had gobfulls of insects. One after another they flew to a similar place and then flew off. I think the nest may be underneath a bridge. But I thought that last year, and was very wrong. Elsewhere there was a couple of Common Terns floating up the Thames and some recently fledged Carrion Crows. Noisy Goldfinches, a flock of Long Tailed Tits. Greenfinches drinking from puddles in the road. Tufties floating. That kind of thing.

But you don’t care about all that, do you? You’ve come here to see what happened to the Coots and their chicks. You have come here for your daily dose of schadenfreude at my expense as I tear my hair out at the futility and desperation caused by the vicissitudes of one family of small water birds. Well dear reader, take that look off your face. I can see through your smile, you would love to be right and I’ll bet you didn’t sleep well last night. So here you are, here is the update what exactly has happened since the last instalment?

Well, not much actually. The big nest is a bit smaller, the little nest is a bit bigger and the two chicks are a bit bigger too.

Here is a picture that shows the size of the two nests in question.

Still, if this nest progresses well and I’m a bit short of Coot based drama – worry not – look what I found a mere four hundred yards from the shopping trolley!

Yep, it’s a fresh nest in a tidal river that isn’t high enough! Hurrah!

and then there were two

2010-06-21T08:23:00.000+01:00

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. It's not meant to go like this, but then again perhaps it is.

This is how it is. There are now two chicks, one has perished. It is no more. Predation? I don't think so, the site is just too tricky to access. The problem is this...

Yes, it is a nest with two chicks in it. What's the matter with that you say dear reader? Well it isn't the original nest, the nest that was high enough to hatch three and a half eggs. It's new, it's low, and it is rubbish.

After the initial hatching was over, the adults moved the functioning cup of the nest a little further down the pile which I can understand as it meant that they could put fresh material in etc etc. It then seemed that as the week went by they slipped further down the pile and closer to the water. This wasn't a problem while the top of the nest was still above the high tide mark, but now it isn't. Each time they have a new site the adults build, and when they build they take any material they can get their shiny little beaks on and the best source of nesting material is a nest that is not being used. Henceforth the top of the best nest is falling and there is no easy point for them to the chicks out of the water when high tide arrives. As Coots are not one of those waterbirds renowned for carrying chicks on their back the young may not be able to get out of the water at high tide, get a chill and drift off down the Wandle in their terminal torpor.

To exacerbate this scenario, they have now started building a completely new nest (as per the picture) and this is being built a few yards down from the original nest. When I last watched them the adults were extremely busy taking from the good nest and building up the new. To such an extent that the original (once good) nest will now be totally covered during high tide as will the new nest leaving the chicks nowhere to go when the tide rises. The adults, while being quite industrious have rather screwed the whole thing up.

I suspect that when I next visit, there will be less than two chicks and quite possibly less than that.

the england algeria pigeon

2010-06-19T09:50:00.000+01:00

The best bit about the match last night (apart from the result of course), was a spot of birding from the sofa....

Speckled Pigeon? Answers on a postcard...

A pigeon doing “Nice to see your home fans booing you. That’s loyal supporters.” Snigger.

today i will mostly be eating..

2010-06-18T07:41:00.000+01:00

...crab.

And feeding it to four day old chicks for good measure. For those that thought that Coots just eat weeds, this may come as a pleasant surprise. I'm assuming that it is a Mitten Crab as they are not unknown in these parts, but one of the Coots did bring a crab to the nest yesterday. The legs and the insides went down quite easily. The chicks were not too keen on the shell though.

There was, for a short while, a Grey Wagtail on the nest site too. Which is always nice. Coots on the left, wag on the right.

Where the Coots are sitting is actually not the original nest itself, they seem now to have a couple of spots on the pile where they like to spend their time, just a short but perhaps significant distance from the rotting carcass of their sibling.

Have another Wagtail picture.

A Grey Wagtail doing nice.

a missed opportunity by springwatch...

2010-06-17T08:16:00.000+01:00

...and Coots too.

While flicking between the improving Uruguay and Springwatch last night, I caught the bird race feature. Both teams ended up going to the Wetland Centre. Perhaps a little contrived, but perhaps not a surprise. The full details of the visit, I assume, will be in tonights programme which might be viewed depending on how bad France are (the worse they are, the less of Springwatch will be seen I reckon).

I'm supposing that they didn't realise how close they were to the 29th best patch in London, and how close they were to the drama unfolding in the Wandle. 2.1 miles - that's all. They could have had a wander around the patch and seen very little, and very easily too. A missed opportunity for sure.

Day three

The chick in the egg didn't make it and it is now flattened at the bottom of the nest. The fifth egg hasn't hatched. The three chicks remain in situ.

Coots doing day three.

day two

2010-06-16T08:25:00.000+01:00

Everybody say.....bleeeeeuuuurgh!

Baby Coots doing hit by the ugly stick - big time

So there are the three chicks seen yesterday and the day before, there was another chick in the process of hatching while I was there which can be seen just below the adult in this astonishingly high quality image...

It was still moving and getting attention from the parent while I was there yesterday and one of the chicks even responded to it and pecked either its shell or beak too. Perhaps there will be four then. There is another egg in the nest, but it is probably a no-goer. The adults didn't know what to do with themselves yesterday, three years of trying (instinctively) and then these little furballs turn up. They were on the nest, off the nest, feeding the chicks, walking over each other, returning to the hatchling, and repeating again.

Good stuff all round. More updates on here regarding this nest are inevitable. Stay tuned kids!

i'm not sure how to tell you this...

2010-06-15T07:06:00.000+01:00

...but what do you reckon this is?

Why it's a day old Coot chick you say. What's so special about that?

Perhaps if I put it in a little context for you...

Oh, you say. That looks like a nest in the river Wandle that has been built on a shopping trolley by two Coots, and by golly it looks like there is a chick on the nest.

AT LAST! Insert a prodigious amount of joyful swearing right here................

That’s right dear reader, the Shopping Trolley Coots have, after at least three years of trying, incubated eggs successfully and now have young. I say it again - the Shopping Trolley Coots have, after at least three years of trying, incubated eggs successfully and now have young

No, honestly.

No, I can hardly believe it myself either.

Lets have another view.

Yes, that is a Coot on a nest with a chick. Gobsmacked I am.

Yesterday, there were three chicks and the adult was still looking after an egg or two. The weather was overcast and threatening to rain, so being young they stayed close to the female.

I'll probably throw a cynical view in tomorrow, but for the moment just bask in the glory of persistence.

there's a dead moth in me kitchen

2010-06-14T08:18:00.000+01:00

Beauty does not necessitate colour. That's not another quote from one of those book things, it's an observation what I made. Yes, Bee-eaters and Kingfishers are beautiful but some of my favourite birds are black. Or white. Or a combination of both, for monochrome simplicity is also beautiful. And so it is with moths.

This moth (called an Ermine) was found in the kitchen over the weekend. Dead, as you expected.

Very pretty moth (especially when it's alive). Black and white doing it again. Note the red patch on the back of it's head - it's not the norm. I have seen this in Ermine before (get me! Sounding like a right lepidopterist!) and this is how I reckon it happens. They fly to the light bulb and bounce off. And do it again, and again. This slowly burns the fur (?) on the back of it's head of and then when it keeps going to the light it fries it's little brain up, and there it ends. There was another one on the kitchen floor last week which also looked dead. However, I picked it up and took it to the back garden where twenty seconds of direct sunlight brought it back to life and it flew off.

My moth list is now charging through the 20's with the addition of a few more species including this Light Emerald (Campaea margaritata), which can be assumed to be fresh as it is still quite greeny.

And no, over the weekend, I didn't see the Little Stint at Brent Res, nor the Common Rosefinch in Tottenham, but I might well see some Coots later today.

maybe, just maybe

2010-06-11T14:56:00.004+01:00

If one wishes to give gravitas to a blog post, or a scientific treatise, it is always a good idea to supply a quote from some major thinker to show that you have researched the subject thoroughly. This shows that you have read the books, scribbled in the margins, stroked your chin and when you have come across the quote you have perhaps even said ‘hmmm’ under your breath and nodded sagely. Or perhaps you just found it in a book and thought that it looks clever. Either way, I will begin this posting about birds with an apposite quote.

'Birds in general are stupid' Julian Huxley, 1923

Let me illustrate this point by discussing the nesting habits of three pairs of Coots. Specifically in the Wandle. I am going give three examples and use words and pictures to elucidate behaviour of said bird in some kind of pseudo-scientific way. You shouldn’t really be surprised by this if you are a regular visitor here. I don’t blame you if you go and find something more interesting to do. For those that wish to persist, here goes!

The three examples of nesting are categorised thus – 'the doomed', 'the doomed but interesting', and the 'once doomed but hopeful'. Stick with it kids, it’ll be over in no time.

The doomed.

Not so long back I showed the folly of a pair of coots that plonked down on the banks of the Thames as the tide exposed a suitable area. Here is another example in the Wandle. It is a different pair, of that I have no doubt (there are about five pairs round here, none of them with a hope in hell of success). This area of the Wandle delta is the closest to the chalk stream that wandle once was, and this area of the riverbed is exposed for no more than a few hours at a time, and the nest site and the collection of material is futile. Don’t mock them, they cannot help it.

The doomed but interesting.

Spotted yesterday on the Wandle. If you look carefully you can see that there is a Coot behind the reeds frantically pulling all the nesting material that it’s mate is bringing it into a rudimentary nest. It’s high tide, and the birds are nesting in a quite suitable area. Now, if this nest were being made by any other waterbird you could reasonably expect success. However, these are Coots. Do you know what the problem is? In an hours time the water level will fall, and the nest will become more distant from the surface of the water. And Coots don’t like this one little bit. It doesn’t bother Moorhens, but Coots have to have the base of their nest touching water. So, it was an interesting proposition, but I doubt if the birds will build a nest from the top down that will be 5 metres tall. I've seen this pair (or birds holding this section of the river as territory) starting nests on freshly exposed mud at low tide, so it is possible that they are trying to build two nests a day. Mad.

The once doomed but hopeful.

The perennial favourites. The shopping trolley Coots. Now this doesn't look much different to the last picture of this nest. Or does it? To recap, the Coots build a nest, the high tide comes in and the nest is destroyed. Repeat. This is the first time I've seen this particular build at anything like high water, according to my sources the high tide in Chelsea was due at 12:16, build in a delay for Wandsworth and the Wandle and the highest of the tide would have been around about 12:40 and I was there at 13.20. Essentially this picture shows the nest at high tide. And all is calm, which I have never seen before with high water. No drama. The top of the nest is dry. The bird on the nest is still. So this nest that is potentially half way through the incubation time may be high enough to avoid the worst of the tidal flux. Perhaps it isn't doomed after all.

They couldn't actually go and do it could they?

Maybe, just maybe...

counting coots in essex

2010-06-10T10:35:00.000+01:00

And now on Radio 4, it’s Woman’s Hour – CLICK!

I had to take Mrs Thing to the University Of Essex and then wait for a number of hours before leaving the University Of Essex.

“What will you do for four hours?” said Mrs Thing. “Oh, don’t you worry about that...”.

For those that don’t know, The University Of Essex is one of those post-war out of town campuses, and is situated in the middle of Wivenhoe Park near Colchester. Which is a park like area on the outskirts of a large town that is next to the countryside. Terribly convenient for someone such as myself with a penchant for staring into trees with lots of time to kill. I could have done a bit of research to try and find out in advance what to expect and where to focus my energies, but that’s no fun and doesn’t leave much space for exploration which is of course half the fun of going to new places. So with the radio turned off, the doors closed and locked I headed off to wander round the campus. And it was totally pissing down with rain. And it rained really hard, and then started to rain harder. After an hour this began to annoy me as all I had seen was some very wet waterbirds doing very little. Having to stand underneath trees to try and get some shelter while smoking wet fags was quite wearing so I decided that I was going to brave the full ravages of the weather anyway so set off again, and then the rain stopped and the sun came out. Which was very nice.

A lake type thing doing ornamental and wet.

It transpires that I had been round the more ornamental side of the campus, where the alien tree species are in full flow along with a fair few Rhododendrons chucked in for good measure (there is a private house there too which I assume is the university top dude’s residence). It was not filling me with hope for the following hours. However, once I had left this area I found myself in an area of open parkland with long grass and some big oaks dotted about, very similar to this picture in fact.

A picture doing rain on the lens.

This gradually gave way to a more open area at the top of a hill with less of the big trees – and this where the interesting birds started to appear (singing Goldcrest, Swallow, two Woodpecker species, Blackcap etc) so in all I was enjoying it a bit more. I found this sign and I really don’t understand what it is about. I mean, it's a sign on a signpost but it doesn't tell you anything. It's at the end of a path which ends at a closed gate and a wall. It's by a road, which has cars on it, not cows. It's very strange, and the more I think about it the more confused I get. So I won't think about it any more.

I don't get it. I really don't get it.

After drying off a bit, I headed downhill to see what was on offer there. More grassland, more Swallows, half a dozen Swifts and an overflying Shelduck. I then spotted (towards the train line) what looked like reeds. Not only did they look like reeds, but when I got there they were reeds. Not only that but there was a few Reed Warblers knocking about too! In this area in this photo!

Enjoying this area took up some more time, and beside it there looked like there was a big chunk of decidiuous woodland, so I ambled over there. Thankfully some nice people had put a nice path right through the middle of it. So I walked down the path, with some more Blackcaps singing, a couple of Chiffchaffs giving it some, Chaffinches, Tits, etc. Eventually it gave way to a couple of fields of rapeseed, where I heard a distant Skylark and a coughing Pheasant. The path looked very much like this...

Nice, huh?

Once I had walked up it, I walked back down it. And that was about it. Best part of four hours walking round a new site and very good it was too. Plenty of habitat, a good spot for raptor watching (had the weather been better) and plenty of interest for a patch birder. 38 species in all for me but I suspect that there are more to get normally (no House Martin, Nuthatch, Treecreeper, House Sparrow, Willow Warbler etc).

A nice little patch on the whole.

Did I mention that there were Coots? You must have expected this...

Essex Coots doing wet.

more of the same

2010-06-09T08:18:00.000+01:00

Got to the shopping trolley Coots on Monday and their reasonably high nest is still there and they are still incubating. Not knowing when they started on this particular brood I have no idea of when they are unlikely to reach the end of the incubation period, but at the very least they are half way through I would think. Maybe.

Other than that, Grey Wagtails are still about - a couple of Egyptian Geese are occasionals and the GBB's have been seen flying through but their barge could be seen the other day filled with juvenile Herring Gulls so they are not defending the territory any more. So not much is going on but stuff is going on if you see what I mean. But I did find the first Banded Demoiselle of the year with a male flitting about the Wandle.

Very nice.

Two coots doing persistence.

a sanderling and a bluebell

2010-06-07T10:08:00.000+01:00

There was a bit of a treat at Brent Res over the weekend with a Sanderling showing well on the mud (although if you look at the picture you wouldn’t think so). Nice little bird in summery plumage, good patch tick and a London tick to boot. An unusual species to have at a place like that and looking at the lists on the hide wall, there are a few big hitters that don’t have Sanderling on their Brent Res list too! Although they do have plenty that I don’t I have to say...

While we are on the subject of Springwatch, I have to get something else of my chest. I may come across as some kind of Springwatch hater, but it is not intentional and I’m not. Blubells. Protected species yes? Illegal to uproot or offer for sale under the auspices of the Wildlife and Countryside act of 1981. So why, when trying to show how acidic the formic acid coming from an ant’s nest is, use a bluebell? And then ask why one would need litmus paper when you have bluebells? What kind of lunacy is this? What the presenters seem to forgetting is that there are a lot of children watching this programme (by design), and if children think that something is cool they will copy it. Getting bluebells to change colour over an ants nest is cool, but it would have made much more sense to use some bloody litmus paper and keep the bluebell info under the radar rather than having the possibility of loads of kids finding bluebells, pulling them up and then running around to find ants to wave them at. C’mon guys, it’s a great programme but do have a think about what you are broadcasting!

A Sanderling doing very tickable indeed.

bits and bobs

2010-06-04T09:06:00.000+01:00

Here are a random series of recent observations etc.

The GBB are no longer present on the barges. This may have been in reaction to the big announcement that I made regarding the imminent nuptials. They were there on Tuesday, but haven't been seen since. This may have had something to do with the low tide. Or it may not. I am disappointed as it means that I really will have to pay more attention to the Coots in the Wandle as there is little else to see.

The patch will be hosting another one of the truly wonderful Polo In The Park gigs this weekend, which is er, nice. Don't forget that this is supposed to be helping inner city kids get into polo and horsing (honestly), which was the justification for turfing over the running track. I'm just having difficulty in seeing all that on the website at the moment... In the chaos that ensued last year, a lorry backed up the Thames path, knocked over a concrete bollard, demolished a section of someones garden wall and smashed up a concrete bench. The bench (in the most shady and comfortable part of the path has yet to be replaced one year on. Thanks guys, nice touch.

I reckon that the Goldfinches that were assumed to be nesting on the Fulham side have fledged as it is all very quiet. During the course of the day you were almost guaranteed to hear lots of chattering and singing but it's all gone quiet, which I am taking as a good sign.

I still haven't seen any House Martins in the patch yet. Not that I see many, but that's not the point.

There was a pair of Canada Goose with two goslings on the Thames yesterday. Gawd knows where they came from.

A pair of Gadwall are still on the Wandle! What the... On Tuesday I thought that only the male was there and the female might be on a nest or something. It wasnt, it was hiding behind some mallard.

A Trumpeter Finch was at Cley recently, Mr GREvans issued an email (that anyone can subscribe to- other rare bird alerts are available) saying that it had been flushed enough and that it shouldn't be disturbed - but is this not what is supposed to happen anyway?

With the recent addition of Silvery Y and The Engrailed, my list of self found and identified moths has now broken the 15 mark. No, I didn't miss a digit out. The Engrailed, what a name.

Kate Humble said on telly the other night that the second world war was "fairly appalling". Fairly appalling? Stunning.

On the topic of Mr GREvans, on the Londonbirders group, there is the annual talk (rightly so) of not going public on Schedule 1 species. So how does Mr GREvans get away with his book about where and when to find rare birds? I don't know, but if anyone buys it for me for my birthday later in the year, I won't mind.

That's hypocrisy isn't it?

Doesn't matter, nobody will have read this far down such an enormous post, once they've seen the picture of the gosling, everyone will go 'aaaaah' and go somewhere else. Hypocrisy? I'll probably get away with it...

A gosling doing fluffy.

avocet fatigue

2010-06-02T07:56:00.001+01:00

A popular wildlife programme is currently having a certain focus on Avocets at the nest. If the bird is not jusdadooorable, then I’m sure that it will be soon – as most birds on that programme are (although good on the male presenter for seeing the potential chick as a Kestrel meal).

I have seen these birds in the wild, and on more than one occasion in fact. I saw some this year and I saw some last year. And the year before that. Etc. However, when I see them these days – despite their innate and undeniable beauty, the grace, the ridiculous yet practical beak, the incongruous leg colouring and even the wonderful name, I just don’t get excited by them. I call it ‘Avocet fatigue’, and I’m sure that I’m not the only birder out there that feels that way. Maybe not about Avocets perhaps, but I’m guessing that some birders really cannot get excited about birds they see all the time, regardless of their beauty/significance/rarity/charm etc etc.

I know why I suffer from Avocet fatigue, it’s because in the eighties I spent a month on an Island in Suffolk where there are a lot of them. And then I went back the next year for a fortnight. I don’t know how many there are these days but I have checked the BoEE counts that I have in my slapdash notebooks and there were 234. And there were that many every bloody day.

So do excuse me if I don’t pay too much notice to them on the telly but perk up a bit when the raptors are killing stuff. Like the Hobby. The one catching dragonflies that is, not the one sitting on a mans arm eating chicken.

Springwatch. You gotta love it.

An Avocet doing sleeping. And blurry.

Showing promise

2010-05-30T12:13:00.004+01:00

As well as the relative excitement regarding the GBB the other day, I did also manage to check out the Coots on the Wandle.

They are, of course, nesting. And as predicted, the nest is getting higher (although a little narrower than previous efforts) and there is a minutely small chance of success.

Check out this weeks offering.

A nest doing narrower than before.

a post regarding large birds

2010-05-28T08:11:00.000+01:00

If a large bird is standing on the back of another large bird of the same species, and the large bird that is underneath the large bird doesn't turn round and get the large bird on top off of it, that's mating right?

Well these two large birds were seen doing the exact same thing on the barges by Wandsworth Park yesterday.

And I saw them doing other behaviour too. Billing and cooing (cooing is stretching it a bit), and they were doing territory too.

A barge that a large bird decides is it's territory is largely clear of other large birds...

And a barge that a large bird decides is not it's territory is largely full of the other large birds...

Yes, it looks like the Great Black-backed Gulls are back and they are in the mood for some breeding. They made the effort the summer before last (in the year 1 BCC*) and raised a chick which didn't fledge. However they were nowhere to be seen in 2009. Great Black-backed Gulls rarely breed in London (and Surrey for that matter - the patch overlaps the boundaries - in a Venn diagram kinda way) so hopefully there will be some success this year. I'll obviously keep y'all up to date inbetween inane postings about Coots ~~and moths~~.

[* - Before Counting Coots]

do you care?

2010-05-27T08:17:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from Birdlife, which was nice. So I read it, and it turns out that it wasn't.

For those that haven't recieved it or don't know what it's about, here it is, verbatim.

Dear Bird Blogger,

Today we announced that Alaotra Grebe is officially extinct on the Red List.

The Dodo is the undoubted ‘celebrity’ among extinct species with its depiction in books, cartoons and the well-used expression ‘Dead as a Dodo’. Less well known about the Dodo is that it heads up a group of single island flightless birds that became extinct either at the hands of man, or by the introduction of predators that came along with the arrival of people to their islands. More than 130 species of birds have become extinct since AD 1500, mostly because of human actions...

When BirdLife publicises news of threat or extinction the first question posed by the media will be: “Why should we care?”

We're asking you to tell us why species matter. Do you care?

Please encourage your website visitors to leave comments on this page:http://www.birdlife.org/community/2010/05/alaotra-grebe-extinction-do-you-care/

To read the full story, click here: http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2010/05/red-list-for-birds-2010.html

Thank you for your support.

Nick Askew

Although many of us will not have heard of the Alaotra Grebe, it's extinction is symbolic not just because it is a bird. Because it is a bird, it produces headline news and is treated with more significance but in the time that it has taken for this bird species to have been eradicated there have been hundreds if not thousands of other lifeforms that are gone. Extinct. For ever. Extinction is a bit like pregnancy, you cannot be a bit pregnant, nor can you be a bit extinct. For the Alaotra Grebe, that's it. And we did it. Shame on you.

Click on the links up there. Read the story. Put your name on the list. Show, at the very least, that you care.

I find it a little ironic that less than a week after a scientist announces the creation of the first synthetic life form we have the announcement about extinction. Would it not make more sense, on the whole, to try and keep hold of what we've got?

sexual dimorphism and catholic polyphages

2010-05-26T08:10:00.000+01:00

I'm still a bit old fashioned when it comes to identification. I want to look in a book to find out what something is. This means that I have lots of books about identification of birds (not that it means that I get it right of course) and when it comes to moths and butterflies the same applies. The two moths that I proffered yesterday were not in my book, so I had to go to my percieved second option and ask someone else. I could have done what Jonathon claims to have done and go to the UK Moths website and look through the pictures of all the species until I found the right one, and then wouldn't have bothered y'all with my little request. The thing is that it never actually occured to me! Not for one minute did I think that there may have been a valuable resource online that could help. Not in a book, see. So for those that are still interested...

Image 1 was a Bee Moth Aphomia sociella and it is common. Bee Moths are sexually dimorphic, and this was a female. They are, of course, common.

Image 2 was a Light Brown Apple Moth Epiphyas postvittana. UK Moths says the following about it...

This originally Australian species was probably accidentally introduced into Cornwall in the 1930's and since then has spread quickly northwards, and is now regular in many parts, and very common in some areas [of course - Ed.].

A pest species in Australian orchards, it is one of the most catholic polyphages in Britain, and should be considered as a possibility when identifying larvae off any plant.
It flies in two generations between May and October.

So there.

For the sake having a picture - here is another moth. It is called a Grey Dagger. But it might be a Dark Dagger. The only way to tell them apart is to analyse their genitals. And it might kill it. Which is a bit unfortunate if you just found the rarer of the two, yes? But I don't know how to analyse moth genitals and to be honest, I have no inclination to find out. So lets assume that it's the common species, right?

Grey Dagger doing Acronicta psi

What I'll do today, right, is go out into the patch and watch some birds. Good idea, eh? Don't go thinking that this blog is going to go all moth mad all summer. It's is but a small diversion. Honest guv.

there's another moth in me kitchen x 2

2010-05-25T08:10:00.003+01:00

Continuing the rather rubbish theme of moths and kitchen there have been some of note recently. To me, not of any national significance nevermind local significance. I find that I locate a moth, spend an age trying to identify it and then find out that it is so common that seeing a Robin in a west London garden is actually more interesting. Anyway, recently there has been Golden Fringe, Garden Pebble, Common Pug, Hebrew Character and a carpet whose name escapes me.

A lot of people on the interweb don't try and work out what the identification of a species is. They just lazily upload their pictures to Birdforum or some such and learn nothing in the process. At the opposite end of the scale, lies yours truly. Utterly determined to identify everything for myself, but failing due to the limited resource before me. There are two (probably common moths) that I frustratingly cannot identify. These two that I present here are not in my book (or at any angle that makes them identifiable) and I proffer them to the wider world (photographed in my incredible moth catcher).

A moth doing unidentified.

Another moth doing unidentified.

Any ideas?

a little of not much

2010-05-24T08:24:00.000+01:00

Not much 'proper' birding done recently as real life has recently had a knack of getting in the way of things. The local park has provided plenty of interest with all the waterbirds sprouting young left right and centre.

However, this photo is causing me much amusement.

15 minutes and a year tick

2010-05-21T07:45:00.000+01:00

As every recent overflying Buteo has morphed under focussing to a juvenile Herring Gull, so every recent flypast Common Tern has unseasonally morphed under focussing to an adult Black-headed Gull (see winter birds on previous post).

Until yesterday.

I had only the briefest of visits yesterday but the flypast Common Tern remained a Common Tern. Bravo! Year tick 61 in the bag. Only three more (House Martin, Sandpiper spp, and Goldcrest are the likeliest) and I'll beat the 2009 list - and there is still another 7 months of patch drudgery to go! Hurrah!

A Med Gull doing blimey I havent seen one of those for ages.

summer? i think not.

2010-05-20T08:01:00.000+01:00

It seems like it's still winter here....

Drake Pintail on the Thames this week. Winter bird.
Gadwall flying around the Wandle yesterday. Winter birds.
Loads of Starlings heading over to the Wandsworth Bridge roost last night? Winter birds.

All I need now is a dubious gull to turn up on the foreshore and I shall have no options left to me but to write to my MP. It just isn't good enough.

The patch doing yesterday.

what are you doing here?

2010-05-18T17:07:00.000+01:00

Not you - I know what you are doing here (kind of).

No, the question is directed at a bird.

Specifically this bird that was seen in the patch today.

Yes, it's a bloody Pintail. In Fulham, in late May. That is a seriously unseasonable bird. Why, that is so strange that it's as strange as a Pintail in late May.

Strange.

there's a moth in me kitchen...

2010-05-15T09:40:00.000+01:00

whatammagonnado?

Stick it on the blog, obviously.

Last year on this blog (I can say that because I've been spinning this tedium out for everyone for an age) during the late summer I stated that this was a moth free zone as many of my peers were filling the birdless days by finding moths and butterflies and things. That didn't half make for some pretty repetitive postings. I recant. This post will contain a picture of a bug. Why the change I hear you ask. Why not I say. They often stay still long enough to get a rubbish photo of and I have a book now, so I can now ~~mis-~~identify moths and butterflies as readily as I do Gulls. Hurrah!

So here we go, the first in an occasional and quite possibly very short series of posts on moths...

A Brimstone Moth doing Opisthograptis luteolata

a few random observations

2010-05-14T07:54:00.000+01:00

When a pied wagtail with no tail flies over, it looks right wierd.

Egyptian Goose vocalisations are rubbish.

Once male Pochards have done mating, they seem to drift away.

I should have had a Common Sandpiper in the patch by now. But haven't. And you can add Common Tern and House Martin to that list too.

The other day I counted over 90 feral pigeons and one Stock Dove on the foreshore. Yes, it was that boring.

According to his e-mail signature Lee GREvans is running 10 blogs. Ten (TEN). How does anyone find time to run 10 blogs?

If a bird has nowhere to lay it's eggs, and it has mated, what does it do with them? This is specifically about Coots, and more specifically about the pair that are hanging around the tidal Thames foreshore.

Coots doing it.

crow eats squirrels tongue

2010-05-11T07:58:00.001+01:00

If you are squeemish, don't read this or look at the pictures.

If you think that all mammals are lovely and fluffy and cute and cuddly, don't read this or look at the pictures.

However, if you like a bit of nature red in tooth and claw, and you think that mammals are nothing more than food for large birds, get stuck in - you're gonna love it.

I went to the river, as you do, and while I was tucking into my sarnies I spotted a wet, still and presumably dead squirrel. Ho hum, nevermind that happens. Only last week a fox floated down the river. One of the crows that is nesting nearby came down to the river bank and started poking around in the shingle. I wondered if it knew that the squirrel carcass was there and if it didn't know, was it about to find it? The latter in fact dear reader. Not only did it find it, but as soon as it worked out what it was, it was straight to the bit that it knew contained a meal without any further investigation. The squirrels mouth. From here in, I reckon that the pictures do most of the talking...

Approaching dinner.

Wide shot.

Extreme close up!

Not enough grip? Let's stand on it's head.

A bit more success.

More leverage needed - lets use both legs...

One last tug...

Dinner is served.

After three or four minutes it had extracted all that it could and flew directly to the nest. In the following half an hour it didn't return, so I can only assume that it wasn't going to eat any of the rest of the animal. And I managed to get all the way through the post without alluding to aspic.

Fascinating.

jamie oliver and chaffinch song variation

2010-05-08T08:02:00.000+01:00

The other night that Jamie Oliver was on the telly. It was a new programme where he goes round different places drenching food in copious amounts of olive oil while having staged mock-matey chats to locals. Pukka, innit? Anyhow, while he was drenching something else with olive oil (al fresco) in Venice I could hear a Chaffinch singing in the background. So far, so inane. However, the Chaffinch song was markedly different from the song we hear in the UK and my interest rose a little....

When I wur a lad dear reader, I was given a little aide memoire about how to recognise a Chaffinch song. Imagine a fast bowler approaching the wicket to bowl. Curtly Ambrose will do. As he approaches the wicket, the frequency of his footfall will increase as he approaches and delivers his 90mph Yorker. The Chaffinch song is likened to this footfall. Listen out next time – works a treat.

Now, as you may know, birdsong can vary from region to region and I find that the ones I notice the most are Chaffinch and Wren – probably because they are quite structured bursts of song and that’s why it was pretty easy to notice the difference. The Italian Chaffinch song started as ours does but there is a slight but noticable pause before the final flourish. My meandering point is that the children of Italy cannot have the same aide memoire because the song is different. Oh, and they don’t play cricket.

I suppose that it could be compared to a footballer taking an illegal penalty. Jogging up, pausing to put the keeper in one direction, and placing the ball in the opposite corner, scoring the goal without sanction. Which some might think is apposite for an Italian striker.

A Greenfinch doing 'lubbly-jubbly my old son'.

a safe seat?

2010-05-07T07:41:00.000+01:00

Whilst watching some gull behaviour on the Thames foreshore and listening to my returned Blackcap yesterday, my eye (well eyes actually) was/were drawn to a Coot. Not everyone will be drawn to a Coot going about its business and I generally try to resist, but as this one was sitting down I thought I'd pay a bit more attention. Not only was it sitting down but it was pretending that it was on a nest. I'll insert the picture here for illustrative purposes.

I suppose that it wasn't pretending that it was on a nest, it thought that it had found a nest and in prime location! Just look at the proximity to the water! Ideal nesting habitat! However, that water that you can see is the Thames at nearly low tide. This little area had been exposed for little over a half an hour, and this Coot had plonked it's behind down and started looking around like birds do when they settle onto a nest. Inquisitive but bolshy and vulnerable at the same time. Swear words entered my head, and then increased when it started to call to it's mate who promptly started dragging nest material from the edge of the water.

One hour from this and it will be flooded out. In a few hours it will be three metres underwater. They will, of course, have absolutely no recollection of this tomorrow and do it all over again. Just like the rest of the Coots round here and just as you would have expected.

As daft as Coot, and then some.

year tick, plastics and accipiter

2010-05-05T07:38:00.001+01:00

Eventually I have Blackcap on the year list. I thought I was going to have to write a meandering threnody to a lost passerine as they seem to have arrived everywhere else, but no - yesterday brought a Blackcap singing in the trees in the Hurlingham Club which with the Swifts last week brings me to a nice round 60 for the year. What dominated my time in the patch yesterday was a Sparrowhawk that was also in the trees in the Hurlingham Club. With a slight nod to Dave Lewis, here is a picture of said bird.

Not only did these trees produce a year tick and a good bird (I got better views than the photo would have you believe don't you know) but I heard the damned peacock again, and then a bit of plastic wandered up the bank...

A Goose doing confused parentage.

sandhills, swifts and falcons

2010-05-04T08:04:00.000+01:00

I’ve just finished a book about Peregrines. You may have heard of it, it is called On The Wing by Alan Tennant. I don’t know why (and I’ve tried to work it out) but I found it incredibly hard going. The subject matter (two blokes following tagged Peregrines in a beat up Cessna) was interesting but I just couldn’t get on with the style of the writing, and for once it was a relief when the book was finished. The author can write and as I will show below has no problem connecting with nature and describing it with some merit, but the whole I found bitty. As I paid full whack for it though I felt that I should finish the damned thing. The Glasgow Herald is quoted on the cover as saying that it is an 'Ornithologist’s On The Road'. Why? Because it was hurried? Because the author bumbled about and around the subject? Becuase there are two blokes in it? Because the follow up (The Dharma Falcons perhaps) was absolute drivel? I don’t know.

The previous post on here was regarding Swifts and their return, and I found a passage in the book that evoked similar feelings when the author talks about cranes.

Instead, I’d yearned to live out there on the vital, scary edge of the lives they led. Lives larger, older, more vital than those of the people I know, and during years when the northers [sic] held off past when the leaves had changed, and the sandhills were slow in coming I worried. But then, on some ordinary sunny day I’d hear what no one else heard – a faint, musical bugle drifting down 2,000 feet. Looking up, I’d pick out ten or twelve gray specks dotted against the blue and feel my heart clench, and soar, and make me yearn not just to go with the cranes but to be one.

A Canada Goose doing coy.

second annual singalong

2010-04-30T07:33:00.000+01:00

Sitting on park bench, eyeing feral pigeons with bad intent. I had the optics focused in the distance, again watching a distant buteo morph into an immature Herring Gull for the umpteenth time that day when something seemed to be flying near them that was neither buteo nor larid. A little further focusing and I was seeing something unfamiliar, but somehow I knew what it was. What they were. Because there were four of them, and they were Swifts. They are back. The bestest of the best birds. So lets reprise the joyous sound of the song that I sang last year - I'm sure you know the words...

All together now!

Oooooooh, the fucking swifts are back,

The fucking swifts are back,

Ee-ii-addy-oh,

The fucking swifts are back!

Oi!

Oh, the fucking swifts are back,

The fucking swifts are back,

Ee-ii-addy-oh,

The fucking swifts are back!

United! United! United! United!

I like Swifts.

A Moorhen doing walking on water.

remainder

2010-04-28T07:58:00.000+01:00

Now that spring migrancy is in full swing (a solitary swallow last week is migrancy with all guns blazing round here) and I have actually managed to get into the patch, I have seen birds. Monday's visit was cut short because Jim turned up. You don't know Jim, or need to know what he does, but he's bloody good at it and I needed to see him. Hurumph. Yesterday I did get a good look about, on a high tide. There are at least 3 lots of Coots that look like they are trying to nest, other visible breeders include Magpie, Crow, Goldfinch, Parakeet and Blackbird. Assumed breeders include Dunnock, Greenfinch, Mallard, Canada Goose, Tits, Wren etc etc

Strangely though, there are two birds remaining that really ought to be on their way. They are winter birds as far as this patch is concerned and I look forward to their arrival during the late summer doldrums. They precede the Pintail and outlast the Teal and are often overlooked. I reckon that they are good looking ducks and the two Gadwall that I saw yesterday should have gone by now. Shouldn't they?

A coot doing prospecting for a new nest site no doubt

Postscript.

I was going to thank the people at blogger for putting a spellchecker back on the system, because although I can generally spell I tend not to check. But then they've gone and screwed the photo uploading system. Something that was simple and worked is now all linked into to picasa ffs. Thanks a bloody bunch.

trolley dolly

2010-04-27T08:07:00.000+01:00

Those that have been watching the progress of the shopping trolley Coots over time will know that as the nesting season progresses, the nest slowly gets taller until they reach such a point that they are in a position to perhaps attain success. When I went to see them yesterday, I watched their futile nest saving attempts when the water was almost at the high tide mark, and could see it in action.

A nest doing wet, with a nice polystyrene cup

While they are at high water, the bird that is sitting on the nest (presumably the female) stays in situ whilst the other bird (presumably the male) frantically collects more material from the surrounding water course and takes it to the bird on the nest. The bird on the nest takes these offerings and adds it to the structure of the nest. The behaviour that the incumbent bird carries out can be seen in Swans, Geese and Ducks in a normal nesting situation (and perhaps any bird) - if they can reach something that is suitable for nest material without leaving the nest, it goes in. As the water is rising, and to an extent the bird begins to float, it will use the fresh material to fill the gap that is underneath it and slowly increase the overall height of the nest. Simple really.

Obviously, while this is going on they are trying to protect the eggs, but cannot. Remember that the nest got so big last year that before the eggs could hatch out the whole thing detached itself from the moorings and floated off but if they continue like this and get lucky it might turn out ok.

Elsewher on the Wandle yesterday I noticed another pair of Coots running around with nesting material, in a tidal area. Great.

Coots doing nesting handover behaviour

all work and no play...

2010-04-24T06:58:00.000+01:00

...makes jack a dull boy.

Just to close off the excitement regarding the lack of planes and nice blue sky, here is the same bit of sky that I posted last week.

With no volcano related restrictions.

a sky doing spot the difference.

fulham joins in migration tick frenzy

2010-04-20T08:11:00.001+01:00

That's right kids, a migrant in the patch....

There I was, standing outside, discussing the merits of goalkeepers that play for north London Premier League teams, when a bird flew past, beyond and behind the head of one of the people I was talking to (as I was not having the discussion on my own). It was a Swallow. Hurrah!

I managed to conceal my glee, make an erudite observation regarding Gomez and still take the year tick (58 for the year).

Sweet.

A non-migrant not flying past.

a louder alauda

2010-04-19T07:49:00.000+01:00

Continuing on the theme of the continuation of nothing, I was by Heathrow Airport yesterday and stopped along the South Perimeter Road. Normally this would be very noisy and full of the business of the taking of and landing of ruddy great planes. Not yesterday, as only the most hermit-like would not know.

I could hear something though, way up in the sky, too high to see - a Skylark. Singing it's head off, and probably being heard for the first time.

A sunset doing all ashed up by Eyjafjallajoekull

noth·ing - [nuhth-ing]

2010-04-17T08:16:00.001+01:00

Absolutely nothing. By definition, an absence of anything. In the sky. Apart from sky.

It’s all a bit strange. Even on the clearest summer days in this city there is always something man made in the sky, or the evidence of something manmade having been there. Even first thing in the morning there is always a contrail somewhere, but today there is nothing. A cloudless clear blue sky. Soak it up over the weekend, because you might not see the sky like our forefathers did again.

In 1821 when this volcano was last eruptive, it was busy for two years. So I might be a bit premature. This could be something we see over and over again, and if that is the case the implications will be way beyond cancelled flights.

Check the picture. There are birds in it. Quite large ones to, but absolutely nothing else.

The sky doing nothing. Almost.

eyjafjallajoekull and the patch

2010-04-16T08:04:00.001+01:00

Living in London can be a bit noisy, what with all the planes flying over and all that. The patch is on one of the flight lines to Heathrow, which means that there is almost always a large plane flying over or about to fly over. Noisily. This means that apart from the disproportionately loud song of the local Wrens, you cannot hear a bird singing unless it is sitting on your head. Many of you will know that due to the ashen belching of the splendidly named Eyjafjallajoekull there are no planes flying over. At all. With this in mind, I took up a vantage point on the river bank yesterday to listen for distant song (hoping for a Blackcap again) and to see if the lack of air traffic would increase the amount of raptor activity from zero to one.

Folly.

Why I continue to think that the patch will produce like this, I don't know. But it is what you do as a patch birder. Hope, dream, expect. My raptor watch produced nearby Gulls, Crows and Cormorants. Pigeons too. The hardcore skywatching produced distant Gulls, Crows and Cormorants. Pigeons too.

A bit like this.

Wow.

As I write, the latest news is that there are no planes flying until this evening at the earliest, so it will be quiet again. But I shall not adapt my activity today, and just go for a normal frustrating day in the patch rather than a different frustrating day in the patch.

Finally, if you are in London, take a look into the sky today. When was the last time you looked up and didn't see a contrail?

The sky at night containing ash from Eyjafjallajoekull supposedly.

a blogging milestone

2010-04-13T07:47:00.001+01:00

Maybe that's over-egging it a bit. Maybe a mile-pebble. Or a yard-stone. I'll explain in a bit. Firstly, birds...

Like many other London birders yesterday I was hoping for some migrant action yesterday. Specifically I was hoping for a singing Blackcap and possibly a hirundine. I failed miserably on both as you might have expected. There was a brief and excellent view of a male Sparrowhawk which may well be nesting in the same place as last year as the female has been seen intermittently too. Other than that there was a Black-headed Gull. Just the one. And just the once. The numbers have been steadily going down and now all I am left with is the stragglers. Of course when the gulls leave the patch for the summer they are replaced by...well nothing actually. I just lose about 60-70% of the physical numbers of birds which can be annoying when the remainder are in trees or are Coots.

Believe it or not this is the 300th post on this blog, no honestly. To mark this rather dubious milestone I've added some more birdy blog links on the birdy blog links on the birdy blog bit on the right. It includes the excellent Tower 42 project, some patch birders local and not so, an Amurkn and Ray. My mother thinks Ray is amusing. I think he's a bit bonkers, in a nice way. Feel free to make your own mind up...

Here is your utterly relevant picture.

A Heron doing in focus and sharp and perhaps even verging on a decent photo!

Normal service will resume shortly.

Ay up chuck!

2010-04-12T07:53:00.001+01:00

An update on recent ornithological happenings that I have been witness to.

The Shopping Trolley Coots are on the third nest (as of Friday).

At a local park, there are more Pochards than last year, much courtship is going on.

Um, if I had ran a loo-list year list, it would now have Blackcap (h) on it.

Erm, I found a hole in a tree in a patch with a nesting Parakeet in it last week.

Errrrr, I have noticed this spring more than most the amount of birds that are feeding on the berries of Ivy and are still doing so in April. I've seen some fierce competition between Blackbirds over bushes, obviously Wood Pigeons are stuffing down as many as they can but I've also seen Robins and Great Tits getting stuck in. On Sunday however, there was a male Blackcap getting stuck in whilst the Blackbirds ignored it. Strangely it constantly uttered it's alarm call - for those that don't know it is like two stones being hit together, perhaps even specifically rounded flints and a glancing blow chuck chuck chuck - and didn't seem to stop when feeding. Nice, though, fresh from Africa. Good bird.

Have a picture of a Wren instead.

A Wren doing digimonned by some thorns and water.

not what i hoped for...

2010-04-09T08:03:00.000+01:00

...but it will do for now.

The first couple of vismigskywatchraptorwatching thingies of the year have predictably brought about nothing. Not even an unidentified hirundine. Just lots of looking around with the internal monologue following the predictable lines.

Pigeon.
Yep, Pigeon.
Gull.
Is that a Pigeon?
Crow.
Funny looking Pigeon.
Still a Pigeon.
Gull.
Wood Pigeon.
That Pigeon has got white wings.
Oh, a Cormorant.
Pigeon.
Gull.
Whoa! Bird right behind me! Oh, fat Wood Pigeon.

You get the idea. However a brief stare at the sky this morning did bring a Jay flying across the river. An unusual bird for here, but a yearly tick and the first for this year.

57 for the year.

Feel free to view the image captured yesterday evening.

Mandarin doing caught in the late evening sun.

new migrant stopover in fulham

2010-04-08T08:32:00.000+01:00

It is well documented that tired migrants will often use drilling platforms out at sea to rest on when on their migration, especially in more inclement weather. It is well documented that I don't see many (or perhaps any) migrant birds in this patch.

Put these two facts together, and I reckon it could all change because of this...

That's right kids, someone has gone and stuck an oil rig in the middle of the Thames right by Wandsworth Bridge. I shit you not. Alright it might not be an oil rig, but to the layman it really really does look like one. And it wasn't there yesterday.

There is nobody on it. It is just sitting there in all it's Mary Celeste like incongruous isolation doing nothing more than promoting questions amongst the commuters as they pass over the bridge. They are generally along the lines of 'What the...?', moving towards 'How the...?' or at the extreme end of the imaginations 'Is this how the Pharoah is going to pay the debt off at Craven Cottage?. I asked some nearby and busy looking cockney workmen if they knew anything about it, but they knew nothing either.

Intriguing for sure. The reality is something to do with a super sewer. And it is going to be noisy. Great.

Kept this goose interested though.

A Goose doing intrigued.

is it a loblolly?

2010-04-07T12:35:00.000+01:00

It’s a serious question, even though a little off topic for me.

I say it again - is this a Loblolly Pine? No, I hadn’t heard of a Loblolly Pine either, but now that I know that it exists it has automatically become my favourite tree in the entire world. Basic web identification of trees is a bit pants, and my tree book is in deep storage. Hence my throwing the question out to the blogwebonet...

A little context - I saw this tree in Norfolk, and it had these little bitty pine cones on them and they are pink – hot hot pink! And I was quite wowed by them, having never seen this before, despite living within 400 yards of the tree for a couple of years. That was a long time ago however and the tree may have been more immature than I was at the time. As usual, I have digressed. The question remains – is this a Loblolly Pine, and if it is not do you know what it is?

A tree doing loblolly. Maybe

Something for the weekend

2010-04-01T08:18:00.000+01:00

Nest two update.

Unsurprisingly, nest two is in the process of failing. The way it normally works is this. The Coots build a nest that is higher than the normal river level, but lower than the high tide level. When the high tide comes along, the bird starts to float and the eggs start to move around in the nest cup. There is then much frantic nest material insertion and egg moving. The river is quite fast flowing when the tide is coming in and the eggs get dislodged from the nest completely by a combination of the above and get washed away. Occasionally they get caught up in the base of the nest structure.

Like this.

An egg doing dislodged.

This was taken on Tuesday. It is now Thursday (the observant amongst you will know this already), I didn't have a look on Wednesday (but did pick up a couple of late Teal - nice) and nor will I get over there today. With the long weekend upon us I am unlikely to get to the nest site before Tuesday next week. In that time I expect that nest two will have failed, been abandoned and the rebuild will have begun to create nest three. Egg laying for this nest is fairly likely to be next week. Maybe they will put some height in the next one. Maybe they won't. In the meantime, have a picture of a nest material handover situation. You may or may not find this 'touching'. I don't.

Happy days.

Coots doing nest material handover behaviour

puff puff on a chiffchaff

2010-03-31T12:50:00.000+01:00

Those with a penchant for a certain space-rock ensemble will be in awe at that post title. The rest of you? Don't worry about it. Seriously.

Anyway - yesterday - patch - birds...

Kingfisher kicking about the Wandle delta
4 Gadwall (two pairs)
Half dozen Tufties
Grey Wagtail pair
8 Coots (one pair nesting, natch)
Moorhen sitting on nest (probably too low, as it was last year)
Egyptian, Canada and Greylag Geese
Gulls - but not many

Finally - a singing Chiffchaff. That is a rare patch event! Most of the Chiffchaffs round here are winter visitors (although 2009/10 was poor), and a singing bird is special. And a patch year tick.

Chiffchaff - 56 for the year, second warbler in two days - well worth sparking the pipe up methinks...

A man doing "whatto!".

Loo list summer bonus!

2010-03-30T08:17:00.000+01:00

That's right kids! It's the return of the list for those species only seen from the little room! It's been quiet because there are only so many species that you can see from a suburban toilet in west London, but it still exists! It doesn't go away just because I haven't spoken about it! It's been sitting in the book of lists, no entry since September. Sitting, waiting.

As I've said (ad nauseum) winter has been too long and boring. Spring has taken it's time, and the whole can-we-have-some-nice-weather subject is getting tedious. More so that the clocks went forward and the bloody weather turned horrible again. So getting up in the morning now happens in the dark, and in the bloody rain. This is not good. I want more, I want better and I want it now.

I've had little snippets, but they haven't been enough. Goldcrests singing, Chiffchaffs singing (not good enough, might have overwintered), nest building here there and everywhere but none of that is good enough. I want to see or hear something that has recently returned from Africa and then I want to see or hear something else that has come from Africa! And then something else and then something else - it's not too much to ask is it?

So back to the subject. I smiled this morning. I rarely smile in the morning. I can do mornings and have done for years, and I have been known to smile too. Rarely at the same time. Until I opened the window this morning and heard some bird song. Wren, Robin, Blue Tit, Starling, Willow Warbler, Great Tit *inserts sound of needle scratching a record* what? Willow Warbler? It did it again! A bloody Willow Warbler! Singing in the garden! Fresh from Africa. Result. Morning and smiling happen together. As one of my Millwall supporting minions would say - GET IN!

Mallards doing nothing to do with this post, and loafing.

It's what you come here for...

2010-03-29T08:21:00.000+01:00

Isn't it?

The clocks may have gone forward, it might be officially summer time but the weather is still very springy in its wet windy and snowy way. The moveable feast that is Easter is not quite upon us, but the Coots pay no head to all this anthrocentric clock watching nonsense. No siree - they've got nests to build - that's right.

Friday 26th - nest two up and running. Too low, too soon. Doomed.

In the words of Pete Tong - "We continue..."

A Coot doing a nest that will be "all Pete Tong" in good time.