Fair Isle.....cool?

A few days ago a MAGNOLIA WARBLER was found on the mega island that is Fair Isle.  2nd for Britain.  First one since 1982, some thirty years ago!  Hell's teeth!  Hell's teeth indeed.  If one was found at, say Spurn I would suggest that the message would go something like this:

!!!  Magnolia Warbler           East Yorks                               Kilnsea

                                              1st winter in Churchyard today.  Do not park at the Crown
                                              and Anchor, parking is being arranged in the church field
                                              please follow on-site instructions.  A donations bucket will
                                              be in place.

Something like that.  Or if one was found, say on Orkney the message would, perhaps go something like this: 

!!! Magnolia Warbler            Orkney                                     Kirkwall, Mainland

                                              1st winter showing well along McDonalds Road.  Extra boats
                                              are being chartered from Scotland for the morning.  Please
                                              sample local whisky.  Park in the Grouse Fucker public house
                                              and walk down towards Ian's Taxis.  Bird is in willows at the
                                              back of the office.

When one was found on Fair Isle, MEGA, 2nd for Britain, first since '82, much sought after dendroica (sic) yank passeriniforme, do you know what it said?  Go on....

one this evening

One this evening?!!  Are you having a laugh Fair Isle?  How cool is Fair Isle?  It just shrugs it's huge geo-setter based shoulders and says "one this evening".  Fair Isle is the coolest of all the islands in the world.  Far cooler than Jim Rockford out the Rockford Files.  Even cooler than Nelander when Jules tells her we're all gonna be like little Fonzies, and what's Fonzy like? 
".......errr.......cool?"
Correctamundo, we're all gonna be cool.     
Fair Isle - cool reporting.  Or is it just a little arrogant?  Maybe.  I tend to think it's just cool.

If this is your photo...........I am not bothered.

Anyway, went to Spurn.  Small child was asleep as we arrived but woke up the very second I parked up.  I just couldn't get out of taking her with me and it's a nightmare trying to pin down some flitting Phyllosc amongst the sueda when she's around me neck poking my bins that I'm already holding one handed cos I'm holding her just so she won't run off and start making massive noises which would be much to the disdain of the assembled throng. 

A flying visit bagged zero Rose Coloured Starlings which I spent time searching for at the gas terminal, a Red Breasted Fly and as I pulled up to the Riverside where a Barred had been seen.  "Imagine my surprise" when I joined the assembly (whom I presumed were watching the Barred) when the first thing I clapped eyeballs on was a wing-barred Phylloscopus!  "Hell's teeth" I exclaimed, then realised that this was what they were really watching.  Still unconfirmed, I tried to get clinching views with Livs peering down the other end of my bins saying "Hello Dad" and laughing her head off because I couldn't see a thing.  It was a Greenish.


There.






.................................

Well, I've seen some things in my thyme

Did you see the back pages on Monday morning?  That's right a big, beaming picture of Van Persie "after scoring the glorious winner against Liverpool, the team that Manchester United have toppled as the most successful club in the country".  Fuck off.  I didn't even know the new horse-faced dutch man in town was on the pitch!  Man U were outplayed by a pretty poor Liverpool outfit.  It's the same every week:

Man U outplayed in first half.
Man U can't string two passes together.
Ref makes a shocking decision in Man U's favour.
Changes the game.
Man U still struggle.
Ref makes another decision in Man U's favour.
Man U score late on to win the game.
Tabloids print huge back page of whoever scored the winner.
Tabloids suck Man U off.
Man U fans believe the hype.
The unknowing public believe it.
Man U fans suck each other off.
Essex is awash with back-slapping coworkers.
Essex coworkers suck each other off.
Boss (who knows nothing about football) sees coworkers sucking each other off.
Boss reads tabloids.
Boss believes that Man U have the best team.
Boss forgives coworkers sucking each other off in office time.
Boss organises team building day out at Old Trafford.
Boss buys Man U fucking shirt.
Fulham have 3 sent off in first ten minutes of teambuilding exercise.
Ref awards 8 dodgy penalties.
Man U win in stoppage time against a poor Fulham side.
Tabloids issue pull out poster special of van Horse Face II who scored the spectacular winner from the spot against a magnificent Fulham side.
Essex believes the hype.
Essex coworkers indulge in some more back slapping and lure another coworker into the hype.
New Essex coworker buys poster special edition of van Horse II.
New Essex coworker buys Man U shirt.
Man U get richer on the back of shameless favouritism from a) the media b) the FA c) the referrees.
Mr M. Quigley recieves banning order and 12 months suspended for ripping a plastic Manc "fan"s leg off.

ad finitum

Tame.

Better...

 

Same every week. 

Even you Mancs out there reading this must realise Sunday was just a typical day for Man U. 

You're shit.  But you still got 3 points. 

Mark (above) shows why this is.

Some people say I take things too far.  Some say I don't. 

Some say I went to saw a Fudge Duck the other day in Barton. 

I found a Fudge Duck once.  I was only 14 or summat.

East Park, Hull. 

Yorkshire listers owe me for that one. 

Mega.

.........................

L***s 2 Hull City 3.

I hate titles of posts, as you've probably noticed recently.  Most people use crazy puns "Rainham-azing Crake" others facts like "09-11-12 Baillon's Crake at Rainham" which is fine.  Totally fine.  I have no problem with either it's just that I hate having to come up with a title without fear of sounding lame, serious, naff or something else.  So today's offering was a simple one.  Hull beat the white shite comfortably, more comfortably then the scoreline suggests.  This is no great thing around here as we've been used to being the top team in Yorkshire for some time now, apart from when L***s went above us on goal difference briefly a couple of weeks ago before we rectified it.

Colin Wanker

 

Whata wanker.

They don't do themselves any favours do they?  They are the second most hated CLUB in the country (behind Man U obviously) they have probably the most hated CHAIRMAN* in the country, who appoints the most hated MANAGER in the country who signs the most hated PLAYER in the country!  I mean come on, you couldn't make it up, even the L***s supporters that read this drivel know I'm right.

* Not by us of course.  Indeed Hull City fans sung a chorus of "There's only one Ken Bates" at last night's game!


8th September 2012.

L***s fan, Mr J. Secret and I, travelled the 14 million miles down to Lodmoor in Dorset.  We set off at around 5 in the a.m. and arrived at the wrong RSPB reserve in Weymouth just under three weeks later.  We relocated to the correct RSPB reserve to find a strange man in strange attire looking through a telescope. 
"Are you on it?" I enquired politely.
"Yes" said the strange man.

I had a quick scan of the scrape and scoped a wader.  With a long beak.  And that.  It was a Blackwit.  Mr J. Secret agreed of course.  Was this strange man in strange attire really watching a Blackwit and thinking it was our quarry?  Have we travelled 18 million miles to watch a starnge man in strange attire watch a Blackwit?  No, we hadn't.

"It's over there" said the strange man in strange shoes and strange coat.
"Oh.  Right.  Erm.....cheers" said we and scoped the juvenile Short Billed Dowitcher which was showing really well.   It looked good apart from a quite long, droop-tipped bill and solid centres to the scapulars.  After a little research it seems the upper scaps can appear solid-centred, the lower ones having more of the tiger** pattern associated with juv SBDs.  After looking at some photos the lower scaps do indeed look fine for Short Billed which wasn't so obvious in the field. That's enough of writing about proper parts of birds with proper names and everthing as I know little about bird identification and Killian Malarkey has said it is one and so has everyone else so that means it IS one and only the second record of the species on British soil following the Scottish bird from 97.  Maybe it was 99.
We left the strange man in strange coat, strange shoes and strange hat to find lots more strange men in strange hats and strange coats watching the bird from a closer viewpoint.  It was here I met my new mate.  He latched onto me immediately and guided me through the entirity of his train journey from Bristol.  Four hours later and a new found depth of knowledge of the South West rail network, we left and headed for Portland Bill.  We had a terrific seawatch in the hope of some Balearics with the highlights being:

1 Gannet (which Secret picked up going west)
2 Really strange things which were sort of swimming but never broke the surface.  We offered up answers as to what they were which ranged from Ocean Sunfish to Lobster pots!  As you can see we were a bit stumped.
4 Cormorant (west)
1 Pigdog
and Tripitaka out of Monkey (west)

That was it. 
We pressed on and went hunting migrants with 5+ Wheatear and a Little Owl being the only things we saw.  Apart from a Buzzard.

**this is not meant as a reference to "The Tigers" who won at (B) Ellend Road last night.

Pigs smell, Monkeys don't

We drove home, with the return journey taking what seemed much longer than the journey down there, almost certainly due to me still being completely drunk from the night before.





.................................

Jewish Settler Agrees Deal to Sell Bacon From His Mother's Lonely Pinish.

There is no such thing as a Pinish.


Spurn. 
Today. 
As you know I don't really tell you about shite days, but today was, I suppose, a shite day but I enjoyed it!  After the summer doldrums I really convinced myself that a Bar-wit (east off Sammy's) and a Greenshank (west, off Sammy's) a Guillemot sat on the sea (off narrows), a Stonechat and a Whinchat together (Warren) and 3 Med Gulls (adults off Sammy's car park) were genuine proper good birds.  And do you know what?  They were. 


I liked it.

Birding is all about...erm....birding and how you feel. 
Nice day.
Enjoyed it.
At times.  The Point was dead.  Proper dead.




Now there's a bird-related post to appease you all.


Best finish with a joke.

A classic joke.


The best.

Although I may/may not agree with it's content:





Statistically, 9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape.







............................

No Neck Ted off Benedict

Good evening. How are you all?  Me?  Oh, I'm good thanks.  Thanks for asking though.
Drove past Benedict Road today, on the way to Sainsbury's to get the security tag removed from Olivia's new coat which we stole yesterday.  No sign of No Neck Ted though.  He was maybe on the graveyard shift at Bird's Eye. 

I'll let Verbal Kint take over from here:

Some say he's Hungarian.  All I know is if someone like that raises his head and gets that close to being caught, my guess is you'll never see him again.  I see he's on Birdforum now.  How anyone with the criminal mind such as his joins a public forum is beyond me.  Some say his father is German.  Some say he's started a protection racket on Boothferry Estate.  Apparently, he's never been the same since Gianni's at the top of Mollison Road stopped doing curries.  Some guy called Redfoot.  Big black guy. I mean porker fat.  Some say he had a hand in Mermaid pub shutting down.  They just couldn't keep up with the payments.  He'd seen an Alpine Swift once, over the playing fields on Gower Road.  Most people don't know if that's true.  The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that that Alpine Swift didn't exist.  The new Sainsbury's Local on Bethune Ave didn't know what they was getting into.  When we were picking coffee beans in Guatemala we used to make coffee straight from the trees.  The coffee they sell in Sainsbury's Local is shit.  But then again, it is a shop I suppose. 

Kobayashi:

My employer, Mr Ted is most appalled at your behaviour gentlemen.  Not only do you not believe him about the Alpine Swift over Gower Road, you also did not collect the eighteen quid from the newsagents on North Side.  A most regrettable oversight gentlemen.  If you do not collect the eighteen quid then Miss Finneran will meet with a gruesome violation before she dies, as will your Uncle Randall in Arizona Mr Hockney, I may only castrate Steve Palmer's nephew, David.  Do I make myself clear gentlemen?  To be honest I haven't got a clue how I got from being an arch-villain's consort to running a small time brass band in west Yorkshire.

Verbal Kint:

When I was in the barbershop in Skokie, Illinois, the barber there spoke of an Alpine Swift over Gower Road.  I was there.  I mean, it was him, No Neck Ted, the devil himself.  He was looking through his binoculars and shouting "Alp!"

Agent Kujan: "But you had a gun"

Verbal:  It was No Neck Ted, Agent Kujan, I mean, the devil himself.  He used to deal Viagra to the kids for unprotected sex on the mounds on Tilbury Road.  How do you shoot the devil in the back?  I mean, what if you miss?  The biggest thing No Neck Ted is into at the minute is finding out who can say the words "bowling green" in the lowest possible voice.  I mean who can say "bowling green" in a really, really deep voice?.....









Now be honest.  You're doing it now aren't you?  You, the reader, are saying "bowwwwlinnnng greeeen in the lowest register you can!  What are you doing?!  Put it this way, you have just said "bowling green" in your lowest voice possible because an aging anti hero off Benedict was portraying a FICTIONAL crininal from a film 17 years ago published through a drunken birdwatching nerd on the internet that most of you don't even know!  The power of the  internet eh?

back to Verbal...

You know about the Alpine Swift over Gower Road playing field?  Well apparently they've drafted some Hungarians in to work at Bird's Eye.  Taking all the overtime so they say. They were on Gower Road when he's there, watching the Alpine Swift.  Some of the Hungarians say the record is s bit stringy.  To show what real will is, he lets the last Hungarian go. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that he was gone. Underground. Nobody has ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. "Rat on your pop, and No Neck Ted will get you." And no-one ever really believes.  No one really knows.  He's like a spook story, oh fuck I've already said that.  Steve Palmer once said that he doesn't believe in God but he's afraid of him.  Well I believe in God and the only thing I'm afraid of is No Neck Ted off Benedict.  I'm not sure why he's so obsessed with saying "bowling green" in the lowest voice but he is a super arch villain so I suppose he can do what the fuck he likes.


"Did you get the eighteen quid from north side?  How you doing Keaton?"


"I can't feel my legs.....Ted...."

Pete Postlethwaite in his latest movie "Brassed Off"

Which is about an arch villain who

strings an Alpine Swift over west Hull

.....................