Swimming Pool Rules

I’ve just taken the children swimming. The hardest and by far the most strenuous part, without doubt, is putting your socks on afterwards. You know the part where you’re still a bit damp and the floor is soaking? You nearly rip the heel off every sock you’ve ever taken to swimming.
What I did notice whilst the girls were in the deep end unsupervised was that the“pool rules” have changed somewhat over the years since my days as a child swimming.

Swimming Pool Rules 2019

• No Bombing
• No Running
• Respect all others feelings
• Share
• Prayers on the hour every hour.
• No Diving under 1.5m
• No Smoking
• No Vaping
• All genders, races and sexual orientations are equal here and all activities that are traditional to any gender, race or sexual orientation must be observed and adhered to. Any person or persons, or any person that identifies as a non-person must observe such traditions, any person who doesn’t or cannot will be asked to leave but offered a free admission as recompense as we cannot be seen to discriminate even with persons whose views are seen as non conformist.
• No Drinking

Swimming Pool Rules 1979

• No Bombing
• No Running
• Use Ashtrays
• No Glass
• No Dunking
• No Blacks
• Long Life Lager available 
• No Prawn cocktails in the pool
• Please leave the pool when your band colour flashes on the display and makes a disproportionate wailing noise.
• No Male Nudity
• No Shaving
• No shaven clams, good, honest minges only
• No Heavy Petting

Times change...





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round up III

Jazz Mags.


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Year round up part 2

Next “new bird” for the year was the Black Headed Bunting at Flamborough. Adult Male. Went with children in tow. They nearly got run over several times as we were viewing from the verge of the main road into Flamboyant. Still, I was watching a Black Heeded Bunt not looking after their welfare. The children have seen some good birds as I drag them off on a twitch if Fats is at work, I promise ice cream and tell them it’s only ten minutes away then drive the hour and twenty to Flamboyant, buy zero ice creams then drive the hour and twenty back home with two girls crying and screaming whilst clawing at the car windows as if  trying to escape as I think of only myself when it comes to a lifer. In Yorkshire to boot.

The girls have seen some good birds, erm, Pec Sand, Greenish, Arctic, Yellow Brows, Black H Bunt, Masked Shrike, GG Shrike, I wish I’d taken them along to the Sibe Acc so they could be totally fucking underwhelmed by another great bird. They haven’t seen Dunnock and Linnet though which is amusing.

This BH Bunt was surprising in that some pretty big listers “needed” it. Indeed, I think Nick who covers Long Nab needed it for 500! I may be wrong, I could be right, I could be black I could be White your time has come your second skin.

I haven’t really told you anything about the bird or it’s behaviour: It was in a field, like fucking about on the tops of the crops and was an adult male and there was some like, Linnets fucking about with it, I don’t mean like, fucking about with it I mean like, just fucking about and that. So maybe the kids have seen Linnet after all.
Oh and it was May. Or June. Probably.


Until next time...goodbye.

Was that the end of children’s 70s/80s television programme Rainbow? Geoffrey said it.
Not sure.
Anyway.
No! It was”Until tomorrow....goodbye”.
Or was it? I’m not sure. Not bothered anyway.

Yearly round up part I

“So, where oh where have been this calendar year our dear Q@Spurn?” I hear the two readers other than my mother cry.
I’ll tell you. But I won’t tell you everywhere I’ve been as I can’t remember as I don’t keep a notebook like proper birders are meant to as I a) can’t be bothered, b) think it’s a bit wanky (proper word) and c) I should’ve stopped after “b)” as I don’t have a third reason. What I actually do is make a note in “notes” on my phone of the new birds I’ve had during the year which is actually keeping a digital notebook, so I CAN be bothered after all and maybe all of the above is pointless drivel. This is boring isn’t it? I’m bored so you MUST be.

Cast your minds back to March. Or April. A Baikal Teal has been found in Cambridgeshire. Being a mental twitcher who drops everything and runs out of meetings and weddings at the breaking news of a mega, it was there for seven days before I SHOT OFF to see it. Distantly. Very distantly in fact. Being a duck means you have a hard time to get accepted as wild in this country what with all the escapes and wildfowl collections and so forth. But with this duck showing brilliantly down to a range of c.1.7 miles there was no chance of some miserable bastard photographing it with a ring on thus having no chance of it being proved an escapee it would be accepted. Result! Or is it?!
The Baikal Teal was gone the next day. Smugness fills the air knowing that you’ve seen something on its last day as no one else will then see it as I’m vindictive like that in the cut throat world of twitchering.
I missed the Flamborough bird due to me fitting three doors for a man clearly of Indian descent in Hull. Dissent.
So what does the Baikal Teal then do after I’d driven 800 miles the previous day? It flies directly to Spurn! Directly! The Cunt. Actually it’s not a cunt, a (the) Baikal Teal. At Spurn! In Yorkshire! Best get there. Spurn/Yorkshire ticktastic. I’m really close to 300 for Spurn. But who’s bothered? Youre not. Why the fuck would you be? So what did the crazy Baikal Teal do after this? It turns up in Durham. So I went to Durham as, at this point, I was now fucking obsessed with this Baikal Teal. It then relocated to Northumberland. So I went to Northumberland. It then dropped back down to Cleveland. So I went to Cleveland thus  confirming my status as national record holder by seeing the same bird in five different counties. It then did the honest thing and left the country. I miss that Baikal Teal, we struck quite a bond, at one point I’m sure it even recognised me.
The last three trips to various counties may or may not be true but as Twilf says “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good yarn”.
Fine advice indeed.



Fin


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Cheese Facts

Why oh why has this shower of shit been resurrected I hear you cry?  I’ll tell you, I don’t honestly know.
In the meantime, here are some cheese facts for your delectation.

1. Contrary to popular belief, Tom and Jerry, and the 70s board game Mousetrap, Mice don’t actually like cheese. Why the myth is popular however is a mystery, it’s probably something to do with Chinese whispers.
2. Whole Cheeses are removed from the third stomach of a cow. Horses do produce even better cheeses than cows but the animal is killed in the process so we just don’t bother. We just don’t  bother.

Mmmmmuuuuuuurrrrr.  Said Ermintrude.

3. Cheese does not exist in India experts believe. This is probably due to horses and cows being sacred and that with eight arms and that.
 4. The first cheese was discovered 4000 years ago. By mistake! Some halfwit left milk lying around for like, ages and something happened to it and cheese was born.
5. Kids lunchbox item Cheese Strings aren’t made of cheese at all, they’re made of couloured-in plastic.
6. The first cheesemaid had a RIGHT hairy cunt.

Definitely. Said Florence. 

7. Stilton is named after where they make it and that is proper queens english that is. Stilton is a town on the original A1 and highwaymen used to visit and eat cheese. Maybe.
8. Saying “cheese” to a photographer was meant to give you an automatic smile, but some people look quite glum when they say the word cheese in everyday life.
9. Cheddar is named after Cheddar Gorge but Cheddar Gorge was named after someone who gorged on cheddar so experts don’t quite know which came first.
10. Cheese crisps are thought to have originated in the development rooms of crisp manufacturers like Walkers and Nik naks. Nik Naks also used to produce a flavour called Scampi and Lemon which isn’t actually a cheese. And if the pedants out there think Nik Naks don’t do cheese crisps well they used to. Alright?
11. Adolf Hitlers favourite cheese is, or was, Wensleydale like the characters Wallace and Grommit, but Hitler wasn’t a lovable animated character oh no, he was a lovable dictator who used to get real mad about all sorts of things.
12. Cheese is illegal to take through customs. I found out first hand once when I attempted to take some “cheese” through customs from Amsterdam. I was arrested and convicted charged with drug smuggling as this piece of cheese was 80% pure
Colombian rock. So maybe cheese can be taken through customs as this anecdote didn’t concern cheese. Maybe ignore this cheese fact.

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh. Said Dylan. 

13.  The boxer Frank Bruno once said “Yeah I like cheese, I’m not sure what my favourite is but I like the yellowy one and the other one but you don’t get anything for a pair, not in this game Harold” as he always had a catchphrase.  So we’re none the wiser as to which cheese Big Frank liked but he obviously liked at least two types.

14. Burt Reynolds once put a full Edam on his head at a Hollywood party. It stayed there for an amazing seventeen days which, as for as we know, is the longest time an actor with a moustache has “worn” a full Edam although Magnum PI reckons he matured a nice cheddar in his moustache for 3-6 weeks. Norris McWhirter thought that the estimate “3-6 weeks” was far too random for this to be accepted as an official world record so the record stood with Burt Reynolds’ 17 days which stands to this day. The record for an actor without a moustache is 24 years and 4 months held by Benny off Crossroads. We are not sure why these two records are so different but it’s probably down to Benny off Crossroads being a simpleton.



15.  Freddie Mercury’s favourite cheese was, oh god I can’t believe I’m going there, a very specialist concoction, one that had to be harvested fresh from young milked males,  the problem was once milked it soon went stringy but had good salty tastes. Oh god. What am I doing? Freddie said in his own words that he likes double Gloucester but I’m sure that’s some sort of sick double entendre.

16. Reggiano Parmegiano is an Italian hard cheese. I like it personally but Rocky Balboa  prefers no cheese, that’s NO CHEESE on his pasta, the mad bastard. His wife, Adrian was unable for comment.

BBA

Mad dash to Bempton mid week. I got lucky, right place right time, you take your chance, who dares wins, pays your money, need to buy a ticket, ca ne fait rien, bmx bandits, etc.
I wasn't expecting much. The Alba had flown north an hour and a half previous. Maybe it's not expecting much that makes it better when a gamble pays off?

I just can't bring myself to put it above Spurns Sibe Acc, I just can't. But it's second, maybe a close second:



Shit off.






Shit.


Off.

Night Ringing, deserves a quiet night...or south westerlies.

I've come out of (blogging) retirement because I have an idea to revolutionise birding.  You heard it folks, revolutionise birding/ringing. Not that I think ringing is big or clever. There I said it.

I believe that we are missing hundreds, nay, thousands of migrants which travel in the safety of darkness. Bardsey has counted a maximum of 31000 migrant birds attracted to the lighthouse....erm....light. In one night.
One night.
Let me reiterate that. 31000 migrants in 1 single singular eventide/nachtzeit.
The counts are crazy, 1500 Groppers in one night. What? Fifteen hundred Groppers?! Erm, what???!!!! In the US of A there's stories of thousands of dendroica (fuck you IOC) teeming, inundating lighthouses in their droves. I typed "drives" first by mistake but then I realised and went back and deleted the "I" and replaced it with an "o". Syntax error. What am I talking aboot?

So we already know that there are night migrants. I mean by mid May the national population of redstarts (200000 pairs? I'm guessing) are all on eggs. They've ALL already travelled here. How many Redstarts have Spurn recorded by that time? 10? 2? Portland? 6? I don't know, I can't be bothered to look but it's not very many in the grand scheme of things.
So they travel at night. They are already on breeding grounds in massive numbers never being seen at migration hotspots.  How many rarities on Shetland get refound further south once they've continued their journey? Not many. Not many at all.

So Bardsey for example.  Migrants attracted to the light.  There is peril here (for the birds) as many fly into the building and smash their own tiny heeds in whilst flying towards the light presumably as light attracts insects, moths and erm, more insects for mid migration sustenance shenanigans.  I think they once found 18 battered birds one night so maybe not that many. But enough, I suppose.
Bardsey has responded to this by changing the light from white to red and the number of birds attracted fell dramatically. There's two ways to look at this, one is to think that yes, they've now saved little migrants smashing their own tiny  heeds in (18 max) or you can say they have inadvertently removed a vital stop off point for artificial insect feeding action.
Personally I don't care which is correct. They know more than me.
Or summat.

With the above in mind, how can we harness the migrants (therefore vagrants) that are passing above whilst we drink Jura in Crown?  It's clear that we can't allow migrants to smash their own tiny heeds in on the bricks of a black and white lighthouse.  Can we form an artificial lighthouse?!

We'd also need to think of the ethics of stopping night migrants in the midst of migration, but I think creating light will create the artificial breeding ground of insects therefore creating the above insect vital artificial moth fest insect feeding frenzy that birds would surely want?

The next thought is birds travelling too fast for a net.  Something to think about.

Bear with me here.  In the most basic form, taking all of the above into account, why can't we harness all the massive rarities and great numbers of common migs that surely pass over spurn by creating a powerful circle of flashlights, stood on the ground, that draw the birds (and insects) in, with a circle of big fuck off mist nets encircling that circle, place near some decent habitat (church field) then have a ground based minorish (proper word) floodlight that lights the area (but not the nets) so the birds can see where they're landing but not the nets and therefore not smash their own tiny heeds in, the background music would be a loud tape of chiffs, brambling and Middendorfs Gropper splaying out into the night air, we would catch  700 Groppers, 4 Lanceys and a Middendorfs Gropper every single night and, because we're in church field, we can still drink Jura and brown booze from the Crown around the corner! Revolution! The world will want to stay at spurn and the obs could charge £600 per night without hand relief during October. There will be no one birding by day in the future.

Timothy Jones. This is aimed at you as I know you're into this night thing. I want to know your thoughts. Why hasn't this been discussed?! It needs some thinking about.
Or am I simply mental?


Fin.