12th May. Go Jonny Go

Back in late December I foolishly threw down the gauntlet to Pugneys stalwart Jonny Holiday for a self-found patch challenge throughout the coming year. He and I both finished 2012 equally matched on 138, so it was obviously going to be a close fight, or as least I thought that would be the case.  As we stroll into the second third of the year I'm getting a metaphorical arse kicking, recent calculations indicate that he is at least a full 16 species ahead. I shouldn't be too concerned it's still early days, but my list is in need of a severe amount of luck or a change of strategy.  Luck is certainly something Jonny has had no shortage of for example: On Wednesday sighting classic 'clag' conditions I put in a last minute leave request. Jonny sensed a comeback but I had no such luck spending a total of seven hours on site (5:15-7:00, 08:45-13 and 18:00-19:00) for the sum highlights of  4 Common Terns and 3 Dunlin - it was that good at one point I fell asleep on a bench. Jonny, on the other hand had a similarly early visit but scored big in the evening with a ring-tail Hen Harrier (a real lowland mega in these parts). Along with a self-found Lesser Scaup, which netted him a full 12 points in the Patchwork Challenge, it would seem that he can do no wrong.

This Tree Pipit is as good as it's been over the last couple of weeks.

I recently discovered that my early morning boost

has laxative properties!

Patch birding so far this year has become a total addiction, where I've taken every available opportunity to get out, missing only one day in the last seven weeks! With the persistent cold weather it's not been easy and birds that I should have found have simply not appeared yet, such as Reed and Garden Warbler, frustratingly they can along with Sedge Warbler - very rare on my side of the Rother - be found just 100 metres or so from the patch boundary.  I've missed a few key species too, Little Egret and Hobby (both of which I've failed on in recent years).  The early starts and the very early starts are mostly proving unrewarding, with the evenings being better. The problem with Orgreave is that no time is particularly better, in fact you are just as likely to see movement at lunchtime as you are at 5am, but without the need for copious amounts of caffeine. For now I'll just have to grit my teeth and hang in there, there's still a good few weeks left of the spring and time to give Jonny a few scares... a proper BB rare is overdue and would be most very welcome at the moment..

23rd April. In Bloom

The last few days have been fairly productive though I've still a few holes in the year list, some despite being relatively regular are scarce at this young site, namely:  Lesser Whitethroat (only one last year), Grasshopper Warbler (no records since 2011), Sedge Warbler (very rare here, just 2 records). A nice surprise this morning though was a partial summer plumage Spotted Redshank an unexpected patch tick and my first new species this year.

Is there a finer looking spring than a male Whinchat? Though this one was a bit drab compared to the cracking male earlier in the week.

However, any male form of Yellow Wag' is a worthy contender 

Hopefully a few more of these before the spring is out.

Another good year so far with double figures most days over the last week. No Greenland types yet though.

16th April. Cape Teal

Had another one of those 'not been sat at my desk very long when the mega alert goes' off moments yesterday, when news of the Flamborough Baikal Teal broke.

I always find it difficult to get excited about ducks, particularly when their provenance is generally viewed as suspect. This bird however at least ticked the fully winged (though there was some slight secondary and primary damage on the right wing) and unringed boxes and the fact that it was picked up initially, on a seawatch, by Flamborough stalwart Brett Richards helps give it a little more credibility. Pretty impressive work by the salty old seawatching dog.

A cracking male and only 1.5 hours away it would have been rude not to go.  Despite moving from Northcliffe Marsh to Old Fall and then being flushed by a couple of dogs it settled infront of the hide back at Northcliffe it slept (most of the time) before feeding among a handful of Wigeon. Unfortunately both cameras and my scope were left at home so I had to make do with a few phonescoped images. Whatever the provenance it was a pretty smart bird in wild surroundings.

This wasn't the first Baikal Teal that I've seen in Britain. The first was a suppressed (cough) female at Fort Henry Ponds, Leicestershire some twenty odd years ago.  Where after being drugged* and a hood placed over my head*, I was driven to the edge of some private estate where upon arrival I was beaten* and forced at gunpoint* to look through a scope at a drab though subtle duck cavorting among the resident Mallards. To my utter amazement it was rejected - though this did save me the guilt of knowing I had a suppressed bird on my list.

Now the bird has gone the usual bollocks debate has begun on Birdforum. Despite the sniping    the decision ultimately rests with the BBRC and at least one serving member seemed happy with it.

*all lies

14th April. A Request For Common Sense

Please stick to the path

Orgreave is becoming ever popular with birders and it's seemingly impossible to visit these days without seeing another. Most visiting birders stick to the footpaths around the lakes but lately an increasing number have choose to wander around the waters edge. For most of the lakes perimeter this isn't a problem, but frustratingly birders often wander onto the western and southern margins flushing the feeding/breeding waders. To put this in to context I've witnessed more disturbance by birders than dog walkers over the last week.  In defence of dog walkers they are generally ignorant to any harm that they might be doing and I'm sure that in the majority of cases would keep to the path if they knew. However, birders should know better, particularly where breeding birds are concerned. We are trying to encourage dog walkers to keep to the path in this area, but need birders to set a good example. So please stick to the path in these areas, particularly between the drain and the causeway separating the two lakes, after all you wouldn't want to appear on the pages of this blog - with a rather unkind (though wholly justified) comment attached!

The landowners, Harworth Estates, have kindly agreed to put up signs requesting visitors to stick to the path in these areas. Whilst these won't have the benefits of a physical boundary they will hopefully make people aware and encourage the majority to keep to the permissive rights of way. Hopefully these will be in place in the next couple of weeks.

Anyway now I've got that off my chest.....

No big push yet but finally migrants are starting to get through.  Monday produced my first Sand Martin with a lone pioneer heading north in the still biting easterly wind. 

Post work, on Tuesday, paid off with a Scandinavian Rock Pipit and a Ruff, the latter only just about annual here. The post work visits continued to pay off peaking at the end of the week with a Jack Snipe and 2/3 Little Gulls along with a cloud of c.250 Sand Martins

Despite the late arrival of all of the early migrants the mid-April birds appear to be arriving bang on cue with a Common Tern, Yellow and White Wagtails and Willow Warbler all putting in an appearance over the last few birds.

8th April. Dead But Never Forgotten

This is going to be predictable, but I've waited a very long time for this, three-quarters of my life in fact. MARGARET THATCHER IS DEAD and I for one am overcome with Joy. I'm not proud that I'm celebrating the death of a senile old woman but I am proud that I am celebrating the death of Thatcher.

I grew up between the steelworks of Sheffield and Rotherham and the ten coal mines of the Rother Valley. The sound of shunting trains at night lulled me to sleep as they moved steel and coal from the nearby marshalling yards. From the late 1970's this familiar environment gradually fell into decline. I'm not naive, I know that change was needed in many of these industries and often change can be unpleasant, but this was different. Throughout the 80's the Iron Lady brought misery to the communities of South Yorkshire . As a youth I witnessed the steel strikes and picketing miners at Orgreave. These weren't men striking for more money these were men fighting for their jobs and their right to provide for their families and you could and still can see it in their eyes. The Tories, with Thatcher at the helm, seemingly led a crusade throughout South Yorkshire to destroy the heavy industries that the largely socialist residents had their roots anchored in. In turn this destroyed the communities, something I saw particularly around Barnsley in the post Thatcher years.  She created  what we have now, a society where we're all in it for ourselves and community spirit is replaced by community service.

I wasn't brought up to hate Thatcher, It just grew inside me like a cancer. The very mention of her name in anything other than derogatory terms filled me with anger and anyone who didn't agree with me was either a Tory or a twat, or at least I thought so.  My family aren't socialists, I even suspect that they might have voted Tory at sometime, we were lucky my dad was a bus driver and apart from deregulation, survived the Tory slaughter. I'm not a raving lefty I just believe in a fair and just society and if you don't then you're either a Tory or a....

When I heard the news (thanks dad) I cheered, I smiled and something in me died.. all the hate that was left, that cancer that had grown deep in me vanished almost instantly, my demons were exorcised.

People will try and tell me how great Thatcher was, that she created this (not so) Great Britain. It won't wash with me I saw it through my own eyes and I didn't like it one bit.....

Billy says "good fucking riddance Maggie"

28th March. Gullfest

With the continuing lack of summer migrants a couple of decent gulls on the patch have been most welcome.  A Little Gull on the river, found by a dog walker, on Tuesday has been giving cracking views as it picks away at the surface in an almost phalarope fashion. With a couple of adults last year there's still time to find another.

Gulls seem to be the only things on the move at the moment and I've scrutinised the large gathering black-heads every morning, hoping to pull out a Med', without success.  This morning whilst scanning the bank I picked out a beautiful adult Iceland Gull among just a handful of 'big' gulls and a couple of hundred BHGs.  Unfortunately it didn't stick around long seemingly vanishing before I could get the other birder present on it.

26th March. Back in the Freezer.

At the back end off the last weekend things were starting to look up on the patch, a Rock Pipit on Sunday morning indicated that things were finally starting to move and with clag conditions predicted for Monday it could only get better.

Arriving on-site early Monday morning the only thing apparent was that the birds just weren't happening and after an hour I headed for the office for a day of desk bound drudgery. A few tweets from Jonny at Pugneys (though he too was at work) suggested that things were moving with Avocet, Black- tailed Godwit and Kittiwake all through there. The clag conditions continued through the day with Kittiwakes seemingly everywhere, except in Sheffield.  My planned 6 pm finish got cut to 4pm (thank you whoever came up with the idea of flexi time - surely a birder?).

Almost jogging from the bus , the fear that some bounder might get in before me and steal what was rightfully mine drove quickly to the two lakes. I needn't have worried no-one else was daft enough to venture out and there sat in the middle of the large lake in all its pure white headed glory was my target a cracking* adult Kittiwake.


*taking things into context Kittiwakes are as rare here as Med' Gulls





The good birds kept coming with 31 Whooper Swans, that I only just missed seeing from the bus, calling noisily as the cruised up and down the lake before heading off on the next leg of their north-bound journey.

Then, when things were going all spring like it suddenly plunged us back into deep winter.

I couldn't get out Saturday but made up for it with a 3 hour session the following morning. With a good six inches of snow covering the ground most of the birds had reverted to winter tactics. The previous territorial song flighting Sky Larks were back in small flocks and the Lapwings had given up strutting around the 'plains'.  As I walked through one of the small young plantations a Short-eared Owl took flight, immediately attracting attention from the Carrion Crows. Presumably a new bird as I hadn't seen any of the winter birds since January.

Given the weather conditions the chances of any true spring migrants seemed fairly unlikely so I was quite surprised when I picked up a couple of Little Ringed Plover walking around in the snow with a group of Ringed Plover and shortly after another two LRP's and a Jack Snipe flushed from the edge of the large lake was only my second on the patch. A Peregrine on the 'plains' was unbelievably my first of the year.  All in all not a bad few hours but a bit of sun wouldn't go amiss. Given the current weather forecast this could well be the first March that I haven't seen a Sand Main

17th March. All Crust and No Filling

Blogging isn't coming naturally at the moment, mostly due to the lack of birds, plenty of birding just nothing very interesting and partly due to the lack of birding gossip.

Looking back it's been almost 2 months since I wrote anything remotely bird related and it's time to get my mojo back ready for (fingers crossed) the greatest spring on record. So here goes:

Way back at the end of January, the internationally (apparently the Dutch liked it so much that they set up their own challenge in February) renowned Foot It challenge finished and with it most of my winter birding enthusiasm.  I've toyed with the idea of resurrecting it for April/May but it's not likely, though I wouldn't rule out a one off day challenge.

Bird of the year.

The patch has so far been well below par, though I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later and the more I think about last years birds the more I realise what a special 12 months it was. To put it into context I'm almost 20 species behind where I was this time last year with such bonus birds as Smew, Iceland Gull and Little Owl all blank spaces on the list.






Disaster struck in early February when my long standing loyal Sigma 50-500 went off to photographic heaven or the Council tip to be precise.  An unfortunate incident involving the ground and some general wear and tear made it uneconomical to repair and worse still it was clear that given the latter deterioration aspect the insurers wouldn't pay up for a new one, so I had to. I opted for the image stabilised 150-500 and so far I'm very happy with it.

I nearly deleted this Barn Owl shot, but the noise and blur of the wings and background really accentuate the ghostly appearance - well I like it anyway. Incidentally this Barn Owl, at Pit-house West was my first at Rother Valley.










The only real chance I've had on a proper subject was a group of Waxwings that favoured  the ASDA (other supermarkets are available) at Handsworth. Laying on my belly for some shots raised a few eyebrows from carrier bag laden shoppers.

 However, highlight of February was seeing the legendary John Shuttleworth perform at the Buxton Opera House.  He didn't disappoint with classics such as can't go back to savoury, smells like white spirit and my personal favourite two margarines on the go.

With the apparent extension to this winter early migrants have been non-existent, but a Rock Pipit this morning reassured me that spring really is just around the corner....

27th Feb. Goodbye Old Friend

I haven't blogged for a while but chucked a draft post together this morning moaning about what a crap month I'd had blah blah blah.  I was going to add some more dross to it this evening but received some terrible news that made my small troubles pale into absolute insignificance.

The news this evening was that Yorkshire birding stalwart Russell Slack had passed away after losing his battle with cancer.


I have some happy memories of birding with Russ, when he first came to Sheffield Uni' in the mid-Eighties. Being a couple of years older than me and my then birding mate we looked up to him and were inspired by his enthusiasm, student tales of charming members of the opposite sex (that failed to inspire me to progress my education) and his seemingly ever present smell of Patchouli Oil and long curly locks.

During this time Russ and I would regularly bump into each other at Thrybergh Country Park usually seeing very little, in fact the highlight of a few years visits was a summer-plumage Spotted Redshank that circled the reservoir then left. It was only a few months ago that we were laughing about that and how crap Thrybergh was (and it still is). On another Thrybergh visit I was sat next to Russ when he was shit upon by a Swift which gave us much hilarity and a short discussion on the likelihood of an apus shitting on you - of course statistics were very much Russ's bag.
My first Spurn visit was courtesy of a field trip organised by Russ and I saw my first Subalpine Warbler and Brent Goose!

I've used the word inspiring a couple of times already but to me as a 16 year old birder Russ was like a big brother during those distant Thrybergh days and truly did inspire me to get out birding.

Russ you were a bloody good bloke and you will be much missed R.I.P mate though the memories will live on.

6th February 2013. I Don't Feel Like Dancing...

I got an email this evening, that almost had me choking on my enchiladas (Mexican dish not a small furry animal in case you didn't know). I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to be posting it on here but it did say circulate it amongst like minded individuals - or something like that.

The email originated from a television production company looking for a group of 5-7 birders for a new program for Sky 1.  "Oh no not more shit made to look birders even nerdier?" I hear you scream. Let's face it anything that features birders will at some point make us look like a bunch of sad twats. History proves this with the recent dire attempt Twitchers a Very British Obsession and the almost as bad The Big Year (though not a documentary it was still awful).

So what is this new idea for a ground breaking TV show?

You'll never believe it.......

BIRD WATCHERS WHO CAN'T DANCE

Alan Partridge's brain storming session in this clip is clearly far from fantasy! I can just imagine it now....

But who could forget this gem, where even the normally camera shy me makes a cameo appearance at 3:23 (black T-shirt)..