Uptown Girl

I'm gonna try for an upland sand
She's been living in her white bread world
As long as anyone with hot blood can
And now shes looking for a downtown man
Thats what I am

It was very tempting... when news yesterday came up of an Upland Sandpiper at St Combs, the thought occurred to me that it just might be still there today, so I sneaked the telescope and bins into the back of the car and went to work as normal. At my advanced stage of life it's not often there's a life-tick within striking distance. Did an honest hour's innovative thinking (!) until news came on BirdGuides that it was showing, then drove the hour north for a keek. Surprisingly easy... over the hill, down the slope, set up scope, ker-ching lifer under the belt. When I turned up there were 5-6 people on it, but they drifted off and I had the little tease all to myself for an hour! I wish I'd brought a proper camera though - phone-scoping is nice but it doesn't really produce the goods.

I do have my errr... usual standard of meticulous and accurately captured field notes and biro drawings, but left my notebook at homw so will scan them in tomorrow. In the meantime... some record shots.


And gettaloadathis... twitching north-east Scotland-stylee


Unfortunately my superbly presented soundtrack is lost in the wind noises (matron!)... but it goes a little like this:

-I want to show you something...
-Upland Sandpiper
-And now the crowd...
-There you go.





The sandy turf was hoaching with Northern Wheatears, and a little further south there was a bare field with an impressive 25 Whimbrels in it. Then I got back to work, topped the car up with petrol on my way home, my crime is totally undetectable... neither my family nor my lab will have any clue that I wasn't in my office all morning. Unless they read this.

Predators and prey

A Sedge Warbler singing half-heartedly at the top of St Anne's was new in since Friday, and there was a good feel about today, with the wind apparently straight from Denmark - good for birds (I heard there were one or two Black Terns around today), but bad for the temperature, which stayed resolutely somewhere round 5 degrees.

Song Thrushes are busy just now - after that juvvy in the garden yesterday, I found another pair with a nest up in the back gardens facing onto the Elsick Burn (parent joining the feeding franzy in the bare field with Blackbirds, Pied Wagtail and errrr... a Great Tit). And for some reason it had an aerial fight with a Starling. And remember I saw a Song Thrush removing a faecal sac from the Cypresses at the Mill garden last week? Well today I found the brood. This one first... mutilated (apparently) by a cat and left on the side of the path under the Cypresses.

Then 3 m further up I found a sibling, and just up from that, another one - all broken and then left to rot by some bored decadent cat, probably called 'Fluffy' or something and his owners think he 'never catches anything'. Mind, I'm only guessing.

I lined them up on the wall for a last family photograph. I guess there's a chance there was another 1-2 in the brood that maybe got away (or maybe the cat was full after 1)

Be still my son, you're home

In the bushes down the track... Common Pheasant, singing Willow Warblers, Barn Swallows and onther newbie - Common Whitethroat singing intermittently in the drizzle.

A female Northern Wheatear on the beach was further encouragement. And there was another one on the clifftops. Offshore... apart from the usual auks, Black-legged Kittiwakes and Northern Fulmars, today saw the first Atlantic Puffins on the water, just off from the colony. One with a beakful of seaweed (??). A few white lines of Northern Gannets (that analogy would work better if the sea was like a mirror, but unfortunately it was choppy. Cut even. Two Manx Shearwaters north (first of the year) and a mild unusuality - 2 Tufted Ducks south.

Nothing of note in the allotments, AGAIN. All those shiny dangling Tiffany CDs muct be scaring them off. I think we're alone now... there doesn't seem to be any migrants arou-and. Coastal fields deafening with the sound of 6+ Eurasian Skylarks doing their noisy thing, but really just all last week's stuff (Common Linnets, Yellowhammers, Meadow Pipits..) all over again.

When I got to Water Valley, a Peregrine Falcon flew over at speed looking like it meant business this morning, and a female Eurasian Sparrowhawk went over, carrying prey, over to the trees on the south side of Muchalls. I bet the curtains twitched as it flew past. As I got nearly back to Newtonhill, a Feral Pigeon flew lazily over my head... bad mistake, as it should have been running for its life. The Peregrine Falcon came up behind it on the level at full pelt and I heard the 'smack' as it hit and grabbed the pigeon away. It was 15 m right above my head, and i stood in the gentle shower of feathers as the Peregrine called 'ka-ka-ka-ka-ka' in triumph and the pigeon struggled and fluttered for a few seconds. Pretty hot.
And by the time I got back to Newtonhill, the Sparrowhawk was back bothering the Starlings - all go for the predators today.

In the evening, took Lizzie on her FIRST TWITCH. All the way to Stonehaven. A nice easy one, and to my surprise she was genuinely excited by spotting 'the white one'. A first winter Iceland Gull, against a backdrop of sewage-and-chips-eating Herring Gulls. Like this...


When I got home, I got to take a screwdriver and a hammer to an old shed, and then got in just in time to see the melting Nazies on Indiana Jones. Does life get better than that?

Song Thrush

Juvenile Song Thrush in the back garden this morning, hiding in the dogwood, being fed. I set up the scope and uncharacteristically the kiddies wanted a look AND were interested. It'll never last.

The Mole - Kenneth Mellanby, New Naturalist Monograph...

... is what it says at the top of my notebook for today, for reasons entirely unconnected with birding, but I couldn't think of a better title. Hell, it'll do. So, it's Friday night, and I have suppered marvellously on scallops and a glass of red wine* , have chortled through Brian Blessed presenting Have I Got News for You, but Jonathan Ross and his incredibly crap house band have bored the pants off me in less time than it takes to say 'syphilis', and that means it must be time to make up some exciting wildlife-related observations. Ooh, did I say 'make up', I meant 'describe' obviously.

*chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga##

## it's the sound of the rat from Ratatouille turning in his grave.

I went birding, in May, on the east coast, in an easterly breeze and.... it was crap! First House Martins are back around their nest sites at St Ann's, though. I caught a Song Thrush carrying a faecal sac out of the Cypresses at Mill garden, and this evening there was a fluttery juvenile Song Thrush in our back garden. Offshore, there was a Harbour Porpoise , a Red-breasted Merganser flew south (surprisingly a patch year tick), and 3 Northern Gannets went north. Plenty of Black-legged Kittiwakes, Razorbills, Guillemots and Northern Fulmars around, but still no Puffins.

Cran Hill: crap. I spent some time sifting through a small flock of gulls, counting 152 Herring Gulls, 2 Lesser Black-backs and 1 Great Black-backed Gull. Didn't take a lot of counting. A few Barn Swallows round the farm the usual cacophony of Eurasian Skylarks and Meadow Pipits and well, yes it was surprisingly quiet, overall. Never mind, I've still got the scallops, until 2 am at least, when we might all be seeing them again**.

** I'll take a photo.

Evening, was on Stonehaven beach with my geek-monster son, and saw a lot more gulls and some enterprising seaweed.

Yes. Birders and psychiatric institutions - it's a marriage made in heaven. So I was sat at work this morning, idly marking a bunch of essays, and a quick look at BirdGuides suggested there was a Hawfinch in the grounds of Cornhill Hospital, in the trees by the crane at the new development. Hang-on-a-mo, wondered I... don't I work next door to Cornill? Didn't I walk past that crane this morning ? (Well, no actually, i had the car today, but that isn't the point). So picked up my bins and had a quick march down the road to Cornhill. Ooooh, it's so peaceful... I love the deliberate atmosphere of calm, the open spaces, the way everyone assumes you're just a wandering patient and is very careful around you. I never want to leave - you can't make me leave!

But you can make me dip. Or at least, I did, in that the bird wasn't there. Mind, it was a full scale building site. I know Hawfinches aren't as timid as people sometimes suspect, but surely they draw the line somewhere.

Btw, if you haven't been here recently, you should.

20 Ways To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

I already do all these things anyway, In Accordance with the Prophecy.


20 Ways To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.

3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want Fries with that.

4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label it 'In'.

5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write 'For Sexual Favors' .

7. Finish All Your sentences with 'In Accordance With The Prophecy'.

8. Don't use any punctuation.

9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.

10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.

11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is 'To Go'.

12. Sing Along At The Opera.

13. Go To A Poetry Recital. And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme.

14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area and Play Tropical Sounds All Day.

15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You're Not In the Mood.

16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.

17. When The Money Comes Out of The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'

18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot,Yelling 'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'

19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.' (One of my favorites!)

20. And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity ..

Send This E-mail To Someone To Make Them Smile.

Its Called ... Therapy.


Editorial note: btw, that last little bit is how you tell that this version came via the USA. I've noticed this... British jokes reach a crescendo of absurdity and then stop, left hanging. American jokes reach the same punchline, then have some sort of a tag or finale that connects the joke-teller and the joke-tellee and finds some common ground or viewpoint that brings the situation back to earth. Now I've told you, you'll notice it too, and whether you prefer British or American stylee jokes, it'll bug the a*** off you. See... I ruined your life. Whohhahahahahaaaaaa!!!!

Languishing in captivity

Sorry, I've been reading Cage and Aviary Birds again. For Sale this week, actually very little of real interest, and frankly I'm just living for the day when I see 'Black Lark - cock - £170'. Mind it would probably be spelt wrongly... i.e. Essex Birds (01992 525525 if you're interested) are selling
Yellow Hammers, £70 pr; Linnetts £60 pr; Bramble Finches, £60 pr.
and also
Bullfinch - English £150 pr; and Goldfinches - English, £125 pr.
I assume they eat pork pies and sing 'God Save the Queen' while throwing flowers at Princess Diana's coffin.

Some stuff being exhibited in British Softbill sections includes Common Redstarts, Song Thrushes and Blackbirds,'warblers' Whinchat, Wheatear (three cheers for Chris Atkinson's promising wheatear hen - a full-bodied bird), Pied Wagtail, Rock Pipit, Blackcap, a pair of wrens, Bearded Reedlings. To my mind the Rock Pipit (Rock Pipit - wtf?) just proves that people will keep anything.

I do quite like the bird-warders though, not least because they are a welcome antidote to the pigeon brigade. They do some nice snippets on wild birds and on page 17 Andrew Ross writes: Guess who's back? It is time we all celebrated the revival of Britain's sparrowhawks.

Cage and Aviary Birds is available weekly, priced £1.45 from all good newsagents and some fairly shit ones too.