NPBW - day 7
This is the contractual 7th post that I have to put up to claim that National Patch Birding Week lasted a week.
The Wandle doing colour.
Next year I reckon I'll go international.
Jamaica, Vermont - July '26
1 hour ago
Showing posts with label National Patch Birding Week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Patch Birding Week. Show all posts
NPBW day 6
So I've been going on about why to patch watch and all that malarkey, but in the meantime haven't actually mentioned this patch!
So here is a week in summation..
Monday morning.
Low tide. Looking for a Purple Heron (which I knew wouldn’t be there), found the hopefully resident YLG. Apart from that the usual gulls in place, Mallards flighty – so too Parakeets. Best by a mile was a Kingfisher bombing along the river’s edge heading up stream. Always a good day when a Kingfisher is seen.
Monday lunchtime
High tide. Visit to the Wandle to see the shopping trolley coots. Still on the nest, with eggs but are they on the eggs from two weeks ago or another set? That would make it 6 nests this year which is bonkers. On another section, a pair of Mute Swans bring out 7 cygnets. Fuck knows where they came from. The Swans were nesting earlier in the year but I thought that they had abandoned. Found a Heron sitting on the riverbank, posing very well for arty-farty-fotos.
Tuesday
Starlings look like the are forming the flocks for the winter roost already. They can be seen dispersing from the usual site early in the morning. Last winter peaked at about 1500-2000 birds. Lunchtime spent watching cormorants fight over a flat fish (not often that you hear them make a noise, and when they do you are thankful that they are largely silent!), and then following a male Sparrowhawk up and down the Thames path.
Wednesday
PATCH TICK! A bloody patch tick during National Patch Birding Week! How cool is that? Greenshank fly through first thing, cracking. Brings me to 60 for the year and 73 all in for the patch. I’ve equalled last years total and still have to pick up a Peregrine from somewhere and still lack Jay and Linnet!
Thursday
Three Herons flying over first thing. Herons round here generally cannot stand each others company, so three together makes me think that they were interlopers. Yellow-legged Gull in situ as are the expected Black Heads and Herrings. A flypast of a summer plumaged Common Gull was nice. Pretty birds.
Visit to the Wandle at lunchtime. Guess what? The shopping trolley coots are on a nest. I think this might well be the sixth attempt – it might be the remnants of the fifth attempt but those eggs will be a bit off. Not much else around, but Banded Demoiselles provided a little distraction.
Friday
Morning, er gulls.
Lunchtime, a Mr GREvans of Amersham informs Surrey Birders that there is a White Winged Black Tern (yummy!) at Staines, and reckons it is hardly suprising what with all these Black Terns coming through yesterday. Not here sonny!! Anyway that's a good enough reason to check every bleedin' bird that flies over the river for an hour. Of course they are all either gulls flying along the river or Woodpigeons flying across the river. Ho hum.
So here is a week in summation..
Monday morning.
Low tide. Looking for a Purple Heron (which I knew wouldn’t be there), found the hopefully resident YLG. Apart from that the usual gulls in place, Mallards flighty – so too Parakeets. Best by a mile was a Kingfisher bombing along the river’s edge heading up stream. Always a good day when a Kingfisher is seen.
Monday lunchtime
High tide. Visit to the Wandle to see the shopping trolley coots. Still on the nest, with eggs but are they on the eggs from two weeks ago or another set? That would make it 6 nests this year which is bonkers. On another section, a pair of Mute Swans bring out 7 cygnets. Fuck knows where they came from. The Swans were nesting earlier in the year but I thought that they had abandoned. Found a Heron sitting on the riverbank, posing very well for arty-farty-fotos.
Tuesday
Starlings look like the are forming the flocks for the winter roost already. They can be seen dispersing from the usual site early in the morning. Last winter peaked at about 1500-2000 birds. Lunchtime spent watching cormorants fight over a flat fish (not often that you hear them make a noise, and when they do you are thankful that they are largely silent!), and then following a male Sparrowhawk up and down the Thames path.
Wednesday
PATCH TICK! A bloody patch tick during National Patch Birding Week! How cool is that? Greenshank fly through first thing, cracking. Brings me to 60 for the year and 73 all in for the patch. I’ve equalled last years total and still have to pick up a Peregrine from somewhere and still lack Jay and Linnet!
Thursday
Three Herons flying over first thing. Herons round here generally cannot stand each others company, so three together makes me think that they were interlopers. Yellow-legged Gull in situ as are the expected Black Heads and Herrings. A flypast of a summer plumaged Common Gull was nice. Pretty birds.
Visit to the Wandle at lunchtime. Guess what? The shopping trolley coots are on a nest. I think this might well be the sixth attempt – it might be the remnants of the fifth attempt but those eggs will be a bit off. Not much else around, but Banded Demoiselles provided a little distraction.
Friday
Morning, er gulls.
Lunchtime, a Mr GREvans of Amersham informs Surrey Birders that there is a White Winged Black Tern (yummy!) at Staines, and reckons it is hardly suprising what with all these Black Terns coming through yesterday. Not here sonny!! Anyway that's a good enough reason to check every bleedin' bird that flies over the river for an hour. Of course they are all either gulls flying along the river or Woodpigeons flying across the river. Ho hum.
A Damselfly doing delicate
National Patch Birding week - day 5
'Biodiversity is an unequalled entity, found to derive positive benefits from people when they are in contact with it’. Rohde & Jendle 1994.
I that kind of sums it up for me, that is what it is aaaaall about. You cannot appreciate biodiversity by gunning up and down the A11 in a day to look at a lost and knackered small brown bird. You can appreciate biodiversity by going to your patch and just being there.
Next time you are at a twitch (because as much as we resist, we are all bound to crack), start mumbling that it was a waste of time, and that you should have gone to your patch instead. Twitching is rubbish tell them. Twitching sucks tell them. Patch birding - that's were the hardcore are. We rule.
A Canada Goose doing digimonned close up
NPBW - Day 4.
Surlingham Church Marsh – the return.
The Ellis hide is no more. I know not what has happened to it. It seems to have been replaced by the most rubbish hide I have ever seen. It’s not really a hide at all as there is nothing to hide behind. It’s more of a show. Basically there is a big bench which is covered on three sides, with the people on the bench looking directly over the lagoons. In the full view of all the birds. There isn’t any screening between the path and the access to the benchy thing, you just wander across the horizon and scare everything bar the tame ducks back into the reads. Bizarre. It is sponsored by local businesses etc, but it is just daft. I didn’t take a photo of it because I wasn’t expecting to be yacking on about patches on here, and I was so gobsmacked at the rubbishness of the whole thing. Here is the view from that area though...
On my patch yesterday I found a Greenshank. This is a patch tick. I think that an appropriate word to use for this is YEEESSSSSSSSSS! I'll probably babble on about that later in the week. For now I am returning to Surlingham to complete my brief and incomplete virtual blogtourthingy.
Initially there was one hide. It was named after Ted Ellis but seems to have been replaced (more of that later). After a while there was a call for another hide and some donations were sourced from donations in the name of the late Robert Whalley. Who I never met. But I reckon that he was a birder, and a decent chap.
One cold winter morning in 1989, it was the allocated day for the hide to go up. The area was cleared of vegetation and the hide was erected with my own bare hands. Admittedly it wasn’t just me wot did it, there was about half a dozen burly birders putting it together with hammers and nails and stuff but it did go up and it has stayed up. The day and the hide toasted with a little drop of whisky.
Initially there was one hide. It was named after Ted Ellis but seems to have been replaced (more of that later). After a while there was a call for another hide and some donations were sourced from donations in the name of the late Robert Whalley. Who I never met. But I reckon that he was a birder, and a decent chap.
One cold winter morning in 1989, it was the allocated day for the hide to go up. The area was cleared of vegetation and the hide was erected with my own bare hands. Admittedly it wasn’t just me wot did it, there was about half a dozen burly birders putting it together with hammers and nails and stuff but it did go up and it has stayed up. The day and the hide toasted with a little drop of whisky.
Voila.
The Ellis hide is no more. I know not what has happened to it. It seems to have been replaced by the most rubbish hide I have ever seen. It’s not really a hide at all as there is nothing to hide behind. It’s more of a show. Basically there is a big bench which is covered on three sides, with the people on the bench looking directly over the lagoons. In the full view of all the birds. There isn’t any screening between the path and the access to the benchy thing, you just wander across the horizon and scare everything bar the tame ducks back into the reads. Bizarre. It is sponsored by local businesses etc, but it is just daft. I didn’t take a photo of it because I wasn’t expecting to be yacking on about patches on here, and I was so gobsmacked at the rubbishness of the whole thing. Here is the view from that area though...
But hopefully this is a minor quibble. I'm looking forward to going back again and again as it is a lovely lovely place.
National Patch Birding Week continues tomorrow, with the patch birding call to arms! In the meantime, have a picture of some deer taken from the 'hide that Thing built'.
NPBW - Day 3
To patch or not to patch?
Patch, obviously, otherwise this self appointed ambassador of patch would look a bit silly. But why is patch birding best and why do I have the moral high ground?
There are many methods of birding as you know dear reader. Twitching, reserve hunting, seawatching, patch birding etc etc. Twitching is by far the most vocal of these but as far as I am concerned it is a wholly unsatisfactory experience. We all love rare birds, but all this served up on the pager stuff is rubbish. No effort, no skill, no field craft - just turn up, see it, tick it and bugger off to the next one. Your life list will increase rapidly but so what? Twitches themselves are weird places, and often because birders are weird people (had you not noticed before? Take a look around at your peers one day - weird!) I particularly find it annoying when people greet your binoculars rather than your face, and dear god you don’t half hear a lot of shite coming out of some mouths. I’m not denying the veracity of the facts but do give it a rest! “Uh yeah, I was on Scilly last year with a bunch of guys on an Aquatic and a big shout went up for an Imperial Eagle right..blah blah blah”.
I’m not saying that I won’t twitch, but I doubt very much if I will go for something that doesn’t actually look that great or relatively easy to find without disturbing it to be honest. Admittedly, I am guilty of dragging Mrs Thing to see the White Crowned Sparrow in Cley a while back – but it was a proper good looking bird. The Great Spotted Cuckoo in Norfolk recently is mighty tempting though. Conversely, if I never see another Blyth’s Reed Warbler before I die it will not bother me one jot.
Ok, rant over. For now...
Patch birding. When I grew up (some would like to think that this happened in the fifties) I was interested in watching birds. Some would call this bird-watching. Some may wax lyrical about connecting with the wildlife in remote places (or avoiding hoodies in Fulham in my case) and crack out a couple of hundred words on it, but not I.
I like watching birds. I like to learn about birds. First hand. Outside. And the best place to do this is in my patch, an area that I have chosen and nominated for myself. Simple.
Oh yeah, moral high ground. I can do it on many levels, but how about the birdwatchers code. Anyone remember that?
Well folks, it is a beautiful morning out there so I'm going to stop yacking on and go and watch in all probability the same birds I watched yesterday. Sweet.
A Black-headed Gull doing underrated.
National Patch Birding Week. Day two.
My first patch.
How the RSPB sees it.
How google sees it.
How I see it.
If I was to calculate the birding related place that I have spent the most amount of time in, it would without doubt be Havergate Island, but only due to the fact that on one visit I spent a whole month on the island with only two visits ashore for a pub lunch. After that and Fulham I would reckon that the patch of my youth comes in third on the timescale. Here is a little more on it.
Surlingham is a village on the south bank of the river Yare, a few miles south of Norwich. The RSPB reserve is between the river and the village by the rather higgledy piggledy church. The reserve is close to Wheatfen Broad, to the west and a little up river from the relative behemoth that is Strumpshaw Fen. Surlingham Church Marsh (I’ll call it Surlingham from now on) can be ‘done’ in a couple of hours whereas Strumpshaw will take you all day to do it properly – this is one of the reasons for choosing Surlingham as a patch. And the fact that it is never busy. I recently returned to Surlingham after a break of 15 or so years and took Mrs Thing for the first time. It wasn’t the busiest of birding days, but it is still a lovely spot and we intend to re-familiarise ourselves with the patch given the opportunity.
This was my patch between the mid 80’s (just after the RSPB bought it) until the very early 90’s. It had been a grazing marsh, and will have been prone to a bit of flooding. At that time the initial landscaping work had been done. The lagoons had been dug out and there was a couple of shingly islands in the middle. Dykes had been cleared and the natural vegetation was being left to re-establish itself. The lagoons were popular with ducks, especially in the winter and the shingle was proving to be a draw for occasional breeding and the usual vagrant waders. It was here that I learned my Ringed from my Little Ringed, the Wood from the Sand, and how to split my shanks. At one point the Little Ringed were trying to breed, but I remember not how successful they were. Other species of note that could be found included Turtle Dove, Marsh Harrier, Hen Harrier, Cuckoo, Greenshank, Water Rail, Gadwall, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Sedge, Reed and occasional Cettis Warblers, occasional Bittern and Egyptian Goose (which was still quite unusual then). Other wildlife could include Muntjac Dear and Swallowtail Butterflies (super super pretty I can tell you).
After a few visits I managed to get in contact with the Warden and got into a bit of the volunteering side of things. Just the usual reserve stuff. Do any of you remember the initiative that the RSPB was involved with in 1987? It was called ‘Follow the Swallow’ and was a Europe wide push to get more people birdwatching. I still have the yellow sticker on the case of my bins, and I was one of the helpful volunteers on site that day. How could I not – it was my patch and I would be able to answer most questions about the place without hesitation.
I never found (or knew of for that matter) anything that would get a twitchers heart racing, but that is, and never was, the point. It's a patch, and it's about more than finding rare birds.
I'll yack on about it again later in the (National Patch Birding) week. For now, here is a view from near the church towards the river.
Surlingham doing patch.
National Patch Birding Week
Many of you may have bought the latest issue of 'Birdwatch' - the one with the egret on the front. It seems to have inadvertently become a tribute to Patch Birding. Which is good. The Punkbirder column is all about the importance of patch birding (the essence being 'who do you think finds the rarities in the daft places then?') and a chap called Rich Bonser has the first of two articles on 'Fringe Birding' which also leans towards birding in the less well trodden path (good it is too). Regular reader(s) will know that I am essentially a patch birder and will remain so, although I have been on twitches planned and otherwise, they are essentially unsatisfactory. With all this in mind I have dedicated this week as National Patch Birding Week. I'm sure you have to apply to some Quango to get these things verified, but sod it - it's not like anyone is going to read this...
So what will NPBW entail? Not much beyond the scope of this blog I reckon, but I will try to impart some of the magic of patch birding to the masses. I will update you on what is going on in my local patch, show how rewarding the local park can be, and introduce you to my first patch - Surlingham Church Marsh. I may even yack on about some important patch birders from history and maybe point out a few of the recent birds that have popped up in unlikely places (from memory, I'm not going to trawl through the interweb records to work it out). So there is plenty to er, look forward to dear reader. Hell, I might even go and see how the mentalist coots are doing on the shopping trolley.
So let's start with Fulham shall we? Although there was a misidentified gull last week (no bloody surprise there), which was reckoned to be a Yellow-legged Gull, it didn't reappear. However, the bird from the previous week (and I reckon the bird that was here for most of last Autumn) is still knocking about and being very yellow legged. These pictures were taken on Thursday, and the bird was also in the area on Friday.
A Yellow Legged Gull doing posing for the camera 
A Yellow Legged Gull doing walking.
That's enough from me for now, there was a Purple Heron at the Wetland Centre over the weekend, I'd better go and see if it has decided that Fulham is a little nicer than Barnes...
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