Tragic RTA in Norfolk....... (Rufous-tailed Accident) 15th Oct

I won't go into graphic detail about how we, along with about 100 birders and about 400 casuals arrived at dawn at Warham in North Norfolk and proceeded to not see a Rufous-tailed Robin. All I'll say/type is that despite the target being dead/fucking off during the night/still there but eluding everyone, the day didn't turn out to be a complete disaster. A whole host of transient bits were buzzing about overhead, geeses, thrushes, finches & buntings, and would have been a pleasure to behold had I been stood on that hill adjacent to King's Mill Res! Within the bits that bounced overhead, the highlight was a trio of Lapland Bunts that headed west'ish and some smart Starling murmurations! We kicked the shit out of some coastal habbo for little reward and with no Raddes or 'Throats or even YBW's wanting to be discovered we headed for them pastures where every fucker else had gone and pathetically and ashamedly joined the queues to see other folks' finds! Wells was pretty shite and the 4+ reported YBW's were represented by just one vocal individual. The highlight here however was a snazzy yet cheeky red dragonfly thing that took a shining to Mikipedia's clothes and then to myself and Archers shiny skulls!
Moving on, we dropped into Holme where the inevitable autumn Bluetail was brushed on to the day list along with some SEO's in-off. A monster Peregrine lounging on the beach was pretty drab until it decided to have some fun by pursuing the in-coming Owls. The ensuing dog-fight (Bird-Fight?) was without doubt the highlight of the day! There's a whole plethora of images below to peruse if you're bored or waiting for the kettle to boil.
Oh, and on Thursday 6th October I predicted on the ASBO Ornithological Debating Society FaceBook group that a 'rare robin/chat' would turn up on Thursday 13th...One day out aint bad hey?!

My prediction for next week

Old bird

Archer meets Osama!

Fascinator!

'The Crane' was present in Norfolk Saturday afternoon!

Classic ASBO pappage

The inevitable...It's an age thing apparently!

Mersey Misery

A rare American cuckoo has been been stolen and then viciously killed in Liverpool. Our reporter in Merseyside explains...

It’d had been a morning like any other, local lad, Kenny Koogan (originally from Rotherham but has also lived in Newcastle) had been busy with his usual daily routine of  chasing local scallys out of his kitchen, patching up the smashed window in his XR3i and booting a few homeless geriatrics out of his garden. He was just tidying up the remnants from the latest bin dipping episode when his ever shifty eyes caught sight of a flash of gold at the bottom of his boundary Privet hedge – ‘’I was startled like, though it was a gold earring from some local lass who’d lost it in mi garden like, cos they use mi garden as a knocking shop ya know, to get a bit of latchlifter. I dived on it like Grobbelaar but I was proper shocked when the bit of gold turned out to be the beak of some brown parrot . I held it for a minute and wa gonna throw it back in the hedge bottom but then it looked at me with these like moody eyes and felt a twang of pity so I took it in the house and put it in the cage with mi grey parrot that I got off Billy the Fish down the Pinch & Penny last Sunday dinner. Anyhow, Horace, mi parrot, didn’t like the new bird, kept pecking its arse and that so I lobbed the new bird into a cage I’d got from when we used t’go down field catching magpies for Rita at number 53. She’s a gypsy ya know and uses their feathers for telling fortune and that. I put cage in garden so bird could get some air and that then went in to watch How safe is your shed ont I-Player’’

Sadly, Kenny was in for a shock when he stepped back outside later to chain his wheelie bin up for the night ‘’The fucking bird had gone! Some thieving bastard had nicked mi new pet! I was off my head with anger and that and even kicked Jerry, next doors cat that was sitting on my new patio. But I soon calmed down when I heard that our Sharon’s mate, Mandy was coming round to borrow a CD off me. She’s dead fit and that. Anyhow like when she’d bin and gone, I went down to Threashers for some tinny’s and Fat Mal from Nesbitt Street was walking towards me and he’d got my new parrot but it was dead and its gold face thing was missing’’ I asked him where the fuck he’d got it and he said to me that he’d just bought it from Garry Menzie who’d chopped its beak off and took it to that shop on high street where they give ya few quid for some bling. I asked Mal what he were doing with the body and said he were taking it give to his Ferrets, Mick & Mike. Anyhow, I’m dead gutted and that’’
Sadly, Kenny then had to leave us as his mother rang to say someone had just set fire to her dog.

Thankfully we managed to track down Kenny's pal, Fat Mal and luckily he had yet to set his ferrets loose on the corpse so with a bit of bartering and us being left £37 lighter he allowed us to take it. After having the remains analysed it transpires that the feathers actually belong to a member of the Cuckoo family, A Yellow-billed Cuckoo from America! Our contact in the 'Liverpudlian  Good Relations Embassy' also known as the L.G.R.E was informed of the sad events and offered to cover up the story by releasing the news in a more sedate manner. The L.G.R.E did a stirling job and earlier this evening the following message was broadcast by various birdwatchers information services -
 
M’yside Yellow-billed Cuckoo y’day Liverpool in garden taken into care then died.

THE SEABIRD HAS LANDED....I REPEAT, THE SEABIRD HAS LANDED!

As the title of this post nods towards, the much wanted seabird at KMR happened and excuse my language (no don't) but it was a fucking mega shitting crippling bastard!
Ok, maybe it wasn't THAT big, but for me, someone who gets more thrills from an inland seabird than a necrophiliac gets from discovering a 17 day matured corpse in the boot of a ditched Ford Mondeo down some lonely lovers lane, this was immense!
I'd been dispatched on a work related mission to Evesham in that cider swilling region of the midlands mid-morning. I'd chosen to take my own motor for the mission, knowing that with my optics in the boot, if the pager would 'squeak' with some news from down that way, I'd be prepared...
I arrived at my intended destination around 12:40pm and after the obligatory paperwork shit, I was sat in the motor awaiting the parcel to be processed and passed onto me. I sparked up a fag and had a quick gleg of the pager. The first message that flashed up was this -

As any hardened patch watcher can sympathise with, my reaction to that sort of message is equivalent to the 'big boys' reading about a Black-bellied Petrel loafing on the sea off St Mary's for 6hrs before being chewed by a Joe Pender tagged Blue Shark!
For the next 95 minutes, my motor kinda resembled a piece of space debris re-entering the earths atmosphere as I spanked it at pace along the M42, destination Notts!
After very rapidly off-loading the collected package, my obligatory unpaid lunch break began I guess, so I tanked it to the rezza. Upon arrival, I was directed by some cunt that it was showing well from the visitor centre jetty...And so it was! Get fucking in! Fuck the numerous Scoters, Kittiwakes and that L-t Duck that I'd previously bagged down there, this was the real deal!

Well, after ten minutes, it suddenly dawned on me that it was actually Thursday, not Saturday/Sunday, so I begrudgingly headed back to work. Needless to say, at 5pm, like a rat up a drain pipe, I caned it back to king's Mill and spent a good few hours soaking up some proper vintage patch quality with the majority of the KMR regulars -

Even one of the major D*rbyshite flushing photographers was on scene (ya know, the one mentioned in a previous post) and did his best to get stuck in some squishy water side vegetation in order to get that 'ONE' shot!

I reckon this takes me to 180 species for King's Mill Reservoir.............not bad for a grotty inland urban reservoir hey?!!

Roll on the Sab's.........................

PREVIOUS KING'S MILL RESEVOIR RECORDS OF GREY PHALAROPE -

1870 - no date (shot)
1885 - October 17th (shot)

Nottinghamshire-next-the-Sea - If only!

With a bit of windy weather knocking about this morning, I headed down to the old patch in order to stare adoringly at flocks of Sabs, flotilla's of Grey Phals, squadrons of Manxies and stuff..............Then I snapped out of it and realised the traffic lights had gone to green!

Sadly, my patch ain't Pendeen or The Bridges of Ross (well it has got a few bridges but ya can't see the sea from 'um) - my patch is a grotty urban reservoir that is about as far from the sea as you can get but each autumn if it gets a bit blowy, I'll head down there in very vain hope that there might just be some sea faring lost waif bobbing around on the water. Unfortunately, those strong gusts I hope for very often occur too late in the autumn when the chances of seabird are greatly reduced. However, this is September, the perfect time, ya know, when there's still loads of shit just offshore and these winds are proper meaty thus even my tiny patch of water could be in with a sniff!
Arriving this morning, I was genuinely excited about the prospect of finding something good and guess what....I did! The very first bird I clapped eyes on (well technically that's incorrect cos I did actually have a perv at a bird in the car park who had a pair of them nice shiny black jogging leggings on, ya know them that are so tight you can actually see if she's into waxing or not!) was a patch rare! Black-necked Grebe! Ok, not the hoped for seabird but a pleasure non the less! I've seen a fair few BNGs over the years at King's Mill but I believe this is the first for a couple of years. Well, that's about as good as it got. I hung about for a few hours, checking every incoming gull for that distinctive wing pattern but having promised to take the missus out for lunch I had to leave late morning.
Lunch was strategically taken at The King & Miller restaurant, which incidentally is located right beside the reservoir, where from my seat inside, I could scan the skies above the patch while pretending to listen to what she was saying! That's dedication innit!

Later this evening, I returned to the reservoir, with a handful of other KMR watchers (old & new) and gave it a good three hours coverage. There was gonna be a seabird in the roost tonight, I felt its presence, the wind was gusty, the water choppy and then, there, in amongst the gathering Black-headed Gulls was A SEABIRD! YES! Get in! A near adult KITTIWAKE! Once again, I've seen plenty of them at KMR but this is what we had been hoping for all day. Unfortunately, this probably wasn't a fresh 'in' bird, whisked off the Atlantic and unceremoniously dumped on our puddle of water. There's been a Kit' knocking around the local area for the last couple of years, it arrived as a 1st winter, and we've seen it grow and mature into the snazzy creature it is today. It also bears some nice leg jewellery that indicates it was rung in France somewhere.
As the evening drew to a close, one last surprise came in the form of a Spotted Flycatcher zooming around some willows, snapping up flies obviously.

So, not exactly the seabird spectacular I had hoped for but, as I write this, I can hear the wind outside, its getting angry & more powerful! Maybe tomorrow morning, I'll drop into the patch before work and discover a Puffin looking all forlorn bobbing up & down near the dam wall................... Well, I can dream.

Aren't inland seabirds great!

With the winds giving it some westerly blowage, my plans to head to Spurn today (Saturday 10th Sept) had been postponed. The west coast could have been alright but I really lacked the enthusiasm to drive over there so an alternative mission was created.
The evening before, Archer had informed me that whilst he was grubbing about at Aloe-Vera-Cote, sniffing glue, he had witnessed a very probable Chimney Swift buzzing around with two Common Swifts. Rather than scold him for inhaling toxicants, I agreed to meet him early morning in the very vain hope that we'd relocate the bird before we'd then head to Gailey Res' to stare at a Sabs Gull that had roosted there the night before.
Myself, Mikipedia & Rich 'The Giant' Challands arrived at Archers new love nest in the quaint hamlet of Seckington just before 8am and after a brew and a nosey around the grounds of his cottage we decided to head to his patch. A minor diversion to have a gleg at a local tenth century historical thing was interrupted by a phone call from Steve 'The Snapper' Richards. The snazzy seagull had just flown in to Gailey!
With 'The Giant' needing the bird for tickage, we headed there at pace.

Arriving at Gailey, we were informed that the target had done one seconds before we turned up. We gave it a good few hours and although the Sabs didn't return, we did manage to snare a near sum' plum' Red-necked Grebe, an adult & juv Arctic Tern and a zippy Hobby. A pair of Ringed Plovers were also noted,quietly feeding along the north shore. Apparently, these were the first RP's at Gailey for 17 years! However, their peace was being constantly shattered by a pair of yoghurts who had scrambled down to the shoreline and were attempting to ram their 'big lenses' up the cloaca's of the two waders. Ok, the Sabs wasn't there and yeh, to pass the time, getting a nice shot of a pair of Ringo's is fair enough, if you're into that, but constantly chasing them back & forth along the shore, causing them to unnecessarily flush over & over & over & over & over again just ain't on, is it?!
Thankfully, their ill behaviour was put to an end with the intervention of Wonder warden Nadia (Archers missus) who gave the one who wasn't Glynn Sellers a bit of mild hairdryer treatment! Job done! Below are a few images of the naughty boys!





Above - This D*rbyshite 'lens wielder' was getting particularly excited with the prospect of getting the 'money shot'!




Anyway, I digress, just as we were about to call it a day and head for some lunch, 'The Snapper' took a phonecall and relayed the message to us - The Sabs had been relocated back at it's original site, Belvide Res'! A pretty nifty bit of driving had us at Belvide in no time. The bird was showing nicely just below the dam wall and despite the fairly blustery wind, I managed to 'pap' an handful of images with my phone. The bird appeared blissfully unaware of the gaggle of eyes perving on it just a few feet above as it cooly picked off insects from the surface of the water. Result!

And so it begins...

After my last post here re. my lack of interest this summer, Sunday morning (4th Sept) I drove the 3 miles over the border into Notts and hada good old fashioned stomp around Silverhill Wood Country Park. Some Goldcrests & Coal Tits were buzzing around, a few Siskins bounced around over head and sadly fuck all else despite the conditions looking ideal for some Great Shearwater passage! The place was dead, perhaps something to do with a fair bit of that wet stuff falling from the grim clouds above - Surprisingly I hardly saw any dogs taking their owners for a morning stroll either, which was refreshing for this location! I did however leave the sight frustrated; aroound the north side of the park, i'd heard a bird calling which I just couldn't ID. It sounded somewhat like a cross between a LRP & a cockatiel followed by a carbon copy version of the 1st (or 2nd) part of a Corncrake song! Despite searching for nearly an hour, I just couldn't locate the source of the mystery noise. It then shut up and never called again. Any suggestions would be appreciated... sensible ones that is!





The afternoon was spent Viz-miggin' from the window of the East wing at Castle DUNNington which resulted in c2600 Swallow SW, 2 Jays SE & a trickle (16) of Mipits SE. Highlight however was a new addition to the Castle DUNNington grounds list - SPOT' FLY' 'hedge-hoppin' mid-a'noon within a sudden surge of low level migs (including c20 Chiffys & unprecedented numbers of Great (15 on the feeders at one point, the previous max' being 6) Blue & L-t.Tits - unprecedented thru my garden anyhow!).

Last of the summer 'whine'... or is it?

WHAT!? You're shitting me! I've been asleep for over two months and missed July & August!? Really? Did I miss anything?
No?!
That's alright then!

Sadly, I ain't been indulging in some humanistic hibernation during the summer or been in the slammer or taking refuge in some dark remote Scottish glen away from the spell bindingly annoying cunts who frequent the current birding scene (hmm the latter may actually have a little bit of truth in it).....Nope, I can honestly and proudly inform you that I've mearly been a lazy twat who for the last couple of months had lost all enthusiasm for birding!

Ok, I'd ventured out for a few bits of shit like a Red Footed Falcon in D*rbyshite (22nd June), some vocal Quails close to home (24th June) and a White-arsed Sandpiper in Cleveland (23rd July) but patch watching/general birding had almost become a very distant & hazy figment of my Vino Rouge induced imagination.

I was also forced by my inner insidious self to visit the Nerdwatching Fayre at Rutland Water (20th August) - This in itself made me actually question my involvement with this hobby. The myriad of tents, bellends, fuckwits, foreign holiday flogging buskers and general cheesy faced twats is and will always be birding purgatory but still like a moth drawn to the proverbial, I/we drag ourselves there every year!



So, that was my summer really, there's probably been a few other interesting things occur but I've consumed far too much Rouge Juice that my memory banks have fizzgogged and popped and now they hold nothing more than a few vague recollections of drunken evenings spouting mentalist bollocks on FaceBook!
Anyhow, in an effort to cleanse my mind, body & soul (and my liver), I've crawled out of my slumber and will now attempt to drag myself kicking, spitting, smoking & screaming back into the scene. It's nearly September and as most are aware, that's when them good birds are found, vis-migin' is in full swing and anything can turn up anywhere, so I'm gonna get my motor serviced, start watching what I'm spending, get my optics dusted & polished and try & work out how to use this new digital camera...

Now all I need is some of you useless cunts to get out and find me some quality to go & look at! Go Go Go!!