5th February. Black on White

Despite me being able to get in to work and do several site visits around one of the highest parts of Sheffield the soft teachers at Beth's school couldn't make it. Consequently I had to spend the rest of the day at home working, building snowmen, sledging and photographing any birds that dare run the 3 cat gaunlet. Fortunately the cats stayed in so I got a chance to at least photograph some Blackbirds - not easy dark birds against snow.

1st February. White Rabbits

Blimey managed 3 consecutive days with some birding. A brisk walk round the Main Lake at RV.
produced nothing of note except 22 Great Crested Grebes and the female Pintail on the Reserve.

Pterodactyl

31st January. Pie Maker

For the last few months Beth has been attending a gifted and talented school - no I'm not bragging as in Rotherham the ability to write your own name and tie your shoelaces is classed as gifted!! Anyhow to cut a boring story short she's doing cookery and today she made her first pie - hurrah, an egg and bacon pie - bleugh!! My history of egg and bacon pie is that we used to have it at school - I would eat it and it would make me puke every time! This time however I managed to keep it down and despite Beth eating a chunk of crust pre serving awarded it an 8.

Pie minus some crust.

Stringent testing in progress

The last couple of hours of daylight were spent at Pit-house West where the Bittern was seen going to roost at 17:15 and at least 2 Water Rails calling.

30th January. Day Off

Having seen Beth off to school I had a full six hours of birding to look forward too. Struggling to find any Long-eared Owls this winter so I decided to check some favoured roost sites of the past. Unfortunately all four of them were devoid not only of owls but more or less everything, which led me to wonder if the presence of winter thrushes near these roosts has any direct correlation with the lack of owls. The old big roost at RV back in the late eighties also held 100's of Redwings and more recent roosts also had good numbers o roosting Redwings - until this winter. So before I find any Long-eared' I need to find a thrush roost.

Better luck was had on the Reserve when I managed to flush 35 Common Snipe and 3 Jack Snipe from juncus. A male Peregrine headed north and a pair of Bullfinch and a couple of Stock Doves made four new birds for the year bringing the self found list to 82. The long staying Brent Goose was still present on the new Orgreave Lagoons along with 36 Wigeon.


The nearby Waverley site has in recent years been excellent for Jack Snipe however many parts of it have now gone under the bulldozer and a walk through the boggy areas produced just one Common Snipe. Just before exiting the new Technology Park at Wavereley I caught a glimpse of a couple of Stonechats hardly typical industrial estate specimens! Further down the road and just past Morrisons I picked up a party of nine Waxwings just next to JTF. All in all not a bad winters day.

Industrial strength Stonechat.

24th January. Along The Rother

A decent bit of sunny cold weather gave Jo and I the chance to have a nice birding walk taking in the sites that lie along the Rother namely RVCP, Pit-house West, Woodhouse Washlands, Treeton Dyke, Catcliffe Flash, Bole Hill Flash and Blue Mans Bower. I am rather lucky in that I have a good diversity of sites within walking distance of home however all of them were pretty birdless today, however Pit-house West held a nice flock of around 140 Lesser Redpoll which posed long enough for me to dust off and become reacquainted with the Nikon. At Bolehill a group of shot gun toting wankers appeared to be shooting at the local corvids for no reason at all other than they could.

Frozen Lap's

Frozen Pit-house West by Jo.

Lesser Redpoll

Nob with gun

Nob with Bins!

At last some pie action with this 10 point affair from Jo.

18th January. Looking Foward

Birding highlight of the weekend was the monthly WEBS count at RVCP. No surprises really, though in excess of 700 Lapwings was notable. With the lack of birding highlights I decided to cheer myself up with a look at the October flights to Shetland and ended up booking my place for eleven days from the 3rd - hurrah!! £153 return still cheaper than Scilly and a hell of a lot better birding. Hopefully the landing will be better than this!




Note in the video the rarity magnets that are Sumburgh Head and Sumburgh Farm where one can admire the 'rares' whilst stepping over dead polecats and kneeling in poultry carcass' - heavenly.

14th January. HOAX.

Not surprisingly the recent claim of a Steller's Eider off Morfa Nefyn turned out to be bollocks. I must point out that I was sceptical from the very start, in fact when it came on the pager as an unconfirmed report I proclaimed to a birding colleague that 'I would bare my arse in Burton's window if that turns out to be gen'. Call me a cynic if you like but something seemed wrong with this one from the beginning for instance who the hell would pack in birding and take up golf? Only the Six-million Dollar Man with his bionic eye would have been able to notice that a small duck on the sea looked odd whilst walking down the fairway, the golfer not the duck. As it transpired some moron nicked a pic (taken in Finland) off the internet, flipped it round and sent it to the North Wales recorder. What is alarming is that it took over a week for someone to realise that the exif data just didn't add up i.e wrong dates and taken with a semi-pro setup etc.

Sadly with access to ever developing technology this is something that will increase in coming years. I couldn't help reminiscing and smiling about a hoax that took place in North East Derbyshire back in the early nineties that had one 'leading local birder' almost camped out in the hoaxers kitchen. Originally tentatively claimed as a Siberian Accentor it really gave locals the runa round and even made it into Birding World (see below) Several 'birders' even bizarrely claimed to have seen it!! Hilariously this hoax turned out to be a model, apparently the perpetrator was caught red handed trying his luck a second time but with a new specimen at a local nature reserve. Not quite sure what drove the bloke to this he was actually a birder rather than a Joe public having a laugh but I suspect it was originally a bit of a joke on his mate that went a bit too far.

New Book

Rare Birds Where and When. By Russ Slack. For those of us who'd rather find our own birds these days this has to be a must, wherever you choose to find your birds be it the local gravel pit or the Shetlands. More information here

12th January. Contains Nuts

Never mind the credit crunch nor our very own Ginger Nazi prince using the P' word the biggest headline of the weekend should surely go to Cadbury's. For those of you that missed it Cadbury's Dairy Milk will now to carry an allergy warning - 'contains milk' !! Surely the clue is in the product. In an attempt to protect us from harming ourselves I suggest the following health warning.

If anyone one is left reading this you will no doubt have guessed that very little birding took place over the weekend. I did however manage to get out for my first ringing session of the year on farm land in Renishaw. Despite subzero temperatures a decent mornings ringing was had. No surprises in the nets but three Redwings gave me a chance to admire this cracking species in the hand - which I have to admit is as easily as pleasant on the eye as any Dusky Thrush.

1st January 2009. Same Old Shit Different Year

Like most drunken fools I have made myself a couple of New Year resolutions. The first is that for the next twelve months I will resist twitching anything that I have seen previously and stick to watching just the Rother Valley. To prevent boredom setting in the only list will be a self found list following the usual rubber band guidelines.
With the above in mind I spent the daylight hours of today attempting to see as many self found species as possible and despite missing some ridiculous species i.e. Meadow Pipit and Sparrowhawk I still managed a respectable 69 with highlights being Bittern, Pintail and Water Rail.