Wednesday, July 21, 2010
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.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Imagine if one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known was a blogger. It would make interesting reading, no? Imagine if this scientist was the scientific officer on a massive world trip in a boat named after a species of dog and every now and then he blogged for your interest, and just for good measure the captain of the boat did too. Sounds good doesn’t it? Imagine if that captain was called FitzRoy and that the scientist was Charles Darwin. Sounds really good now doesn’t it? You may well be scoffing at the idea – Darwin is long dead and they didn’t have the interweb in 1835 and nor do we have time machines now.
This is all true, but through the magic of pens, paper, time and somebody else’s computer you now can follow the travels of Darwin in real time – Charles Darwin’s Beagle Diary. What a bloody brilliant idea!
Lets have an anectode.
From ‘The Beak of The Finch’ by Jonathan Weiner
“When Darwin met Captain FitzRoy for his job interview, the Captain took an instant dislike to Darwin’s nose. The Captain was an amateur phrenologist and physiognomist, and prided himself on his ability to judge the character of his men by their skull bumps. FitzRoy felt sure that he was looking at the nose of a lazy man. He almost sent Darwin home.”
[Edit: Thanks to Harry for holding the link]
A Med Gull doing what it does.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Patch birding can be monotonous. Blogging about patch birding can be monotonous (regulars to this blog will be acutely aware of this). However, almost all of the good birds remain in the patch. Teal, Pintail, Gadwall etc etc. Effectively the quality birding is getting repetitive, but in a nice way. Yesterday did produce a flock of 20 or so unidentified finches (don't worry - they will only be Chaffinches) that will give me something to chase after today. I was resigned to the fact that I wasn't going to get any more Lapwing activity yesterday, but just as I was leaving the patch 8 of the blighters flew down river. Eight. I swore out loud yet again.
This is astonishing. This is the patch equivalent of birding on the norfolk coast and having 8 White-rumped Sandpipers or something at once. Mega.
Teal doing not much near some mud.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I was in the hide, and the chaps in the corner were talking about stuff. Birds. Telescopes. Ruffs. The chaps in the corner are patch birders par excellence - none of this namby pamby 'been watching this site for a fair few years now', no. Decades. Cap doffed.
Anyhow, they were talking and they said the magic word.
'Med'.
Upon the utterance of this word Mrs Thing may well have had thought along the lines of 'what did they have to say that for?'. I may be wrong. The problem is that I have a pavlovian reflex when they are mentioned or seen. Instant excitement on a childlike level, and I can't wholly explain it. As I've stated before, I think that Common Gulls are good looking gulls - but Med Gulls are good looking birds. So when the chaps in the hide said the Med word, I was instantly animated and just blurted out 'What, here?' in a rather uncollected manner. That's because 'here' is the Brent Res and as is common with this species, it turns up regularly each winter and sits in full veiw of the hide. Rock and Roll!
I think that it is inevitable that one will turn up on my Fulham patch, and when it does I will probably post something on this here blog. But that will more than likely be littered with vast amounts of excited expletives.
Here is a picture of a Med. The larophiles amongst you will be pleased to note the black edge to P10 which although visible in this stunning photograph is not visible when this (adult winter) bird is in flight, and on many birds not at all.
Hmmmmmmed...
A Med doing Med.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Last night. And it was about a Med Gull, on my patch. It flew around, and then it landed. I shouted 'it landed!'. I got my optics on it and noticed that it had a ring on it. 'Bonus' I thought in my dream state. The ring then got really long and turned into other tubular things on it's leg and then the dream got reeeeaaalllly wierd.
I suspect that the more sarcaaastic and erudite readers are tempted to put on their best Freudian accent "Hmmm, dreamz eh? Tell me about your muzzer"
Well I'll tell you about my mother.
It's my mother's birthday. Happy birthday mother!
It's early, it's windy and it's autumn. I'm going for a walk...
Thursday, July 30, 2009
After some cogitation by a few slightly more experienced gullers, it would seem that yesterdays postage of a putative Caspian is in fact a Yellow Legged Gull. Albeit a YLG with long pinky legs and a funny head. I'm tempted to go along with the Punkbirders advice from last winter 'Don't do gulls', but you and I know dear reader that it just isn't going to happen.
And it is catching. A recent visitor to this blog found it by entering 'blogs for larophiles' into google - I expect that he didn't linger too long. Alan is at it too, and I dare say that a fair few bloggers will be joining in before the winter is out. If you want more Larobloggage, you could do a lot worse than this...Gulls on Film
Perhaps there should be health warnings on field guides. Once you inhale your first Med, it's downhill from there sonny-jim. Soon you'll be stringing funny looking Black-heads into Bonapartes, 2cy Common to Ring-billed and any vaguely pale winged Herring into a Thayers. It's inevitable, and there is no escape. Just look at me, it's too late already. I'm so totally off me head and whacked out on gulls I'm probably even repeating previous posts without noticing it!
Have a cheeky young Med from last week. On a beach. Oh, niiice...
Go on, turn round for the camera.
Aw, go on.
Aw, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on
Go on, go on, go on go on, go on, go on, go on.
Go on, go on, go on, oh, you did. Thank you already.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Kind of. From the weekend - note the sand! Thanks largely to Mrs Thing's chum making...
1st winter Med.
Pirates avast! Or something.
Adult Med. Saw this bird in the winter a couple of times, and now it looks different.
And if you look hard enough in this one, you can see a Barn Owl. A secret location that turns them up from time to time.
Sweet.
