Had a real shock today, I was watching TV on silent when
suddenly Bruce Forsyth came on the news - dead? Shit!
No, it's just the cunt's 80th birthday. That was
probably the most exciting thing that happened to me
today. I watched an episode of Columbo, had a Tunnocks
caramel bar, watched a bit of rugby (I still don't fully
understand the rules, other than that rule about having
to hit each other a lot) and there you go. I'm always
completely fucking hopeless when I'm left home alone and
have to entertain myself. I have a suspicion that this
is one of those occasions when I probably shouldn't
write anything, but I'm piss bored so fuck it. It would
be great if a couple of burglars tried to get in to my
house tonight, and then I could hit them with an iron
and trip them up with marbles. I'd have something
interesting to write about then.
Anything about birds? Well last Saturday we went to have
a look at the supposed North American Night Heron at
Mere Sands Wood, only it wasn't there, in fact it's not
been seen since. So that's that done with.
Yesterday I went to Lancaster. So what? True. So what.
Who cares? I don't. Do you? Didn't think so. But as I
was running to Glossop train station (why am I always
fucking late for everything all the time?) I passed a wee flock
of wee Jackdaws opposite Bodycheck gym, and one of them
had a whopping great big dirty white collar on it.
Nordic Jackdaw? I paused and wondered for a second whether I
should tell someone about it, perhaps phone it out or
something, but then I thought who in their right
mind would care? And then I
remembered that if it hadn't been for people reporting
them in the first place then I wouldn't have bothered to
look twice at Jackdaws and wouldn't have seen this bird,
so good on the decent folk that do report things,
unfortunately I don't own a telephone, mobile phone or
ever have any change for a payphone.
I don't know if it was a Nordic Jackdaw, but you
know, it passed a a few pleasant moments and made me
miss my train... almost.
When I got to Lancaster I took a taxi to the
university - those of you wondering if this is going to
get any
better I'll put you out of your misery now: it doesn't.
So this taxi... I made the mistake of telling the driver
that I didn't really know where I was going and that I'd
never been to Lancaster before. I was ripped off.
Suppose it serves me right. Why am
I even telling you this? Well, on the way in the taxi we went
past a canal in the middle of nowhere (no idea where we
were) where I could have sworn that there was a Bean
Goose in the fields by a little humpback bridge with
some Canada Geese and messed up wildfowl - honestly, I'd
say I'm 90% certain it was a Bean Goose. So if you're
ever in a taxi in Lancaster somewhere near a canal then
keep a look out, because you never know. Yawn...
Later that day I got a bus back to the train station,
and realised that I'd been massively scammed in the
taxi. Cunt. Then I got lost trying to find the train
station and it was starting to get dark - horror!
Because, as you know only
too well, I am a man who walks alone, when I'm
walking a dark road at night or strolling through the
park. And when the light begins to change I sometimes
feel a little strange, a little anxious when it's dark.
Only 133 days left until Maiden at Twickenham.
I'm off to Aldeburgh in Suffolk for a week now
(and oh my God will I have some tales to tell you when I
get back!*), so I'll
be seeing y'all later.
* probably not, but I'll just make up
something anyway. Like perhaps something to do with
being twatted by Polish fishermen after losing a game of
Mahjong.
15th February
As a special post-Valentine's Day treat, here's a double
entry today. Double entry? I don't think that sounds
right. Here's a double offering. No that's not good
either, both of them sound like something that happens
in one of them Dutch "specialist interest" movies. God
it's all just foul double entendre around here.
That's right, you're not dreaming,
unless you are, in which case this is pretty fucking
weird, because you must be dreaming about me typing this
out, which is freaking me about a bit. I hope you're
dreaming about me with all of my clothes on. What? I
don't know. But anyway, you're not dreaming (unless you
are...), this is back to old skool with a trip to
Chorlton Water Park. Oh how I've missed it. There was a
redhead Smew here yesterday, not today though. Shame.
Seen one here before though, so not such a shame. Found
out we'd just missed a female Pintail by about 30
seconds. Now that was a shame. I did need that for
Chorlton, so I threw myself in the lake and died of
drowning.
Lord
Milivan (the world's most famous hybrid Barnacle x
Canada) is still to be found in the feeding area
It was nice to be back.
Everything was just as I remembered it, other than there
was no longer a giant pig swimming about in the middle
of the lake, oh and the open air barbecue and massive
Munich bierfest tent had gone as well. I've never had a
very good memory. But guess what - go on, have a guess.
No, not that. Try again... that's right! Unbelievable! I
know! I can hardly believe it myself - I hadn't seen a
Great Crested Grebe this year until today. Absolutely
unbelievable. Almost as unbelievable as the results from
that survey about British people's knowledge of our
famous historical figures. Apparently 99% of Britons
questioned thought Winston Churchill was a fictional
character! Here's the full results:
(Percentage of Britons who thought these people were fictional:)
It's a question I'm always asking
myself: what came first? The Cattle Egret, or the name
"Cattle Egret"? Think about it. Imagine that if in
pre-ornithology days Cattle Egrets used to hang around
with crabs on beaches, and then one day some stupid cunt
decided to call them Cattle Egrets for a laugh, and so
Cattle Egrets had to start hanging around with cows so
that their name made sense. The same thing happened with
Crab Plovers, because they used to hang around with cows
until some twat decided it would be a really great trick
to mess about about with their name. Mankind just can't
help but tamper with things.
"I long for nothing
more than the crashing ocean and fighting with gulls on
the beach"
Despite being about as common as Kerry
Katona, Cattle Egrets are actually still really, really
rare in north-west England, so this was definitely a
bird worth seeing. And it was (definitely worth seeing).
If you're going then watch out for the mad woman running around with a whisk. And take plenty of
sunscreen/cream.
12th February
North Devon (8th-11th February)
Woolacombe Beach
A wise man once said: "Never open a
bottle of port at 3am and expect to get up and go out
birding early the next day." I don't know who said
that (well I do, it was me, but fuck it anyway) but
whoever it was definitely correct - it is absolutely
impossible to open a bottle of port at 3am and then get
up early and go out birding the next day. Mind you, it's
not the opening the bottle that's the problem, it's the
drinking nearly all of it that causes problems. You may
wonder what could possibly possess people to open a
bottle of port at 3am? Well after you've been drinking
lager/cider/wine all night long things like that often
seem a really good idea at the time. And then you wake
up. Still, two of us managed to drag ourselves out and
tried to find the sea at Peppercombe Beach. We failed.
Seriously, we failed. Birds were extremely thin on the
ground, though with one of us being sick every thirty
seconds we were hardly exhibiting textbook fieldcraft:
A calling Marsh Tit was extremely
difficult to observe, largely because one of us kept
being sick every thirty seconds:
Eventually we gave up and went off to
get drunk again. The next morning I successfully managed
to find the beach at Peppercombe, where an adult Med
Gull and two Red-throated Divers on the sea, not
forgetting the Peregrine sat way up high on the cliff
top, made the prospect of imminent liver failure seem
slightly less worrying than if I'd just stayed in bed,
which I probably should have done.
8th February
Live After Death
It has arrived! Posted through my letterbox
in a jiffy-bag from straight from Hell, the long awaited
remastered DVD version of the greatest EVER live concert
from Long Beach Arena in 1985. The five most famous
words in metal history: Scream for me Long Beach!
5th February
Yessss! I just this minute (16:43) remembered it's
Pancake Day! Fuck yeah! What do I need? Milk, flour,
lemons, sugar and eggs? Eggs? You need eggs. Do you need
eggs? I think you do. I think our eggs are out of date.
Can you eat out of date eggs? I know you shouldn't, but
perhaps you can. You can't eat out of date chicken, and
eggs are sort of chicken. What was it Edwina Curry said
about eggs? I can't remember now.
Oh yeah, and scroll down the link below and
vote in the poll on the right of the page (if you're
unsure, the answer is 'yes'):
Snow, eurgh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
Hooray,
snow! Yeah!!!!
"Mother, come quick!
Look, Mother, it has snowed overnight! Oh how wonderful,
how beautiful. Mother, have you ever seen anything quite
as delightful? Oh isn't it just wonderful, Mother! Look
how the children play in the snow, Mother, see how they
prance and frolic with carefree gaiety. Oh isn't it just
wonderful, Mother! Do you think one day that I will be
strong enough to go outside and play with the other boys
and girls? Do you think that my poor frail hands will
one day be able to grasp a ball of cold snow? Oh Mother,
how I long for nothing more than the strength and health
to go outside and play in the snow!" I would say
every winter looking through the bars of my cage.
God I hate the snow. Snow is only good for one thing,
Christmas cards, and Christmas cards are only good for
one thing, Robins. Without Christmas cards Robins would
be wiped out. "Wow, look at the amazing snow!" everyone
says. Piss off. This isn't Chamonix or Aspen, this is
Derbyshire, and when it snows it's just cold and wet and
windy and horrible. Still, the Red Grouse on Chunal Moor
seemed to like it yesterday, though it's hard to tell
whether they liked it or not, they always kept flying
off whenever I got close enough to ask them. Not a lot
else about though, other than 20 Siskin and a
Nuthatch... so like I said, not a lot about.
Earlier last week I had a mega finch morning,
managing a staggering six species of finch at Bottoms
Reservoir in the same plantation: Brambling (mega),
Lesser Redpoll (not quite as mega), Siskin (mega-ish),
Goldfinch (Megadrive), Greenfinch (Super Nintendo) and
Chaffinch (Commodore 64). So I saw all six species of
finch on the British list in one morning. Is that a new
record? The same day I also went to Glossop Sewage
Works, a delightful spot by the rippling River Etherow.
I expected a wintering Hume's Warbler, I got two! A
flock of 13 Magpies seriously freaked me out though,
because you know how the old saying goes: one for
sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy...
thirteen for AIDS. Shit! Thankfully a Dipper calmed
me down a bit, they always do. Dippers are absolutely
everywhere around here, there's usually even some by the
business park on the A57 singing and dipping amongst the
smashed bottles, shoes and prams.
2nd February
New
links
Hi everyone, how's it going? Excellent. Me? Oh I'm
fine, you know, can't complain. Enough of this
sickeningly contrived politeness, on to business...
normally I just put new links into the column on the
left without any fussing about or pissing about, but
fussing about and pissing about is what makes life fun.
Obviously it doesn't really, but anyway. So from today
I'll make a special effort to highlight any new links
that go on here. Why? I don't know, mind your own
fucking business.
Rob Fray
Remember the Leicester Llamas website? Of course you
do. Well even if you don't I do. It was painfully
piss-out-of-your-arse funny, and it's been ripped off
countless number of times (by me). Now one of the Llamas
lives on Shetland. He gets to find and twitch loads of
great birds and doesn't even have to travel very far for
them. You can read all about it on his website and weep.
Some people have all the luck.
Norfolk has only just had telephone lines
installed (they're still awaiting compulsory vaccination
and a road), but with this immense technological step
has come the world wide intranet, and with it two
websites from Norfolk. So now you can find out about all
the birds that are being kept quiet in fantastic Norfolk
by visiting Tim Allwood's and Ilya Maclean's sites. And
don't forget to pester them to the point where they
might consider taking out an injunction against you,
asking them where you can find Woodlark and Stone Curlew
in Nelson's county, because birders in Norfolk love
nothing more than being asked where you can find
Woodlark and Stone Curlew... oh, and Montagu's Harriers
as well.
