Mystic Martin

Your horoscopes for 10-16 September

Aries:

With Pluto moving into Saturn, you will be prone to jitters about that funny Gropper you wrote off in the sedges behind the beach car park. On Sunday morning, check the bushes behind the vicarage. You are submissive to Taurus this week, so should not attempt to identify terns on seawatches.

Lucky colour: Tawny.

Taurus:

Your fortune is rising, and you should concentrate on identification of birds in the genus Tringa, especially on Monday morning. Beware of tall pale Pelicans, as verily they are all escapes, and no mistake. Do not go birding with men wearing fluorescent orange lycra leggings. Tuesday is a good day to find love in a bus shelter.

Lucky colour: Olive.

Gemini:

You can do no wrong this weekend, and should make giant leaps on your list. On Saturday you should decide that you might as well tick the Wells Indigo Bunting, because Ramsey was just too out of the way. Use your new-found peace of mind to come clean about that Fea’s where you had to ‘tidy up’ your notes after the event.

Lucky colour: Rufous.

Cancer:

You have been a bad boy but there is still time to make amends. Remember that small dark thrush that flew into the bushes at Fazarkerley and make chinking noises like a Blackbird… and you ticked it as Siberian and shook hands with your neighbour to celebrate your double tick, the other one being that Little Bunting that was surprisingly similar to reedie, until it hit your notebook? I’m going to leave you in a room with a bottle of whisky, your Leica list of British birds, and a rubber. I think you know what you have to do.

Lucky colour: Vinaceous

Leo:

Sorry, but you are going to make a complete arse of yourself this week. You should avoid identifying anything in public. Do not attempt to sketch anything and keep ‘Brian’ away from your notebook at all costs. DO NOT PUT YOUR PHOTOS ON SURFBIRDS!

Lucky colour: Octarine

Virgo:

You will feel the urge to check the sycamores around the school playing field, but should resist. True happiness will be found on the dry stone wall behind Cripple Annie’s cottage, overlooking the bay.

Lucky Colour: Straw

Libra:

With Uranus plonked firmly on the settee, you will see no birds this weekend. It’s time to understand the strong light streaming through the window is the outside World, full of interesting Phylloscs. Take a leap…go birding! There IS life after Steve Irwin.

Lucky colour: Mint green

Scorpio:

Mars will dominate your actions this weekend, fatty. Aggressive encounters with arrogant t*sspots in the hide at Aberogwen are guaranteed. You will attempt to string a Snowy Egret.

Lucky colour: Slate

Sagittarius:

You are getting very stressed over a Semipalmated sandpiper. Remember that it is only a tart’s tick, and if you claim to have seen one already no one is going to quiz you very closely about which one. Don’t mention Pagham Harbour…it wasn’t one, probably, and we all know that. Did you tick the 1990 Sandwich Bay Citrine too? I think you did. You should join your Cancer pal in the darkened room.

Lucky colour: toast.

Capricorn:

I know what you strung last summer….

Lucky colour: whatever you call the browny colour of ten pound notes…. Cos unless you find a stash of them and send them this way pronto, I’m going to tell, and you’ll never show your face around Llandyfnod again.

Aquarius

I know what you ringed last summer. Ffs! It’s very simple…. it’s not an Aquatic! Venus is in the ascendant, leaving you to decide between your spouse and your birding. And let’s face it, when you hold him/her in a good light, how cute are they, really? And what can they do for you that a Northern Parula can’t? You’ve bought them a house, so they can’t complain…off you go.

Lucky colour: Buffy

Pisces:

You have wasted your summer looking at creepy crawlies, but now is the time to come out of your shell. On Wednesday you will sit in a comfy RSPB hide and spout authoritatively, and at some considerable volume, on identification issues about which you know little or nothing. On Thursday you will string a Citrine Wagtail, but you won’t even have the decency to string a greyish Yellow Wag: oh no…, you’ll go the whole hog with a juvvy Pied. I hope McKinney doesn’t twitch it, for your sake.

Lucky colour: Grey.

Dear Martin...

OK, I'm opening my inaugural letters page... with something approaching permission

Dear Martin

I read all the huffing and puffing in your blog about what what you missed on your patch at the birdfair. Well... you don't know you're born. People are still arguing about the 'Eastern Olly' that was in Shetland the Wednesday before the birdfair. [Important Birder X] has looked at the only pic available (http://www.nature-shetland.co.uk/naturelatest/pics06/EOW-by-Hugh-Harrop.jpg) and says he thinks it's an Olive-tree Warbler! [Big Birder Y and Important Birder Z] both think it is olive-tree too, allegedly, which is making the guys up here sweat a bit. However, they Y and X didn't see it, so size and tail actions are difficult to convey.
[Incendiary slurs and rumour about contents of next issue of popular birding magazine removed]

Yours, a Friend

PS [Birder A] is turning, he bloody is, he is wavering. Shit. It could have been one. Get it on your blog now.

Anyone got any advice for my 'friend'?

The Bill Ivory Witch Project

I know I can't talk, but some people have wayyyyyy too much time on their hands.

Sex, drugs and partidges

So, I seem to be getting about 1000 hits a month, which is way more than this stuff deserves, but small fry compared to some other blogs. I heard the best way to up your hits was to write about sex. So, without wanting to offend any remaining visiting Birdwatch readers... here goes

- Oh darling!
- Yes darling?
- Oh darling! I love you!
- Yes darling, I love you too!
- Oh, I wish we were married
- But we are married!
- I meant to each other.
- I see. Come here you sweet romantic fool
- Oh darling!
- MMMmmmmmm
- Mmmmmmmm
- I say, that's a very unusual way to check my papers are in order.

[cut to fireplace]

Classic writing eh? To birds... to set the scene, our end of the village is total middle class bungalows and neat open plan gardens, substantially populated by oil company administrators who spend their Sundays washing the car and buying settees. So I opened the blinds early this morning, ready for another pleasant valley Sunday in status-symbol land and bloody hell there was a family of Grey Partridges sat on the lawn across the road. Mum and 5 full-grown kids, bold as you like. I rubbed my eyes and they were still there. What the small fat furry hell was I drinking last night? Started to panic and went round the front room checking for empty bottles, dregs etc. Turns out I was drinking red wine, cooking sherry, Windowlene and Diane's special mushroom tea. Probably not good, but I've tackled that combination hundreds of times before and never hallucinated partridges (who by now were pecking about on the pavement in from of my house!). I needed a second opinion so dragged Lizzie off the settee where she had been enjoying her bowl of Chocolate-frosted Sugar Bombs, with strawberry milk and a half-litre of Coke (I really shouldn't let her fix her own breakfast). We were in agreement, one adult grey Partridge, with the orange face, and the belly patch, and the body like Hettie Jacques, and her five kids. Then I realised I'd left my camera at work. Took a photo with Diane's, but it's one of those 20th century film-type thingies that will need to be processed at Boots before I can get the picture up. They stayed for 15 minutes, then took off over to the school field, for no reason. Only my second patch records (previously 2 on Cran Hill a couple of years ago), but I guess if I explored the fields inland a bit more, I'd bump into them now and again. I was a bit perplexed about that they were doing in Newtonhill, bearing in mind a Partridge can live its entire life in one or two fields. When I stepped out birding, things got clearer - the stench!! Argh! Muck spreading! Jeeeeezzzzus! No wonder they got out of the fields, it must have been making their eyes water. Oooh, I wished I hadn't breakfasted on all those lambs' kidneys and oysters. Dry boke. Still it was a decent atumn morning with Meadow Pipits flying over (never a bad thing), and again 100s of Barn Swallows going south. Turned out to be a bit of a false dawn, though, as the patch was dead dead dead, again. The trek to the beach was punctuated by a couple of Willow Warblers, a few Robins, Sparrowhawk and Kestrel, but frankly not much else. And the smell was getting worse... was something dead on the beach? maybe only a pile of cowshit that had hauled itself ashore and was rotting in a sheltered cove. Sandwich Terns,2 Common Terns and 4 Arctic Terns offshore, and I watched a Great Skua giving the Kittiwakes a run out before being mobbed and chased off by a pack of Sandwich Terns. It was obvious by now that this was not going to be a great day of birding, so I figured the best option was to cover as much ground as possible and hope to bump inot a shrike or something. The trudge to Muchalls... I realised I'd lost my biro, so prayed to our god (dess) Michaela Strachan (may her beauty and really-wildness guide our thoughts, words and actions) that she would not send any rare or interesting birds my way that might need some notes taken. And she, in her wisdom and graciousness, granted my boon, such that no noteworthy birds were in Muchalls either. There was an unusual number of Great Tits around though (several parties of 5+) - not sure if Michaela was trying to tell me something. Otherwise more of the same, with rafts of auks offshore at Muchalls including 1 Puffin, and another Great Skua. Can't believe that lot took my four hours on foot.

All kneel

Embarrassingly rubbish

Actually, I did go birding Sunday, thanks for asking. It was kind-of embarrassingly shite. Dead, even. I got the message when I'd walked down one side of the valley (Elsick Burn) and saw nothing but a couple of Wrens and a Robin, then as I was walking back up the other side a Willow Warbler flew out of the err.... willows and flitted back in again straight away, to join his mates in hiding. I was briefly encouraged by that, but then hung my head in shame.

There were 100s Barn Swallows heading sooth along the coast - when I tried seawatching all I saw was more swallows, further offshore, heading out over the waves. Occasional Sand Martins too (they're like occasional tables, but less handy for putting your drink down on). And among the House Martins, a groovy coffee-coloured juvenile - its plumage patterns were OK, but the colour was all wrong. The white bits were OK, but the dark bits were like milky coffee. Actually, maybe more like strong coffee. With milk in. There was a good article in Dutch Birding recently about calling plumage colour aberrations by their right name. I must look it up. Pretty sure that 'strong coffee with milk in' wasn't one of the options. You can tell I was bored by the way I was checking out the House Martins.

A Red-throated Diver going north offshore was my first of the autumn, although it's a bit of a cheat, cos I don't think all of them ever really go away.

So, in the absence of birds.... here's a video that does actually make me cry! Not sure if the 'R.I.P.' bit is tongue in cheek or not (no, it's not RIP Sammy - you have to go to Tom's site for that). A reminder of the days when Leeds United were truely awesome, not awful. Even Kewell, Judas backstabber that he became, surely the most talented player ever to put on a Leeds shirt. I'm so glad he went all crap after defecting. Enjoy. Non-Leeds fans might want to look away, or skip to 2.45s for the best bit. Or listen to the music. I'm old enough to recognise the Morrissey cover, but too old to recognise who's doing the covering.

One more before I go

This is me, same photo album. Arava Valley somewhere, 1992. Photo quite possibly taken by Bonsai Birder. Kept saying, 'Back a bit, bit more, bit more Martin.... no, you're OK, don't look behind.' It's only now I realise I fell to my death. Wonder who's been writing the blog?
I'm ashamed to say, 14 years later, I still have (and wear) that t-shirt. Even worse, I still have those legs. FFS! Didn't I eat anything? The shorts are in the bucket, long ago.

Lest we forget....

Well, b***** my b******s with a sharpened stick! I was clearing out a bookcase trying to make space for the assorted loot I picked up at the BirdFair, and I found an old photo album. So, in a random sort of way, here's some blast-from-the-past.



Cape Clear - seawatching, 1990 or 1991. From left to right, un-named YOC member, then Dave Bird (with long red hair, CCI warden at the time), then the next one (looking at camera) I'm pretty sure is Dave Allen, minus beard, but ex-Bardsey Warden and future CCI warden. Then 2 YOC people who may not even have had names (if you're reading this, prove me wrong). Then me (yellow arrow) also looking ginger, balancing unscratched Zeiss bins on top of multi-coloured tape-wrapped Bushnell Spacemaster. The some other assorted YOC flotsam (!- again, prove me wrong). Ah! The Bushnell Spacemaster... tell me how many people knew that as their first scope. Me for one. An innovative optic design... at Cape Clear, everyone else saw the white rump of the Storm Petrels. Me, I saw the yellow rump. Happy days.




Israel, May 1992. Forgotten but very welcome roadside café that sold BEER! Such a treat. Left to right... Chris McInnerny, Ken Shaw, Fraser McConnell and Steve Addinall (aka Bonsai Birder to BF members). Didn't they look young? Who'd have guessed what we would all become? Note some sort of sexy poster on the wall. Israel, brilliant for birds, shite for people. Oooh, little bit of politics for you there.


OOooooh.. too much beer. Chris and Steve birding hard. Shall we be generous and suggest they might be recording the overhead migration of Levant Sparrowhawk? With their eyes shut. It could happen.... they're better birders than me.

Friday night mating rituals

Birds Of Papau New Guinea - video powered by Metacafe

The Secret Freezer is.....

...about as popular as a cup of cold sick in Africa.


Please tell all your African pals... and get them to tell their friends in Russia, that the Secret Freezer is well worth diving into. I think there's a tub of mint-choc-chip ice cream at the back, behind the stash of Killdeers

Peru rocks!

My theme song

Your Theme Song is Back in Black by AC/DC

"Back in black, I hit the sack, I've been too long, I'm glad to be back" Things sometimes get really crazy for you, and sometimes you have to get away from all the chaos. But each time you stage your comeback, it's even better than the last!

What's Your Theme Song?

Desperate, but not serious

In the spirit of desperation, I did whizz round the patch this morning before work, in the hope that those scarce migrants had been marooned by incessant showers. In fact, there are still lots of birds around - picked up 20+ Willow Warblers, and 3 Common Chiffchaffs, etc. A Spotted Flycatcher on wires above the Mill was only the third I've seen here (after 2 together on Cran Hill, September 2004), and there were 2 Stonechats on the bracken by the cliff steps. 2 Golden Plovers went south (another species I only get on migration here), but star billing goes to another local scarcity - a Kingfisher on the Elsick Burn. My second patch record, the first was flushed from the willows at the cliff sides one September dawn. The previous one was probably a genuine migrant, today's more likely to be some sort of post-juvenile dispersal (??) Good though.

I COULD let it lie; but I WON'T let it lie

Last time, then I promise I'll shut up about it. I'm probably breaking about 10 laws, but here's Birdguides' (http://www.birdguides.com - they're very good) BirdMap for Saturday 19th August. Shows you where the good birds are, the bigger the sqaures the better. Notice the correlation between the gap in records for Newtonhill (purple arrow) and the location of the Newtonhill observer (red arrow)

The Doctor is IN

...And he's bloody mad!

As Tommo notes, I was away from my patch for the best fall of the year. Diane sent me a text on Friday telling me it was raining from the east... and I started getting a bit jumpy, then Friday and especially Saturday there were Red-breasted Flycatchers, Red-backed Shrikes, Barred and Icterine Warblers, and Wrynecks up the Aberdeenshire coast... and I was mouthing off to everyone I met about how aggrieved I was. Then news of one or two Greenish Warblers, and I became a disgrace, turned into a new 'Pete' from Big Brother, wandering up and down twitching, hitting myself and going 'Meow, root-toot- *Wankers*, huh huh!!

I showed my scratched bins to the repair man at the Zeiss stand, and he just laughed, more when I told him my darling children knew nothing about what happened. Still, he gave them a clean and a check-up, and some new eye cups, all for free. Zeiss rocks! It will cost £75 to get the lens replaced, which doesn't sound bad to me, but I made the mistake of having a look through the 7 x 42 and 8 x 42 FL Victories - they're bloody brilliant! Zeiss rocks, again. Diane will have to mind some more children and then I can get a pair. Saw a Green Sandpiper from the optics tent too.

The Fair was good too. Fantastic meeting all you people. Sorry I was being an arse! I received good advice from someone who might wish to remain anonymous, I'll call him 'SH' so no one guesses, that I need to increase the libels in the Secret Freezer. Trouble is, Im not very good at it, although I did hear from 'TA' that 'DM' was trying to claim a Raven over the reserve. I think we'll need to see that description.

Thousands of happy punters enjoying the Bird Fair sunshine

Chemical Toilets. Go early, or go when you get home.

Terrible amounts of wildlife-related tat


BB editor Roger Riddington (right) with BB contributor Andrea Corso (left). Disappointingly, Andrea is a man, in spite of his name. We checked.


British Bird Fair. That rocks too! Note BB stand on left

The Doctor is OUT

I'm at the British Birdwatching Fair, http://www.birdfair.org.uk/

The 'Birder's Glastonbury' apparently. i.e. pissing rain, mud slides, sleeping in tents, punks and hippies, weird smells, long lines for disgusting chemical toilets, dirty children and piss-poor ethnic dance troupes. Can't wait. Taking my camera.

Remember, British Birds stand. Your once-a-year opportunity to see me in a polo shirt.

I must go down to the sea again...

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky
I left my vest and socks there - I wonder if they're dry?
Spike Milligan

But it was crap this morning - flat and no Gannets or anything going past to give me a bit of enthusiasm. Within 5 min I'd decided to go bash some bushes. Then a Manx Shearwater and 2 Great Skuas came by, so I decided to stay on. Then 20 min later I was bashing bushes. I should probably have stayed on, but hark! A Tree Pipit flying over - there is some migration happening. Also a Stonechat in the bracken above the fishermen's huts on the shore. They bred across the valley in Cran Hill this year, so not as interesting as it used to be.

Sooty's off the starboard bow

Up early this morning. So... an hour and a half seawatch before work. This is the life. Hope all my lab were working hard. Wind had dropped, but figured it couldn't be any worse than the few days of northerlies. And, up to a point, I was right. 1st clue was a flock of 10 Manx Shearwaters going past, close in, and they kept coming through in dribs and drabs, so that I'd had 75 in the end which, as I think i said before, isn't all that bad for dead-sea Newtonhill. I guess there might have been a Balearic Shearwater trying to slip through, but 30 of these birds were so close no mistake was possible. About 10 were so distant I didn't really get any plumage details at all, but even then I've seen enough Bals that the flight pattern might have raised suspicions. Still, there you go. Also, 7 Sooty Shearwaters, my first of the year, heading north, always on a slightly more distant line than the bulk of the Manxies - I've noticed that before. It took til 7.15 for the skuas to wake up and get going, but between then and 8.05 there were 9 Great Skuas, all north. A Pomarine Skua too. Between you and me, the Pom is a bit stringy. Argh! I can't believe I'm saying this. I'm going to format it with really dense text so that no one gets this far. It was a long way off, and was more of a jizz id than anything - didn't see any plumage and didn't appear to have spoons. I don't think I'll be bothering the County Recorder with it. Back on real birds... two Black Guillemots flew north! To put that in perspective, there's a small but unknown number breed a couple of miles to the south of me at Muchalls, but these were only the third and fourth individuals I've seen at Newtonhill in 4 1/2 years. That's the problem with Black Guillemots - they look pretty, but they're just pig-headed. What else... 20 Sandwich Terns, 9 Common Terns and 7 Arctic Terns, 204 Gannets per hour and 144 Fulmars, a dribble of Kittiwakes (mostly herds of juveniles sat on the water), a few rafts of Razorbills, and a few individual Guillemots. 4 Dunlin flew north.

There was one Harbour Porpoise sploshing about - now there's something that's become really scarce here this past couple of years, and a Grey Seal. But continuing my series of appetising dead mammals along coastal tracks, I found a beheaded Wood Mouse (patch tick!), the head still there next to it, half eaten, and a Harvestman Spider sucking its blood (no really!). So now I know why small mammals die on paths... they're overrun by packs of hunting Harvestmen, apparently. I'd assumed I'd flushed a Kestrel from it's breakfast without noticing, but the mouse was still there 90 min later as I went back to the car. Still dead.

My Simpsons Personality - must be true...?

You Are Lisa Simpson

A total child prodigy and super genius, you have the mind for world domination. But you prefer world peace, Buddhism, and tofu dogs. You will be remembered for: all your academic accomplishments Your life philosophy: "I refuse to believe that everybody refuses to believe the truth"

The Simpsons Personality Test

Do your seabirds lose their flavour...

... on the bedpost overnight?? Cos mine seemed to have very much the same flavour this morning. Seawatched for another hour-and-a-bit, til I got bored, in a fresh northerly (boo!) for 7 Great Skuas, 2 Arctic Skuas, 1 Manx Shearwater, a few Common and Sandwich Terns, and 3 Common Scoters. Gannets coming past too - didn't bother counting, but it was about the same as yesterday i.e. 300 per hour north, but with lots v distant mostly south, so it's all feeding movements. At least the Arctic Skuas were entertaining, both v close in and after their brekkie. I might have missed the first one, a gorrrrrgeous very pale adult, as it was under my line of sight, but was alerted by the noise of a Sandwich Tern in evident distress - the distress being that it had an Arctic Skua attached to its primaries.
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Behold.. her Bounty! Pt 2

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A chatty man with a dog asked about the eerie whistling noises he hears offshore coming from some black-and-white birds. I explained in detail how in mid-late summer, Little Auks fly down from the north and hang around adult Guillemots and Razorbills, bullying and harrassing them with high pitched whistling until they force the adults to disgorge their fish. If a joke's funny the first time, it's funny every time, I say.

It was surprisingly chilly, and when I went for a good poke round the Mill Gardens, bushes, etc of Newtonhill a deathly quiet predominated. Eventually managed to chivvy out a few Common Whitethroats, Willow Warblers, Blue Tits etc., but not a lot happening today.


Later....
Back out at tea time for another look round and another hour starting at the blank sea. Jeeeeesus I need a north-facing bit of coast. Another 6 Great Skuas, 4 Manxies, 4 Arctic Terns. I know the North Sea is full of Sooties just now, but I aren't getting them facing south east. There's some Balearics around too, but I'm never sure with these*, if they're on their own in the North Sea, or with something like 4 Manxies: there's some sites and people where you can pretty much trust the seawatch reports coming out to be gen, but I also feel there's a lot of stringing. As if some people who don't seawatch often feel they're owed 1 good bird each time they get out, and basically it's Cory's and Balearic Shearwaters, and Sabine's Gulls, that are easiest to string. Oh, and juvenile Long-tailed Skuas. yeh right. There, I said it. How arrogant is that? Note also how Little Shearwater claims have dried up since fellow birders saw through that little ruse. OW! Go to bed, Martin, nurse has your tablets here.

*except mine of course. That was a stick-on.

Don't want to offend...

... the sophisticated readership of Birdwatch magazine, but this post contains the word 'shit'. If you don't want to read the word 'shit', I suggest you switch over just now to a nice saccharine blog like Birdchick http://www.birdchick.com/blog.html even though it has gory bloodstains.

So yesterday I heard there were 'hundreds' of skuas battling north against the wind at Peterhead. Sounds like hyperbole to me (gasp!) but there's also lots of Storm Petrels out there, which I need for my patch list. So tea time tonight I headed out to see what harvest the sea would yield...

Behold! Her bounty...
6 Great Skuas
1 Arctic Skua
2 Manx Shearwaters
2 Common Scoters
13 Bar-tailed Godwits

Now even by my standards, that was shit. And I still need Stormy for the patch. Still, ever optimistic, I'll be back tomorrow.

Hey! Good news... I'll be at the Bird Fair next weekend, on the British Birds stand, hardly ever saying 'shit' at all, so if you were offended at being compared to a medieval plague victim (blog posting passim), now's your chance to look askance in my general direction.

The Dawn of Time

Somewhere in my loft I've got the first issue of Birdwatching magazine, complete with 'amusing' article by Bill Oddie, identification of something or other by Ian Wallace, and a nice picture of a Great Crested Grebe on the front. 20 years ago! Blimey. I was 16.

But that's not big and it's not clever... this is big and clever. Issue 1 of British Birds, from June 1907. Brainchild of Harry Witherby.


Mmmm Harry Witherby, now there's a hero of the Birding Revolution. Unfortunately done to death by others, but he'll get the Secret Freezer treatment one day.

What struck me, looking at the contents page


is that actually it's not really that different from the contents page 99 years later, June 2006.


Behaviour of this, study of that, changes to lists etc. You'd think there'd be nothing left to read about. Note inciteful paper by the author of the Secret Freezer.


grrrrr..... European Storm-petrels past Peterhead today. Still need for Newtonhill list. Roll on the weekend.

btw... is this http://www.birdchick.com/2006/08/my-mind-is-blown-not-bird-related.html the best bird blog entry ever?

So *that's* where all these hits have come from

Argh... my secret is out. Wondered why people were suddenly visiting the Secret Freezer. Turns out Chris Harbard has been saying it's good, sullying the pages of Birdwatch magazine with filthy lies (No. 170, p56). Now I'm going to have to maintain some standards, for the first time in my life. Curse you all!


Hang on a minute... what do you mean... 'illustrates the simplicity of blogs'!!

Ta to Chris, Marianne and Steve. Birdwatch rocks!* www.birdwatch.co.uk (but not much on it)

(*there are other magazines that may rock harder, but I'm not going there today).

Eeek! Argh! Phew!

This is NOT what you want to see when you get back from a week off work.... photograph on your desk accompanied by a note from a work colleague:

'Saw this while out climbing last week - what is it?'


Eeek! Apart from being a bloody Wallcreeper. Argh! Where were you climbing? Switzerland! Phew!
Still jealous though. Not an easy bird to see and photograph.

Heroes of the Birding Revolution IV - HG Alexander

Horace Gundry Alexander ('HG') - 1889-1989.


A Quaker, prevented by his religious beliefs from doing anything remotely exciting or enjoyable, he and his brothers were drawn to birdwatching like moths to a flame. Born in London, educated at Cambridge, he was in his youth one of the pioneers of Dungeness when it was nothing but a wasteland of Stone Curlews and Kentish Plovers. He went on to become a teacher, League of Nations, blah blah blah, and is perhaps most famous for his peace-work and his friendship with Gandhi during India's struggle for Independence. In fact, when Gandhi was in jail, he described HG as one of India's best friends. Hung out with Salim Ali. Spent his later life in the USA, continued birding up til his death, even though he couldn't see or hear properly any more. Cool.

He earns his prestigous 'Heroes' medal for his prolific contribution to the early development of sight-based bird recording. Numerous notes in British Birds (http://www.britishbirds.co.uk), contribution to Witherby's Handbook of British Birds and author of the iconic 70 years of Birdwatching. Take this record of a possible Yellow-browed Warbler from Dungeness, 1915. Remember a few miles to the west, gun and taxidermy-based ornithology was in full swing, with George Bristow's shop churning out rarities of spurious provenance and virtually no field-based description. HG was not like that...

British Birds 9: 183-184 (1915)
YELLOW-BROWED WARBLER SEEN IN KENT
On the 24th September 1915, I put a small bird out of a bush on Dungeness shingle, which looked as if it must be a Yellow-browed Warbler (Phylloscopus superciliosus [now inornatus]). It was almost dusk at the time and I lost the bird without getting a very good view of it, though I once heard a note, like the ordinary Willow-Wren's note [Willow Warbler] in general character, but sharper and much shriller.
Fortunately I found it again in the same bush next morning and obtained a much better view. When it first flew out, almost from under my feet, the yellowish colour of the rump attracted my attention, and in consequence I wondered if it were really Ph. proregulus; however, an examination of some specimens kindly lent me by Mr. Witherby convinces me that this is not the case. The eye-stripe was not very conspicuous, and the only time the bird gave me a good view of its wing the side-feathers covered much of the coverts, so I did not see much of the wing-bars; but both these features. as far as I saw them, are in agreement with one or two of the specimens examined. the short tail and regulois appearance were marked as the bird flew, but when it settled it looked just like a small Willow-Wren. I heard the note again three or four times. The bird became rather difficult of access after I had put it up two or three times, and I had to leave it in order to catch the train.
Dr N. F. Ticehurst mentions one or more occasions when this species has been observed in Kent, but no instance of it being obtained is recorded.
H. G. ALEXANDER

Now I'm not sure what that bird was (and I doubt it would get past a modern day County Recorder... 'I regret to say that although your description is suggestive there are one or two features that worry me and therefore...') but notice how this lays down the formula for an honest description, of a wild-bird, alive(!), its call, its behaviour, and the possible conclusion as to id, with caveats and other possibilities. Compare and contrast with the 'a bird was obtained and brought to me...' standard of bird recording prevalent elsewhere at the time. I love the bit about having to go for the train too. Interesting that Ticehurst wasn't aware of any others being obtained, because one (a Hastings Rarity) had been published in BB the year before. He was obviously experimenting with what was to become a long and honourable tradition of BB editorial members forgetting what has just been published in their own magazine.

Horace Gundry Alexander... you had a crap and mildly amusing name, but you were instrumental in developing the modern age of sight-based ornithological recording, and for this I name you a Hero of the Birding revolution, 1st Class.

HG Alexander (second left), going over the finer points of Yellow-browed Warbler identification with Gandhi and other members of the Indian Ornithological Union

A wee moose, and stop press, a wee gull!

Headed out round Newtonhill this morning, hoping against hope that a bit of migration or something might be happening. Not really expecting anything, so a bit surprised to find two Common Chiffchaffs in the Japanese Knotweed (bit of botany for you there) by the Elsick Burn - hell, maybe there *is* something going on. So I slowed down and had a good poke round. Didn't really turn anything else up apart from a load of surprised juveniles (Sedge Warblers, a fresh brood of Goldfinches, House Sparrows and Starlings, and a family of Willow Warblers including one juvvy trying to sing and getting it wrong, throwing in a pile of low pitched Blackcap-like notes) wondering who the 'pish monster' was who wouldn't leave them alone.

Vaguely aware of a constant trickle of adult and juvvy Barn Swallows heading south along the coast (30+), with a couple of Sand Martins, a few Sandwich Terns occupying the 'parent and child' spaces in Newtonhill Bay (eh?), and in an hour offshore the grand total of 2 Great Skuas (1 heading N, one on the water looking intimidating), and a 4 Common Terns. Saw 1 Puffin carrying fish to the clifftops, which surprised me, this late on in the season.

Dead (Common) Shrew count of 2 today, although I suspect one of them was an individual I'd noted previously and failed to eat. The second was definitely a new arrival. And a bonus! A House Mouse dead on the clifftop path! So much bigger compared to shrews. The problem with shrews is they're delicious at the time, but 10 minutes later you could manage another. Not so for mice, which keep hunger locked up til lunch.


Later....
Time off family duties for good behaviour, so got another hour's seawatching in the evening. It was very nearly very dull, although for the whole hour there was a raft of 50 feeding Kittiwakes just offshore with 33 Arctic Terns (ads and juvs) and 3 Common Terns. Another 5 Arctic Terns went north. 3 Great Skuas, 1 Arctic Skua and a Manx Shearwater,a ll north, 1 Common Scoter south, a juvvy Puffin on the water and 239 Gannets north (can tell I was bored by the way I counted the Gannets).

But no! not boring at all because right underneath my nose, there was an adult and juvenile Razorbill on the water, and a 1st summer Little Gull. Hurrah! And it was doing something I'd never seen Little Gulls do before.. smoking a cheap cigar and drinking a Bacardi Breezer. No, that was me; the Little Gull was trying to feed in association with the Razorbills. For 15 min I watched it constantly. It would hover above the ad Razorbill, then follow it above the water when it dived, occasionally dropping to the water surface and pecking (presumably) at some piece of sea-crap churned up by the Razorbill. If it lost the adult, it would hang around above the juvvy (which was calling constantly) until the adult came back (that looked a bit clever to me). When the adult surfaced, it would sometimes splash down aggressively right next to the Razorbill, but never touching it - don't think it was trying to steal fish. Lots of Kittiwakes going past, which it ignored, but it flew at and chased off a single Black-headed Gull. Got some photos with the Coolpix on maximum digital zoom (so not v good quality - sorry moving too much to digiscope properly). It was still doing it 25 minutes later, but after that it turned up in the raft of Kittiwakes and terns, where it fed with typical tern-like hovering and dipping.

I was ready to write a Note to BB, incorporating the words 'sea-crap', but on checking when I got home, I found this by Steve Madge from 1965 - describing every detail of what I had seen! Amazing, and I reckon if I'm only 41 years behind Steve Madge I'm not doing too badly.
Amazing though!

Below - some poor quality Little Gull with Razorbill.

Heroes of the Birding Revolution III - Bob the Builder

As any fule kno, when Bob the Builder gets a day off, there's nothing he likes better than a spot of birdwatching (and/or going for long sticky 'walks in the wood' with Wendy). Bob has a single-observer inland record of Blue-crested Warbler (first and only Western Palearctic record). The record was never officially submitted and is hence not admitted to the British List, but he made a high quality 15 minute video of the bird and the circumstances of the find, which has been broadcast repeatedly on BBC children's channels to an audience of millions, and is currently available as a DVD price £15. One can only admire this innovative digital approach to rarity reporting which has never really been repeated, although there are overtones of the single British Bay-breasted Warbler record. And Ivory-billed Woodpecker, for that matter. Bob the Builder - you are a renegade, and a rake, but the birding scene needs characters like you. I therefore title you a Hero of the Birding Revolution, Second Class.

By special request....

... I'm back.

And straight out for an hour's seawatch off the rocks at Newtonhill. Ahhhh, it's good to be back!!! It's like being back in the womb, but with more Kittiwakes. Not much like the womb at all really. More Puffin and less pushing... more migration and less gestation... more Prion and less amnion... more yolks and less, err.... yolk. Hey these jokes don't write themselves you know.
I would have to be nuts - flat calm, visibility for miles and an empty sea, but I gave it a go anyway. Surprisingly, more skuas than usual - 7 Great Skuas and 2 Arctic Skuas going north. A Velvet Scoter went south, 3 Manx Shearwaters north, bit of a flurry of Arctic Terns (23 north) (2 Common Terns), and 10 Common Gulls south.

Only 6 Puffins. Also the father-kiddy pairs of Guillemots appear to have swum away, but there were 10s of juvvy Razorbills getting fed.

Some poetry to relieve the boredom:

Swan swam over the sea
Swim Swan Swim!
Swan swam back again
Well swum Swan!

That's all for today.

Loch Mallochie

Hooray for hotel internet access... otherwise I would't be able to show you this brood of Wigeons at Loch Mallochie (Loch Garten RSPB)

Lizzie contemplating how best to throw stones at Wigeons



Mum


Juvvy

Gross

Another hour's seawatch this evening, but to be honest, a bit dull. Oh to be in Ireland!

With my keen birdspotting eye, I spied 5 Manx Shearwaters, 2 Arctic Skuas, 4 Common Terns, 17 Arctic Terns, 14 Sandwich Terns 4 Common Scoters, and the usual Gannets, Kittiwakes, Fulmars, in small numbers. A few Puffins around still.

And 3 Common Gulls, which is more like the normal sorts of level I wouldn't mention. Dunno what was happening yesterday.

This is gross. Lizzie had some Large White (butterfly) caterpillars in her bedroom, trying to make them into butterflies (just add cabbages and bake at room temperature for 2 weeks). Instead, they exploded Alien0style and spewed out larvae of a parasitic wasp - all of them now. I tried to explain to Lizzie that the caterpillars don't mind, and it's kind of like being tickled, but not sure she believes me.



It was bug of the month in September 05 - see
http://www.just-green.com/8b-PhotoAlbum/absoluteig/gallery/ Bug_&_Pest_Info/Bug_Of_Month/BOM_Sept05_BraconidWasps.pdf

Must be true... you couldn't make this up.

Anyway, we're off to Aviemore until Friday. Will let you know if we see any birds (apparently there are some).

Seventh Son of a Currant Bun

Newtonhill has been fog-bound for the last week, pretty much. Got up early this morning and saw it wasn't too bad out there, so headed for a walk round the patch and a bit of a seawatch. Patch was quiet. As I went down to the cliffs.... hmmm, the harr was a bit thicker down here... a bit of a seawatch, and I could see a bit of the sea, the bit that was very close to the land. Visibility was down to 100 m, which is bad even for my attempts at recording seabird passages. Still saw a few 'pairs' of Sandwich tern ad + juv, a Common Tern, and a couple of juvvy Razorbills, and a few Common Gulls. Resolved to come back later when the harr had burnt off.

btw thanks to Menzie for pointing out this thread on BirdForum http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=64086
Oi! No!

Got back later, and there's a fresh southerly wind, and I can see for miles (hurrah!) but (boo!) there's a bit of heat haze. It starts off slow (a Manx Shearwater south, and a few Gannets). In fact I start to think maybe I'm facing the wrong way. Then it occurs to me there's a bit of a passage of Common Gulls going on - normally I'd see a couple and won't bother mentioning it. But between 17.45 and 1900, there's 52 gone south, and probably more cos they were very close in and over my head with a stream of Kittiwakes, so when it was eyes down for distant goodies, I would have missed a lot of them. Nealry all adults and only a couple of juvs. Other things, another Manx Shearwater (that makes 2... glad I didn't leave my tally counter at home :-$), 2 Great Skuas north and one south. Actually, it was one adult south, one north, then one south in wide looping arcs.... let's face it, it was probably the same bird, but I'll record it as 3 not 1, otherwise I have to start playing guessing games with everything else too, and life's too short. 37 Gannets south, 2 north, 4 Common Terns south, 7 Arctic Terns and 19 'commics'. Many apologies for my appalling id rate on the terns, but the heat haze was very bad.... errrr... and actually I'm blind so I had to identify them in braille.

There were loads of waders heading south too - don't you just hate waders on seawatches? Apart from phalaropes. I thought I had a phalarope this evening, but it was a jizz id in the haze, so will never mention it again; got away. And it would have been a patch tick too. 6 Sanderlings . 3 Whimbrel*, 15 Curlews, 9 Redshanks, 80 Oystercatchers and 4 'small unidentified waders'. I looked up 'small unidentified waders' in Shorebirds, but can't find them. eh?

3 White-beaked Dolphins - my first of the autumn. Huzzah! and twenty pounds for the King! Lovely. Not birds though. August is our peak month for them, so looking forward to dolphin-fest.

*Little known fact... Whimbrels (in their colloquial guise of 'seven-whistlers') are one of the few species of bird to appear in Iron Maiden's back catalogue of noisy head-banging songs. From the album 'Seventh Son of a Seventh Son', can't remember the name of the song but it goes something like

Suffering and pain, impending disaster
Souls cry, the devil's laughter
Heard the cry of the seven-whistlers
Lucifer smiles, and hell awaits

tbh, I can't remember if Lucifer smiles or Lucifer cries. Either way, it's probably not good news. That I remember this much at all is probably not a good thing. I was a teenage dirtbag baby...

Letterbox

So, as usual this evening I was sat in front of a roaring log fridge, with Mrs Doc, perusing my copy of Cage and Aviary Birds. I don't keep birds, but it's nice to stay in touch with what's being bought and sold these days (Arctic Redpolls this week ffs!!!!!!!!). Sure you can imagine that it's rare for me to find a genuinely funny letter in there, but today there was. Here goes:

Aussie Bird Scarer
For bird keepers having problems with sparrowhawks, I discovered that Peter Andre, the suntanned Aussie warbler, was an effective deterrant. Unfortunately, Mr Andre declined an invitation to patrol my aviary, to bird-scare by flexing his pectorals. So instead I have fixed his CDs vertically on each corner of the aviary roof, supergluing two CD discs together. As the object is to scare, not to terrify, the label with Mr Andre's profile is obscured. The rapid flashing light reflection stops every trespass from cats, sparrowhawks and other wild birds, and also efficiently dazzles the bifocal lady at number 34 who peers over the fence.
I don't want to single out Peter Andre for the credit; the same effect can be obtained from those freebie CDs that prevent you rolling up newspapers any more, such as Mega Hits from the Eighties Nobody Can Remember, Love Ballads You Thought You Had Seen the Back Of and free movies which usually star a cast of deceased actors and Michael Caine before he started shaving. All those digital recordings that would have gathered dust in a studio, and now gather dust on your book case, can at last be put to good use!

Bill Naylorof Lincolnshire - I salute you as a wit of our time. I'm inspired to get a collection of pet birds. Think I'll start off with a Pine Grosbeak, a Mugimaki Flycatcher and errrr.... a Booted Eagle.

Cage and Aviary Birds costs £1.30 weekly and is available from all good newsagents and the crappy WH Smiths in Union Street, Aberdeen, that didn't even stock Birdwatch this month.

Lest we forget, part whatever

Here's a treat. 16th May 1993. For reasons that I won't divulge just yet, 3 of us are at St Abb's Head (Scotland). Casually lift my bins to check out a couple of terns flying over Mire Loch. King Ell! Put this in your pipe and smoke it!

That was the first of two times when I've got my name in the BB rarities report without submitting a description. Actually, I'm a bit uneasy about it now.... 1993 was a more innocent age - Elsie (the long-staying Lesser Crested Tern on the Farne Islands) was still living a few miles to the south, and it was fair to assume that any yellow-billed sarnie was her. These days, orange*-billed tern identification has gone totally nuts.

*by 'orange', I include yellow, yellow-orange, orange-yellow, orange, orange-red, orange-and-yellow, and dirty yellow.

With Elegant, Cayenne, aberrant Sandwich, and all the hybrids thrown into the mix, I guess it's inevitable that one day they'll all be reviewed, and I suspect our 'fly-by' will be lucky to survive the cut. It was Elsie though, I recognised her moult cycle, or something.

And more shame, more confession.... why were we in the area??? remember how I said twitching a Common Rosefinch was shameful? Well cop a load of this.

Good eh? At the time it didn't even feel like an insurance tick, but what's this?
Ryabitsev & Wilson, 1999. Range extension of Long-tailed Rosefinch into the Western Palearctic. Brit. Birds 92: 498-503.
Ker-ching! They breed in the WP and are on a flight line for spring-overshooting to NW Europe. Someone should tell BOURC. Hey, wait a minute! I'm 'aving that.
Just goes to show, if you really want to know what's going on, read British Birds.

The Power of Procrastination

That's the problem with blogs, I'm learning - they're a great way to waste time. Right now, I'm *meant* to be writing an inciteful and thought provoking piece about Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (it's going to kick butt, if ever I get round to it), or an inciteful and thought provoking piece about identification of Iberian Chiffie (that's been on my desk for 2 years), or failing that... gulls (sob! don't even go there, it's not like I do). Instead, I'm messing about in blogs. It's worse than that, though, because if you enter a time warp of writing blogs, you go into Dr Who country of parallel universes once you start reading other peoples'. You'll notice I've added some links recently. Fraser's birding blog has too many creepy crawlies in it, but his experiences in Ayrshire remind me of my old days in West Lothian when you'd turn up to your favourite wildlife site one morning in June and find it demolished to make way for another warehouse. Happy days! From Fraser's blog you can jump into his other half's contribution, Girlbirder http://www.girlbirder.co.uk/ which is mercifully creepy-crawly free.

One I haven't linked to... although I think everyone else has, is Birdchick. http://www.birdchick.com/blog.html

I like that blog.. it starts well...

"To show the world that you can be a birder without being a geek..."

That's a very bold assertion , Sharon, I hope you can back it up...

"...I have the coolest job on the planet with Eagle Optics, I practically get paid to go bird watching..."

Count me in....

" and love to share my birding adventures and life with my disapproving rabbits."

Doh!! You couldn't back it up, could you? Let it go Birdchick.... there's nothing wrong with being a geek. Come, join us....

Dead (Common) Shrews. How? I found 5 today on my wander round the patch. All on the paths. That's a good score even for me. I'm not killing them, honest. It was good though, because normally I can't decide whether to eat them there and then, or to take them home as 'pets' for Lizzie's dolls, and fry them in a couple of days. Today I had enough to do both. Mmmm tasty.

Birding exploits won't detain you long today. Won't even bore you. Offshore the creche of Common Eiders was 2 females with 5 young - now over half-sized and probably too big for the gulls to eat. Actually in 4 years at Newtonhill, I've never seen any Eider ducklings last this long.

Wasn't expecting anything offshore, but as I eventually sat down for a look round (10.40! lazy) there was a layer of mist retreating and some showers, and for a few minutes it was all happening. In 3/4 hour I saw 16 Manx Shearwaters south, 2 north, 110 Northern Gannets south, 41 north, 1 Great Skua north and 1 south (actually suspect it will have been the same bird, but I'll count it as two cos it looks better), 1 pale Arctic Skua (that was definitely different, eh?), 2 Common Terns, 2 Arctic Terns and 2 Sandwich Terns. 100s Kittiwakes going south (all these things will be just feeding movements), plenty Puffins, Guillemots, Razorbills back and forth, and a few Fulmars. The Arctic Skua was aggressively sinking Puffins, which is a bit harsh. Pick on someone your own size.

That enormous dolphinarium that is the North Sea produced 2 Bottle-nosed Dolphins. Been a slow cetacean year at Newtonhill so far, but I'll see if a tin of sardines or two can change that in August.

Hippy Burpday

It was our Peter's second birthday today, so we let him out of the cellar for the afternoon and took him to Stonehaven for half an ice cream. This is the beach at Stonehaven - how many species can you spot?


Evening - Peter safely back in the cellar, I went for a seawatch... Look - here it is


But then it disappeared

Saw 42 Manx Shearwaters going north in the mist between 17.50 and 19.00, and ONE Arctic Skua attaching Kittiwakes. (100s Kittiwakes going south, including about 1% first summers). Eventually got some photos of very distant Guillemot with attendent juvenile, when it cleared up.
Try not to be too impressed.

Oi! No!

Gather round... on Sunday I distinctly remember warning of the perils of misidentifying baby Guillemots as Little Auks. In fact I'm pretty sure I advised against it, and against putting the news out on BirdGuides. Well my Spider-senses are suggesting to me that someone out there might not have been listening, cos THIS appeared on Birdguides today.
I was out again this afternoon, and saw three 'Little Auks'. You can tell they're not really Little Auks by the way they are being fed by adult Guillemots. Nuff said for now, but I'll continue to scan Birdguides, like Santa looking for naughty boys.

Not surprisingly for a baking July afternoon, I struggled a bit with birds today. To celebrate the deletion of Moustached Warbler from the British List, I saw an adult Sedge Warbler with a 'moustache', and eventually managed to chivvy a few Common Whitethroats, Goldfinches, Blackbirds etc. out of hiding along the Elsick Burn, but it was hard work. There was a fresh juvvy Goldfinch, and a Blackbird with a faecal sac, so secret breeding continues apace.

In the days of my youth, when life was a constant series of attempts to postpone boredom (i.e. pre-kids, when I had free time) I was an all-round naturalist who knew all about flowers, butterflies, liverworts, and all that crap. The Lizzie and Peter popped out, and I had zero time to do anything, so had to focus on what the Chairman of Zeneca would call my 'core-competences', i.e. what I'm best at... which in my case is pontificating about birds. So I've pretty much spent the last 5 years only doing birds, and all that wildlife that gets in the way of decent views of nice birds has had to go tickle (and that's swearing). And let's face it.... I'm very good at pontificating. ButI still know a butterfly when I see one, so I was surprised today to see 2-3 Dark-green Fritillaries flying up and down the Elsick Burn. Been here 4 years and they were a patch tick - pretty certain I would have seen them if they'd been around in previous years. Kind-of at the edge of their range, but nice to see.

Tried looking affshore for 45 minutes from 3.15, but not surprisingly v quiet. The sea was flat calm and I thought maybe I could jusat scan around and wait for the Minke Whales and White-beaked Dolphins to swim past. Turned out I was wrong. Are 2 Sandwich Terns and 1 Common Tern worth mentioning? The Kittiwakes have had a bumper breeding season so far, with about 50 nests hoaching with well grown young, but as I said before, doesn't seem to be that many young Guillemots (saw 4 on cliffs). And of course those 3 BABY GUILLEMOTS on the sea, with the adults.

Birding under the influence

Flushed with enthusiasm for freezing my swonnicles atop the cliffs, I spent another couple of hours staring blankly offshore this evening. Well worth it for flights of hundreds of auks (3 spp) alone, and also lots of Puffins sat close inshore. Wasn't the shearwater-fest of yesterday, but 42 Manxies tonight going north is still half-decent (sad but true). :-( They were belting past too, with a SSW airstream behind them. I got really bored at times... there was a single Arctic Skua north and a single Great Skua south, but they didn't have the decency to spread themselves out. I was watching the Arctic Skua heading north after a Kittiwake, when the Great Skua went south through my field of view, so I tracked that and lost the Arctic. In less than a minute it was over, whereas if the Great Skua had held off a while I'd have had two minutes of relative pleasure instead of one. Don't knock it... with 2 li'l kids I have to snatch at any moment of pleasure that life affords. :-) Also 76 Northern Gannets errrr... north, 3 Arctic terns, south + 8 Common Scoters south. 2 female or imm Red-breasted Mergansers going south at the head of a line of Guillemots was another brief pleasure (surprisingly infrequent here, I only see them occasionally on seawatches), as were 6 Bar-tailed Godwits heading south with Curlews. Just as I was giving up to head back for hame, another pale skua came through heading directly towards me, and it looked Pom-my, and then it turned after a Kittiwake and it WAS a Pom! Fantastic! Nice adult. Smashed into the Kittiwake, just once, then carried on its way. I love it when a plan comes together.

I think the heavy storms we had a week or so ago took a heavy toll on Guillemot chicks. I mean it killed them, just to avoid any confusion. But today I saw my first of this year on the water, looking like a Little Auk next to its dad. Martin's top-tip for Sunday.... please do not report baby Guillemots to BirdGuides as Little Auks. They're not...they're baby Guillemots. I'd love to be the County Recorder reading those descriptions... ' The bird was estimated to be about half the size of the Guillemot with which it was associating...'. That's because it was a baby Guillemot. Oi! Dudes! Nooo!

Jumping Fish!

Well, it's been a tough few weeks but now I've got a week off. Hurrah! With the wind blowing from the sea I could smell rotting fish and hear burping Puffins from my back garden, so sneaked away for an hour's seawatching at tea time. Lovely blue sea, light perfect, sun behind, nice and warm etc etc. Sit down and within a couple of minutes there's 27 Manx Shearwaters gone past. Don't laugh, west-coast birders, but that is actually quite good for here. So it's eyes down for scarce shearwaters, still need Cory's for my patch list and this is the time for them. Then as so often happens, things quieten down, then they liven up. Whichever, by 7 pm I've had 188 Manxies go past north - not stratospheric, but for Newtonhill, not bad. Also 2 Common Scoters going north. Males, as you asked. 1 Common Tern south, and 11 Common Teals, came north, turned round, went south a bit and landed on the sea. Not sure what all that was about. Then 2 dark phase Arctic Skuas harrassing a Kittiwake until it coughed up its guts - fantastic display close inshore. That was all, to be honest, but let's be clear - summer doldrums are over, seawatching is back and we are game on for the autumn. C'mon!
[This is the bit where I do my scientist victory dance that involves pretending to stir a big cauldron slowly with two hands while gyrating my bum in an uncoordinated manner and nodding my head in time to imaginary banging dance music. I'm doing it right now, in my pants].

Oh yeh, and there were a few fish that kept jumping out of the water. Fools.

I remember (vaguely related to above) when I got my first scope (1987 - still at school). It was a Bushnell Spacemaster and I felt like the bees knees. Went for a seawatch off the Great Orme, Llandudno, where I lived, and saw a Great Skua attacking a Kittiwake just offshore, The skua was a tick as well. Walked home feeling 7 feet tall.

So raise the Scarlet Grosbeak high....

Ohmygod I can't believe I did this... maybe I should show a bit of self-respect, but (come closer, I don't want to shout...that's it, closer, closer, NOT THAT CLOSE!!!) today I twitched a Common Rosefinch. Having previously sneered with disdain at such low-listing-type behaviour as twitching non BB rares, but there you go. I'm a hypocrite, sue me. But I had an excuse... this is a red one! And sooo close to home as well - Newmachar, just north of Aberdeen, it would be churlish not to. So there I was, and I get out of the car and I'm wolf-whistled. Don't like to boast, but my new glasses do give my a certain panache, but wait! I'm being wolf-whistled by a Common Rosefinch. Is that allowed? So out in the open, in some bushes behind the Newmachar Hotel, it's 'pee-pee WHIEEEE YEUUU!! Astonishingly loud and piercing, and a Common Rosefinch singing. A grotfinch that's fallen in a paint tin (Poppy Red, btw). Very erythrinus, even. I had pre-prepared all sorts of pseudo-cool statements like 'pah, bit showy, give me an autumn juvvy any day' etc., but they were kind-of forgotten. Have to admit, give me my grotfinches in 'red-with-volume' ANY day of the week. Crown, face, chin, throat, upper breast red red red, very bright. Bit of a browner bandit mask around the eyes. Upperparts medium buff suffused with more red, and a reddy pink rump. Median covert bar was thin and white, stood out. Very mobile - kept flying off to the medium distance, but could easily be tracked by its song. At one point it fed at the side of the road with some Greenfinches - argh! Colour clash! Looked awful. Now it would have looked really good next to a Great Tit, or even a Siberian Blue Robin. Actually, I think I'd look good stood next to a Siberian Blue Robin - must try it one day. Anyway, you get the drift.

Before I leave the subject, I have to mention this.
Ian Wallace is has sometimes been criticised, perhaps unfairly, for his exuberance in the matter of writing descriptions of rare birds; but history will list him as one of ther Heroes of the Revolution, and you cannot criticise his ability to see and think on a big scale, and to communicate his ideas. One of the best things he ever wrote was this paper in British Birds (1999; BB 92, 445-471) charting the history of rosefinches in Britain and Ireland. It's a lesson in descriptive writing, and very interesting too.
'Taken into account all records, it appears that a peculiarly dynamic species of finch is throwing itself at Britain and Ireland at an uneven but growing rate.'
'The usually amorphous finch with beady eye and plaintive song will continue to present one of the most startling and enigmatic performances of all Palearctic passerines' etc.
Urge you to beg, steal or borrow a copy of this paper. If you ask nicely I'll even take a copy round to your house*
(*offer applies to immediate Newtonhill area only).

Back to matters current, and even as I was being sexually harrassed by the Red Grotfinch I was aware that there was a freshish south-easterly wind with drizzle and bits of mist, and that it would also be a good idea to be back in Newtonhill looking out to sea. Can't be in two places at once, but I CAN drive from the one to the other, so I did. By 9.15 I was back on the cliffs at Newtonhill. Errr. OK. There were lots of auks (3 spp) flying south with fish and a few hundred Gannets with fish and plastic bags, fishing nets, etc. But 45 minutes and 10 Manx Shearwaters later, I was starting to wonder if there was honey still for tea. I was really starting to wonder if we had any bacon left in the fridge (God's way of telling you to go home). The light was against me too. I tried to amuse myself looking at a family of recently fledged Carrion/Hoodie Crow dysgenic hybrids, but in the end decided to head for home and go out again later. Eugh, you've made me think of honey now. Hate honey. And the word 'mellifluous' - is there a nastier word in English? I doubt it. Rubbish seawatch - wish I was on Cape Clear for August. Except I'd miss my wife and kids obviously. (Sorry dear didn't see you standing behind me there). The when evening came, it was raining, so I didn't want to go out again! How rubbish is that? Twitches rosefinches, but only goes out if it's dry.

Slik D2 lightning conductor pt 2

Back out this evening for another look at the sea. I stopped counting Gannets and Fulmars etc., because there weren't enough of them... but 6 Black-tailed Godwits flying south were almost a patch tick (seen one previously, also on a seawatch).

Heinrich Gaetke 1814-1897

Heroes of the Revolution, Part 2

Try and imagine wavy lines on your monitor and kind of 'woo woo' music as I take you back in time to the days when the Britain thought it owned half the World, and it was kind-of OK to help yourself to any bit of rock with some military significance you took a fancy to. Yes, back in the days when Heligoland really was called Heligoland, 'borrowed' by and subsequently ceded to Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, a 23 year old budding artist called Heinrich Gätke came ashore in 1837, and shortly afterwards starting shooting birds and recording what was on the island. He pretty much stuck to the task until his death in 1897 , and his researches were the first systematic site-based study of migration and vagrancy. He wrote a book, in German first, then translated in 1895 as 'Heligoland: an ornithological observatory'. Surprisingly it is still not that difficult to find, if you are prepared to pay £40-80 via abebooks or something. Well worth getting, mostly for the systematic list that includes more rarities than you can shake a stick at and some fantastic stories to boot. So, Grey Catbird, Brown Thrasher, Moussier's Redstart, Hermit Thrush, Black-throated Green Warbler, Eastern Crowned Leaf-Warbler and many more are recorded here - too much to list. Gaetke appears to have started, or encouraged, an industrial scale bird slaughter by small boys armed with sticks, stones and blow-pipes, and there was bird trade and almost certainly fraud. Lots of these records don't sound gen to me, although I understand that the Helgoland Records Committee is reviewing many, if not all of the old records, and I'll be interested to see what survives the cull. What do you make of this...

American Pipit (i.e. American Buff-breasted Pipit)
The first of these birds was shot on 6th November 1851 by a native gunner, whose attention was attracted by the, to him, unknown call note of the bird. It was an individual in fresh autumn plumage. The second was killed on the 17th May 1858 by the merest accident. A boy begged a shooter to let him fire a shot from his gun; he pointed the latter at one of the many Pipits that were running about, killing one which proved to be a female of this species in beautiful spring plumage.

To me, the first is just about plausible, although an extrmely sharp spot to pick out the call. The second has to be lies lies lies. Not Gaetke's lies, but I think he's been had.

Perhaps the most interesting parts of Gaetke's work are the recording of what to us are enormous numbers of common and even scarce migrants - flocks of 50+ Richard's Pipits regularly in the mid-1800s for example, that there seems to be no reason to doubt. For a man who spent so much time looking at birds, he didn't seem to get much right in his theories of migration strategy, and moult, but he was one of the giants upon which subsequent migration studies and sites were built. 'From Heligoland to the Humber' was his battlecry (of sorts) - he could see birds were crossing the North Sea and corresponded with Eagle-Clarke and others in Britain. Would Fair Isle have happened without Heligoland?

As you'll see from the photo (in the post above, for some reason I can't paste it in here) - he was no oil painting. Whereas a teenage birdwatcher of appropriate gender and inclination might feel a bit of a frisson, a stirring, a je ne sais quoi , locked up in a hostel on Fair Isle for a week with the Duchess of Bedford (below), I doubt whether you would get the same pleasure birding with Gaetke. In fact I'm pretty certain there must be worms in that coat. Nevertheless, his observations informed and motivated an entire generation of birders across Europe, established the credibility of 'isolated rock' as the bauplan, the archetype, for a successful bird observatory, and initiated the modern bird-finding mindset. for this, Heinrich Gätke I name you a Hero of the Birding Revolution, 1st Class

Slik D2 lightning conductor

Not a lot of birds to report this week. grrrrr.... I was out nice n' early this morning though. I guess we're in the summer doldrums, but I could smell the ozone and hear the call of the sea - not long til the seawatching starts again. Anyway, there I was outdoors on a warm morning. that much is good. I was watching a Sedge Warbler hopping along the stones at the side of the Elsick burn, picking out low-flying flies, and made the mistake of trying to record the moment through the medium of biro artwork. BIG mistake. Possible the worst drawing of a Sedge Warbler ever undertaken. When time heals the shame, I'll scan it and put it on. Plagues of House Sparrow families, + Sedge Warblers, Whitethroats, Dunnock etc. If I was of that aesthete temperament, I'd suggest that life was bursting up through the mud. Good job I'm not. So basically quiet, and down in Newtonhill Bay there was a family of Mallards (mum + 3 6/8 size duckling trying to get away from me on wee stmupy wings), and a half-baked creche of Eiders (6 kids and three ad females). A few Kittiwakes resting on rocks, and a lone clap of thunder in the distance. I guess a lone clap is better than a single herpe. So I get to my usual seawatching spot, and there isn't really a lot happening - Kittiwakes, a few Gannets going south, Fulamrs, 3 spp auks etc. 1 (yes, i counted) Sandwich Tern. The suddenly there is an enormous thunderclap, and another, and there's lightning all over the shop, and I'm on an exposed rocky outcrop with 2 m of metal tripod sticking in the air. That was too much excitement for me and I headed home. It was BUCKETING down, and me in my usual Y-fronts etc, not prepared. Didn't see much else.