1st November. Who ate all the Pies?

Due to some weather I was unable to get out birding today, in fact I've been unable to do any for the last week or so due to one thing or another - mainly apathy! A few visits to Orgreave have produced nothing and I really mean nothing the fact that the footpath is now open probably doesn't help at all.

The biggest event of the week was me hitting 40! Whilst I am by no means on the verge of a mid-life crisis I couldn't help but step on the scales and check my weight and at 13+ stone I was bloody shocked - no more pies from the foreseeable future. This was not helped when earlier this afternoon, whilst discussing the whereabouts of a local Cetti's Warbler with Pete, a voice in the background was heard to shout "he (meaning me) won't know he'll be in Morrison's eating pies!" Well that's it salads from now on - though I suspect that reviews on the quality of salad ingredients will not be as well appreciated as pies!

Back to that Cetti's. Andy D found a Cetti's Warbler yesterday in the exact spot at PHW that I have always fancied one. Presumably there will be some self found rules out there that let me count that one - despite not even seeing or hearing it!

What could prove to be my last pie a Steak and Ale triangular pie from Morrisons, fittingly a ten point pie.

23rd October. Eastern Gem

I hardly slept last night, stomach churning, panic and on top of this Beth's cough kept us all awake. Browsing the Internet at silly o clock did nothing for my insomnia and the photos of the Eastern Crowned served only as a laxative (I kid you not). By 4am I had hatched my plan. I would get up at 6am and wish Beth a happy birthday, give her the presents and leave around 7. This was met with some objections from Jo, but I assured her that I would return for 2pm to collect Beth from her lovely mother. Everything went to plan I even managed to throw myself around on the Wii Dance Mat for a couple of minutes, just to show willing. With this I was on my way north. An hour into my journey and with positive news of the warbler I pushed on and arrived at South Shields by 9:30. After around ten nervous minutes I picked it up and got excellent scope views of this subtle eastern gem, further excellent views and I was happy with my lot and left returning home at 1pm with no damage done.

Quite a modest crowd for a first for Britain

National Pie Day

Today is National Pie Day. With this in mind I called at Morrisons and bought a steak and ale pie, which I ate whilst having a walk round Orgreave. Rather unfittingly this was not a good pie, it was full of gristle and the mixture was far too sloppy causing it to fall apart. A rather disappointing pie scoring just 5 points, though this was the only blip of an otherwise perfect day.

22nd October. A Sign

Back to the usual rubbish after a few bird filled weeks. In what appeared to be something of an exchange of pie porn between myself and Rob I received a shot of this monster nestling in the chiller of the Toab shop. At £6.49 it had to be something special, though sadly Rob declined to purchase it. Given that we recently proved the link between rare pies and birds this specimen could mean only one thing - something monster rare was about to be found............


The rest of the day was rather uneventful that is until I went to bed! At around 10:45 I was woken by the mobile making all sorts of strange noises - it was my old twitching pal Roy who had kindly phoned to tell me the news of an Eastern Crowned Warbler at South Shields. I woke up suddenly, like you do when you receive disturbing news of that calibre and mustered the logistics. Work wasn't a problem I was already off, no the problem was it was Bethany's birthday the following day and there would be presents to give and fatherly duties to carry out. Rob always used to joke that having a child in October was a bad move and that one day it would come back to bite me and that day was now here................

18th October.Spurnuda Triangle

Whilst still having that bird finding bug in me I decided yesterday that a trip to the east coast was in order, but where? With a Radde's and a Blue-tail at Spurn it was a bit of a no brainer. We arrived at Sammy's Point just after 8:30 and worked the horse fields for an hour or so. Plenty of thrushes and four Bramblings over were all it had to offer. With the Blue-tail being reported at the point e decided to get it over with. Arriving at the point I noticed a crowd of birders and immediately filled with a sense of dread. Fortunately the Blue-tail stupidly got itself stuck in the Heligoland Trap for all to see albeit impersonating a caged behind the wire mesh. Having seen it well enough we left for the less populated parts of the peninsular. At Beacon Pools I picked up four Bearded Tits as they dropped into the reeds buy saw little else throughout the day. Despite the crowds it was an enjoyable day.

On the way home I sneaked back onto my old patch, RVCP and picked up the Slavonian Grebe among the Coots on the Main Lake.

Rarity Stats

During a period of boredom I began to think what the distribution of 'rare' might look like this month. This was inspired by the lack of BB rarities on Scilly, which is apparently nothing to do with the lack of birds but more to do with the place being over run by pensioners new to birding and loved up middle aged couples. Trawling through RBA's superb website I managed to come up with the following graph though a pie chart would have been more appropriate. This shows new rares during the first 16 days of October and no hangers on from September. It's fairly straightforward, indeed it was created by a ten year old and failure to understand has nothing to do with me it's just that you're probably thick. I might update it at the end of the month, I might not!

Click on it if you're blind

17th October. Back to the patch

Rob was right in predicting that within a week or so I would be back writing about birding on slag heaps and eating supermarket pies. The latter came sooner than I had expected when Jo presented me with a Morrisons pie as she collected Andy and I from the airport. Amazingly I declined it!

It was however back to the slag heaps this morning with my first visit to Orgreave. The footpath at this site is now open and will no doubt encourage bastard dog walkers to get their stinking beasts as close to the water as possible. Despite this there were birds on - gulls, cormorants, Great Crested Grebe and two Goldeneye and that was just about it. Fortunately I had been watching Autumnwatch last night and was tipped off by the astute Chris Packham that there would be Redwings moving and amazingly there they were. Personally I can't wait until Springwatch when Chris will be tipping us off about Swifts coming through. Speaking of Autumnwatch I have often wondered why it is on so late, though having now watched it the answer is clear. This program is slowly degenerating into some kind of live sex show - personally I can't wait until week eight when Chris finally gets to rummage around Kate's bush whilst spying a pair of Great Tits on his fat balls.

Shetland 2009

So that's it another Shetland trip over. Before I set off I was not surprisingly pessimistic, after all Rob really had seen very few migrants let alone 'rare' so far this autumn. The weather prior and indeed during never looked promising from any direction but at least it was changeable. Eastern 'rares' did turn up even in the most unlikely winds, infact during a period of exciting looking south easterlies very little was found. surely this year will prove to be the best for species such as Pechora Pipit. There was a clear north south divide with the south suffering something of a migrant drought, despite how good pager news appeared to be it was bloody hard work with many no bird miles covered on foot. Fortunately we did find one or two birds personally I found Little Bunting, 2 Bluethroats, Rosefinch and several Yellow-broweds, though the real highlight was getting the I.D clinching shots of the Lancy.


On the whole we managed to resist the temptation to 'twitch' anyone else's birds, which with the quality on offer was difficult. Twitching on Shetland however is not the stressful affair that occurs on the UK mainland. Where else could three of you and a dog twitch a third for Britain and be the only ones there, infact the largest crowd was for the Lancy with a massive ten present!

With dates for next year provisionally booked I'm already counting down the days.

The worse pie - I daren't eat this one cold

The Yell Ferry

Team Sunnydell.

The Llama

The Bell

RMF

Twat in a hat

Fitful Head

From Sumburgh Head looking towards Scatness

14th October. Irritating Thrush

Today's forecast was for yet more wind and rain, however we awoke to very light wind and clag. Keen to get out for the final push I headed the crop field behind Sunnydell. It was obvious that an arrival of thrushes had occurred with at least sixty Redwings poking their heads through the turnips. A couple of Chiffchaffs flycatched and a couple of buntings alighted on some dead doc, one of which was a Little Bunting - surely the same bird that I thrown away earlier in the week. It stayed on the doc for several minutes until flying off over Sunnydell. Several further laps of the field proved worthwhile with Redstart, Yellow-browed and Jack Snipe.


With a six hour power cut, retreating to Sunnydell seamed futile so we decided on a final thrash around Sumburgh. The crop held the usual Bluethroat but at the head newly arrived thrushes were abounding. Walking along the roses flushed a dozen or so Redwings but I noticed Rob peering into the dark depths of the roses. Still peering he announced that he was pretty certain that he had a Black-throated Thrush! After a few seconds of panic Andy and I got a glimpse of what certainly looked like a winter male Black- throat showing an obvious gorget of throat/upper breast streaks. Sadly this was all we did see of it as a thrush came out of the back of the roses and flew straight towards the fog horn. We assumed that this was our bird and dashed off up towards the fog horn. At this point the fog closed in and with failing visibility we had lost the bird. We spent a while looking for the bire but unfortunately had to leave as both Andy and I had a plane to catch. We really hadn't seen it very well and unless somebody else manages to relocate it we will never be able to complete a frank and honest description and will have to put it to the back of our minds forever.

13h October. The Last Post

Last full day today meant we were full of good intentions about getting out early and finding us a rare. Sadly the weather had other ideas. Strong south easterly wind and heavy rain greeted us. Never the less we soldiered on as best we could. Firstly checking the crop behind Rob's house and then giving the Sumburgh area a thorough going over. All this effort, in pissing down rain, gave us the sum total of nothing of interest. Depressed and wet we returned to Sunnydell to get dry and refuel.

We decided that the only way to rescue the day was to try and clear up on the remaining south Mainland 'rares' namely Western Bonelli's and the Spotted Sandpiper at Quendale. Fortunately the former showed immediately saving us from a soaking, however the latter required the use of legs so it was inevitable we were going to get soaked again. The Spotted Sand' had returned to it's favourite spot after, apparently being flushed several times yesterday and at first seemed to be particularly wary though it eventually settled down in front of us. The following 'image' was taken with my 'prosumer' SLR hand held at 1600 ISO which is why it is shit!

12th October. The Holy Grail

It has become somewhat of a tradition (well for the last two years) that we venture further north in the hope of something different. This was actually a thinly veiled disguise to do a spot of filthy twitching. Having resisted the urge to go for the Taiga Fly' when it was on Fetlar the chance to see it nearer on Yell couldn't be ignored. Things went to plan i.e. Andy managed to get us all up at 07:30 in time for us to get breakfast and make the 09:40 ferry. More importantly hot pies were available at Mainlands (a good omen). Arriving at Gloup around 10:30 we immediately located the bird around the farm where it performed very well.

Having 'murdered' the flycatcher we then tried some of the suitable looking gardens on Yell. Unfortunately there had been something of a clear out and even finding a Goldcrest in them proved difficult. A Sheep at Cullivoe needed our assistance as it had got it's head stuck in the wire - lucky for the sheep that we came along and that no Welsh birders were in the vicinity There had been an Arctic Redpoll at Yell Leisure Centre so with the absence of anything else we went there. A walk around the small planted area revealed just a few Bramblings but whilst we were sat in the car waiting for Rob to finish off yet another phone call he banged on the window pointing out the Redpoll just a few metres away. We duly 'slaughtered' it and it's little cousin the accompanying Mealy Redpoll.



After getting the 2pm ferry we decided on checking a few plantations on our way south. First stop was a new to me site at Graven with a small attractive looking graveyard. The field at the end of the graveyard held a good flock of Redwings, single Pied Fly' and a Bluethroat which unlike the previous two showed very well. Whilst I'massacred' it news of a Blue-tail at Sandgarth came through. Not wanting to be rude we thought it only polite to pay it a visit.


Sandgarth s an excellent spot and has turned up some top draw rarities in the past including on this day in 2003 the second Taiga Flycatcher (pointless fact lifted from RBA). Mark Chapman (not the one that killed that Beatle) was watching the Blue-tail as we arrived, but it was a further twenty minutes before we caught a brief glimpse followed by several more brief views. With the light dimming we tried to salvage something for the found list at Catfirth. Again another empty plantation so we headed to the shop where.................

We found these........


Following Rob's review of the Macaroni Pie a couple of years ago I made it my quest to sample this holiest of pies. Sadly last year none were located. However today was the day and I reached into the fridge at Catfirth stores and pulled out what can only be described as the premier of all pies. It's not much to look at, just macaroni topped with cheese, but hidden inside are beans, not magic beans or jumping beans but baked beans. Cheese, Macaroni, Baked Beans all enclosed in a pie - genius. But how would it hold up cold. Bloody marvellous that's how. The combination of working class ingredients pulled together to make this one truly upper class pie and a ten point rating would do it no justice. My quest is over, never will I eat a superior pie. Amen.

We called in at Tingwall on the way home and picked up the Ring-necked Duck, it wasn't very happy at being picked up so we put it back down and left.