Jockeys and Horses

My pal Lynne and her husband Robin were at Aviemore for the weekend, and they took this lovely scenic picture of Loch Morlich, which they knew would appeal to me. And it does... so beautifully composed, with the ripples and the hills and everything, and the shagging ducks.

Robin once invited me out for a dirty weekend to Barcelona, but I refused because I thought Lynne would find out and be cross. Then he claimed he meant to email Lynne (email bns239@) and not me (bns230@), but none of us really believe that.

I suppose I should tell you about the birding in Newtonhill on Sunday morning, but there's a bit of a repetitive theme going on. There had been a bit of movement overnight though - I kept bumping into small parties of Goldcrests that had not been here on Saturday evening, and also Coal Tits. I can go weeks without seeing a Coal Tit here, but on Sunday there were several newly around. 3 Blackcaps in the elders at the top of the St Ann's track, and another 6 in the Mill Garden - good score. A Common Chiffchaff in the sycamores before the railway bridge was a nice crisp one with a good super and was probably albietinus.

A hint of eastern promise from the allotments - a Lesser Whitethroat in the willows. Quite a typical dark one... not warm rufous or particularly pale or any of that rubbish. Egad! That my first of the autumn! Unfortunately it was a nice warm day (Red Admirals and Painted Ladies on the wing), so the gardeners were out and I was getting the evil eye, so moved on.

I had to get down to the Water Valley (Brambling over, but only 1 Redwing), but when I got there it was very disappointing. 1 Goldcrest - and then that flew away! All very relaxing I guess, and certainly birds on the move, but I'm starting to think my autumn peaked with YbW.

Atricapillarama

First things first. I repeat I do not particularly want to see any bird harmed... but I have to admit I did find this the teeensiest bit funny. Even if not funny, it has to be the best Note ever printed in BB. I would have paid good money to see that. Brit. Birds 60, 304-5 (1967)

I went out on Thursday pm round Newtonhill, but it was a bit of a wash-out - I was soaked. for the sake of 2 Blackcaps at the top of the track, and a Dipper on the Elsick Burn. Got home and stuck my army coat in the hallway to moulder, and scope in the cupboard.

Today, Saturday, out playing with the kiddies in the back garden, listening for rocking Phylloscopi, when a skein of 35 Pink-footed Geese approach from the north, calling. Aha, thinks me, I'll nip in get my scratched bins and maybe an atmospheric recording of pinkies flying over via RememBird. Bins up, and bloody hell, the one at the front is a Canada Goose. Patch tick! That might sound stupid to pampered birders with crappy boating lake patches in Manchester or such-like, but they're a bit of a rarity here. Then I remember.... shit! We've split them! Oh, the irony! Now I'm going to lose my patch tick if I can't identify this goose, 800 m up, against a blue sky. Bollocks. Well, actually, it's noticably bigger than the pinkies. Not hugely bigger, but definitely bigger. That'll have to do. I'll call it a Greater Canada Goose...

I'm inspired to go out round the patch before tea. Ach! My coat is still wet, but I put it on anyway in the hope it'll dry. Ach! again! and argh!!!! moreover Aieeeeeee!!!! My scope has got water in. And not for the first time. I've warned it before, but this really is the last straw. You know the bit in Fawlty Towers where Basil loses patience with his car and goes off to find a big stick to hit it with? (Non-UK based bloggees might not know about this - it's really very funny). Well, that was me. I thrashed it and thrashed it. Scratched bins and a scope full of rainwater. Marvellous. I took my scope apart and left it on the radiator, and went out without it.

Fortunately (?) it wasn't needed. 3 perfidious Blackcaps and a single Goldcrest in the elders at the top of the track gave false hope of things being about, but the Mill Garden had only 1 more Blackcap, and some concerted pishing, clapping, booting and throwing stones only forced one Common Chiffchaff out of hiding. Ooooh, how much do I wish it had been a Radde's?? Still need that, and very jealous of this http://skills-bills.co.uk/2006.htm and this http://willsadlib.blogspot.com/2006/10/raddes-warbler.html
It was downhill from there, if that were possible, but to my credit I did keep going til dusk, which is a bit of a rarity for me. Clear night tonight, so I hope some birds are on the move. Inwards, I mean. There's not a lot left to move out.

Evening. I've ordered a new scope. A waterproof one. :-)

A Composition of my own...

... i call this 'Skiving from work in A-minor'. A sensitive and daring opus that I return to time and time again, constantly remoulding it for the emotion of the time. A rapid circuit of Newtonhill, turning up a Brambling in St Ann's, 5 Blackcaps and a Garden Warbler in the Mill Garden. It will have been the Same garden Warbler as Sunday's. In fact it was on the same branch. I suspect it's either extremenly full, or dead. Possibly both. Or drunk. Actually, when I came back later it had moved a bit, so not dead. But quite possibly drunk on elderberries. And who can blame it. A Common Chiffchaff in the gardens of the clifftop cottages.

Fancy smancy stuff

OK, just to be big and clever... this is what I did with that RememBird thingy I'm trying out. Got a recording of the Yellow-browed as it flitted away. Here it is... thanks to putfile... unedited version of martin trying to get his whole family onto a fast moving Yellow-browed. Listen for it squeaking between me saying "It's just tekken off tha' way", and "There!"

Click here to hear 'Yellow-browed-Warbler'

Then I made a sonagram of its squeak (thanks to Avisoft SASLabLite) and compared it to the sonagram in the new 'Sound Approach to Birding' (by Mark Constantine and the Sound Approach).

Not rocket science... but it shows the way things are going.

And here's a picture of it...

Breakdown

We all come in from the cold
We come down from the wire
An everybody warms themselves
to a different fire
When sometimes we get burned
You'd think sometime we'd learn
The one you love is the one
That should take you higher
You ain't got no one
You better go back out and find 'em

Ah yes. The words of Axl Rose in the G n' R song Breakdown. You'd be surprised how often I think of those lyrics when out birding, or not out birding, or coming back from birding, or just going out. Not that they are particularly insightful, but after a few hours in the field seeing bugger all, you have to remind yourself that good birds don't fly in front of the telly in your living room, if you haven't seen one, you have to get back out and find one. Hold that thought while I ramble on about today.

Looked good first thing in Newtonhill after 2 days of southeasterlies. Not too windy to bird properly, unlike Wednesday. Flushed a few Redwings almost immediately, then a couple of Song Thrushes, and as I got down to the Elsick Burn there were about 15 Blackbirds in the elderberries and 3 Mistle Thrushes flying over. Errr... OK, I'll take thrushes then.

Walk down to the beach wasn't the highlight of my birding career. Plenty Robins, few Goldcrests. Raptors were busy, with 3 Buzzards hanging in the wind over Cran Hill, 2 Kestrels coming through calling, and a Peregrine making a few passes over. The Elders in the Mill garden held a male Blackcap (good) and a Garden Warbler (better - second patch record, although the first was long overdue when I got it this spring). Sorry, this photo is hand-held.

Poor photo of Garden Warbler in errr.... a garden

Four Ruddy Turnstones on the rocks off the beach, with 3 Bloody Rock Pipits and 1 Bollocking Pied Wagtail.

Holy Sylvias - to the bat-allotments, Robin. CAn ANYONE explain to me why this
...is not heaving with interesting passerines? Mind, I saw some good sheds. Gor blimey, I need a good shed. Stick it in the back garden, fill it with old half empty tins of paint, and bottles of Brasso, and drill bits for drills that broke years ago, and retire there until the kids are leaving home. Or until I've drunk all thre Brasso

The Joy of Sheds

More Blackbirds, Goldcrests etc. down the Muchalls Track, and 6 Yellowhammers. Water Valley was a write-off again, so I braved Muchalls. I have to say that Muchalls really did look the donkey's today, with Sycamores thinning enough to get a proper look into them, and occasional loose groups of Goldcrests and Tits moving through - had high hopes of a Yellow-browed. Sadly not to be. Still haven't seen anything decent in Muchalls. Retraced my steps back to Newtonhill, adding Reed Bunting to the day list, but by this time the Muchalls Track had become a motorway of dog-walkers, joggers, retired couples out for a stroll, and other ne'er-do-wells. Someone even mistook my tripod for a rod and started singing 'Gone Fishing'!! ffs! As you know, I try to control my misanthropic tendencies, but I do wish people would just leave me the hell alone! :-0 ;-)

So, back home with only really a Garden Warbler to show for it, and the words of Axl Rose ringing in my ears about going back out and finding something, you'd expect me to be out birding in the afternoon too. Well, no. Rounded up the family and we went out to Maccie D's for food in a box and plastic toys, then a trip to the bookshop (I got 'A People's Tragedy' by Orlando Figes , about the Russian Revolution), and HMV (Wednesday 13 'Fang Bang'). Wasn't sure about Wednesday 13. Downloaded a song from the last album about walking with zombies... and it rocked! But i've got bitten by that sort of thing before. e.g. Taking Back Sunday - heard a good single by them on telly, and downloaded their cover of Cure's 'Just Like Heaven'. Wow, thought I, good band, so forked out for their latest album, and it was shite! Apart from that good single. I listened a couple of times and put it away for good. Except the other day I was watching Kerrang and their good single came back on, and I thought 'they are a good band, must give that album another chance', which I did, and it was still shite! Anyway, I'm listening to Wednesday 13 right now... and it rocks! Such an 80s sound. I digress.

SOooooo, we got home about 4 pm, and I thought I could maybe see what footie is on tv today. But argh!! Noo.... Lizzie and Peter want to play outside, so I'm dragged out into the garden to draw pictures of 'Boo' in chalk on the patio, and push Pea-brain round on his scooter.
And as I'm engaging in these delights (!) suddenly I heard a volley of whistles from the shelter belt at the back of the garden 'seeouuueee seeouuueee seeouuueee'. F*ck. 'Yellow-browed Warbler!' I shouted at Diane and ran into the house for bins. For all I know, Peter was on his side, crying in the the tangled wreckage of his scooter, (I'd let him go a bit suddenly) but he wasn't my immediate concern. By the time I got back outside, it had stopped calling, but I got onto it deep inside a bushy Elder - two big wingbars flashing at me. I moved round an had some brief views of the rest of it as it moved through the trees, fortunately at low level so Ii got the supercilium, uppers and unders etc. It headed down out of sight towards the road, so I ran out of the garden to head it off at the pass, at the bottom of the tree belt. When I got there, there was no sign, but there was a Common Chiffchaff, which just goes to show there must have been a bit of migration happening. I headed back to our garden, where about 20 min later the Y-b W turned up again, calling, and I got another brief look before dusk.

Apart from having that smug feeling that only the dedicated patch watcher can experience after finally turning up a half-decent bird after weeks of trawling the same circuit seeing nowt, I'm especially smug cos I always thought that belt of trees looked good for a Y-b W one calm October day, and it was! AND a patch tick, starting to redress the balance of those unusually common Pallas's I can't help finding.

Oh yes..... finally! I saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Are you watching this Cornell and Auburn... THIS is proof.

Save us, Oh Lord, from the fury of the Norsemen

Vikings!

So the kids woke up this morning, and they were hungry and wanted fed and all that, and I had to go out to the garage for some more milk. Open the back door and the garden explodes! Metaphorically. About 60 Redwings head off in all directions at speed, and there's a stream of them overhead, going inland. Looks like the Redwings are in, then. There was a stiff south-easterly blowing, so I changed my plans, took the day off... and went out birding. C'mon! :-)

So I guess Redwings were the dish of the day. I went down my usual circuit along to the beach, back into Newtonhill, then down to Muchalls. In the first few minutes after dawn there were hundreds of Redwings streaming over, but by about 9 am they had slowed to a trickle and by 10 I was mostly flushing singles from brambles etc. Reckon they must have kept going inland.

You'd hope that they'd be kept company by all sorts of other interesting things, but largely that wasn't the case. There was only 1 Goldcrest down the track to the beach, for example, and maybe a few more Blackbirds than normal, but not many more. As I ploughed through the bracken to the lone sycamores down the beach track, I flushed a Pheasant, for another heart attack. About 10 Robins (normal), few Wrens, etc. Won't bore you with what was going on at the beach (remember this is the bloody North Pole, in October, so it didn't involve nudey sunbathing), but a 30 min seawatch was OK. A Black-throated Diver (second patch record) was the star, going south with 2 Red-throated Divers. 4 Great Skuas north, and 2 Arctic Skuas. 40 Common Scoters (5 north, 35 south), and 8 Common Goldeneyes south. There were about 600 Gannets north per hour, smaller numbers of auks, a few Kittiwakes and 1 Fulmar.

Small flocks of Redwings were still coming in off the North Sea. Not kidding... one of them came in just over the waves and landed on the rocks below me for a rest. That is SUCH a cliché!! Obviously, I wouldn't wish any bird actual harm, but if ever a bird deserved to die of shame... well there you are.

Allotments - how can somewhere so that looks so good be so dead? Roe Deer in the gorse by the Muchalls Track - how can something so dead look so good? Down a the farmhouse garden along the Muchalls track, I saw my only Fieldfare of the day, and started to seriously flush some Song Thrushes. Normally I'd see maybe 2 Song Thrushes along this stretch... 4 on a good day if I found them all. Today, over 20, and very flighty. Male Blackcap and several Yellowhammers in the Water Valley, but devoid of Yellow-browed Warblers, which always seems an injustice. I pished till I fainted, but the willows would only spew out a couple of Goldcrests. So the day didn't really live up to its early promise, but it was better than a slap in the face with a cold fish. On the way back from Muchalls, a Common Snipe flew in and landed in the stubble by the railway line. Definite late autumn feel. I turned my phone on for the first time in a few days and got two messages from Harry to tell me about the Canada Warbler. Glad he wasn't trying to tell me it was at Cove. I'd have been crapping myself.

Birdspotting in Newtonhill

Jeepers etc. I had a really boring morning trawling round Newtonhill looking for birds. Saw plenty of Dunnocks, though. Actually, in the spirit of international communication, I'll give them their official IOC English name, which is of course, the Dull Prunella. I was mildly embarrassed to see 2 Collared Doves at it like knives on the track up from the Mill, especially when I noticed there was also a condom discarded by the side of the path, too. Blue one. I guess Collared Doves didn't blitzkrieg their way across the Middle East and Europe by practising safe sex. A Common Treecreeper around the clifftop cottages was only my second patch record, but although the Allotments were busy, they were busy with more Dull Prunellas, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Robins and Wrens. Tree Sparrows breed in Muchalls, but one on the wires above the Community Park was my first in Newtonhill - mind it went away fast enough. Plenty of Goldcrests in the gorse down the Muchalls track, but the trees in Water Valley were empty, so took the plunge into Muchalls itself. Argh! The twitching curtains... twitching, twitching, twitching. The smell of nicely upholstered Audis... the gardeners with wheelbarrows full of clippings. No birds. Not my greatest triumph. Hoping for better weather duringthe week.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker....

... is an 'enemy of Freedom', and hangs around with terrorists and murderers. I have proof...

Mind, at least that one is real. This is meant to be secret, but forensic analysis of this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQRvXMVVQBE has revealed that the IBWO in the videos below may be a fake. Make up your own mind.

Unlike the ones in Florida, which are real. But sound like baby deer. I already posted this on BirdForum, but in for a penny etc. Right, 'kent' sound from Florida, clear evidence of presence of IBWO. Left, 'bleat' call of a young White-tailed Deer. Superficially bloody identical.

Deer is from
Acoustics of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Larry W. Richardson; Harry A. Jacobson; Robert J. Muncy; Carroll J. Perkins
Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 64, No. 2. (May, 1983), pp. 245-252.
Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B

'Kent' is from
Hill, G. E., D. J. Mennill, B. W. Rolek, T. L. Hicks, and K. A. Swiston. 2006. Evidence suggesting that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis) exist in Florida. Avian Conservation and Ecology - Écologie et conservation des oiseaux 1(3): 2. [online] URL: http://www.ace-eco.org/vol1/iss3/art2/

Sammy the Shrew... dead but not forgotten

As you know, no one appreciates a dead shrew more than I. I'd forgotten about this, til just now. On Sunday, I was stood at the Mill in the rain, seeing no birds, and with a river of mud and water sloshing around my feet coming down the hill. I was in danger of getting bored, until I noticed a dead Common Shrew being washed down in the flood. In comedy fashion, rolling and tumbling. I laughed like a drain. A happy one. Later, up at the allotments, my wee heart leaped for joy when I saw another dead shrew, but on closer inspection, it turned out to be an onion skin. Is this what the internet is for, or what?

Lunchtime Tuesday - took a walk round Westburn and Victoria Parks, Aberdeen, listening for Yellow-browed Warblers. Not happening, but I did get crippling views of 2 Common Treecreepers, and a Great-spotted Woodpecker. A few Goldcrests too, which is always encouraging. One of the treecreeprs defied common dogma by walking vertically down the tree. I'm disturbed... how will I tell them from Nuthatches now?

Bird the weather

Bird the weather, they say. They presumably didn't say it in bloody Scotland in October. Rain battering against the windows this morning. And I mean TIPPING down. But this was my first chance to get out birding for a week, and quite possible my last for another week - I hate it when the students come back and we have to start doing some work. Not really... I love it! :-) So it was now or never - I birded the weather. I weathered the weather. I wore the weather. Yes, on the plus side, at least my army surplus coat got a long overdue rinse through. Not kidding tho, the water dripping out the bottom of it was grey/yellow like dirty dishwater. Mmmm... maybe I'll be able to let it in the house now.
Still, maybe there might be some migrants brought down? Maybe there were, but not easy to see. 1 Blackcap in the Mill garden, a few Barn Swallows, 1 Goldcrest. A stream of Gannets going north offshore, and plenty gulls, a couple of Sandwich Terns, 25 Red Knots flying past. Actually nothing very interesting, unless you actually were one of those birds. When I got home 4 hours later, I had to stand in the hall while my family laid blotting paper all round the floors and walls before I could come in. *Of course* as soon as I got in, it stopped raining and brightened up. I could have expected that.

And also came home to bad news from the Newtonhill Rare Birds Committee*.
'Dear Martin, the NRBC has examined your record of a Long-tailed Skua offshore on 17th September 2006. Although we sympathise with the difficult circumstances surrounding the observation, the digitally recorded description you submitted did not rule out the possibility of 'f***'! As such we cannot, on this occasion, accept your record. Please be assured that rejection does not imply that a mistake has been made, merely that insufficient details were submitted to confirm the identification. Yours sincerely, NRBC.'

Ah well, you win some, you lose some.

*Actually, I suspect the NRBC is in fact my evil twin brother, Marvin, who only comes out at night.

More IBWO - very sinister

Sorry folks, IBWO exists, but he's turned nasty. From the genius filmaking team that I shall call 'Amy and Tom from St Louis', because that's who they are... a very sinister turn of events.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker! Double knocks and Video!

B*gger me! Stick a fork in me... I'm done.

IBWO confirmed, and he's up to no good!

Ivory-billed Woodpecker claimed in Florida!! No photo!

Well, my scoop obviously spooked them. They published a sanitised version of the story, that removed any reference to the slaying of the last remaining pair. Frankly, I preferred my version. So, if you've been on Mars the last few days... the paper can be found at http://www.ace-eco.org/ with a pdf of the field notes at

http://web6.duc.auburn.edu/academic/
science_math/cosam/departments/biology/
faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/
FieldNotes2006.pdf

Lots of glimpses of what look like Ivory-bills, usually flying off at speed, lots of 'kent' calls that as sonagrams don't absolutely match anything, but are closest to IBWO, and some enormous cavities in trees, many of which are bigger than previously recorded for Pileated, and some bigger than ever recorded for IBWO! Blimey! No photo!

There's a large amount of evidence, and I think you would have to be NUTS to dismiss the possibility that Ivory-bills are holding on. Looking through the field notes, in some ways these are very honest descriptions of the sorts of views you get of fast-moving birds in dense tropical woods. But I think we also have to acknowledge that eyes and memory play tricks, and the naked eye views, silhouettes, blurry binculars (! yes really, you couldn't make it up!) and brief glimpses don't really hold water as acceptable records. In fact there's only two that, if they honestly describe what was seen, come close to being nail-ons. The first is Tyler Hicks 'shopping list' sketch (jelly, oatmeal, skim milk, Dr Pepper, Ivory-billed Woodpecker - couldn't be more American if it tried) where at last someone has seen another field mark... the white dorsal stripes. Presumably a slip, but in the text it mentions them going onto the flanks. If these really were seen as described, and are not an honest mistake, it's an IBWO. The second stonewall sighting it Brian Rolek's 'sketch 92'. IF, again, the sketch describes what was seen, which is a bird flying vertically upward to the tree trunk with the upperwing showing that clearly, then it really has to be IBWO. In fact this is the only rear angle where i really believe the difference from Pileated is clear.

Good on them! Good work.

Things that still confuse me....

A grad student desperate to go to Arkansas to find IWBOs, picks a spot on the map in Florida and finds IBWO within an hour. I know it's Florida, but we aren't actually in f***ing Disneyland are we?

Bad science. It's fine for birding to be bad science - we do that all the time... but it's not fine for science to be bad science. That was my gripe with Fitzpatrick et al. and it still is. Soooo... the most likely explanation for the double knocks is a large woodpecker, and the kent calls, though heavily degraded and difficult to work with are most like IBWO. So why not do a control... few hundred hours of audio analysis in a wet North American wood out of IBWO range, but still full of hunters, canoes, Blue Jays, nuthatches, baby pigeons, and show that the 'kents' and double knocks don't occur. Do Pileateds knock harder when the bark is tight on the tree?

So many holes, so little getting up to them and rummaging about in the litter at the bottom.

Why are they so often identified after being seen badly, flying away at speed? We saw after Arkansas that THIS is the angle where you can mistake Pileateds for Ivory-billed.

Don't you guys even carry binoculars?!!! :-) Or a camera. My granny could have done better!!! :-)

Anyway, I guess it's moot. If these IBWOs are real there will be a photo this winter.

I still think my truth was funnier. Actually, Ii think it's pretty ironic that although we are now virtually certain that the Arkansas video was spurious... the whole episode has kicked off the research programme that might tell us the true status of Ivory-bills in N America. Maybe not classically ironic, before someone jumps on me, but I don't know a better word.

Heroes of the Birding Revolution V - Bernard Tucker

I guess life went at a gentler pace in the old days... Harry Witherby, from 1907 the founder and founding editor of British Birds magazine, limped on until 1943 when, brought out of semi-retirement by the war, the effort did for him. He died. 36 years is, frankly, too long for any Editor, and it's fair to say that BB was sleep-walking. Cometh the hour, etc. a terse note in the next issue of BB that his no. 2, Bernard Tucker, was taking over the editorship for the time being 'in accordance with what I believe to be Mr Witherby's wishes'. !!! Sounds a bit USSR to me. Like Khrushchev succeeded Stalin 'in accordance with Comrade Stalin's wishes' mostly by no one noticing he was doing it.

Bernard Tucker, overgrown public schoolboy, Harrow and Oxford, crumpets and thrashings, was a bit of a firebrand in the birding field, and already a giant before accepting the majesty and authority that came with being Editor of BB - at the time, the SOLE arbiter of acceptance/rejection of all British rarities! Birding since schooldays... kept snakes in his rooms while studying for his zoology degree, worked at Cambridge University for a while (I assume this is where he flirted with communism and learnt to appreciate the benefits of a good purge), returned to Oxford as a Lecturer, and stayed. He was a thinker. And a doer, actually. The 'doing' generally being extraordinarily close observation of birds, alive, in the wild. Taxonomy was one of his fields, and he wrote about subpecies, species boundaries, etc. in a lengthy article in BB that you could probably reprint without revision today and it would STILL be useful. His most widely respected body of work was perhaps the sections on 'Field-characters and General Habits' 'Voice' and 'Habitat' (among other bits and bobs) for The Handbook of British Birds - difficult to appreciate these days quite how revolutionary this was in being broadly accurate(!), and how few people at the time could have written so comprehensively. He was instrumental in founding the British Trust for Ornithology and the Edward Grey Institute; he wrote papers (often for stupidly dull and now forgotten journals); he edited reports, founded bird clubs, and ran them; he was an extraordinary pedant and a stickler for scientific method; he travelled; and at the end he rescued and rejuvenated British Birds.

Real birdwatchers... will have seen recently in British Birds the 'Adios Moustached!' paper, describing the reasons for the deletion of Moustached Warbler from the British List. The Cambridgeshire 1946 record of a pair of birds feeding young came over his desk (as sole arbiter etc.) and he accepted it. It is in his critique of the record (never published in full, but I've read it) that it becomes obvious that he was very troubled. In fact he didn't believe it. In his teeny tiny (but very neat) scrawl, he bangs on about how none of the descriptions fit (that's generally a bit of a no-no for rarity descriptions), or even agree, and he bangs on some more about the nest - he really wanted it found. For anyone who doesn't know, when first seen the adults were feeding young in a bramble bush... at least one of the young could barely fly, and as they got older they started to move away from the brambles and feed around, e.g. coltsfoot. Bernard Tucker knew that the nest must be in the brambles and he also knew that real Moustached Warblers don't nest in brambles, nor do they feed in Coltsfoot. They nest and feed in reeds etc over standing water. The descriptions, habitat and behaviour didn't fit. So why did he accept them? I think it was because Bernie himself had dipped. He'd been on holiday in Scotland (the fool!), and came back to a gaggle of the biggest names in British birding at the time telling him they'd just seen a family of Moustached Warblers. He went for a look a few days later, but they had gone. Tough titty Tucker! I honestly think he accepted the record against his better judgement because it would have looked like sour grapes otherwise. There, I said it.

So, a conscientious man. But he was sick, and was still editing BB on his deathbed. I assume there was some health reason why he wasn't playing some active part in Hitler's downfall, and hence was free to take over BB in 1943. Mail me if anyone knows what his illness was. He died in 1950, age 49, and suddenly there was a vacuum at the top. When they buried him, David Lack and Max Nicolson wondered very publically if they were burying BB as well - there was no one to take it on and the publishers were losing interest. Max (another hero of the revolution, one day...) did what he did best - took on a job for which he was profoundly unsuitable, and did a pretty good job. BB was never as good in the 50s as it had been under Bernie, but at least it survived. In his obituary, they wrote: 'He was the least dramatic of men, but he did much to bring about a revolution in ornithology and to guard it against the reaction which awaits a revolution if it goes too far and too fast.' Probably fair, although bollocks to the woolly liberal counter-revolutionary Menshevism at the end - and Pah!

Bernard William Tucker. It wasn't 'all rot'. You were in the vanguard of professional scientist birders who shaped the collective effort of organised research into birds in Britain. Your premature death just went to prove that there's no justice. You were 50 years ahead of your time and struggled manfully to bring the rest of the bird World with you. For this, we honour you a Hero of the Birding Revolution.

Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=9935030990046738815

Bit disappointed with my geek score. Would have thought an obsessive interest in the activities of an early 1900s taxidermist would have pushed me up the scale a little. Must try harder.

Did anyone else notice it was raining?

A decod glass returd to Dottigham peas. Oh yes, mater, I have a code id de hed. And what better for it than a 4 1/2 hour walk in the pissing September rain. Nothing better as far as I'm concerned. Stock up with Tuuunnnneees and I'm away. Bit of an easterly wind going overnight, and of course the rain, so high hopes for patch-tick Yellow-browed Warbler. Really have to see one this year after previous year's disastrous finding of Pallas's Warbler, which wasn't even a patch tick. And strike me dead with a custard cream - I didn't see one, or indeed many migrants at all. Bit of a wash out. There's a new unringed Dipper on the Elsick Burn. It was drying off by going for a swim. Chaffinches, Goldfinches, Great Tits yada yada. You don't want to know.
Look offshore - no repeats of last weekend's fireworks. In fact with 58 Barnacle Geese going south in 2 flocks (first of the autumn, and unusually beating the pinkies in), there's a distinct wintery feel to the sea... 3 Red-throated Divers, 5 Eurasian Wigeon, 2 Sandwich Terns, some Common Gulls south, a trickle of Gannets and auks, incl a Puffin. No shearwaters or skuas. Boo! The Coastal Park, Community Park and Allotments were dead, bit of relief down the Muchalls Track with a few Goldcrests and a Northern Wheatear having a fight with a Chaffinch on the telegraph wires (true!). Saw another birder down at Water Valley - first time I've intercepted another birder on my patch in over 4 years, apart from that old boy with the dog. He hadn't seen much either.

Nothing else, sorry. This week I have been mostly listening to Ritual de lo Habitual by Jane's Addiction. Seriously weird - my no. 1 top album for the last 10+ years

Of course this land is dangerous!
All of the animals
Are capably murderous.

When I was a boy,
My big brother held on to my hands,
Then he made me slap my own face.
I looked up to him then, and still do.
He was trying to teach me something.
Now I know what it was!
Now I know what he meant!
Now I know how it is!

One must eat the other
Who runs free before him.
Put them right into his mouth
While fantasizing the beauty of his movements.
A sensation not unlike
Slapping yourself in the face...
Slapping yourself in the face...
Slapping yourself in the face...

Wow, those lyrics sound so much better when you're on a Paracetomol/
Ibuprofen/Custard Cream high.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker confirmed in Florida!! Photo!

You've heard the rumours... in a Worldwide scoop I can now present the TRUTH!*

This is what will be announced next month...

A pair of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers has been confirmed in the Roaring Cutoff area of the Choctawhatchee River, Florida panhandle. The discovery was made by a graduate student, taking his Prof's hummer on a high speed tank cross-country. He described hearing a distinctive 'double knock' out the front of the vehicle. In his own words... not so much the classic 'double knock', as two sickening thuds. It was then that he noticed a male IBW smeared across the hood of the vehicle, and a second bird, a female, bouncing off into the water and being swept away. Both birds appeared to have died very recently. He pulled the vehicle over safely, but as he went to retrieve the body of the male, it slid off into the river and was lost. He returned the hummer to the Prof who confirmed by DNA analysis of the blood that it belonged to IBW. Previous estimates that there was perhaps enough suitable habitat in the vicinity for one pair of IBWs were rapidly upgraded to 9 pairs, just in case. In spite of extensive searching, no further birds have been sighted in the area. Fortunately a remote motion sensitive camera set up in the area captured one frame, confirming the identity of the birds.




*'TRUTH' may not be based on actual events for the purpose of this post.

The Doctor is... CHEERING UP

This was meant to be a bush-bashing day, but in fact the area down the Elsick Burn, the Mill, and the track to the beach, were all very quiet, though a constant stream of Meadow Pipits flying over, together with odd Sky Larks, and piles of Swallows, gave me hope. I decided to try a quick seawatch anyway. so up and along the cliffs (one Common Stonechat, 1 Northern Wheatear) to my favourite rock.

Conditions were about as bad as could be - sun in my face, and with a bit of haze (vis down to a mile) turning the sea into this kind of haze of soft glow. You know you're in trouble when *every* Fulmar looks blue. But hang on a minute... there was something on here. Birds going past. Close in. Jinkies, better hope my jizz and silhouette id skills are up to scratch. Immediately Manx Shearwaters - in the next hour and a bit there were 21 of those. Then zoinks! 2 Balearic Shearwaters, close in - they even came in for a circular fly past so I could get enough plumage detail - praise the Lord Lucifer and all his little pixies. Although the light still wasn't great, they came both directions in front of me, where I could see they were brown +/-Manxie-sized shearwaters, with uniform dark heads, largely pale-centred underwings and pale bellies, but dusky flanks. Also the flappy wingbeats stood out in comparison with the Manxies. In fact there were going to be two more as well (separately), but further out and I really only got the flight pattern and the general impression of all-dark heads and darker underwings that couldn't be Manxie. Absolutely fantastic. While this was going on, I tallied through 12 Sooty Shearwaters, 6 Great Skuas (all north), 6 Red-throated Divers, 26 Common Scoters and 3 Eurasian Wigeon south, an Arctic Tern and 9 Puffins north, and a stream of Northern Gannets, going both ways. For the first time this autumn, I was starting to feel something (stop giggling McKinney, save your smut for your own website), but The Sender hadn't finished with me...

...I look up from a herd of Guillemots and there's a LONG-TAILED SKUA just off the rocks, sailing north. Argh! This is the funny bit. I'm testing something called 'remembird' which is a kind of digital dictaphone/bird sound recorder, so I was trying to describe this skua into the mike instead of making proper notes like normal. When I uploaded them all to my computer this evening, it turns out that all I recorded for posterity is a stream of expletives of frustration about the light. A bit like 'F*ck, juvenile skua... jeez, it's a small one, it's got to be long-tailed... f*ck... f*ck... f*ck... I can't see a bloody thing... yep, it's a skua... small... f*ck... get out of the light! Go on... get next to that sarnie.. go on... no! f*ck. Long-tailed. It's just sailing past, not doing anything. f*ck...it's just going to keep going. Looks quite pale.' Then a couple of minutes later... 'F*ck'. A classic of modern bird recording, and a lesson in how to do it for any youngsters out there. If there are any youngsters out there, isn't it past your bedtime? Do your parents know what sort of filth you're reading on the internet?

A Sparrowhawk in-off, and a Harbour Porpoise, off-in, were also entertaining. It turned out that the birds were coming in ahead of a weather front, and about 10.45 the light improved enormously as it went dull and cloudy, and the mist went away a bit, but the birds stopped. Best seawatch ever from here, but I'd like to see what sort of descriptions I'm going to come up with. :-) Ker-CHOW!

After this, I went up to the Coastal Park, and then the allotments. The allotments still look good, but it was a bit awkward as there were several gardners out there picking their onions and their noses. I guess i should try to get there before 11.15 am on Sundays - curse those infernal interesting seabirds!

Note added in proof: I'm not claiming the L-t S. MC

The Doctor is back

and this time he's only mildly irritated. There was a fall of sorts while I was away, but conditions are still looking good.

CHIN, for when UTVs are the only Vs

The Doctor is OUT, again

I'm at a meeting in Dundee, the city that never sleeps, until Friday. I confidently predict an enormous fall of interesting passerines on Thursday. And for that pelican to be reidentified from photos as a White-throated Robin. Then I'll have to decide whether I can tick it.

SUPPORT the Campaign for Honesty In Notebooks (CHIN)