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Birds

17^th July - 17^th August, Peru (Cusco, Manu, Colca Canyon, Islas Ballestas)

Trip Report

(trip report with photos of llamas, alpacas, rabid dogs, penguins, and me bringing hope and salvation to the poor people of the World)

3^rd - 7^th July, Scotland

Went to Scotland with Dan and Menzie. Didn’t have time to write it up before I went away. Thought Menzie would have written it up by now in his own blog. Turns out the lazy student bastard couldn’t be bothered. So here’s a summary:

Monday: dipped everything.

Tuesday: dipped everything. I had a big girly strop at Dan for no reason because I was tired. Went up a mountain.

Wednesday: dipped everything. I bought Dan and Menzie a bacon roll and a mug of tea to apologise for being a big stroppy girl the day before. Had the wankest fish n’ chips ever in Portree on Skye.

Thursday: dipped everything. Went on a boat to North Uist.

Friday: dipped almost everything but saw a Semipalmated Sandpiper in Middlesborough, which isn’t in Scotland but should be seeing as it takes so long to get there.

We didn’t really dip everything. I was just joshing with you. Caperkylie and all three sp. of Crossbills were a pain in the arse, but the rest was a huge big giant piece of piss. There were so many Crested Tits that a pair even nested on Menzie’s front right wheel under the mud flap. But because they are a schedule 1, red, critically endangered, prone to immediate extinction species (are they? I don’t think they are), we couldn’t move the car for c13-18 days whilst the Tits incubated their eggs, of which there were c3-9, being incubated by the female. So that was a bit of a hinderence. We also had a Corncrake, but not ‘had’ in the way you’re presumably thinking.

26^th June, Chorlton Water Park

Dull and dry my birdspotting jotter begins for today, and it may not necessarily be describing the weather. Far from it though because today was extra special for me as I could at last see stuff properly. That’s right, the material for Tom McKinney’s 2006 birding diary (all of which is bona-fide 100% true with no exaggeration or big fuck-off fibs) is now compiled by someone that wears specs - I now wear specs. Me wearing specs? Blinkin’ flip!

Things had gotten so bad (I recently thought that a small child in a red anorak was a post box and tried to stuff a bundle of mail down its throat, not to mention a Curlew at Minsmere that I thought was a… err… let’s just forget about that) that it was time to swallow my pride and have an eye test. The eye-doc knew things were bad when he showed me a black-and-white photograph of Joseph Goebbels - clothed in full Nazi regalia and sat pensively at his study desk - and asked me to describe what I could see:

“Two small green-grocers’ shops nestling under a precipitous cliff of liver pate, and a moat of Loctite superglue surrounding the two shops with a number of heavy goods vehicles stuck to the glue inside the moat,” I told him.

“Do you drive?” the eye-doc asked me.

“Indeed I do,” I answered him, honestly.

“Jesus Christ help us!” he said looking upward.

After putting bits of glass in front of me and shining lights in my eyes, he declared me partially blind in both eyes and prescribed a treatment of linseed oil and less masturbation. And also a pair of glasses. But how things have changed! I can see stuff now and it’s amazing. I went down to Chorlton with my new specs and I could actually see atoms of Hydrogen and Oxygen coming together and forming water molecules - wow! I can’t believe you lot have all been able to see all of this. It’s amazing.

I must have been so blind that it was also having a negative effect on my hearing, because today there were not one but two Reed Warblers singing in the reed bed. Has the other one been there all this time? Blimey!

22^nd June, Chorlton Water Park

Do any of you remember an email that went around about a possible Philadelphia Vireo on the Azores that turned out to be a Chiffchaff? I’m serious. Do you remember? No? Well rack your fucking brains and try to remember. How about now? You still can’t remember? Well are you sure you even received the email? What do mean you can’t remember? Just think back. Any joy? Well think back harder, you stupid twat…. Hallelujah! At last. So, you’ll obviously remember that there was this photo of a small greeny bird with a bluish-grey crown and a strongish supercilium. Only that was all just fucked, and the appearance was down to a wet head which made the crown look darker and in turn accentuated the supercilium. Okay? Well stick this up your arse and smoke it, because today there was a Chiffchaff just like that. What was that? You’re not interested? Honestly, I don’t know why I bother with you lot, I really don’t.

I also had a Reed Warbler, 12 Tufted Ducks and heard a Grasshopper Warbler. How about that? Are you even bothered about that? No? Go on, get out of here, you ungrateful bastards

16^th June - Thrupp, Oxfordshire

	The Owl was so scared of being blinded that it decided to hide in a post box

“At least think of the poor old Fiesta,” I said to Miss Cole when she decided for both of us that we were going to see the Scops Owl. The poor old Fiesta, faithful to the very end, has now given me an ultimatum: either I give it a break and allow it to retire with dignity, or it purposefully breaks down on the way to a really good bird and ensures that I miss it. 135,000 miles on the clock for a Fiesta is pretty good going, in fact when I took it in for its last service the mechanic told me he’d never even seen a Fiesta that had done so many miles, he even said it was in damn fine condition for a car that had endured such excruciating hardships, before then stinging me with a bill for £400. So the Fiesta is to take a well deserved retirement, and soon my birding will be conducted by means of a new Toyota Yaris, so long as the bastards in Old Trafford give me a decent price for a 135,000 mile Fiesta.

“I’ve already seen it. It’s crap,” was my change of tactics to dissuade The Cole from wanting any part in the disgusting goings on down in Oxfordshire. “Wait till another Scops Owl turns up in a few years that you can actually see; one that doesn’t get blinded and spat at and trod on and mistreated by the revoltingly inconsiderate moron twitchers that have no field craft skills or regard for either the bird’s or the local residents’ welfare,” said I. Miss Cole had been in Spain when I saw the Scops Owl on Wednesday, but after hearing about the utterly disgraceful behaviour I witnessed she wanted in and began collecting a variety of missiles and deadly projectiles from the alleyway, which she could throw at the bird and the local residents.

“O..oooo……ooo….ooh….hh..hh.hh…..hhh.hh…..h ssssshhhhiii…..i.ii..iii….ii…i ii.ii.i.i..ii… iiii.iii….ttt…tt…..tt,” I could have swore the Fiesta said as I started up his ignition, and then informed him we were off to Oxfordshire, via Bedfordshire.

“Bedfordshire?”said the Fiesta.

“Yep,” I replied.

“But why?” he said.

“There’s a Red-footed Falcon there,” I told him.

“A Red what?” he enquired.

“A Red-footed Falcon,” I repeated. At which point the tyres blew, the suspension collapsed and the doors fell off.

“I can’t take it anymore!” the Fiesta pitifully told me.

“Get up!” I ordered him. “Come on, get up!”

“I can’t, I can’t! It’s all too much for me now!”

“Damn you,” I said, cuz now I was getting angry, “after everything we’ve been through and you treat me like this? Haven’t I always made sure you’re well watered and oiled? Haven’t I always made sure that you get a proper service every six months?”

“Please Tom, please not today. I’m knackered,” he begged.

“Look at Miss Cole,” I told him, “how do you think she’s going to feel if she finds out you’re just a big pussy? Eh? Do you want Miss Cole thinking you’re a chicken shit bastard with no balls?”

After that he was back up, a stallion of an automobile, and we were grinding our way down to Bedford to see a Red-footed Falcon. Or not, as it so turned out, because despite being at Marston Vale Millenium Country Park for the last week, at midday it simply decided that it was time to sample further delights of the UK and take a wander elsewhere. But we did get 2 Hobbies - which I like, a few Lesser Whitethroats - which I also like, and a Fox - I like. I also saw a fly-over Golden Plover, but when Katie and Darren showed up they kindly informed me that I was a big stringing bastard and that a Golden Plover in June was a very unusual Bedfordshire record. “Racing Pigeon,” was their suggestion, but I can’t find that in my Heinzel, Fitter & Parslow, all I can find is Feudal Pigeon, a bird described as being associated with city centres, diseases and medieval systems of land ownership.

After the most tediously irritating drive possibly imaginable through the roundabout theme park of Milton Keynes, an evening in Thrupp was again upon us. I couldn’t believe the scenes of utter devastation that greeted our arrival: burnt out cars, boarded-up windows, trampled flower beds, dead horses, gangs of ragged clothed children with no shoes on scampering in the gutter looking for food and squabbling over a dead squirrel. I grabbed hold of one young girl and shook her shoulders:

“Where are your parents? Where are all the adults? What the Hell has happened here?”

She bit my hand and squealed, “They’re dead! Okay? Can I go now?”

I noticed that she was wearing a grubby pin badge with a picture of herself. Under the picture I could just about read her name: “Rebecca? That’s your name is it? It’s a nice name.”

“My name’s Newt,” she told told me, “only my brother calls me Rebecca.”

“And where is your brother, Newt?” I asked.

“He’s dead too!” she cried.

“Look Newt, it’s all going to be okay. We’re from SWIFT (the Society for Withholding Information From Twitchers), and we’re going to kick these twitching bastard’s arses… I mean asses.”

“My mummy told me that there are no such things as monsters,” Newt mournfully told us, “but there are, aren’t there?”

“Yes there are, Newt. And they usually carry binoculars and pagers,” I explained, “but you’re safe now.”

“Okay,” she smiled - there was a pretty young girl under all of that dirt, “but we have to go now, because the twitchers mostly come out at night. Mostly.”

When will twitchers learn? When will they realise that this destruction and chaos just can’t go on? Children are becoming orphans, beautiful villages reduced to smouldering lawless ganglands. And what for? Another tick? Another greenhouse gas-emitting journey for a bird that is dogshit common elsewhere in Europe? Shame on you all. Shame on every single one of you, you fucking savage bastards.

tyoo, said the Owl. Right, that’ll do, and it was off to The Boat inn. I asked the landlord if many birdspotters had been in to buy a drink: what a surprise to discover that hardly any had been in, the tight-fisted bastards! Go on, you miserable twitchering fuckers, if the poor old residents of Thrupp have to put up with all of us wankers every night - wandering around saying words like cracking, stonking and beauty to describe a bird of which 99% of them had only seen its arse, and then boring everyone for the eight millionth time about their last trip to Lesbos when they had fifteen Scops Owls pissing in their apartment toilet and sharing a glass of wine with them on their balcony - then the least you can do is go and buy a drink and a bag of nuts, you tight bastards. It’s a brilliant pub as well, with glazed-eyed locals sat at the bar, staring at the weird outsiders that had travelled by means of transport neither pulled by horse nor mule.

Tonight’s views were even worse than Wednesday’s, with only a number of tail feathers (not even a full tail!) sticking out from behind the trunk of a tree, bobbing each time it tyoo-ed. Oh yeah, something I have to get off my chest: the bird is singing a clear musical E-natural note, other than when it is about to fly when it sharpens to an F or F-sharp (don’t argue - me and The Cole have like proper musical ears, so fuck off), so if you do have to annoy everyone by trying to whistle at it, you should at least try and whistle at the correct pitch!

It’s times like this that you realise twitchering often has absolutely nothing to do with birds. If you want to watch birds then twitchering isn’t really the way to do it, is it? For me twitchering is about standing under a tree with a couple of good pals, drinking a coffee in a paper cup (of which the cost goes to a cystic fibrosis charity), watching more than seventy-five grown men (for it nearly is always men) gaze up into a tree, listening for over four hours to something going tyoo every three seconds and hoping to get a brief glimpse of something small and grey-brown at midnight on a hot summer’s night. Highly enjoyable, highly amusing and involving enough characters to keep a psychiatrist in business for decades.

Go forth and rock!

---

14^th June - Thrupp, Oxfordshire

Tuesday night: “You going for it?” was Dan’s abrupt opening to our conversation conducted upon mobile phones. I’d left my pager at home, so I had no idea that there was a small but very rare Owl in Oxfordshire, which the rarity birdspotting information services had mega’d. It was called a Scops Owl, it had come all the way from Algeria and apparently it would be very good for my British birdspotting list. Minor problem: I was watching Brazil against Croatia and drinking bottles of Brazilian Brahma lager - see, we were really entering into the spirit of things. We couldn’t find any Croatian lager in Morrison’s, so both the football and the drinking were rather biased, but because of drinking Brahma it meant that driving to Oxfordshire at this late hour was neither feasible nor legal. I did think about booking a taxi there and back, but Raz at Olympic said he couldn’t do it for less than £8,500 each way.

Instead I went to bed, tossing and turning all night with desperation and panic - how the hell was I going to get to see this bird? My fanatical twitcherisms took over and I began to experience spasms and convulsions as I thought of all those twitcherers gripping me off. Of course in reality I just went to bed and slept. Soundly. I didn’t give a shit about an Owl calling in a tree in Oxfordshire, but you kind of have to pretend that twitching is more than just a hobby, like it’s more of a medical condition. “Oh yeah, I’m the maddest twitching bastard in the World. Whenever I hear the mega-alert I just go fucking mental. I just can’t cope and I don’t care who or what gets in my way - I will get the bird, even at the cost of my own life and the lives of others.” You know, all the usual shit you hear, when the real truth is that they put on their nicest smile and bring in a cup of tea to their oft-maligned partners, before begging them to be allowed out for the night with their weirdo birdspotting mates.

Wednesday dawned, as did Tuesday and Monday, and I quickly managed to arrange a car-load for the journey down to Thrupp that night: the Comberbach Casuals Paul and Phil, and Uttoxeter’s Teeny-Ticking Dwayne. Twitch on! The good old Fiesta growled to a halt outside the lovely village of Thrupp just before nine, and within minutes we were being driven insane by the melodically inventive and enthralling song of the Scops Owl, foolishly lost in Oxfordshire, which should have been in the Mediterranean either being shot at, stuck to branches by lime, or caged and sold at a Gringo tourist market.

Apparently this bird has been around for seven months, but the locals only first noticed its presence during their traditional Moseley’s Day celebrations - the age old, but still widely practiced Pagan festival throughout the Cotswolds - where men dress as women and women dress as oxen in a celebration of rural life. To celebrate Moseley’s Day they round up the local immigrants and gypsies for a game of tramp skittles, before finally taking them to the nearby immigrant detention centre where they can be held indefinitely until the Cotswold locals decide whether to either drown them or burn them. A part of these traditional celebrations is the so-called Crystal Nacht herding of the immigrants, during which the Owl was flushed from its favoured roost site as the Cotswoldians marched through the woodland singing “As I was going to Banbury.”

After managing to avoid the mead drinking, pitch fork-wielding locals, and navigating the assault course of man traps and burning crosses, we arrived at the field to find well in excess of 4,000 twitchers; and let me just say that the word “carnage” has never been more aptly applied than when describing the disgraceful scenes we encountered. The pager services had given strict instructions on how to behave:

Oxon Scops Owl behaviour instructions: Do not park in Thrupp village. Respect residents’ privacy. Do not enter allotments. Please give generously to charity bucket. Do not throw concrete paving slabs into tree to get brief flight view of Owl. Do not openly abuse solvents in front of Owl. Do not make slanderous insinuations about Owl’s sexuality. Do not make Owl cry. Do not defecate in residents’ gardens. No fencing of stolen goods to local residents. Female birders please do not offer residents hand relief for under a tenner and then say “Me love you long time.”

Quite shockingly, all of the above behavioural guidelines were not just being discreetly disobeyed but were being outrageously flaunted in the most spectacular fashion - it was just like a scene from one of those sci-fi films, starring Rutger Hauer as an Android, about a post-nuclear holocaust twitch in which everyone was sniffing glue and throwing bricks at birds.

All the big-hitting twitching lister names were out tonight: T-Jay, Alphonse, Curly, Brick, Vaseline, Pothead Jake, MC Fishslice, Rohypnol Pete, Mungo, Lockstock, Barry, Q-Tip, Runcorn Dave, Inzamam Ul’Haq, Ejaz Ahmed, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Badgerman. It was a veritable Who’s Who of the great names in the pantheon of twitching history.

Unfortunately Owls are not known for giving up tremendously good views unless they are either stuffed or in a zoo, preferably both, so all of the 5,000 drug-crazed twitchers were going to have a tough time getting a view of this bird tonight, and - not surprisingly - tension was building to exploding point. I watched someone come through the kissing gate and quietly tell his mate that he’d found it just around the corner. They both moved off toward the kissing gate as I screamed at the rest of the crowd:

“Run! Run! Run for no reason whatsoever in the direction of those two blokes. Run! Run like you’ve never run before in your entire lives!”

8,000 solvent-fuelled twitchers thundered savagely towards the kissing gate. Some tried to hurdle the fence but fell and later had to be humanely destroyed, while others ripped out the fence posts and either stabbed their fellow birdspotters through the heart with them or threw them through the residents’ windows. I just barely managed to escape the scrum and soon found myself peering into a dark bush where someone had glimpsed the rare Owl, who’s name I had by now forgotten. “Let there be light,” said one birdspotter, and sure enough BANG, the whole of Oxfordshire was suddenly illuminated by someone who had decided to steal a floodlight from the roof of Barcelona’s New Camp stadium. The beam singed the leaves and caused the trees to wither and die in front of us, as our corneas burnt out and our retinas imploded. After all the trees in the area were burnt bare we were all able to ascertain that the Owl had moved elsewhere. Hearing the Owl tyoo-ing in the distance, the 10,000-strong hooligan crowd ran off in its direction, but Phil and I were somewhat more cool-headed about the situation and decided to go back to the field to wait for its return. We could see the masses stood under a tree in the village and began to panic that they were enjoying crippling views, but then a huge “ooohhhh” roared out of the crowd as I watched the little fella fly over their heads and land in the big tree right next to Phil and me. Bingo!

Even though there were only a few birders left in the field, thankfully one of them was bearing the floodlight, and again BANG, but this time with success. A few of us were able to get under the tree and look directly up to see a Scops Owl looking down at us. Depending on your angle you could either see a tail, an ear or an eye which would move when it sang - okay, these were hardly nut bag-exploding views, but they were views nonetheless. At one point I was able to see both an ear and a tail at the same time, and able to decipher that it was indeed a bird. Now came the dilemma: 15,000 twitchers were heading our way but there was only room for about twenty to see the bird. No worries though - pile on! Everyone eventually got a view of a different square centimetre of the Scops Owl, and a compound description unequivocally identified this bird as a bird, probably an Owl. The evening ended with me frantically trying to find my car keys which I accidentally dropped into a bag in the boot - what a hoot! (boot / hoot - it both rhymes and is relevant to the evening.)

You may have guessed that not all of the above is entirely true. Indeed exaggeration and hyperbole may have inadvertently entered my account. It was a brilliant night, with top company and a top bird (well, top square centimetre of a bird).

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12^th June, Chorlton Water Park

Saw the Kingfisher again. Not much else. But here’s a bird-related joke I made up as I was wandering around the lake:

Me: Why did Bill Oddie cross the road?

You: I don’t know. Why did Bill Oddie cross the road?

Me: To get to the other hide.

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9^th June, Chorlton Water Park

Woke up early. Like proper early. Like 5am early. Without an alarm clock as well. What to do? Should I roll over and try to get another couple of hours in? Maybe I should go for a run? Or do some birdfancying? So off to Chorlton it was. In the car I was uplifted (immensely) by X-FM playing Oye Como Va by Santana. Only it’s not by Santana, it’s actually by the great Tito Puente. What a fucking top song! Or is it? Because, quite frankly, after about a minute it starts to get on your tits. The opening and the first verse are great, but then it’s a bit like wading through treacle to get to the end with that shit keyboard solo and Santana’s irritatingly distorted guitar sound. Nevermind (now that’s an album!).

I probably should have stayed in bed, I thought to myself upon completing the count of nine Tufted Ducks. But then squeak squeak, whistle whistle said Mr Kingfisher perched on the west island. It was a Mr as well. I saw Bill Oddie on Springwatch the other night, sitting on a river bank in a pile of hay watching a Kingfisher. I think it may have been the most unusual ten minutes of television ever screened. I decided to do the same thing, but couldn’t find any hay in the fields, and then when I got back the Kingfisher had pissed off somewhere else.

I really should tell you about the Coots some time soon, but I just can’t find the inspiration.

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8^th June - Cemlyn Bay and South Stack RSPB, Anglesey

A mega serious birdspotting entry today, with names of feathers and all sorts of shit. With Miss Cole on a totally undeserved holiday in Spain, Menzie and I opted to try and get skin cancer at Cemlyn Bay. I tried really hard and probably succeeded. Top tip: don’t be stupid like me and not wear any sun cream if you intend to sit on Cemlyn beach for over three hours, because looking like George Michael in his Wham! days is no longer la fashionista. And neither is dying of skin cancer.

But skin cancer wasn’t the real reason for going to Cemlyn. The real reason for going to Cemlyn was to see a strange Tern, of which intriguing photos showed it to have the body of a Sandwich Tern, the bill of a Cayenne Tern, the legs of Gwen Stefani and the primary tip pattern of a paedophile.

We arrived, after driving along some roads, to find a line of twitcherers, birdspotters and Bangladeshi prostitues gazing into the Tern colony. The short walk along the shingle ridge (but of course staying below the fence to avoid disturbance) was a serious reminder that I need to do some exercise quite soon, but shorlty we were enveloped in the excitement and unique camaraderie that only twitchering can provide - being ignored by a load of sour-faced old tossers who couldn’t even be bothered to tell us where the bird was. But no matter. De nada as they say in Greece. Menzie found a Roseate Tern, which showed off a nice bit of a rosy flush to its breasts, and he rejoicingly added it to his British birdspotting tick list (and then saw another two, making a total of three).

And then the Tern we had travelled over 500 miles to see finally showed up (which is believed to be either a Cayenne Tern, a hybrid involving one of the large orange-billed Terns, a mutant Sandwich Tern, or maybe even a discarded Sainsbury’s carrier bag), but not before seeing a female Red-necked Phalarope swimming on the water behind one of the Roseate Terns, which was a totally new experience for me. I can’t imagine all that many people have enjoyed a single fieldglasses view of a Red-necked Phalarope and a Roseate Tern? I don’t know, maybe they have. I don’t really care. Bit fortuitous that turning up though, eh?

So this Tern. Well we watched it for two hours (“watched” as in sat on the beach talking to other birdspotterers), and according to the Tern warden and another fella (who weren’t sour-faced old bastards and were top blokes) we were treated to some of best views it had given up so far. Here is my miserable and overly serious description from by birdspotting jotter (just skip it; it’s nonsense):

HEAD
Cap/crest as for Sandwich Tern. When crest lowered reached base of neck (ie 'touched' the back), but length was same as Sandwich Terns around it.

BILL
Striking! Initial view suggests yellow, but there is an orange hue to it, the strength of which is clearly light dependant. Tip (perhaps outer centimetre) is very lemon yellow, almost translucent. More warmer orangey-yellow toward base. Right side has obvious long thin black line along lower mandible; left side clean, but there is an element of dirtyness around the nostril on both sides. (Check the Steve Gantlett Birding World article from 2003 - there is a picture of a Cayenne colony with some birds showing a similar black line like this bird; but also check the Elegant Tern picture in the same article with a very similar marking!) No hint of green/lime hue at any time (which I've noticed in quite a few pictures of Caribbean Cayennes esp. the ones in Birding world). Bill is big, longer than Sandwich and more stout at base. We did consider whether this was partly an illusion - ie black often giving a slimmer outline than paler colours, but after a series of long and good views there is no doubt that this is a bigger bill. Bill curves down strongly, pointing at floor - this due to a gradual, but nontheless marked downward curve along upper culmen. Lower culmen quite straight, gonydeal angle practically invisible, but at one point I did get a hint of an angle which seemed to be just past the mid point of the bill toward tip - that could be crap though.

UPPERPARTS
Wings, mantle and back as on Sandwich. No indication of being darker (or paler). Rump & upper-tail all white.

REMIGES
Primary pattern interesting. Excellent views of closed wing revealed that on the tips of primaries the pure white crescent fringe was broad on the inner web of each feather and very narrow on the outer web, the cut-off point being at the feather shaft. For a good illustration of what I mean check out the bird that turned up on the Canaries which Brian Small on the Surfbirds newsgroup reckons is the same bird, also Tristan Reid's 2nd Surfbirds photo. Olsen and Larsson suggest this specific pattern is typical of sandvicensis, and although they give no mention to the primary tip pattern of Cayenne, all the pictures I've seen suggest that Cayenne should have a primary tip akin to that of acuflavida Sandwich, ie thin, pure white crescent fringe on both inner and outer web. Ian Lewington also mentioned on Surfbirds that Cayenne should have the same primary tip pattern as acuflavida, which this bird doesn’t have.

In flight a well-defined narrow upperwing trailing edge to secondaries formed by bases of feathers being grey (like coverts colour) and only a small pure white tip (a bit like on a Herring/big Gull, but not as broad or well defined). Sandwich Terns show a triangular shape of pure white to the secondaries - narrow on inner secondaries and flaring toward outer secondaries/primaries. Check out plate 57 in Olssen and Larsson of a Cayenne showing the out-stretched wing that looks like this bird, but is also a feature of Elegant and LC. (There’s a photo on Surfbirds by Robert Brown showing the trailing edge and also the size and structural differences which I discuss in authoritative and extensive extensiveness below.)

No suggestion of a secondary bar (mentioned by Ulcer & Larshole as being regularly seen in Cayenne in the south of their range).

Very slight dark outer wing shaft, on perhaps only the outer two primaries at most, certainly not a strong feature.

Underwing pure white, little if any trace of dark trailing edge on primaries - difficult to see in field but later confirmed by one of Menzie’s photos.

UNDERPARTS
As on Sandwich.

LEGS
Black with yellow (orangey-yellow, whatever!) knees and feet. I've seen a photo of an Argentinian Cayenne colony and a few of those have similar leg patterns (as does the Canaries bird). Didn't seem longer or shorter than adjacent Sandwiches.

SIZE
At rest it's difficult to work out whether this bird is bigger as the big bill perhaps distorts your overall impression, but in flight the difference is apparent: this bird is without a doubt bigger alongside the Sandwich Terns. Couldn't work out whether wings were longer, but the body was definitely thicker set with broader wings, and the whole appearance was of a heavier bird, not necessarily much heavier, but definitely a more stout and less elegant jizz.

Not sure the use (or accuracy!) of this, but at rest the tail tip fell between P8 & P7 (and if my numbering is wrong then I mean between the 3rd and 4th white crescent tips counting inward from the wing tip).

***

Zzzzz… zzzz… yawn, yawn. I know what you’re thinking - no not that you filthy pervs - you should be thinking: Fucking hell Tom. Stick to the shit jokes and swearing, and keep off the boring wank which you have no idea about. Fair enough; good point; well made.

A brief seawatch from the headland scored us a Manx Shearwater and a couple of Puffins, before a jaunt to South Stack RSPB where I almost broke (breaked?) a new World record of dipping Chough; yet even more compelling evidence that I desperately have to go and get my eyes tested.

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3^rd June, Chorlton Water Park

Coots get a rough ride. Everyone thinks Coots are totally gay, and I don’t mean gay as in good with colours but gay in its more modern usage implying lameness, or not being particularly good. I think it’s fascinating how the word gay evolved over the last century. I’d say it’s about as fascinating as watching Holby City (which is a high ratings BBC medical drama for those of you from distant lands that may have stumbled upon this webpage by pure accident). I once tried to watch Holby City, but I only got ten minutes in when the entirety of my internal organs began to thrust themselves up my oesophagus and out of my mouth, presumably in an attempt to prevent me from watching anymore. Coots…

… are actually pretty cool. I went to Shetland to see a Coot. It wasn’t a normal Coot though. This Coot was American, or possibly a Mexican, which is aurally quite similar to American. I’ve never noticed that before: American / a Mexican. I wonder if anyone has ever confused the two? Here’s a possible scenario at airport passport control:

	Passport Official - “Nationality?”
	US Visitor - “American.”
	Passport official - “A Mexican? Cool. My sister lives in Acapulco.”

I’m probably not going to tell you about the Coots. I’m in one of those mind-wandering-elsewhere moods. One second I’m thinking about Coots and then…

This is going nowhere. I’ll tell you about the Coots some other time.

---

…we used to sing at school. It was really funny. I guess you had to be there. We also used to sing:

…to a lad called Kevin who’s dad owned a fruit & veg shop (tatas are potatoes and Deeply Dippy was a shit song by Right Said Fred that went to number 1 in the Hit Parade in the early 1990s). Some lads at school also used to sing:

…but I didn’t hang around with those sorts of lads, because they were too hard and thought that I was a faggot birdspotting guitar playing twat (the Boothen Boot Boys were a notorious Stoke City FC football h00ligan outfit that evolved into the even more notorious Stoke N@ughty 40, hence they hated Man United, Leeds and Birmingham, but for some reason not Crewe).

I’ve no idea what all of that above has got to do with anything, but I just thought I’d share it with you. Oh yeah, Staffordshire… a team decision had been made to go on a year-ticking expedition frenzy day in Staffordshire, so I met up with Dwayne and Menzie and braced myself for a mega year-ticking sensational day in God’s own county of the shire we know as that of Stafford.

First was a wood, and Discover Birds by Ian Wallace says that woods are good for woodland birds. We got bucket fulls of male Pied Flycatchers but no Wood Warblers, which Dwayne cruelly promised us. Next was running water for Dipper, but on the way Menzola brought the car to an abrupt halt when he heard a Wood Warbler - spiffing views were enjoyed all round.

Some other place next, and this time bzzt, which is Uzbek for Dipper. Dippers are absolutely brilliant, aren’t they? It’s when you look at a Dipper that you realise that evolution is a total load of old wank. Surely there has to be a God to design something so aesthetically pleasing to human sensibilities. Follow?

I’m not really a Born Again Christian, and I do believe in the quasi-religion of Darwin (Charles, not Andrew from The Railway pub - I never believe a word that prick says, the drunken old fucker), however, I do know a brilliant joke about Born Again Christians but I’ll have to save it for another time. Actually, no I won’t. Here it is:

“This is mint!” said Dave in his new Shark persona. Sure enough, Dave never had any grief off another creature again. But soon he began to feel lonely. Even his best mate Christian had become terrified of him, so soon Dave found himself endlessly swimming forward (because, as we all know, sharks always have to go forward otherwise they die of arse cancer) with nobody to call a friend.

I know, good innit? After seeing Dipper we went to see another example proving that evolution is arse fodder - Mandarin (Duck). For surely God was having a right piss-take day when he put them on a variety of ornamental ponds for the public’s viewing pleasure? Still, Mandarin was a year-tick, and they don’t come cheap, which makes no sense because they don’t cost anything, but who cares? Not me, that’s for sure. Know why I don’t care? Well I’ll tell you: I don’t care because I’m a free spirit, unchained from your corrupted Westernised ways of thinking. I have no time for rules, regulations or the mundane humdrumities (?) of 21^st century existence. Think of me as being akin to a giant turd floating down a rainbow U-bend, in a halcyonic trance-like existence, bound only for a sewage outflow into a wonderland of magical sounds and colours, where the only concern is that of not having any concern, and even that doesn’t concern me very much. As Samuel Beckett once said: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better…”

…blinkin’ flip! What happened there? This Tesco’s sparkling mineral water I’m drinking is some rad psychadelic Hunter S.Thompson hardcore 1960s Frank Zappa crazy-ass shit… dude. I think I need to go bed.

1^st June, Chorlton Water Park

Oh Nature, you cruel cruel bastard. Only one of my precious Great Crested Grebe stripey-headed bastard chicks this morning, for tragically one of them seems to have kicked the bucket (I’ve never understood that expression), or more than likely been savaged by the deranged Canada Geese. It’s strange how you can get so emotionally attached to young birds that you watch on a regular basis: seeing them take their first swim, seeing them catch their first fish, waving them off on their first day at school, grounding them after you catch them chasing the dragon with their smackhead prostitute girlfriend Gloria in their bedroom whilst they are listening to Finnish Satan-Rock music, and so on. I love (loved) these Grebes so much that I even allowed them to suckle upon my nipples on a number of occasions this Spring, and you don’t see Bill Oddie doing that.

The Reed Warbler that I told you about the other day is still around, desperately - and pointlessly - trying to attract a representative of the fairer sex through the power of song, probably so that he can then viciously rape and attempt to drown her, or at least that’s the way it seems the majority of wildlife at Chorlton Water Park copulates (fucking bastard Canada Geese). And they don’t show any of that that on Springwatch either.

30^th May, Chorlton Water Park

Managed to drag Miss Cole down this morning. It was so bad that she’s vowed never to speak to me again. Ever. I had the most frustrating 10 minutes of my life when I saw six large sub-adult Gulls heading towards us. Lesser Black-backed is the only regular big Gull at Chorlton, but even then only as a single, so six would be fab(ulous). As they got closer I realised that they actually seemed huge, maybe not LBB, but the motherfuckers were just too high (in altitude, not on Tippex thinning solvents). And despite hanging around and soaring for what seemed like twelve eternities (yes, I know that doesn’t make sense, but why don’t you fuck off and go bore someone else you pedantic twat), being thirteen miles high and looking into the Sun I just couldn’t slam a name on them. So instead they were just logged in my birdspotting jotter as large Gull sp. - 6 over SW, with a childishly scribbled picture of a pair of testicles drawn next to it, which I think perfectly summarises the complex mix of emotions I feel towards them.

25^th May, Chorlton Water Park

Another very quiet day, I even failed to score a Whitethroat, and that is some seriously bad shit. However, what was really weird was that all the singing birdies were all just a little bit mad today; maybe there was something in the air, but none of them could sing properly. Take a Song Thrush I was listening to, it was just the most pathetically half-arsed performance I’ve ever heard, I even began to worry that it wasn’t a Song Thrush, possibly something much more rare-erer, like maybe a Condor or something. But then, for no reason whatsoever, it just went absolutely fucking mental, singing as fast as it possibly could and whacking in as much variety as it knew, before abruptly stopping silent looking around and then pissing off. Mad! And all of the Chifchaffs were totally off it as well. Not one of them could keep a simple regular pulse, and as a musician I warned them that they’d have their bollocks tightened in a vice if they ever performed like that for a conductor. Strangely, they didn’t seem to care. Also, the Chiffs were starting their songs with that weird, quiet, hesitant, croaky thing they sometimes do, a bit Acrocephaline in quality, like this:

crr crr crr crr… CHIFF CHAFF CHIFF CHAFF CHIFF CHAFF

Only Chiffchaffs don’t go “chiff chaff,” because they actually have 3 different notes (sometimes even four, maybe even five, or six - wow!!!) and go:

CHIFF CHAFF CHOFF CHAFF CHIFF CHOFF CHAFF CHIFF

So I reckon that from now on they should be called Chiffchaffchoff, or Zilpzalpzolp in German, or Zilpozalpozolpo in Italian, or BANG-BANG-BANG in Maltese.

Etc…

Piss off.

24^th May, Chorlton Water Park

Blinkin’ flip! Just when I thought that the Chorlton year list was at a dead end a Reed Warbler starts singing in the reed bed. Blimey! Bad news on the Grebe front though, as one pair have failed miserably and are now to be seen cruising the lake looking thoroughly ashamed with themselves. But the good news is that the other pair have 2 very healthy youngsters, although the Canada Geese (there were 75 of the bastards today) have still got some serious psychological disorder toward them and they just won’t leave them alone - twats! I hate Canada Geese, although I suppose the goslings are pretty cute, but it’s such a shame they have to grow up to become one of those fuckers. Oh yeah, and there were another human couple “getting it on” again today, with the male seemingly trying to cork-screw his whole face into the female’s mouth. Not that I was looking.

Three Days in Norfolk

I love Titchwell. And I don’t care if that makes me a big fat dude with pubes dangling out of my trouser pockets, because I unashamedly love Titchwell: the baguettes in the Feeding Station are top, the gift shop is amazing, and - if you have time for anything else after all of that - you can even walk out to the beach and do some birdspottering along the way. I got to the car park just after midday and met up with Ma and Pa McKinney, who had been staying in Cley for the week, and soon slammed 2 Temminck’s Stints onto my non-existant yearlist. Then nine beautiful 1^st summer Little Gulls, some of them with a very pretty rosy flush to their undercarriages.

JIP.  JIP-JIP.  JIP JI-PI JI-PI JI-PI …

… sang a Cetti’s Warbler, and a Bearded Tit was calling as well, but I’m afraid that’s not exciting enough to justify having its call written out. Also some fit, sexy, skills-bills Turnstones with white summer heads on the freshmarsh, and two fat-arsed loafing female Eiders sat on the sea amongst thousands of Common Scoter, but not one single Velvet.

Choseley Drying Barns next for sack fulls of Corn Buntings and Yellowhammers. But best of all was getting a Turtle, Stock and Collared Dove all in the same binocular view - beat that you bastards! Heading to Cley we stopped off at an undisclosed site to see an undisclosed bird, which showed really well for 30 minutes doing the undisclosed behaviour that is so typical of this undisclosed species. Next was Creel prawns and a pint of Abbot at The Three Swallows pub and then a twilight wander out past Cley sluice gates where we were spooked by two spooky Barn Owls being spooky and looking for food. And the only way to finish off such a good day’s bird-fancying was, of course, to go back to Ma and Pa’s cottage to watch the first night of Big Brother.

***

Up early, because today was Breckland Specials day, and I don’t mean special as in Three-thumbs Jake from Swaffham. Unfortunately the weather was shit. Pa McKinney scored an Oriole flying through a gap in the trees at Lakenheath, but force 15 gales made viewing ever so slightly difficult. At least the Swifts and hirundines were enjoying themselves as they, you know, did all that swooping and flying stuff that they do. Next was Weeting to year tick Major Mad-Handlebar, the maddest reserve warden on the planet. Those of you that have been to Weeting will know exactly who I’m talking about, and those that haven’t really should go, as mad Major Mad-Handlebar is sadly the last of a dying breed, and he is an absolute must for your “Mad Wardens” list. Only one rather depressed-looking Stone Curlew and no Woodlarks, but the wind was so strong that small birdies were pretty much written off for today. But if you wanna be the best, and if you wanna beat the rest, then ooh ooh dedication’s what you need, so it was a visit to another site nearby and absolutely teste-satchel-tearing views of a singing male on a log just metres away from the path. Infact it was by far the best Woodlark I’ve ever seen. I even got some totally shit video of it, which is really disappointing actually, because I couldn’t get the fucking auto-focus bollocks to stop focussing on the vegetation just in front.

You’d have thought that raptors were totally off the cards for today but, continuing with the theme of ooh ooh dedication’s what you need, I forced a somewhat dubious Ma and Pa McKinney into going to Great Ryburgh to see if we could avoid getting rained on whilst standing on a bank looking at the tower of a stately home. We couldn’t avoid getting rained on, but it didn’t really matter as we had plenty of raptor juice to rehdyrate our flagging early afternoon lull of enthusiasm, whatever the fuck that means. A few Hobbies, 3+ Common Buzzards, male Marsh Harrier, Sparrowhawk and a Kestrel were all top raptor bollocks stuff. Oh yeah, there were two of those weird Buzzards as well, the ones with big noses like Barry Manilow, let me just check my birdspotting book… … … Honey Buzzards Pernis copacabanus. That’s them. Anyway, these big nosed Honey Buzzards were brilliant, and eventually (yeah I’ll say eventually, two fucking hours in the wind and rain eventually) one started doing that wing flapping/fluttering/displaying thing which was just A1, first-class, tip-top, big fat swollen gonads brilliant stuff, and a fitting conclusion to our quest for the Breckland Specials, not that Great Ryburgh is in the Brecks.

Back up at Cley we took a wander along the legendary East Bank, where Richard R. Richard Richard Richard R. Richardson used to give birdspotting masterclasses to a generation of enthralled and awestruck birders in those halcyon days of old. “Halcyon,” hmm… now there’s a word for you, because it currently seems as though everyone who used to go birding in the 70s and 80s always uses the word halcyon to describe their youthful days, which they spent getting food poisoning at Nando’s chicken house, or wherever it was. Well what the fuck does halcyon even mean? I decided to look it up in the dictionary:

I love Cley (more than Titchwell), and despite what people say it’s even better nowadays because you can have the whole place to yourself. There wasn’t a single dog walker, dude, twitcher or ID guru in sight for miles - just the swish of the reeds, the ping of the Bearded Tits, the kreeeik of Sandwich Terns and the cunt-cunt-cunt-cunt-cunt of an Avocet with tourettes. Arnold’s Marsh was swarming with Dunlin and Sanderling, all in an educational array of transitional plumages, two Whimbrels were huddled together trying to shelter from the wind and we were honoured by the brief appearance of a 1^st summer Mediterranean Gull, most probably from somewhere sun-soaked and splashed with latino fluids like Great Yarmouth, or maybe Sandwich. (Interesting fact - Sandwich got its name because it is sandwiched between Ramsgate and Deal, and, as we all know, Ramsgate and Deal are both popular brands of wholemeal bread - hence the fact that Sandwich isn’t actually the sandwich itself but the filling of the sandwich. The actual sandwich as a whole is Ramsgate, Sandwich and Deal.)

It’s not fair to go public about a pub serving you a bad pint, so I’ll censor the fact that we had a totally shit pint of Abbot in the D*n C*w pub in S*lthouse, but the burger was okay. There was a picture of a Dotterel on the blackboard in the D*n C*w pub drawn by a mysterious “RM” - Richard Meinertzhagen? Roger Moore?

The day was completed on Salthouse Heath listening to Knightingayles and briefly scoring a Knightjarre, as well as a spooky Barn Owl. But nothing was quite as spooky as seeing pairs of grown men go wandering off onto the heath and police cars slowly cruising past. At one point I had to bend over and tie my shoe-laces - cor blimey did I get some funny looks!

***

Up at the crack of dawn… ish… and a wander out to the marshes west of Cley West Bank where the Collared Pratincole made its home last year. Wedge loads of Reed Warblers were singing which provided a good chance to follow up the recent bird at Frodsham. I listened to 7 birds for some time and 3 of them put in some identifiable mimicry, one in particular did great impressions of Lapwing, Oystercatcher, Redshank and, quite brilliantly, a Sandwich Tern! Still not quite as impressive as the Frodsham bird, but then again I didn’t listen to any of these birds for 4 hours like I inanely did with the Frodders bird. Bearded Tit, Cetti’s Warbler and 2 Cuckoos added to the fun and frolicks, but soon it was time to pack up and get on the road as I had to be back in Manchester in time to get pissed up, seeing as it was a Saturday, not to mention that it was the Eurovision final (Lordi fucking rule supreme!!!).

But there was still time to pay a final visit to Titchwell where Pa McKinney finally scored me that bastard elusive Velvet Scoter when most of them took flight, also the Little Gulls had increased to 15 - nice, I like. Back in the gift shop I had to buy one of those massive Albatrosses with realistic sounds because that’s about as realistsic a chance I have of seeing one in Britain this summer (fucking Sula Sgeir my arse!).

Some of the cost of the purchase goes to teaching Albatrosses to stop being so thick as pig shit and swallowing fishing hooks which makes them all dead and endangered and stuff. I’m being flippant (“really?”), it’s for a good cause and the RSPB rule for everything they do. As it says on the sticker in my car window:

12^th May Chorlton Water Park

God this weather is still so amazing. Please don’t ever ever ever go away. Ever! I was heading down for a third visit to the Frodsham Warbler when I decided that enough was a god-damn-hold-your-fucking-horses enough. It was time to put something back into the sum knowledge and understanding of the avifauna on my doorstep, and to walk aimlessly around Chorlton wishing I lived by the sea. But there was a mega surprise in store.

Stood on the tip catching some rays, I took a quick scan south to see if I could find any hirundines when I noticed a large raptor circling above the pylons. Happy times - a Buzzard! I watched it slowly circling and drifting east until it went behind some trees and I couldn’t find it again. Brilliantissimo!

10^th & 11^th May Frodsham, Cheshire

Dear reader,

I know that many of you come to my site to relish the bad language and the pointless shit I write about, such as telling you about a game we used to play at finishing school in Stoke called Chirik, where we used to kick each other in the nuts as hard as possible and then time how long it would take to get up off the floor and stand upright. Whoever managed to get up off the floor and stand upright the quickest was crowned Chirik champion.

But unfortunately, dear reader, this entry in the Tom McKinney Birding Diary is extremely boring and actually about birding. In this entry you will not find any references to buggery, kicking birders in the nuts, drinking White Lightning cider and then trying to take a piss in your parents’ wardrobe (whilst they are in bed), or anything else childish. This is a serious entry about serious birdspotting, so therefore just skip it and read something else… (maybe try the blog of Birdchick Sharon Stiteler and her rabbit Cinnamon. She’s better looking than me, never swears and also proclaims that you can be interested in birdspotting and not be a geek. Can you? Really? Anyway, what is actually wrong with being a geek? I am definitely a geek and I fucking rule. Ask anyone, and they will without a doubt tell you that I fucking rule. Best not to ask anyone who may have met me though. Their judgement may be clouded.)

Being only down the road (well actually 30 miles down a big fuck off road), it would have been insane not to pay a visit to Frodsham to see a possible Marsh Warbler below number five tank. But here’s something to ponder over when you take your next shit: how come in birdspottering whenever you speak about tanks or reservoirs you begin to talk all fucked up? Examples: “Audenshaw number two reservoir” and “Frodsham number six tank.” Why not Audenshaw reservoir number two and Frodsham tank number six. Crazy, yeah?

So arriving at five tank below number Frodsham midday just before, I was soon put on to the bird by two pals Frank and Steve. “Hmmm… that sounds weird,” I thought to myself. “Hmmm… that looks weird as well,” I also thought.

After two hours I thought the bird was pretty good. But after I got home and made some spaghetti hoops on toast I began to review my audio recordings and then really worried. How come it sounded just like a Reed Warbler now? Shit it! Listening to the sound files I could now only hear a Reed Warbler occasionally interspersing its song with some clever mimicry. During the two hours I was with the bird I noted Blackbird, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Swallow, Blue Tit, Linnet, Whitethroat, Starling, Reed Bunting and Magpie all imitated within its song. Reed Warblers certainly do mimic, but to this extent?

Next day, with it being so hot again, I decided to pay another visit to Frodders and have a second squint at this bird. Well this time I was even more baffled, because now it sounded nothing at all like a feeking baxtard Marsh Warbler, and there were actually two other Reed Warblers that were much better mimics today. Holy shit! But after a while its song returned to that of yesterday, but still not convincingly enough. Thankfully I got excellent views (in the fyacking end) and was able to make the following detailed notes:

HEAD
Two eyes, a bill (beak?) and ears hidden behind feathers (although I wasn’t able to confirm the presence of ears).

UPPERPARTS
Two wings and a back. Also a rump and a tail.

UNDERPARTS
2 legs, sexual organs hidden (which was unfortunate, because according to Svensson Marsh Warblers have much larger cocks than Reed, but proportionately smaller testicles).

VOICE
Yes.

WEATHER
Thank you.

OPTICS
Field glasses.

And so that’s that concluded: the bird was indeed most definitely below number five tank at Frodsham Marsh in Cheshire.

Check out these recordings to hear the song:

Sound File 1

Sound File 2

And Steve Round's excellent photos.

9^th May Chorlton Water Park

Amazing weather yet again. I reckon I’m cursed, because whenever I leave Manchester the temperatures plummets to somewhere near absolute zero and it always rains - so bollocks to it, I’m never twitching again. Twitching is just too cold. And how many times have you caught a young couple trying to exchange genital expelled fluids when you’re out twitching? Never, I bet. Well local patching in south Manchester is both good for the weather and also for catching a young couple trying to exchange genital expelled fluids. But you’ll have to keep reading to find out how I caught them at it… twice…

With it being so hot I wasn’t expecting to see very much, but birds have a way of surprising you, and as we all know birding throws up the best surprises when we least expect it. Well it might do for some people, but it doesn’t for me, because I saw fuck all today. The only things of note were 5 Tufted Ducks and 5 late Pochards. I told you that they were the only things of note, so hopefully you get some idea of just how dire it was today.

Good news on the Grebe front, one has now left its breeding platform and is now cruising in the shade under the willows with a little stripey bastard sat on her back between her wings pecking at the side of her head. The other Grebe has also left her platform, but I couldn’t see well enough to work out if she had any stripey bastards on her back. No sign of the Garden Warbler from the other day, but there was very little warbler action, so it could still be around.

Anyway, now for the sexual I like is nice. I was up on Barlow Tip filtering through the enormous hirundine flock (2 Swallows) when a young couple emerged from betwixt a gap in the trees and - presumably having not noticed me - walked into the long grass, dropped to their knees and began to partake in a form of close contact petting that is forbidden in swimming pools. Now I had three options: I could carry on to where I was heading and disturb them; I could quietly turn and retrace my steps so as not to disturb them; or I could sneak into the bushes and perv on them through my fieldglasses. As tempting as the latter option may have sounded, I opted for the first. I also worked out that the bloke looked soft as shite, so I could probably deck him if he happened to take offence at my breaking up their heavy petting. But just to be safe I picked up a wooden plank with a nail sticking out of it, you know, just incase.

So I made my way towards them when the one wearing a bra turned her head and saw me; then she pretended to be all cool and totally non-plussed, before suddenly standing up, returning her bra strap to the safety position and then led the other one, who wasn’t wearing a bra, quickly away from me and off the tip. Amused, I carried on to check near a patch of gorse for a Long-tailed Tit nest, and this is where I’m not quite sure what was happening, because whilst walking past the gorse I was somewhat shocked when I flushed the gentleman from out of the gorse… by himself! Then I noticed that the one wearing the bra was stood about 30 metres away by the lakeside. Absolutely no idea what was happening there.

High five!

7^th May Martin Mere WWT

With the death of Titchwell’s great Sammy the Stilt (click here to watch a moving tribute to the great RSPB mascot), Miss Cole and I didn’t imagine that we’d see another Stilt in Britain for some time… perhaps ever! So when three turned up at Martin Mere it was time to get into action and to finally get that remote control escaped thing off our lists (oops…).

Passing Curlew Lane, where we didn’t see any Curlews, Miss Cole and I stopped off by the roadside to look for a Blue-headed Wagtail in the fields. Two birders (including Ed who I’d met before in Skelmersdale) told me how they’d been here six thousand times and not yet seen the bird. It started to rain so they packed their scopes up and drove off to Martin Mere, and guess what happened next? Go on, guess. Correct! “Hawkeye” Miss Cole found it on the field just as they turned the corner and vanished. Damn it! I got on the blower (phone, not anything more sinister) to Birdnet and thankfully Ed soon got a pager message and managed to get back in time to get good views of the nice female flava, captured appallingly in this video clip.

The rain was now pouring down so it was off to Martin Mere. Up at the Ron Barker hide (which used to be the Miller’s Bridge hide) the three Stilts were walking around and then walking around a bit more, and then one of them flew and landed… and then did a bit more walking around. They don’t do very much do they? Still specatcular looking things though, no matter how many you see. The Pec Sand, however, was much more of a bastard, skulking in the dense vegetation at the back and showing very irregularly. But the biggest shock was seeing so many Avocets. I’d totally forgotten that they’d been breeding here for a few years, not having been to Martin Mere during the summer since 1997 when I saw the Black-winged Pratincole.

After a lovely cup of tea in the café and a look at the duck-shaped rubbers (erasers, and not perverted genital prophylactics) in the gift shop, we wandered down the track to see a cracking Tawny Owl sat in a tree asleep (surprise surprise, predictable bastard). Couldn’t find a Whimbrel anywhere on the reserve, and after seeing very little other than some close Pinkfeet and a few Whooper Swans from the United Utilities hide, we took another quick look at the three Stilts, couldn’t find any Garganey, couldn’t re-find the Pec Sand and then pissed off home for chilli burritos:

“Hola, me llamo Salma Hayek; me gusto mucho los burritos! Antonio Banderas es muy muy bonito!”

5^th May Chorlton Water Park

Amazing weather. Roasting hot but with just a light south-westerly cooling breeze to stop your bollocks from sticking to your thighs. You know what I mean, when you have to peel your gonads off your inside leg, kind of like unwrapping Clingfilm off a chicken breast. Everything was just great today. The birds were singing, the butterflies were making butter and, best of all, I got a year tick.

The lake is now officially dead, and with fishing season in full swing the only interesting sights on the shoreline are fat bastards in shorts with sunburnt arms and necks, picking their arses and holding a can of Stella whilst their eight year old son (playing truant) sits on the grass looking piss bored pulling the fins off fish. And that’s just the birders! Good yeah? You see where I went with that one? Good skills.

One Grebe now has at least one stripey chick sat on her back, but the Canada Geese nearby are seriously disturbing her and need to be eradicated from the face of the Earth. But bad skills occurred when I got caught out by a civilian acquaintance for being a filthy birdspotter. A girl I know called Jill was jogging around the lake and clocked me with my field glasses, and she had no idea that I was a closet bird-fancier. Shame, shame, shame…

Just the one Swift, and hirundine numbers are also seriously down so far this year with just 1 Sand Martin and 2 Swallows, and I’ve still only had just the one House Martin this year. In contrast, warbler numbers appear to be pretty high, and I totalled 1 Sedge Warbler, 12 Whitethroats, 8 Blackcaps, 6 Willow Warblers and 6 Chiffchaffs. But the honour of bird of the morning goes unquestionably to a Garden Warbler in Kenworthy fields which must have been singing less than 3 metres from where I was standing but led me a right fucking merry dance in some thick bushes, until it finally gave up a reasonable view.

Running out of year ticks now, so unless I get a Lesser Whitethroat, or maybe an Oriental Plover, I don’t see my Chorlton year list going up much further than it already is. I’d best tot up my total so far…

3^rd May Chorlton Water Park

A really warm morning with a moderate southerly breeze. 2 drakes and 1 female Tufted Duck on the lake, and I also managed to find a second Grebe nest, but I’m sure there’s a third somewhere. No sign of the Gropper in Kenworthy Wood and still low on Chiffchaffs, but at least there are masses of Whitethroats all over the place this spring. 3 drake Goosanders flew east very high over the lake with no intention of dropping in, which I picked up whilst looking through the 5+ Swifts which have arrived since my first on Saturday. One singing Sedge Warber on Barlow Tip, but no sign of Saturday’s Tree Pipit. And where are all the House Martins this Spring???

On the 1^st of May 2006, two birdspotters - Miss Cole and Tom McKinney - ventured up Pendle Hill in search of Dotterel. They never returned. The following is the true (ish) story of what happened on that tragic day, as pieced together by the police from evidence found on Tom’s camcorder and interviews with the last people to see them. This is the story of the Pendle Witch Project…

1^st May , Lancashire - Pendle Hill , Mythop , Leighton Moss RSPB

The weather was bleak, infact it was absolutely shit. Despite a glorious weekend of sun, sea, sand and surf, Miss Cole and Tom’s day off together was doomed from the start as high winds blasted the open ground and bursts of rain drenched the Earth. But bravely they set off up the track to the 6,000 metre summit of Pendle Hill…

The slog up to the top was hard, Tom cursed the bastard weather and the fact that you couldn’t see more than thirty metres ahead of you in the now enveloping fog. “You know something,” Tom said to Miss Cole, “I’ve got this gut feeling that we aren’t going to see any Dotterel today.” Hillwalkers were retreating in terror at the depraved howling and wailing sounds that were emanating from within the swirling mists, and they warned Miss Cole and Tom to run for their lives. But for some reason Miss Cole and Tom decided to go against their instincts and carry on to the summit, a decision that would cost them their lives, as well as shattering the lives of their billions of friends and loved ones…

The rain lashed down, and winds up to 500mph battered the summit plateau, but bizarrely the two were still drawn to the trig point as Tom insisted that there just had to be some, “bastard fucking shit-faced twat wanking Dotterels up here somewhere.” So they searched fruitlessly and foolishly for nearly an hour, continually drawn to the ghoulish apparitions drifting in and out of the mist, but tragically only recording a single Golden Plover and two Wheatears. The last entry on Tom’s camcorder chillingly records the following:

In the year 1612, at Lancaster gaol, in the English county of Lancashire, ten men and women were hanged for the crime of witchcraft. The Pendle Witches, as they became known, were believed to have been responsible for the murder by witchcraft of seventeen people in and around the Forest of Pendle. Despite having absolutely no evidence to prove this, the East Lancashire constabulary strongly believe that both Miss Cole and Tom McKinney were savagely skinned alive, anally raped and burnt to death by the evil spirits of the Pendle Witches, who still haunt the summit of Pendle Hill.

May their souls rest in peace.

***

Hey everyone, it’s me, Tom! I’m not really dead, I just made all of that up. Fooled you! But I did get anally raped, only that was a couple of years back in Stretford. No, after getting piss soaked through and not seeing anything in particular in the thick mist on Pendle Hill, we went to Mythop, just outside Blackpool, to see a distant pair of Garganey on a roadside flash and then carried on up north to Leighton Moss RSPB. And so the story continues…

Arriving at Leighton Moss RSPB mid-afternoon, we were desperate for a nice pot of tea and a lovely slice of cake in the café above the visitor centre. We checked the sightings board on the way in and were delighted to read that Bitterns had been heard booming, a Marsh Harrier had been sighted and that there had also been an Otter spotted on the reserve recently. It also said that lots of warblers had returned from their wintering grounds in Albania and Turkmenistan, but Miss Cole and I are not very good at warblers so we usually just have to record them in our birdspotting jotters as a brown overall obscure bird, or boob. I find that I’m getting more and more drawn to boobs as I get older.

I had a thick slice of lemon cake and Miss Cole treated herself to a big slice of carrot cake. It was delicious! We