Work? I don't think so...

Somewhere in an alternate universe there are people who have this grandiose idea that when they go birding, they are actually grafting real, sweat-breaking, toil. Can you imagine?

A recent online article has described the 'retina burning' 'thigh aching' disappointment and shattered dreams of a 'holiday' to Shetland where the authors actually failed to find a first for Britain. Oh no, really! They had set their sights on a Baikal Bush-Warbler ( a what?) or a Yellow- rumped  Flycatcher maybe. 

Now I may be a pessimist but neither of these species has occurred here in the last 200 years so why one would arrived in their 10 day window remains to be seen. Shetland is home to some of the UK's top bird finders who, I'd hazard to guess' may be better positioned to turn up a real mega, simply due to the time in = birds out method.

As it happened, no mega rare birds were found only multiple Little Buntings, a Rosefinch ( by using a thermal imaging camera), 3 species of Flycatcher and a few Yellow broweds. They could have battled through the pain barrier and seen Arctic Redpolls, White billed Diver, Bonelli's Warbler, Woodchat etc too. 

This left the observers broken. Lads, lads, lads, get a grip. Birders with this outlook really do need a reality check. If its you, its time to have a word with yourself!

If I had spent the thick end of a grand for a holiday my main concern would not be the disappointment of not finding rare birds ( they are rare after all, the clue is in the name), it would be coming back with the attitude that I deserved those megas, and all else was an abject failure. 

I am so pleased these birds don't perform on cue...

So that's what one looks like...

One I have seen, a spring Yellow rumped Flycatcher...

In other news, I was saddened to learn yesterday that the great DIM Wallace had died aged 88. 

Ian Wallace was my birding hero. His books and articles are things to be kept and re-read over and over where each time they give inspiration, excitement and joy. Scarcely a month passes where I don't refer to a Wallace writing in some way. Usually for solace, after reading the 'disappointment papers' maybe and as said above, real inspiration. Sitting here writing this I can reach out to seven books and three ring binders full of cuttings connected to him.  

It is a regret that our paths never crossed. I've thought about this for many years and often considered writing to him but could never muster the courage. What could I say to this great man, the founding father of modern birding? In recent years I pondered that Ian was getting older and would not be around for ever so I should take the plunge but never did.

What would he have made of the 'disappointment' piece? Wallace was never disappointed, how could he be, he laid the path we birders tread today. He mingled with historical greats like HG Alexander, Kenneth Williamson, Eric Ennion, Guy Mountfort, Eric Hosking and even Meinertzhagen briefly to name but a few. 

He always had a plan, always seeking out new places and new things to learn, right to the end and it is with this attitude we should learn from and move forward. 

The thermal imaging and rare smelling graft can wait...we should strive to be worthy of tying DIMW's shoelaces.  

Rest in Peace Ian...

  

Pipe and Fair Isle jumper...

Naturalists and birders. Does your hobby take you down a certain route into other fields? 

I see other wildlife observers who are well balanced people with other interests. Some have football season tickets or maybe go cycling ( when I say other interests I mean totally separate, ie you don't carry binoculars) . Some go to the gym or swimming or whatever.

How do you get the time? Everything I do in daylight or even to a lesser degree, in the dark, when not working, is in some way linked to the observation of natural history. The only things outside of that box are watching films, when I cant get outside, or listening to music, usually when driving to a birding site.

Every other thing I do involves another species. I take photographs, mainly of wildlife and the environment, I draw things, usually birds, I go for walks, with a wildlife target in mind, I read every day, texts linked to wildlife. We go on holiday, to an area where I know there is some wildlife I would like to see and so on. I never switch off and nor would I want to.

This might seem a bit geeky or obsessive, unhealthy even,  but there is still, variety in there with more than enough for two lifetimes of interest.

Drilling down further, does your wildlife watching have a particular interest within it? You might like the scientific approach or you might be a bit of a statistician, or a taxonomist. 

Personally I like the history of all things wildlife. If you are or have ever been an angler you will know of Mr Crabtree. He was a character drawn in comic strip form by the late Bernard Venables and it is evocative of times now largely lost with the main character teaching a young lad to fish in stew ponds and Mill Pools where the calm green waters reflecting willows have not changed since Constable painted them.

This is the version I am interested in, but linked to natural history.

The country written about by Richard Jefferies, Ian Niall and Watkins-Pitchford. All leafy lanes clad in dog rose and honeysuckle or coastal fields with thick hedges and migrants calling in the mist of an October dawn. Chaps with pipes and Fair Isle sweaters under a thick army great coat and ex-naval 6x30 binoculars.    Amongst the birders, Ennion, Richardson, Wallace, Alexander, Mountfort and others are read over and over again. They make me feel comfortable and give inspiration.

In a world swamped with media overload, smart phones, apps, nocmig, etc its great to get back to basics. As 'Lockdown 2: this time its tedious'  kicks in I'll probably find myself seeking solace with the old fellas. Tonight at dusk, I was walking quietly in the back field with Peggy, the local Barn Owl silently hunted the hedgerow and winking Pink footed Geese moved south overhead and all seemed well with the world... 

The Bird Catcher. Pen and Ink by Ian Niall.

 

An artist on the shore...

Today was a special day for me. I met a lifelong hero of mine. That's not strictly true, as my hero is no longer with us, having passed away in 1981, but today I could definitely feel his presence.

Back in the mid 70's while my school friends were idolising Billy Bremner I spent wet Saturdays visiting Morpeth Library to browse the birds and wildlife books. It was here I found what was to be my favourite book - 'The House on the Shore' by Dr Eric Ennion, a tale of a small bird observatory that was operated on the Northumberland coast opposite the Farne Islands.

Dr Ennion was a GP from Northants, born in 1900. He was always interested in birds and began drawing them from an early age, eventually becoming one of our most influential bird artists.

He and his wife bought Monk's House between Seahouses and Bamburgh to run as a field studies centre for the decade between 1950 - 1960. During this time, Ennion didnt have too much time to draw and paint, but after he left Northumberland and moved to Shalbourne in Wiltshire, he began teaching wildlife and landscape painting, producing a prolific output of work.

Aged about 12, his drawing and writing had a great impact on me. I hung on to every word and gazed longingly at the illustrations. The birds leapt from the page. Ennion had a knack of capturing the real character of a bird, not any bird, but that individual he had in front of him at the time.

So, when I visited Sunderland last autumn to see an exhibition of his work, I was thoroughly gutted when I got there to find access an impossibility due to a damaged door after some rain ingress. Luck was on my side however, as soon after, I heard that the same exhibition would be coming to Berwick in 2016, even closer to home than Sunderland.

The Eric Ennion Exhibition opened at the Granary Gallery in Berwick yesterday and I was raring to get there today, to take in some original works of the great man himself. There were 46 framed pieces on show ( none for sale, you cant get them for love nor money) and at one stage I pondered the likelyhood of me getting away with an art heist. This would be as successful as my trip to Sunderland so made do with some phone shots of the delightful works to bring away with me.

What is it that attracts me to his art? Well its the raw clean style really. No faff, no detail, these are not Collins plates or Lewington airbrushed backgrounds, no, this work just beautifully evokes a scene as if you were standing next to the Dr while he painted.

When I came home I thought, I may never paint on white paper again...
 

Winter doesn't usually arrive like this...

The 1952 Monk's House Lesser Grey Shrike by Eric Ennion.

In Northumberland, winter arrives around about 15th November and generally lasts until Valentines day (unless you look at this year and it lasted until May).

So, in winter with very few moths and flowers to look at, its the birds that take centre stage once again. At this time, we can look out for Twite and Snow Bunting with grebes and divers along the coast or maybe a large finch flock or a raptor further inland.

If we are very lucky a Great Grey Shrike might take up wintering territory in the forests, but this delight is usually saved until March or April. It is no wonder then that the report of one at the Long Nanny car park, High Newton caused Gary, the local patch stalwart, some consternation. Could this be a Steppe Grey Shrike? After all, Great Greys don't usually linger for days on the coast here. I'll let him explain more thoroughly HERE.

As it happened, Gary found the bird and re-identified it as a much rarer species altogether - a Lesser Grey Shrike! It is easy to see how the mistake was made, as this was in first winter plumage and lacked the black forehead of a spring adult. The main features that give the game away are the long wing projection with a huge white flash at the primary bases, the shorter, thicker bill, the shorter tail and the darker greyish mantle with an off-white/ pinkish hue to the breast.

This morning, it showed really well to an appreciative audience, flycatching and actively dashing around the cattle paddocks next to the car park. This is the second LGS in Northumberland this year after a spring bird on Holy Island. For me, this is my second county and British LGS after a full summer adult at this very same site in June 2008. It shows that lightening can strike twice...

Stewart and the Birdcatcher...

Steve Gale has started something here on his blog North Downs and beyond, yet again... . He askes why do we do it, this birding mullarky. I started to leave him a  comment but I got a tad carried away so here it is. Please check out Steve's blog, he's a great writer that certainly gets you thinking...

Anyway where was I, oh yes -

Why?

Why wake up? To me birding isn't a hobby or something taken up to fill in early retirement and to spend cash on now the kids and mortgage have gone. 

Its something I have done for ever, but maybe not in the form we 'birders' would recognise today. 

Aged  6 or 7 I liked books with pictures of birds or animals in. I didn't have any interest in cars or trains or football. Those things were all made by man, so by default, everything that it was possible to know, was already known. If you get the drift. Not that I knew that as a wee bairn, but I did seem to have some empathy for creatures other than my species.

I was given the first edition of Heinzel, Fitter and Parslow in 1972 aged 8. In this year my mother died so maybe that forced me to get stuck in, to blank things out, but I read that guide like kids would read Janet and John. Cover to cover. I could name the lot, and even recognised bits of text to show what bird was what, but I didnt know that people actually went out specifically to look for birds. Bird watching.

As a child, I just went out to play and took notice of the birds around the council estate where we lived. The only other people I knew who looked at birds were the older lads at school who went nesting. If you've seen the film 'Kes' I could have slotted in there, seamlessly.

I remember my first Goldfinch on a fence, my first Blue and Great Tits, known from the book, on a neighbours peanuts. My first Dunnock sneaked into view on our lawn when I was gazing through a rain spattered window. I could go on. They all came to life like seeing a famous person in the flesh for the first time, or like a footballer other lads idolised from the telly. 

My dad was the local park keeper and had to take me to work with him during the school holidays and on summer nights so I prowled around catching butterflies, frogs, hedgehogs and even finding nests in the hedges ( no eggs were taken, dad would have killed me).  

Aged about 10 or 11, dad took me to see a bloke he knew from the local working mens club. His name was Geordie. He was a retired coal miner with an allotment filled with strange wire mesh covered greenhouses. Imagine taking a young lad and dumping him in a secluded hut with an old fella these days!  The reason for it was that Geordie, bred cage birds. Not just canaries or budgies, oh no, this was the hard up north east, budgies seemed a bit too tropical, Geordie was a British bird breeder who specialised in finches. 

He was a bird catcher.

That first day 'down the garden' was a revelation. Dad kind of paraded me around several aviaries and sheds getting Geordie to test my id skills...'Whats that' he would say pointing high up to a shape in some gorse tied to the mesh of the well covered aviary. 'Siskin!' 'Male' ( or what ever) was the cry, and one after another I got them all right. There were Goldfinches and Bullfinches, Greenfiches and Siskins, Redpolls and Linnets many singing their heads off in their large secluded 'bioshpheres'.

Now I'm not getting into the debate of the legalities and rights and wrongs of this, but in 1974 no one was really bothered.

I went to see Geordie every Saturday and Sunday morning at first light where, during the late autumn and winter we would try and catch specific birds such as female Bullfinch or Greenfinches to breed from. When he had a target everything else was left to its business, so needless to say we never caught much. The few hapless individuals that were caught, where taken in a 'greenhouse' aviary with the door open and a string tied to it leading back to the shed. Male 'call birds' were hung in small cages  inside to sing and chatter to attract their own kind. If we were lucky and one went in, the string would be pulled and the door closed. No Bird Lime here, it was frowned upon, it would damage the feathers and feet of the birds.It was cruel.

During the summer Geordie and me would go out collecting wild food for his breeders, plants such as Fat Hen, Chickweed, Persicaria, Docks, Thistles and bunches of groundsel,  things like larch branches, broom and gorse as nesting cover were all  brought back. He would show me nests of Redpoll, and even Willow Warblers and Whitethroats, There were tales of Red Squirrels and Bats ( bats down the pit!?). Before I was 12 I could pick out a flying Redpoll half a mile away on call, and Bramblings likewise.

This was my learning ground for about 5 years, not Bird Forum.

Another real mentor of mine, I hope wont mind me saying, is still in the side column on the right, under the blog Abbey Meadows. Nigel lived near relatives of mine in another village several miles away. When I was about 9, Nigel was two or three years older. I used to stay over at the relations, and go to seek Nige at about 5.30 or 6 am when we would set off wandering the lanes and bridlepaths looking for wildlife. In those days Nigel had been on real bird watching trips to the coast seeing Merlin and Arctic Skua, just fantasy birds for me. I was over the moon to see Goldcrests  and Yellowhammers and Corn Buntings were widespread in Northumberland then. Nigel told me what various wild flowers were ( I still struggle with those) and he is still hunting them out now, 40 years later.

So thats HOW it all started, but WHY?

You know, I dont really know. I just know that when I am outside feeling the wind on my face and hearing my first Swallow overhead or jostling for my first Belted Kingfisher, or hearing the Tuk Tuk Tuk of a cock Pheasant waiting under my feeders in the garden, looking at the first Speedwell flowers in spring, or seeing a fleeting Stoat dash across the road, this just seems right. 

All problems are put in a different room even just for few minutes...It helps me breathe...

As for those that can just pack it all in because they dipped a Scarlet Tanager in Cornwall? Thats the real 'why'? Its all their loss... 

Thanks for your patience. Especially if you have read some of this babble before...