RTD in Oxon 19th Feb

RTD?? ...That's the 'Far Eastern, slanty eyed, chicken chow mein, super noodle Dove' - not a 'Rouge Necked Diver'!
Yep, on Saturday 19th Feb, I headed down to Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, accompanied by Mikipedia & Matt Scott, to get involved in some serious scrummage on a quiet suburban street with around 2 billion(?) other fools. Another reason for descending onto this usually peaceful area was to bag ourselves the Rufous (Oriental) Turtle Dove that had been knocking around for a while.
Arriving at 6am, we initially had to endure a c3hr wait, stood queuing along the pavement with loads of that wet stuff falling on our heads and generally looking like a long line of sad depressed c*nts awaiting our turn to enter Auschwitz (whilst the inhabitants of the street looked on out of their cosy living rooms, no doubt slurping gallons of hot tea and sinking shit loads of bacon cobs).
For those of you who arn't aware, and there cant really be many, we were queuing in order to be mugged of a fiver so that we could enter this kind hearted blokes house in order to view his back garden, where for a maximum of 5 minutes we would be treated to crippling views of our target wolfing down seed that had been scattered on the lawn.

Anyhow, at around 8.45am, I along with a bloke behind me, noticed a suspect dove head over the street and behind the house that we were soon to be entering. Within 10 seconds the shout went up that the bird was on view, perched atop a tree behind number 41. This is where it went a bit silly as the whole queue suddenly surged down the street in a somewhat vain hope of cramming into a Volvo estate sized gap in order to snatch a glimpse of the bird. Being somewhat vertically challenged I attempted to get to the front of the sardines but a big white van (it wasn't that big) decided that it wasn't gonna let me see so I somehow made my way to the back(!) of the crowd and surprisingly managed to get a piggy back of some bloke who was stood on a chair that was precariously balanced on a the back of a small child! I also managed to get a gleg through another chaps scope at this point and soak up some nice Dovage!

The view from my elevated position!





Shortly after though, the bird decided it had had enough of being stared at and did one. Luckily for those who hadn't managed to connect, it was relocated in some tall trees SW of the street viewable from a track/gate/private field at the bottom of the street. Thankfully a 'plain clothes policeman' sporting a George Micheal style earring and dressed like Gordon Brown, was on the scene and he helped to marshall the situation, in a round about way.

Picture kindly stolen From Jason Stannage, thanks.



Having had enough of the bird, I decided to just enjoy the moment and took immense pleasure in watching the various characters scrapping, jostling and kicking the shit out of each other in order to bag the bird. One guy I witnessed was so overcome with panic to see the bird that has he was barging through he whacked a small 'Private Drive' sign and promptly turned and apologised to it!!
We eventually slithered away from the melee and made our way back up the hill towards my motor for sanctuary, food and warmth but we stalled for a while half way and once again soaked up the moment, observing various goings on and for a little bit more of the Dove that was now showing to just a few of us (the rest of the world still at the bottom of the hill in that field recreating The Battle of Stirling Bridge, albeit in Oxfordshire).
Slowly though word got around and we began to get inundated with red faced sweaty blokes who'd had enough of being squashed and were now opting to get some more relaxed views. This is where I called the troops up, the two of them, and decided to do one back home. The pic below is the last of the day as we attempted to leave - look how Mikipedia's gentle face is about to be squashed between that Sco-Pac and that van. Everyone - ''Awwwwww''.

A catch up

Having not wrote on here for a while, for some reason, scotch induced or not, I thought I'd write abit of a catch up thingy. Since our last meeting, I did a bit in Derbyshire, some spotting in Norfolk and I think I did some bits in Notts... A brief rundown would include bagging some Owls at Willington along with a tree scrambling Bittern, the usual shit in Norfolk including that Harrier and I reckon I've seen that GWE & (some WFG) at Hoveringham too. As you can see, I couldn't give a fuck about it this year so far....although I have been uploading sighting to BUBUBUBUBUBOOOOO (where if you have the fucked up mentality to want to see what other folk have seen you can see what I've seen) and apparently I've notched up 145 species ('I' before 'E' except after 'C' my arse). I really should have scribed abit more because I've seriously neglected the notebook too but being disalusioned (I really can't be arsed to sort the spelling either so if that bothers ya, tuff) by UK birding thus far this year I really can't be fucked to drag pen to paper...Well I couldn't anyway. But, today whilst doing some work related commitments, I was overcome by the grey miserable skies and drizzle and was transported back to the days of trudging around King's Mill Res', looking for 'Starts and Groppers, awaiting scarce terns to prance in & out and listening for the 'Chif-if-if' of a fly-over Wood Sand (if only). Yeh it's only Feb' but the spring patching is only a few weeks away and the county birder thing kicked in. Fuck the year-listing shit, if ya mates wanna fuck off for a Ringo in Yorkshire without asking if ya wanna go with them, who cares, screw them low listing cunts hey! It's time to get ones head down and concentrate on finding the stuff that matters. I've decided that I'm gonna bang some effort into attempting to score another first for the county, Dartford Warbler is the target I'm reckoning..............................

Anyhow, I've just reread this and it's a load of shite (cheap Co-Op scotch induced bollocks) so I'm gonna do one and report back with something interesting when I can be arsed and preferably when I'm sober......Over & out!

First weekend mash up

A very rare full days birding yesterday (1st Jan') in Notts! Highlights included a pair of Lesser 'peckers showing well at Rufford CP early morning and a fly over Waxwing there. There were an awful lot of Redpoll sp. swarming about and they may have been worth scouring for a Meally or better! Also at Rufford there seemed to be Blings everywhere but sadly no Haws appeared in the 90 minutes we were present. Onto Budby where the wintering G-G.Shrike showed well but otherwise the 'common' was deadly quiet. Hoveringham was equally as dead apart from the usual crowds of sailing freaks! In Barton-in-Fabis, the 4 Bewick's were still present with the Mute Swan crew and nearby in Clifton a swarm of Corn Bunts showed well in tree's adjacent to a housing estate - the first time I've seen them at this 'well known' location and pretty strange to see such a species knocking around next to a busy main road, bus stop, thinners-swilling tramps and residential buildings! Finally we spent the last hour or so at Attenborough where we failed to see any Bitterns or anything else remotely interesting primarily due to the sheer volume of twats with brats & dogs ensuring the 'nature reserve' resembled White Rose Way at 5pm on a match day saturday!
We finished the day just 4 birds short of breaking the Notts NYD record, sadly missing easy sh*t such as Yellowhammer, LAPWING(!), Golden Plover, Grey Wagtail. R***y D**k, Redshank, all the owls, etc.
Sunday 2nd Jan was spent mostly in the 'county' of Rutland Water. Despite being bitterly cold and depressing, we saw very little! Yep, that's how sweet it was! Meagre highlight included a Mr Smew off Barnsdale, a Rouge Kite over the dam, a cheeky gang of 29 White fronts (viewed from Sykes Lane) and another Mr Smew & 4 Scaup off Normanton. Sadly our hardcore efforts to squeeze a yank out of the Wigeon flocks just weren't good enough. Finished off at Eyebrook where the American Teal was sleeping on some ice and two pimping Mr Smews were dragging along 6 bitches. Nearby, 'The Tree' seems to have evicted it's long term resident small Owl(s).

Oh, and this blog is gonna be pretty image-less for a while as my camera (phone) decided to have a wash on Christmas Eve and sadly fell asleep in the sink & drowned!

Scope Packing Rambling

The following is a very brief load of nonsensical rambling bollocks based on my own random ponderings of Sco-Pacs. It's a pretty weak affair which I've aired merely to vent my own frustration (I've tried Sco-Pac porn but have been met with 'currently there are no results that match your search') - Anyway, please don't read if easily bored, a UEA bumboy, one of them cunts who will attempt to pull me up for having an opinion or one of them cunts in birding who spout shit on TwatForum - you know what types I mean!

Sco-Pacs - those tripod X rucksack contraptions that are now extremely common place on the birding scene. They're bleeding everywhere. At any twitch nowadays you'll inevitably witness a plethora of birders (and i use the term Birders very loosely) adorned with a tripod with a rucksack attached. That's basically what it is.

If you're unlucky enough to share your patch with other birdy enthusiasts you'll quite possibly know someone who owns one. This year I've been foolishly attempting to (not)see 300 species of bird in Britain and on reflection, I honestly think that the non sco-pac wearing brigade are now the minority, although I have to add that the stereotypical 'beginner birder' was the fundamental culprit in this survey.
On my last visit to the British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water in 2009, I was pretty stunned to see and bear brunt to the Sco-Pac revolution within the confines of the jam packed marquees! Why on earth would you feel the need to proudly exhibit your 'scope atop your tripod, on your back, within the stuffy, birdless, birderfull enclosures of a giant tent (with your bins draped around your neck too - What's that all about? Do you do that when you go shopping to Morrisons?).
Sadly I have a few birding brothers who also feel the need to traipse around with their gear strapped to their backs - A telescope is made to be combined with the eyes, which are on the front of the human body, not the back! I've often enquired into the need for the Sco-Pac with them and their response has invariably been 'cos it's easier(?) to carry and saves me the pain of carrying it balanced on my shoulder, ya know, the tripod leg digging into my shoulder bone innit'. This I can very slightly kinda agree with but only if you're trekking the length of three Blakeney Points, blindfolded. One of my example arguments is what if whilst out birding, say at an inland reservoir, your trusty Sco-Pac strapped to your back, when in the distance, thru ya bins, you pick up a Skua shaped bird bombing across the sky. By the time you've unhoisted your 'pac from your back, checked to see if any unfortunate souls are within 'bashing' distance (yeh, like that happens) and extended the legs, the target could quite possibly have done one and that self found patch/county/British(!) tick opportunity has gone! - This, combined with the cost and that you look a proper cunt wearing one (YES you do!), ensures that the Sco-Pac has not featured on my precious list that I sent to Santa this year!
NB. I have been reliably informed recently by my contacts on the inside that there is to be a FaceBook campaign within the next 6 weeks to make Sco-Pacs 'Kool'. Apparently, the master plan is to get all birders aged between 14 & 34 to carry a Sco-Pac by April 17th 2011!

I personally wont be joining said campaign, I'm more interested in joining the campaign to get a song entitled 'Use my Arsehole as a Cunt' by Kunt & the gang, to No.1 in the charts by the end of 2010!

Below are an handfull of losers who I've 'papped' this year...

A quick catch up

Considering I haven't 'blogged' on here for over a month, and the fact I'm bored with FaceBook and the missus is watching Scrooge (for the 73rd time), I thought it only right that I put finger to keyboard and briefly spout some nonsense about what I've 'done' since the Amerian Bittern trip.
On November 13th, I travelled with Archer up to Hollingworth Lake, Manchester, for that Pied-billed Grebe. At that point in time, my interest in this year-listing malarkey was taking a very steep nosedive and I wasn't that bothered about going but a few words of persuasion from Archer got me motivated and off I went. Arriving on site, we got among the crowd and soon I was enjoying decent views of only my 2nd PBG (287).

The next morning I met up with Archer & Devvo (Rich Collis - the middle aged Doncastarian Chav) and after abit of a bish, bash, bosh on Beeley Moor, Derbyshire, we eventually 'booted up' the Richard's Pipit (288). It was on this eventful trip that Devvo was sworn into the ASBO massive...

On the 20th November, myself, Mikipedia, Archer & Rich Challands made an early morning trip to Long Nab, Burniston, North Yorkshire in the hope of bagging Desert Wheatear. Suprisingly, other than Devvo & a couple of shady 'Aviarazzi types', we were the only sad, cold losers on-site! Unsuprisingly, the target had f*cked off overnight and we had to settle with a bit of piss-poor seawatching.

We then gave in to Mikipedia's craving for food and headed to Flamborough for some grub! The day got worse with the discovery that the Headland Cafe had shut up shop for the winter! Brief compensation came in the form of a Merlin tanking it in-off (289). The decision to go hunting for a 'golden arches' was soon made but as we travelled down the A614, news was relayed to us that a Black throated Diver was present at Swillington Ings, W.Yorks, some 70 miles away! Regrettably this would be a much needed year-tick and like proper sad bastards we headed inland! An hour (and abit) later, we arrived at the location, and after a '6ooyd walk' (more like a mile & half - thanks youth!) clapped eyes on the bird (290) - Nice!
The next morning, the same crew, minus Archer, caned it down to Rutland Water and swiftly knocked Lesser Yellowlegs off the list (291).



At this point, with 9 birds to go I was pretty confident that I'd hit 300, no issues! The next day at work I banged my last two days holidays in for the 29th & 30th November giving me a nice four days weekend coming up! Unfortunately, some snow casually arrived on the scene and hid my car from me for the duration of that aforementioned 4 day break!




The following weekend (4th & 5th December) was also shagged by the weather so I remained at home and subsequently discovered a healthy swarm of Waxwings loitering on our street in Tibshelf, Derbys.
On the evening of the 5th, I decided, with a heavy heart, that with just 6 remaining 'birding days' available for me during December, I would not be hitting 300 this year! The 11th & 12th were spent doing ridiculous xmassy type things like shopping & partying so we now come bang up to date to this weekend. On Saturday 18th I decided to do the patch (King's Mill Res', Notts) and realised just how shit (and unbelievably cold) patching can be, the highlights being 13 Teal, 10 Gadwall, 3 Wigeon, 1 Shovelar & a very obliging Water Rail that was trying to keep warm by cosying up between a Redwing & Blackbird!!!
Today, Sunday 19th, I again did KMR (with Mikipedia) and not suprisingly saw sweet F.A apart from quite possibly a record number of Common Gulls (too cold to count them but estimated to be over 160) and two Willow Tits at the feeding station in the car park. A sweep of fields nearby at Penniment Farm produced a very pleasing feeding flock of c150 Skylarks and 7 Grey Partridge. To finish of the morning, we, for some reason unbeknown to me, twitched a flock of 30 Waxwings at Pleasley NR, Derbys!



That latter episode kinda makes me think that's the end of that for this year...I may write an end of year review, I might not, just depends how pissed I get in the next week or two. I might try for 300 next year too.......Hang on, it's only quarter past nine, I'm not that pissed, am I??

Recent activity...

Yeh it's been a while since I updated this but with other more pressing matters taking the front seat of my life during mid-October, I didn't really get out and about. Highlights are pretty much restricted to the last 7 days. Last Tuesday (2nd November) I made a pre-work visit to King's Mill Res' in order to bag the 1st winter drk Fudge Duck. This bird represented the second of this species I had seen at my former 2nd home (the first being in November 2002 which was sadly seen to be wearing some shiney silver jewellery around its ankle).


Above - Mikipedia giving the motors precarious position some serious thought.

With the news of the American Bittern in Cornwall showing well near Wadebridge, I begrudingly decided to head down there overnight on Bonfire Night with Mikipedia and Stoke reprobate Phil Locker. Before first light saw me slamming my motor onto a 45 degree muddy grass bank and trudging aimlessly in the dark towards the tower hide at Walmsley Sanctuary. Despite arriving at the hide in the pitch black we were already too late to get front row seats as the hide was already packed to capacity with the usual geriatric numpties sat debating the latest episodes on Birdforum and the cost of their recently purchased waterproof attire! Anyhow, during the next hour or so, we managed to squeeze ourselves into the wooden box and aquired a few decent scope views of the target (284) as it stealthly strode along the ditches. Sadly, the volume of complete and utter twats in the hide forced me & Mike to evacuate back to the motor to recompose whilst Locker endured a further 45 minutes of viewing. We then headed to short distance to The Lost Garden of Heligan near Pentewan where we duly handed over an extortionate £10 to enter and fairly quickly snapped up the Green Heron (285) as it paraded in front of the in-awe Joe Public in 'The Jungle'! Once again, boredom quickly set in so we decided to do one back to the Midlands via Exminster where, after a bit of work, we managed to snare ourselves a pair of cool Cirl Buntings (286). A pretty rewarding yet knackering trip (for me at least). I arrived back in Notts at c5.30pm and headed directly to a Bonfire Party until around 10.30pm when I finally retired to bed after being awake for 41hrs.



Above - Phil 'The Lobbster' Locker showing off his recently purchased package!

Spurned but jammed!

Upon hearing that my 'arch' year-listing rival had cleaned up at Spurn on Saturday, I decided that I best head over to the peninsular on Sunday (10/10/10) and bag myself a piece of the action! Foolishly I had also been roped into a 'Rouge Juice' fuelled evening of debauchery on the Saturday evening so the chance of me crawling out of the pit early Sunday morning was in the balance! Thankfully, my alarm managed to rouse me and despite only having 3hrs kip, by 6am I had collected Mikipedia and was cautiously heading towards the coast. A necessary 'Golden Arches' pit-stop and an even more necessary stop for paracetamol ensured that our arrival in the 'birding zone' was later than we had wanted. Anyhow, instead of heading straight to the peninsular, I made a somewhat fortuitous decision to drop in at Sammy's Point and within minutes of exiting the motor, we were met by ex-Notts birding veteran Ian Smith who nonchalantly muttered that a Pallas's was knocking about a few hundred yards away. We scurried along the coastal footpath, clambered under barbed wire and began scouring the scrub for the target. A good 45 minutes passed and in that time I experienced quite possibly the largest fall I had ever been amongst! Goldcrests & Robins numbered in their thousands with slightly lesser numbers of Siskins, Bramblings & thrushes screaming thru overhead. Soon the Pallas's Warbler (282) was located some 70yds away and showed extremely well for some 20 minutes! This was c10am and high hopes were kicking in! We soon found out that Archer was bagging all manner of class up in Cleveland but despite our best efforts to dig out some rare & scarce, the best we could muster in 6hrs was a Great Grey Shrike, Ring Ouzel and a host of Redstarts, Chiffys etc...oh and a self found 'possible' OBP which I had to let go due to the brevity of the views - call was spot on tho'!
Getting bored and tired, we retired to the Crown & Anchor and as the day started to come to a close and thoughts of heading home quickly started to fill my head as I sat in the car, the inevitable 'late-in-the-day' Spurn surprise hit. A chap came cruising thru the car-park and declared that a Radde's had been snared next door at Kew & was about to be released! Thank f*ck I hadn't done one 20 minutes before! Soon after we were being treated to stunning in-hand views of this striking Phyllosc (283). A pretty rewarding end to an exciting yet frustrating day!




Above & below - Radde's Warbler being paraded to all & sundry!