2nd November. Ladies and Gentlemen

I did try, believe me I did. But last nights car crash TV was too good an opportunity to pass on. Overall I thought the program 'Twitchers' was well made and relatively accurate - none of that 'Dipper' in a rowing boat off Blakeney nonsense that Channel 4 made some years back.

Thankfully the President and his sea of bizarre comments have taken the hard work out of writing this blog post. The following are a selection of LGRE's best quotes from an hours toe curling / hilarious viewing.

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the president of the British Birding Association:


"I'm the equivalent of George Michael in the birding world. The way he has led his life is exactly the same way that I've led my life."


"13% of British birders are cheats unfortunately, and quite a few are incompetent."

"If you mention the word Lee Evans, it polarises people."

"My job is almost like being the Prime Minister, like Gordon Brown. There's no one polarises people more than me."


"I've always been the policeman of British birding, you can't have a free for all."


"I've always prided myself on being the boss."

"I love what I do, but it's the people around it that make it sad. The people bring it down."


"A lot of birding is about the psychology of birders. You've got to get in the brains of birders and the psyche of them to learn what they're about. I've spent a whole career doing that and I can identify these strange bods that are going to commit crimes, birding crimes."


"I find it very depressing when I turn up at a rarity, you can almost feel the aura of all the voices talking about you."

"What ever I get involved with I become exhumed with it."

And if Garry ever though he had a friend in Lee:

"Garry's probably one of my closest associates in birding and I really like him. I would still never let him in to my inner circle as such because I don't trust Garry. I guess he's probably loyal, but I still couldn't trust him."
Of his 7 year old year-listing rival:

"I don't really take any individual under the age of ten seriously"

Gary on the other hand is clearly a very obsessed individual whose selfish lifestyle will ultimately be the ruin of him, that's not a dig it's an observation from someone who once had a similar attitude to seeing 'rare' - me! Whilst the highest monetary price I ever paid was £160 for a Pine Grosbeak - the ultimate price was the reduced amount of time that I now see my daughter for! Gary take note.

And finally I should take heed of Garry's words:

"If you fall out with Lee it can become a problem. He can destroy people!"

31st October. Time to get the Damarts out.

Well that's it for the next five months - no pre or post work birding and dark by 16:15. Can't grumble really it's been a good autumn and the many visits to the patch paid off not least with the short-lived Leach's Petrel. Visits during the last week have been few and poor with only 17 Pochard and 78 Coot making in to the notebook.

Three late afternoon visits to Pit-house West finally paid off yesterday with the returning Bittern heading to roost rather early at 17:15 - the eighth successive winter for Bitterns here. No sight or sound of any Cetti's Warblers either here or at Bolehill yet, but there's still time.

For the coming winter I will be mostly concentrating my time along the Rother, with perhaps a few coastal visits, baking sessions on those wet miserable days and the occasional blog post which will probably be mostly a bit crap!

A few pinkies always brighten up a dull day

23rd October. Cheeky Buggers!!

Do I do reviews on Damart fur lined wellies? No. Do I promote long weekends in Norfolk offering five star accommodation in a Michelin star rated hotel? No. Do I produce articles on how to tell a House Sparrow from a Tree Sparrow? No. So I wouldn't expect a magazine called 'Birdwatching' to run a comparison article about Pork Pies. Three years I've been peddling this rubbish with reviews on the various savouries that I have encountered on my travels from the Northern Isles to Lands End and occasionally beyond and now some national birding mag barges in and nicks my idea.


Well let's have a look at the pie that came second in their review:

Pork Farms Original. I have to point out that I have to be very desperate to eat anything that is mass produced and just that occasion occurred on Tuesday of this week. A post work visit found me in the danger zone of Sainsbury's deli aisle. Needing something to fill a gap I opted for a Pork Farms original. I don't know why I did this - though there was very little to choose from and it was cheap. I bit into it and was instantly struck not by the taste or by the pastry but by the fact it seemed to coat my mouth in fat and actually made me gag. The pastry was incredibly greasy and the filling a mush of lips and arseholes! This without doubt was the nastiest pie that I have eaten and the first one I have ever discarded. I would compare it to taking a bite out of a block of lard, though to be honest a block of lard would have tasted better. Birdwatching gave it a six with five other pies scoring less. Presumably the reviewers consisted of a Pork Farms employee, a rabid dog and someone who'd had their tongue removed! Personally, if it was a choice between eating one of these and gnawing off my own arm the arm would win hands down or perhaps that should be hand down!

Now that's a full and frank review!

22nd October. Taking the Pish

There are a couple of problems that I usually encounter when returning from Shetland. The first is complete apathy towards any kind of birding. The other is that when I do finally force myself out I have the urge to 'pish'. Yes 'pish'. Not a hedge, bush, thicket or overgrown grass strip goes un-pished - even the shitty old buddleia gets pished on the way to work. I can only think that it's a mental thing - not me being a bit mental (though some would dispute this) more a case of my brain not realising that I'm no longer eating, sleeping and breathing birding.

Ironically my only cure for this ailment is to actually go out birding. Sooner or later the brain realises that no amount of farting, rasping or squeaking noises will lure anything out of a bush that is completely devoid of life. Eventually birding will return to the everyday dullness that it was before October.

I'm sure I've a couple more pishing days in me yet, as I successfully 'pished' several Sky Larks and a 'bunting' this afternoon. Twice the 'bunting' flew up, silhouetted and flying away from me without calling and flying miles. My intuition was screaming Lap Bunt, but my brain was saying this is Rotherham not Shetland or even the East Coast - so I let it go! In the end it was probably just a Reed but something in my head is screaming NO!

Nice but not a haven of 'rare'

16th October. Return of the M(a)cK

Great NEWS this morning. The, long thought dead, king of birding comedy is born again, time to set the swearing filter to maximum. Welcome back Tom

14th October. Until Next Year.

Our last few hours on Shetland involved virtually no birding (probably wise given last years final day antics) with the exception of a wander in to Toab for important supplies. Two Lap' Buntings around Sunnydell made for a fitting end to the trip - given that they were the first species we encountered at the start of the trip.

Thanks again to Rob for allowing us to stay and for letting us nick his car when we'd had enough of the greater Virkie area.

Plans for next year are afoot already with thoughts of moving further north.

Voe. One of my favourite Shetland villages

12th October. Nearly The End

Like all previous Shetland trips the penultimate day would see us up the ante on all fronts. The plan was to head north and in the fashion of a one-armed man firing a Kalashnikov hit various targets with a varying degree of success. In reality we had a look at a few notable Shetland hot spots and found that they all contained the same birds i.e. Robins, Chifchaff, Goldcrest and the occasional Dunnock, except at Sandgarth where there was a Yellow-browed.

Birds aside the rest of the trip was as I had indicated yesterday an orgy of pies and Otters (actually Otter) I'll let the photos do the speaking.

The secret brown door of the Voe pie shop. The light presumably indicates availability.

A blury undercover shot of the inside of said pie shop

Curry Pie, my new pie love

A massive dog otter performed at Toft, though always out of reach of a decent shot
Some proper otter photos can be seen HERE

News of an Isabelline Shrike at Scousburgh broke around 1:30, though for reasons unknown Birdnet carried it as a Wheatear. Not wanting to spoil our day by having to watch any rare we carried on with the Robin stroking gradually making our way south. Failing to see yesterdays Spotted Sandpiper we eventually gave up on the whole rare finding thing and made for Scousburgh. Where this showed very nicely.

11th October. Shameful

Another succesful day of proving the lack of rare in the Sumburgh/Virkie area. Only bird of note was the Great Grey Shrike between the hotel and the farm busy collecting the remaining Goldcrests.

Desperate to sample some new ground we moved on to Boddam where we encounted more Robins, Goldcrests and Chiffchaff - new ground same birds. Retreating to Mainlands saw me sinking to new depths previously unheard of on Shetland. I succumbed to the inferior, puff pastry, mechanically recovered filling type meat pie - the type you find in dirty chip shops.

Shameful pie eaten we headed to Lerwick following a report of a Bonelli's Warbler. The Bonelli's didn't show great and was too far away to hear even if it had been calling. The rest of the day was exactly as it was earlier - Robins etc.

Tomorrow is our last full day. We've given up on finding anything that would qualify us a mention in next years BB and are set on an orgy of pies and Otters (hopefully).

In the absense of a rare bird finding account here are some pictures to fill the void.

10th October. Nothing To See Here

Waking at dawn to a fresh easterly wind and 100% cloud cover I was soon dressed, fed and out of the door. Goldcrests were every where and there seemed to be a couple of Robins in every garden. Strolling up to the tattie field I noted good numbers of Redwing and even the first Fieldfare of the trip. With a spot of drizzle in the air I met up with the Llama and we headed for Sumburgh. There was a steady trickle of birds on the way all Goldcrests, Robins and more Redwing. The Sumburgh Hotel garden also had plenty of Goldcrests and a few Robins. By the time we'd made our way to the farm it was mainly just Goldcrests, no Yellow-browed and the Pallas's had gone. By the time we'd got to the head it was devoid of life. The winds had now swung ENE and it was much cooler, fortunately we cadged a lift back to Scatness and headed for the warmth of Sunnydell.

Is this the start of the end of autumn for South Mainland?

9th October. Try Harder

Spent a full nine hours in the field today walking around Virkie, Toab and then over to Quendale. Spent the bulk of the day at the later up and down the valley and then up and down again. First trip up we had a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers had flight views of the Dusky Warbler and found a new in Red-breasted Fly. Following a quick cuppa at the visitors centre we bumped in to Messrs Riddington, Harvey and Garner. Following a chat with Martin we bid farewell and left them to go up the valley. The Llama commented that he felt uneasy leaving Quendale knowing that that motley crew were on their way up the valley. Sure enough before we'd even put a foot in to the lower burn iris beds Martin was on the phone telling me they'd just found an Olive-backed Pipit - what frightfully lucky chaps! I caught a very fleeting glimpse of the pipit, that wasn't even good enough for the trip list, before it buggered off round the back of the farm. This bird was clearly new in and this prompted us to again do the full upper burn for which we received no reward.



A rather frustrating day with constant news of 'rare' being found all over the place - tomorrow we must try even harder.