I'm not quite as lazy as my absence from this site would imply. Or infer? imply I think. I imply. You infer. Honest truth, I was in hospital with a septic toe. A bad Common Shrew. Came right for me. Latched onto my boot. I tried to shoot it, but just clipped my toe. The shrew scampered off. Next morning my big toes was the size of a tennis ball, without a word of a lie. The doctors thought they would have to amputate, but after an implausible series of comedy japes and witty one-liners, here I am.

If I'd been out birding last weekend, I would have seen bugger all, but photographed some bags of dogcrap hanging decoratively from the bushes along the Muchalls track. I would have intended to upload them but decided against it at the last minute on account of having impeccable taste and high principles.

If I'd been out this morning instead of chasing under-dressed nurses in a benny hill-style conga, complete with music, round the infirmary, I would have noted that it was still pretty chilly (snow flurries - come on!) and there were no migrant about, even though I spent an hour on Cran Hill looking for Northern Wheatears and fly-by Sand Martins.

I would have seen a Peregrine Falcon making several hunting flights over the village, after the pigeons, and noted that the La Cucaracca Yellowhammer was still singing by the viaduct. I would have observed the White-throated Dippers hanging around the old nest site at the Mill, and a sick-looking Eurasian Greenfinch in the willows at the cliff sides. There was a dodgy looking House Sparrow in the garden during the week, and I wonder if there's a wee touch of bird plague on the loose.

Offshore, a Northern Gannet, a few Black-legged Kittiwakes and some Northern Fulmars, would have all been warming up for the off. And these two Eurasian Teals on the water.


The Guillemots and Razorbills would have been hanging around off the breeding cliffs.


And, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, I would have turned this magnificent European Shag into a very disappointing shag.
Anyway, my septic toe is better, the Common Shrew in question has died of food poisoning (my foot), and I have an amusing story about a bicycle pump that will have to wait until the censorship laws are changed in Oregon.

Third Blood!

Bananarama!!! This Wood Mouse was coming right for me too.


A Eurasian Woodcock flewacrossthe road in front of us in the middle of Aberdeen on Wednesday morning, then another as I drove home on Thursday evening, also in Aberdeen. Woodcocks on move in Aberdeen, shock.

Second blood

This one was coming right for me too. Unsuccessfully phone-cam'd on my way to the bus stop. A Short-tailed Vole.

Delicious and dangerous animals

I dragged my sore inflamed foot, in an enterprising palette of colours from black thru blue to vermillion, round the patch. I was making noises like 'ooh' and 'eek' and 'oocha!' all the way round. Strangely this only seemed to make my foot worse. Why did no one warn me???

I'm not kidding, there was a Yellowhammer singing La Cucaracca in the gorse by the railway viaduct. Thanks to Remembird, I got a recording, but Putfile is apparently down (or at least not uploading my stuff) and I dunno where else to host it. But if putfile comes back, i'll put it up (matron). Here's a sonogram though - you can get the jist


and as a matter of public record, THIS was the Yellowhammer in question.

There was a Common Buzzard over Cran Hill, and 2 Eurasian Sparrowhawks in a wide circling display flight, the female following 400 m behind the male, with some slow flapping. It's that time of year. A Rock Pipit was singing at the Beach, and Eurasian Skylarks were in the swing of things too. Went round Cran Hill hoping to bump into Northern Wheatears, but nothing doing there yet. IN fact, although the weather's quirte nice and the Dunnocks are chuntering away nicely, it's still a bit dull, frankly. Even offshore - a few Razorbills and Guillemots, a single Black-legged Kittiwake and a Common Scoter.

But joy! I got my first kill of the year. Thanks to my trusty high performance rifle, I took down this Common Shrew. I had no choice, it was coming straight for me.


This (below) appeared on BirdChat or similar during the week. I'm anticipating that all right-minded people would find it mildly amusing. Strangely, there appears to be some sort of moral minority out there who found it tasteless and inappropriate. Frankly, if you were offended by this, you need to be offended.

NTSB report on Flight 1549

By Alex Hardway, Butterfield Post, 12 Febuary 2009 at 2:30

US Airways violated Federal migratory bird regulations by hunting geese with an A320 Airbus jetliner, claim anonymous government sources. The pilot of flight 1549, Air Force veteran and avid hunter Chesley B. Sullenberger, tried combining both of his interests by bagging a brace of geese over the wetlands near New York's LaGuardia airport after takeoff, on his way to Charlotte, North Carolina.

The imported European $77 million A320 airliner is not certified for either waterfowl or upland bird hunting, so it was not surprising that the aircraft malfunctioned. When he realized that both New York and New Jersey State Game and Fish enforcement officers would soon be approaching, Captain Sullenberger unsuccessfully attempted to hide the plane in the Hudson River. The crew and 150 passengers were chilled and shaken but unhurt. Most were simply grateful to avoid spending the weekend in Charlotte, NC.

National Transportation Safety Board inspectors rushed to the scene, and reportedly found no Duck Stamps on the downed aircraft's fuselage. Captain Sullenberger has not been charged but is being held incommunicado at an undisclosed location. PETA is urging the government to prosecute the pilot for double honkercide and poaching, and the animal rights group is expected to file a civil suit on behalf of the flock. The two victims were undocumented aliens, according to sources close to the investigation, Canada Geese who had over-stayed their visas. Their goose gang scandalized their quiet Queens community by squatting in local cemeteries and golf courses, parking on the grass, cooking strange-smelling food and throwing wild parties late into the night. Neighbors say police dogs were called out on several occasions. Such incidents have triggered a wave of anti-Canada Goose sentiment, but at his time revenge or hate crime motives are not suspected in the US Airways bird bashings.

Forensic examination of the avian corpses continues, and technicians are analyzing the two cadavers under heat with chestnuts, prunes, and Armagnac. NTSB inspectors have contributed a supply of testing fluid, a 2005 Zind-Humbrecht Riesling from Alsace. We will update this story as entrees details become available.

I'm terribly behind.

I reallyshould pull my finger out. But then the polder would flood. Today, while dragging my sorry crippled arse between Foresterhill and Old Aberdeen, I bumped into 16 Bohemian Waxwings in their favourite trees next to Hilton Campus. And here's some Ruddy Turnstones I photo'd on the beach at Newtonhill last weekend, and didn't get round to writing about.

Roll up roll up.. it's the 'borealis' time of year.

Weather has improved and the birds have moved on... at least last week's interesting Fieldfares, Snow Buntings, and Eurasian Woodcocks etc. are no longer here. But a few Eurasian Siskins overhead, and I took the camera out again hoping to improve on mt former piss-poor performance. I didn't really manage this, but Lo! It must be that time of year when the Common Eiders move back up to the Ythan. For there were at least 60 in and around the bay, predictably including some yellow-billed ones.

Look at these two - back bird is big bright yellow bill, and scapular sails. The other one is yellow, but not as bright, and no sails visible.

Potential borealis Common Eider (back)

Think this one is different bird. Sails possibly visible.


And where do these yellow-billed jobbies come from? Well I also photo'd this one with a white-over green ring combination, ringed on the Ythan in.. 1984. 25th birthday approaches. Just like mine. Errrr....

Class of '84 Ythan Estuary Common Eider. Another yellow bill.

This is all I got time for. Meant to be writing some sort of talk for the International Gull Meeting in Peterhead. Peterhead! Best get my heroin money out of the bank. Here's some more photos.

Had another go at this taking pictures malarky.

Some sort of documentary evidence of birds in Newtonhill shocker. Snow melting fast. Five Eurasian Reed Buntings feeding among the stubble at the top of the burn...


...see ?

and a White-throated Dipper on the Elsick Burn


... see?

Still piles of birds around that wouldn't normally bepiling around, e.g. Fieldfares and 2 Mistle Thrushes in Cow Field, and a Eurasian Woodcock flying up the burn. The sky was full of flocks of Pink-footed Geese going back and forth. The beach had 1 Common Redshank, 7 Ruddy Turnstones and some gulls, including these.

Quiet offshore (auks, gulls and Northern Fulmars sat on the water, and a good shag). I ripped my thumb open on the slidy catch on the gate to the allotments, and then didn't see any good birds therein. Mind I was busy swallowing my own blood at the time. However when I went down the costal fields to Muchalls, a flock of 16 Eurasian Skylarks (dull) with 2 Snow Buntings (interesting) flew over.

Some proper winter weather

It's just like the old days, when the winters were snowy and the summers were sunny and people of all races and creeds lived together in harmony and peace.


Always interesting to go outside in this and watch the birds starving to death. Except they don't in Newtonhill, on account of the oil (?eh). On Friday, when I was waiting for a non-existent bus to take me to work, a Common Snipe had flown in over the snowy fields, and there were flocks of Fieldfares about, which hasn't been the case of late. So hopes for more birds on the move today. Stepped out of the house into a flock of 20 Fieldfares buzzing around the bushes at the back of St. Michael's Road. A flock of 15 Yellowhammers at the top of the track to St Annes, then 5 Eurasian Reed Buntings too. Ker-choW!! a flock of 10 Snow Buntings flew over at treetop level, going south, calling. And as I scoped the Fieldfares from the path down the burn, saw a single Bohemian Waxwing in the back gardens, and heard Brambling flying over too. It was like a smorgasbord of birds that normally I would see around once a year in the village. And the usual Dipper.

Cran Hill was silent and snosy, with flocks of Eurasian Skylarks (40+) and Common Linnets (errr.. 3) going south, and occasional flocks of Pink-footed Geese south over the sea (a few hundred).

Down on the beach, 2 Common Stonechats were among the piles of lobster pots, catching lobsters I'll wager, and there were 7 Redwings and 2 Song Thrushes up the cliff sides. The sea was quiet really, though a single Long-tailed Duck flew north, and there were a few gulls (Mostly Black-headed, some Common, couple of Great Black-backed) feeding in the surf. Back up throuugh Newtonhill, it was garden feeder birds all the way, including a single Eurasian Sparrowhawk. I love the basd weather. For the first time in a while there's birds on the move and a few things to look at.

Eskimo Curlew... I've seen another more distant (unpublished) photo of one of the Texas 1962 Eskimo Curlews. That one doesn't look like a mount :-) More on that when the birds go quiet again.

Evening update.... went out sledging. I say sledging. The kids went sledging. I became some sort of human ski-lift. 2 more Common Snipes flew over, and there were a few hundred more Pinkfeet about. When the kiddies gave me a hurl on the sledge, they pushed me into the cotoneasters.

When the truth just gets in the way of the way things should be....

The weeks are flashing past, I'm not getting out as much as I would like, but there isn't anything in Newtonhill to see anyway. I was down at the beach scoping a Purple Sandpiper among the 20 or so Ruddy Turnstones among the seaweed. A new person there, and the perplexing 'Are you Martin?' was followed by the trepidation-inducing 'I've read your blog' - as I started to wonder who I've libelled recently. So this was Thane (Hi Thane) and brings the number of current N/hill birders to 5 (five! - I always assumed the population of Newtonhill was me and a few rather scabby-looking crabs. Turns out it's full of birders).

2 Common Stonechats and a few Rock Pipits on the beach too, 12 Black-headed Gulls and a Common Gull feeding among the ferocious breakers, and with birds out at sea so I went up to the cliffs for a seawatch, for about half an hour before I gave in. Lots of Northern Fulmars about (well, about 50), mostly going south, and about 50 Common Gulls, feeding and mostly going north. Say what you like about Common Gulls, and I do, they're hard as nails. Also one adult Northern Gannet (they fo hang around just about all winter), but apart from that and a few Razorbills and Guillemots, there's not a lot to be seen. Won't bore you any more.

Remember a couple of years ago I wrote about Richard Meinertzhagen as a Halloween Hero of the Birding Revolution (now there's a series I need to resurrect when I get chance). Well this week, I have mostly been reading The Meinertzhagen Mystery by Brian Garfield, and it rather brutally proves the lie about most of the extraordinary claimed events in Meinertzhagen's life. He never bounced on Darwin's knee; he rewrote his diaries to include his 'predictions' that war with Germany was inevitable; he never shot a German Duke then ate his Christmas dinner; he was never a real spy, and he hung around at the back of the battles he was meant to have participated in; he never crash-landed a plane after the pilot collapsed; he didn't drop the haversack behind Turkish lines (someone else did), and the Haversack Ruse didn't work anyway; he never rescued a Russian princess; he never fought for the Zionists against the Arabs in Haifa; he was never in a secret dual with a mystery spy; he never slaughtered a cell of Spanish Bolsheviks; he never met Hitler and/or had the opportunity to kill him. His wife did still die in strange circumstance, however (she apparently shot herself in the head while Dickie was standing behind her with a loaded revolver, shortly after she realised about his bird thefts). When you take away all the documentary evidence about the notable (non-birdy) events in Dickie's life that were not directly or indirectly derived from Meinertzhagen's own writing or influence, there is nothing left except an incompetent middle-level officer and troublesome low-level military intelligence worker who was gently pushed out of the army and into the harmless pursuit of collecting birds. The good work that he did (he was good at drawing maps in his military career, and was an outstanding traveller and collector in his ornithological career) was overshadowed and indeed blown away, in the end, by the unnecessary lies, thefts and deceit, and fantasy world he created around himself.

Wishing Chair, take me to a place where I can get a patch tick. But the mischievous Wishing Chair first took me round on a tour of the local Blue Tits, Common Chaffinches etc. Only 5 Eurasian Reed Buntings in the wet stubble - I needed a huge f***off Labradoodle to help me on that one. Several months after the trauma previously of trying to photograph a Bluethroat using Diane's camera, I finally dared to try once more, and got this cracking shot of one of the Reed Buntings. Clearly I haven't got the hang of the AF still.


Down at the beach, there were 8 yellow-billed male Common Eiders with their best girls, but still my focus was all over the place.


6 Common Scoters flew south in the distance, and this persuaded me to try a short seawatch, which was dull dull dull with only a few auks going north.

The Magical Wishing Chair took me up to Cran Hill, and as I flew alongside a formation of 5 (count 'em) Pink-footed Geese, I spotted a Common Raven circling in the air. Mmmmmm... for N Scotland you would assume that this one would be a fairly regular visitor, and difficult to overlook, but this is a Patch Tick. First of the year. First of several hopefully. Mind, Cran Hill does look suitable for foraging Ravens. I think it's the pile of dead Vikings that would attract them.

Monday 29th December.

Sooooo... cold. brrrrr.....Like the wrath of God has descended upon Gotham. I descended into the wrong comic. I'm not a bitter man, but if Santa doesn't hate me, why did he bring Meccano for Peter (grrr.....) and a keyboard for Lizzie? All I wanted for Christmas was a Marsh Tit. But Santa just left me a lump of Coal Tits. In the garden at East Cammachmore - all the other birds the owners had told me were there, were there. Great Spotted Woodpecker, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, plenty other tits, and an influx of Fieldfares. With the mildly amusing addition of a pair of Common Treecreepers on the peanuts. Nothing more interesting, but I resolved to give it one more try on Wednesday.


Wednesday 31st December.

Egad! It's even more boring than before! The same birds as before, minus any woodpeckers but plus a Goldcrest. hmmm... y'know, I think it's most likely there was aCommon Blackcap inthe garden at some point, and they have confused the features with a Coal Tit, in the way that non-birders do.

Between us, me and someone else's abomination of a labradoodle (ffs!) flushed 18 Eurasian Reed Buntings from the wet stubble by St Anne's.

In Newtonhill, an unconfirmed report of...

Waited until it got light this morning, but by 9.30 realised it wasn't going to get light. So went out in the half light with drizzle and... dead. Not a tweet. After pottering around the Mill Garden and Honeypot Lane to little effect, I took a whim to go round Cran Hill, where for 9/10 of the way round the highlight was being attacked by a muzzled dog with its owner telling me 'he can't hurt you!' Then as I got back to East Cammachmore, the bushes were alive with 30+ Yellowhammers, 15+ Reed Buntings and a couple of Eurasian Tree Sparrows, among the usual Greenfinches and Common Chaffinches. As I was looking up at the trees, 3 Whooper Swans flew over, and even called. Not quite a patch tick, but not far off (I heard some flying over one bnight a few years ago). I just read that though and I's typed 'Whopper Swans' which is actually a better name. Changed in now.

Then a couple, with a couple of big dogs, came up the lane, asked me if I were a 'bird man'. I replied that yes, I am indeed a bird man. They asked me if we get Marsh Tits around here, and I said, as the authoritative birdman, that no we do not. They told me that they had a couple of Marsh Tits coming to their feeders. We discussed Coal Tits, Blue Tits, Great Tits, House Sparrows and they were very familiar with them and saw them all the time. They knew that Willow Tit was a confusion species and we discussed that. Anyway, there was enough there to convince me to go for a look, and I shivered away an hour seeing lots of Coal Tits at their feeders. The Marsh Tits have apparently been around all the time, including this morning, from 8.00 to about 9.30 am, then move off for the day. So assuming I do't drink any more of this Glenmorangie, I'll be there early doors tomorrow. Will let you know how i do. Thet also get Great Spotted Woodpecker in their garden, and mentioned Green Woodpecker, which would be another patch tick. Just occurred to me that I should have discussed Common Blackcap with them.

You would not believe what happened to me.

I was away a bit. And how. Without a breath of a lie. I was investigating a strange humming noise coming from a corner of the wardrobe, and fell through a hole in the space-time continuum. During my varied adventures I saw many strange sights and brought back many things from the future that I may tell you about one day over my secular Christmas. So, no harm done, except on my timescale I was gone around 80 years, and I come back to you now as a decrepit old man, and will probably turn to bones and dust before long. At least this way I fit in better wandering around downtown Newtonhill, which is what I did today.

And at the top of the St Anne's track, my good run of Common Reed Buntings continued, with 5 in the knotweed. Strangely, in the future they are just called 'buntings' and are actually used as bunting, strung between lampposts on the anniversaries of King Charles's abdication and the election of President Peaches.

More Long-tailed Tits (Bushtits) today. Down the burn, and then 6 in willows at the top of the cliff steps, 2 of which were flycatching. Amazing how they've gone from patch rarity to commonality this winter - they are certainly British birds moving around for a change. We even had 6 on the peanuts.

5 Rock Pipits and a Meadow Pipit feeding in cow field - I hope we get back to the glory days of the flock of 60+ Rock Pipits there. Some Ruddy Turnstones on the beach, but not a lot happening offshore. To be honest, the future was much more exciting, and I can't go on. Damn this temperate climate with its 'seasons' and its lack of winter action. In the future there are no seasons - basically it's just warm and wet all the time, but the birding is easier as everywhere under 400 m altitude is under water, so every birder picks a mountaintop, holds out a twig and sees what lands on it. It's how I got Common Fiscal onto the future Oceania list, but that's another story.

Band of Dunnock Brothers

Proud to be a Dunnock. I've mentioned this blog before, but you have to go watch their latest video. Possibly the most surreal birding documentary ever produced. Watch out for your web filters. Take a French dictionary with you.

Chinese Democracy

Blimey, it's St Andrew's Day, so like any true Scotsman (I am in fact 1/4 Scotch by adoption) I went to the Church of St Andrew in Kiev and celebrated in the traditional way by supping a ancient-recipe cream-of-dioxin soup. Must say it hasn't done a whole lot for my complexion. I'm starting to see why St Andrew's Day never caught on like other famous saints like errr... St Martin. There was a St. Martin apparently. Roman guy, gave his coat away to a beggar or something. I gave my coat to Oxfam* and was never made a saint. There's no justice.

Actually, that's a lie... I never gave my coat to Oxfam. But it's the principle of the thing.

When I got back I engaged in the traditional St Andrew's day pastime of birdspotting. Forgot a biro, so I will have to regress through hypnotism to recall the events of the day. 1, 2, 3... and I'm under. The first thing I remember... I was covered in blood, there was a bright light and then someone smacked me... whoops, regressed too far. Fast forward 39 years. It was -3 C and icy with it, and the track alongside the Elsick Burn was hoaching with frost-addled birds, half mad with hunger and the other half mad with me for flushing them. And unusually, they were buntings - a mixed flock of ~12 Common Reed Buntings and 25 Yellowhammers. With the usual tommy titmice, Winter Wrens, European Robins etc. And a couple of Goldcrests. I don't remember anything else until the last drops of absinthe drained from my system, by which time I was on the clifftops scoping out to sea. The sea was pretty quiet, tbh, with the best action coming when an Atlantic Grey Seal refused to share its fish with an assembled audience of gulls (1 Great Black-backed, 12 Herring, 3 Common (Mew) and 1 Black-headed). Two Peregrine Falcons chased each other south, and a Common Buzzard soared past over the sea. A couple of Red-throated Divers went north, and there were a coupler of Guillemots (Common Murres) on the water with some Common Eiders. 2 Purple Sandpipers on the shore, with a few Eurasian Oystercatchers and Curlews.
After getting Snow Bunting on my patch list last week, they gave themselves up bigtime this week when a flock of 25 went north just offshore - obviously Aberdeenshire isn't cold enough for them.

There was other sundry stuff about, but there you go. Took the family to the Bervie Chipper at lunchtime, and then to the Christmas Fair to see Santa. In summary, it's wintery. Some local movement. I could have told you that without going on about my day.

All the best blogs are dying....

It's true. First Tim Allwood decides that it isn't worth the grief. Then Tom McKinney grinds to a halt in an ice-skid of expletives. It just goes to show that if you're got anything worth reading, the strain of writing it starts to tell. Expect this blog to be here a long time - it's no trouble at all :-)

Delicious and dangerous patch ticks.

Well what happened? This time last week we were trying to squeeze the last drops of Siberia out of the autumn. And then ka-boom overnight it was Siberia here. Newtonhill was transformed into something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a winter wonderland.

That said, I love it when the birds are fighting for their lives. And it brought me a garden tick in the form of one of these Long-tailed Tits that has been kicking around. I caught it pecking my fat balls (OOoooooohhhhhhh, matron!). Birding was otherwise disrupted by a) having to build a snowman


and b) having to sloosh out the carpets after Peter had spent the night vomiting copiously over everything I own, including the file of 'family memorobilia', from which I need to salvage as much as I can. Poor Lizzie is so vomitophobic that she came birding with me before lunch rather than sit in the same house as Peter. We didn't see a lot really, except there was a constant stream of Eurasian Skylarks flying over, going south. We met Matt, who said there was a Snow Bunting in the stubble field with a big flock of Skylarks. And wowsers! It was a big flock of Skylarks - about 300 birds, and with another 300 or so flying off, my A-level Further Mathematics suggsts that's about 600 birds in all. Plus all the others going over without stopping. And yes, one of the birds flying south was the, or another Snow Bunting. Patch tick. Gooooodddd. Better... as we walked back home, among the Black-headed Gulls, Starlings and sundry other things going overhead, a Eurasian Woodcock! Another patch tick.


So, I spend most of the afternoon messing about. But I came across some old drawings. In my youth I tried to be an artist. Which was a shame, cos I'm no artist, but I could be a draftsman. Anyway, here's some rare birds I tried to draw.

1991 Waxham Lark Sparrow. Obviously not a stowaway.

1991 St Andrews Chimney Swift, with a Common Swift.

A very unconvincing representation.



1989/90 Holkham Red-breasted Nuthatch.
With the passage of time, this is the only one that works for me.

Note to self...

... new notebook. My current one keeps dropping pages out - they don't make them like they used to. And I keep sellotaping pages back in. It's a recipe for disaster. There's no integrity there. I feel a huge Meinertzhagen fantasy revision of my entire note keeping system coming on. Anyway, yesterday

16th November 08
I popped over to Cape Verde and got a nice Razo Lark on the lawn of my hotel. Oooppps, there goes the Meinertzhagen thingy again. Stop it. Really, I was in Newtonhill, seeing... more Long-tailed Tits (5) Coal Tits, and Goldcrests, though tbh not as many Coal Tits and Goldcrests as in the past couple of weeks and I think maybe the autumn is finally coming to an end. Not before I score one more Sibe, hopefully. Whereas on last week's walk round the patch I got maybe 50 Goldcrests, today it was certainly less than 20.

Along Honeypot Lane at the Retreat, which was to be fair quite busy with Chaffinches and Blue Titmice and such, there was a single male Blackcap at the feeders. 3 Redpoll sp. flew over the track to the beach, and at the bottom of the track I met a fellow Newtonhill birder tick - Matt Parsons, who also had seen nothing very interesting today, but who had seen one of 'my' (or quite possibly a totally different one) Pallas's Leaf Warblers on Tuesday. There was a single Common Stonechat up the cliff sides. A quick look offshore (dead, 4 Northern Gannets and a few gulls of 4 spp hanging around the lobster boat) down there. And then to the allotments (also very quiet, save for Common Blackbirds, European Robins, Dunnocks) but meeting 2 other Newtonhill Birders - a very interesting trend - who also saw 'my' Pallas's on Tuesday. I went down to Muchalls, but things just got worse, though there were a few fresh-in looking Redwings

We've got a mouse/mice in the loft. Heard 'em last week, so I dusted a trap off and put it up there armed with peanut butter. For a day or so the mouse was eating the peanut butter without setting off the trap, so I finally put it on an absolute hair trigger and 5.30 am we heard 'ker-snap' and victory ... WAS MINE!!!!! When I went to collect the pathetic corpse later I felt guilty cos it was only a wee teenage mouse - about 2/3 full size - trying to get out of the cold etc. I noticed/presumed that it had nearly got away again, because the peanut butter was gone. But just in case loaded up the trap and left it a few hours. When I noticed the peanut butter gone again. So now I knew what was happening. We have some sort of General Haig-type mouse in the loft, sending the young underage mice over the top to die in the jaws of the trap, then sucking up the spoils and the glory of victory (OK, the peanut butter) for himself. So I rammed some chocolate and more peanut butter onto the trap, the idea being that they would have to tug real hard to get the choccy and ka-boom for them. A bit later... heard the ker-snap again... went up to get my prize but lo! and blimey! Not only was there nothing in the trap, but they'd taken the choccy and peanut butter and, believe me dear reader... DISMANTLED the trap! My mouse had taken out the hinges that held the spring loaded and rendered it useless. I can see I am up against a worthy opponent. And I have no more traps. So extras have been ordered, via the miracle of ebay, and I'll have another go. There may have been a point to this story but it has temporarily escaped my mind.

I love my job

No really, I do. Especially when i have to walk into Old Aberdeen to do some tutorials and over the sound of Nightwish* being pumped directly into my head, I hear and then see a flock of 90-100 Bohemian Waxwings in the treetops at Hilton Street.

*'For the [schrrrr] heeeaaaarrrrttttt, I once [schrrrrrr] haaaaaadddd etc'.

Strangely, in the most bizarre bit of immigration-related legislation I have heard of for a while, there is a good chance that all University employees are in future going to have to account for where they are at all times. So where were you at 9.45 on Thursday morning?' 'I was between assignments, watching some immigrants in the treetops on Hilton Street... is that good enough?'

The Waxwings had gone when I returned at 12.15. Probably caught a bus:

Waxwings: 'We'd like -'
Bus Driver: 'Shut it. You're barred!'

I love you, you love me...

...let's go out and kill Barney
with a baseball bat and a 4 x 4
no more purple dinosaur.

There's a small resident population of Barn Owls around here that you see very occasionally, maybe once a year - usually flashing by on the A90 at night. Well there's one less of them now, as it was dead by the side of the road on the way into work this morning. That was me on the way to work, not the Barn Owl. No wait, i've told that joke before...
Barn Owl: 'I'd like a ticket to a place with lots of voles please'
Bus driver: 'Not you as well. Just f*** ***!'