10th September. Book Burning

A leading member of the right wing birding terror group OBL (One British List) today criticised Christian fruit cake Terry Jones (always my favourite Python) describing his 'book burning' plans as old hat and behind the times (which essentially means the same).
The OBL was formed, by old school BOU members, in the mid 1990's during a time when control of the British List was slipping into the hands of the president of the IQ40 club. Until today the OBL's activities have been a closely guarded secret but recently a photograph depicting an OBL terror attack has come to light.

An anonymous OBL spokesperson said:

"We'd been watching this bloke for a while and knew all his movements, particularly his dance moves. We knew he'd got this book coming out and reckoned that he'd been to the publishers to pick it up. You could tell the boot was full as the exhaust was almost on the ground. Getting the car was the easy part, the daft bastard had left the keys in. My mate just nipped out and had it away. We planned to stack the books under the car and set fire to them as a kind of warning not to f**k with the British List, but there was a problem! When we opened the boot it was full of shit - not literally shit - but the kind of shit people sell at car boot sales. There was also a knackered pair of Leicas that only one half worked on and a special scope that looked like a kaleidoscope of birds when you looked through it! We were fu*k*d no sacrificial books to burn. However we were in luck the local oxfam shop had a shit load of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs at two pence each so we bought a job lot, stacked up the Vectra and burnt the bastard, figuring that that would put the brakes on el presidente at least until the autumn"

The OBL refused to answer allegations relating to the near tragic Charter Plane crash for the Thick-billed Warbler, the sudden, unexplained break down of a small charter boat during the Long-tailed Shrike twitch and, more recently, the suspicious last minute cancellation of this years Scillonian Pelagic.

7th September. Who Are Ya?

Went to bed last night more than a little excited about the evenings weather, almost gale force south-easterlies and torrential rain - surely the right recipe for some east coast rare and maybe some local scarce.

The advantage of doing jury service is that I can have an extra hour birding in the morning. The disadvantage is that I'm shafted if a lifer turns up.
Orgreave was very disappointing with nothing of interest and very little of no interest! I persevered and checked the bushes along the Rother. Plenty of activity but only Long-tailed Tits a good handful of Chiffs and a Blackcap., clearly no fall here!

After a rather trying day in court, where I had the privilege of being the jury foreman and handing out a guilty verdict, I needed a couple of hours birding. I would have preferred somewhere other than Orgreave, but had to make do. Plenty of gulls to look through with nice adut Yellow-legged among them. Best of all, though 'best' is stretching it a bit, was a nice party of five Greenshank - the largest gathering that I've ever seen locally!



According to the counter at the bottom of this page this is the 165th most popular birding website on the fat birder list. It's nice to know that people read this but it's beyond me why it outranks such quality blogs such as Martin's Birding Frontiers which should really be in the top 100. I don't know who most of you are but thanks and Dad keep hitting that refresh button!

5th September. Brownie Points

The plan for Sunday was, like the previous day, in tatters. We had planned to head to Spurn early, but a call to Pete the previous evening suggested that there had been a bit of a clear out so it was back to the same old with a 6am visit to Orgreave. Yesterday's Black-necked Grebe had gone and the only birds of note were a couple of Shelduck and a Yellow-legged Gull. By 8am it was obvious that there was no movement so I went home and mooched around the house. By 10am I was bored and decided on going to Spurn after all.

As forecast Spurn was very quiet and within an hour of arriving we were firmly rooted in the Blue Bell Cafe with Coffee and Beans on Toast - a few hot pies wouldn't have gone amiss though. Dragging ourselves away from the Cafe we headed down Beacon Lane where at least a couple of migrants were found namely Spotted Fly' and a Redstart. Things improved later with a couple of Whinchat, Pied Fly', Garden Warbler and a few more Redstarts. Refreshments in the Crown and Anchor and newly arrived Wood Warbler raised enthusiasm. Whilst strolling back to the cafe, for another caffeine hit, news of a Brown Flycatcer at Buckton came through. Opting for the coffee I sat musing the Flycatcher. There were a couple of factors that suggested we should go: It was only forty miles away and the occurrence of the Flamborough bird coincided with a particularly low point in my life and given that my mind was elsewhere at that time seeing another wouldn't be such a bad thing, besides with just four records it would have been damn rude not to.

Fortunately it was showing very well when we arrived but soon became very elusive occasionally metamorphosing into a Pied Fly' or worse still a Garden Warbler!

4th September. The Early Bird.......

Unable to get to Flamborough for the Olivaceous Warbler during the week I decided to head to Orgeave first thing Saturday morning then head to up to the east coast on positive news. Predictably the warbler had gone overnight. Rather less predictable was Roy beating me to Orgreave. Feeling slightly less enthusiastic I headed towards the pole. Roy had already found three Yellow-legged Gulls and beaten my previous days count of four hundred Lesser Black-backed Gulls with a count of six hundred. Feeling a bit miffed I scanned through the rolling mist and picked up a a Black-necked Grebe! Happier I headed home for a spot of bra shopping!!

2nd September. I Don't Care What The Weather Man Says.....

There seems a lot of speculation of late that it's going to be a mega year for New World rares. The drunkbirder is going all Wincy Willis whilst the Punks have gone all proper Met Office with charts and shit. I prefer to go down the common sense route and to misquote the great Michael Fish "Earlier on today some birder rang the BBRC and said they had heard that there was a hurricane of rare on the way " "Well if your watching don't worry there isn't."

Nothing to see here

The last few days

Whilst those greedy bastards in the East Midlands basked in a rush of scarce and rare over the bank holiday weekend and the Spurn boys scratched their heads over a mystery Ficedula, I continued as normal scouring the banks of Orgreave. As a reward I secured two self found year ticks, namely, Turnstone and Sedge Warbler - that's about as exciting as it gets! At least the latter skulked and gave tantalising brief views as it flitted around in the long grass very briefly raising hope that it could have been something a little better. Surprisingly, given how shit it really is, they were my 111th and 112th self found birds at Orgreave this year - whoo hoo!!

And finally

There is of course, as usual, justification for my bitter cynicism regarding the imminent weather systems. For the next two weeks I have been ordered to attend Sheffield Crown Court for my second go at jury service. So think of me whilst, during the middle of next week, you're tripping over a sea of Sapsuckers or staring at a tree full of Tanagers. I will be stuck in a sweaty court room whilst little Jimmy "who never done no one no wrong" is up in front of the beak for kicking the shit out of some poor old pensioner. No doubt being punished with a slap on the wrist and an all inclusive to Disneyland.

29th August. Bird News Via Twitter

Rare Bird News Via Twitter

It seems like only yesterday since I took delivery of my very first pager from Birdnet. I recall that it was something the size of a fag packet that required funny sized batteries and didn't have the ability to be switched to silent so had to be stuck in a draw when you didn't want disturbing. I can even remember the very first message - 1st Winter Glaucous Gull (back when we called juv's 1st winters) at Broomhill Flash! Things moved on a bit with a pager that displayed more information took regular AAA batteries and had the ability to be set to silent during unsociable hours. This was all very modern in the early nineties, the internet was very young and even mobile phones were few and far between.
The pager was a revolution in birding. No more 0898 numbers (unless you didn't have a girlfriend, which many birders didn't) to the Norfolk rare bird cartel. You simply stuck it in your pocket and it fed your dirty rare bird habit. The pager had it's downsides, poor reception in some of the country's premier bird areas for one - though i most instances this has been solved it does mean that if you miss a message then you miss it completely!
Twenty years on since I first opened that jiffy bag from Buxton the technology hasn't moved on much at all. Whilst the pager has stood still mobile phones and the Internet have advanced at an alarming rate to the point at which you can't take a piss without someone 500 miles away knowing about it. After 16 years I finally became divorced from, among other things, my pager. It was a hard decision to make but I knew that something else would come along - something that would take its place and satisfy me just as much perhaps even more. It wasn't the cost that made me give her the push it was the outdated technology and constant breakdowns - I needed something fresh, something sexy and modern - the iphone.
The iphone gave me the ability to surf the rare bird websites, so I kept my RBA subscription going. It wasn't ideal. Unlike the pager I had to log on and browse, a much longer process than just scanning through the pager. Another downside was with the pager I had it set to alert me when a mega turned up, which meant that I could leave it on my desk and sometimes not look at it for days without getting paranoid. Had I made a mistake, had I been too hasty? I discovered the Birdguides email service at just a fiver per month. An excellent service with a great filtering system all I have to do is check my emails. I've used Birdguides with the iPhone for six months now and I like it. There is however a downside and none of them are the fault of Birdguides. Firstly If I just want notifying of megas I can set a filter to just notify me of them. There is nothing that I can do to set my email to just notify me of the megas but store lesser rares where I can browse them at my leisure. Like most birders I get a little excited at this time of year and it's good to know what's happening around the UK. To just keep the mega notification would mean me reverting to Birdguides website, again a bit of a pain particularly in poor reception areas. The main problem is that on the whole iphones email is slow and many occasions the fetch doesn't fetch and the push won't push. Jo's Blackberry email is quicker, but what I really want is an alert for megas and the rest of the info at my fingers quickly and without logging on. I'd conceded that this was how it was going to be until during a moment of boredom I logged on to Bird Boredom and discovered THIS
I've never used Twitter and probably never would, that is until now. In a nutshell the Twitter service, when used on the iphone or Blackberry is exactly like the pager. It doesn't alert you like a pager but you can set it up to text you for any of the regional, national or mega alerts. Texts from Twitter/Birdnet are free but your provider might charge your allowance per text. I've set mine to only text me for megas, but I can add texting at anytime. For instance if I was on the east coast for the day I could set up text alert in seconds and receive an audible alert for reports from the northeast region until I switched it off. Many mobile contracts and some pay as you go option have unlimited text so in theory you don't run the risk of exceeding your allowance.

The info is clear and in the same format as the pager service.
I chose National News, Megas and Northeast but you can choose all the available regions if you wish and unlike your pager there's no need to send your phone back to be reprogrammed when you want to switch regions.

Three screen shots. 1st shows how easy it is to switch the texts on via the Twitter website. 2nd The texts as you receive them. 3rd simply lick the 'stop texts' and you won't get anymore.

Conclusion.

This is really what I've been waiting for everything that the pager did and more - no missing messages as even in poor reception areas you'll still receive them once you get your signal back. But best of all I won't be getting paranoid wondering what's about as a simple text will alert me of the latest mega.

I won't go into which service provides the most up to date or accurate info - I'll leave that kind of bitching to Bird Forum. For me they all have the good points and bad points, but if you are worried about the quality of this information you need worry no more. The information is provided by Birdnet, it's the same as what goes out on their pager service but at a fraction of the cost.

I haven't been paid for this or offered a free service, David Marshall, of Birdnet, gave me a weeks trial if you're interested give him a call on 01158712888

26th August. Yes Pieminister

Managed a bit of a coo today in that I blagged a sponsorship from the very excellent Pieminister. I won't go into what I get out of it, let's just say they gave me what I asked for! Please take the time to visit their website and salivate over the delicious pies. I will of course continue my independent pie reviews from all suppliers!

Despite the excellent clag conditions this morning there was nothing of note at Orgreave. An evening visit was slightly better with a decent flock of hirundines including at least 12 Sand Martins. A Wheatear, 4 Ringed Plover and a feeding Greenshank (they usually go straight through) provided some padding for the notebook - but that elusive scarce is still - well - elusive!

25th August. Movement, Scum and Pies

Nice to see the proper start of Autumn with some passerine movement, at Orgreave, over the last couple of days. Yesterday morning produced a Whinchat (patch tick) and a Wheatear, the latter always proving scarce on return passage in these parts. The southern movement was heralded by the almost complete disappearance of Common Swift and a fly over Tree Pipit last (another patch tick) Thursday.
This morning things were looking promising with two Yellow Wag's south and three Shelducks dropping in - that is until - I was distracted by these guys!!

Regular readers might recognise the moron in the green 'hoody'. Having taken the photo above I rang S Y Police. They were surprisingly helpful and said they would dispatch an officer immediately. Fifteen minutes later they rang me back, great thought I they're here. Unfortunately the operator on the other end of the phone was trying to work out whose jurisdiction Orgreave fell in! Somewhat bewildered I repeated the location and informed the operator that there was currently a white Greyhound pursuing a hare (fortunately it was unsuccessful). Typically the police arrived shortly after the gang had vanished in to thin air - but despite their initial sloppiness I was reassured that perhaps next time SYP will get their act together.

The leverets aren't as sprightly as the adults making them easy pickings.

Missed out on going for the 'Sharpie' at the weekend as we were at the V Festival (my body's telling me that I'm getting too old for this). Apart from the great music it also gave me the chance to sample the Pieministers finest fayre. Once again they didn't disappoint with two very mouthwatering pies, namely Moo and Blue (Steak and Stilton) and a delightful Minty Lamb. If you haven't sampled the Pieminister then I recommend popping into your local Sainsbury's where they stock at least three varieties including veggie. Don't be put off by the price they really are a meal on their own and definitely the finest pies currently available to the masses.

Pieminister. I recommend these to the house.

17th August. Bad Omen

Having had a nightmare journey back from Cornwall I was still a bit too knackered to head north, for the Eric Sykes Warbler that was gracing that well known rare curlew spot in the North East. I instead settled for a Tuesday visit deciding to head off on positive news.

The day didn't start well. One of the cats had angered the birding god's by presenting me with a fresh killed Robin. Apology's to the neighbours for my X-rated outburst in the garden at 06:30!

I had contacted Alan Tilmouth on Monday evening and begged him to text me as soon as he had any news. Alan kindly agreed telling me he would be on site at 6am. My plan was to hang around at Orgreave until I'd heard either way.

On arrival at Orgreave the dismal sight of a dog walker going round the edge with his shit machines was further evidence that the birding god's were making me pay for the cat's wrong doing. Fortunately the gulls must be getting used to it by now as they moved on to the water rather than heading off in various directions. I picked up a putative juv Yellow-legged among the Lessers (the Klaus Malling is in the post as we speak) but was distracted by my phone ringing. It was Alan, but the news was not good - actually it was what I expected- no sign! The call kept breaking up but I got the gist of what Alan was saying, a heavy downpour had occurred overnight probably pushing the Sykes off - oh well!

Whilst informing Andy of the pre-pager tip off I was pleasantly surprised to pick up a couple of drake Common Scoter, a nice (but overdue) patch tick. Perhaps the god's had started to forgive me!

The best I could manage before the battery died.

5th August. Time for a break

Little of note during the week a juvenile Peregrine at Orgreave on Sunday with the only wader of note (during the last two weeks) being a Green Sandpiper. Decided to avoid the Yorkshire Day celebrations (were there any?) with a trip over the border into Derbyshire. The highlights was a pair of Golden-ringed Dragonflies salvaging what I would describe as a nice birdless walk, if such a thing exists!

A couple of predictable adult Yellow-legs at Orgreave this morning and a sense of De ja vu hanging over me suggested that it's time for a break from all things local.

Apologies for the rather lame postings of late, though it seems that blog apathy is currently prevalent among fellow birders, even those cool cats are struggling as is evident here

Time to head southwest.