Part 2 : weekly round up.

Now that was SURELY the longest pause betwixt a weekly round up? I am the worstest blogger of all time. So where was I? Yeah, so Tuesday, somewhere back in Octonauts, I went to Donna Nook, that's right. And the 'that's right' at the end of that sentence was not a phrase correcting myself, I was doing a Mick Jagger voice as I wrote. Yeah, that's right.

You've just read that like Mick Jagger haven't you?

Anyway, blah blah blah, Arctic Warbler showing fantasmogorically well, Long Eared and Short Eared Owls, blah blah, Yellow Browed, Barred Warbler, blah blah, flyover RedThroated Pipit, blah, great day, blah blah blah.

Wednesday and Thursday. 15th& 16th Octagon. As a birthday treat god bestowed upon me a Spurn tick: Upupa Epops! But I was on Sammys when another was loafing around Kilnsea (Pallid Swift). Darn it. I also saw Izzy Shrike (my 2nd at Spurn), GG Shrike, LEO and a couple of cracking Rough a Legs, one of which was right above me at the end of Peter Lane with a couple of Commons. It was one of them days, stuff everywhere but after the Rough a Leg I headed down to the gate to wait for the Pallid to fly south. It didn't. Darn it.

I have been to other places but I can't remember where. Oh yeah. Donna Nook again where I looked RIGHT AT some Taiga Bean Gooses just in from the bean fields of the Taiga region. Bean Gooses eat beans. Magic beans. Barnacle Gooses eat Barnacles, but Greylag Gooses do not eat Greylags as that would be simply crazy.

I then watched a Blyths Pipit near Pugneys Country Park which was nice. Then a FUCKING LITTLE BUSTARD in a stupid field in Fraisthorpe. Which was even nicer. Fraisthorpe beach is a nuddy beach. If you like being nuddy outside, you're ALLOWED to go there and get nuddy - outside. So, if you're a closet person who likes getting nuddy in public, simply go there and get nuddy and be free, FREE! Skip along the beach, nuddy, and laugh uncontrollably, it will make you feel a lot better if you're into being nuddy.
Outside.



Fin.


Not fin actually. 2014: never forgotten.



Fin.




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

Week round up, part I

Well, what a week. So far.
Let's begin with Sunday, although that's sort of last week. I was up and ready and 'waiting on news' before going out. Shameful, I know. A Radde's has been showing on and off at Flamboro. Okay. I'll go there then. I hate Radde's Warblers. Skulking liddle bastards. Why the flip do they sit deep in cover? Well? Apart from being warm? Oh, and safe from predators. And their probable chosen foodstuff is more numerous in darker, damper confines. So, APART from that, why do they not show themselves?  Bastards.
I arrived. There was a man. He was from York. He was called Alex. He told me he birds Whitby. He was hidden in a hedge. He was looking for the Radde's. I do not like long sentences. As I can't concentrate for long periods. I was here for a stake out. I was expecting maybe an hour and half which should be hyphenated. Alex, from York and Whitby, after one and a half minutes (which also should be FUCKING hyphenated) stated 'it's there, bottom left'. I turned a bit to the right as instructed and looked at a Radde's Warbler! Jesus holy Mary mother of god.
I then had a chat with Brett and counted some Pinkies going south. 82. A girl then arrived with a box of chips! This is an amazing day! She then left with Whitby Alex from York to eat chips together on Flamboro head. This is truly a breakthrough moment in birding.

Still, it was good talking to Alex and Brett. Brett is a proper good bloke.
Not that Whitby Alex from York isn't of course.
And thanks for calling the Radde's, it saved me one hour, twenty-eight minutes and thirty seconds from my predicted timescale. How's that for proper hyphenation?

Monday. Clag, shit, rain and norf easters meant only one thing : I'm about to get wet at Spurn. I got wet at spurn. I didn't see another birder til 11 o'clock and he was in a sensible hide! Right, where the fuck is everyone? 'Well the sea should be good today so they must be doing the sensible thing and sea watching from a nice, dry hide' I said to myself far too loudly which startled a goat-type animal nearby. He had been eating grass, I could tell.
What now? Well I did a bit of seawatching then succumbed to the thought of the bushes being all mine even though I was gonna get drenched. A Lesser White at Cliff farm and a possible Sibe Chiff in the church was all I could muster and fucked right off home before a couple of things were found late afternoon. At this point it was ME that was sat in a warm, dry house drinking cold lager flavoured drinks, HAHAHAHAHAHA, the laugh is on you now that you've all had a great seawatch, waited til the rain stopped, and gone out and found a Bluethroat and a few other goodies........oh, hang on.....



I will (might) tell you all about Tuesday and Wednesday tomorrow.


Jesus walks into a bar with his disciples and orders 13 glasses of water while winking at his mates.....








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A Day in the Life

I read rare bird news today oh boy

About a lucky man who found a Shrike

And though the news it said Woodchat

Well I just had to laugh

I saw the photograph

He put his shutter speed too low

He didn't notice that the light had changed

A crowd of people stood and stared

They'd seen this Shrike before

Nobody was really sure if this was a Woodchat at all!

I saw the film today oh boy

It showed the Shrike looking like a Masked,

A crowd of people turned up anyway 

And I just had to look

And consulted a book

I'd love to seeeeeeee thaaaaaaat Shriiiiiiiiike....

Jumped up, got out of bed

Dragged a sponge? across my head

Found my way downstairs and drank a cup

And looking up I noticed I was late

Found my scope and kicked a cat

Made the car in seconds flat

Found my way inside and had some coke

somebody spoke and I went into a dream

I read the news today oh boy

A third for Britain at Spurn Point, Yorkshire

And though the crowds were rather small

They had to count them all

Now they know how many twitchers it takes to fill Hull City Hall

I'd love to turn you on

Lyrics by Q with a little help from my friends Paul, John, George, Richard Starkey. 

And Mr Sting. 

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

Rio bastard Ferdinand rant

Is it just me that is sick to the fucking back teeth of Rio Ferdinand fucking exclusives in the papers? He's a cock. He's a fucking manc cock who has bigged  himself up throughout his shite career. His goal celebration tells you everything. Someone else scores. He runs the full length of the pitch, thus arriving on the scene later and jumps over the top of his stinking manc team mates and all the photos in the fucking press show that bastard splashed all over the back page. He looks like Plug out the Bash Street Kids. And he's on coke. There, I said it.

Rio Ferdinand exclusive: Man U let me go to QPR.
Rio Ferdinand exclusive: My story about Welbeck going to Arsenal.
Rio Ferdinand exclusive: I do a piss in the morning. 
Rio Ferdinand exclusive: Who gives two flying fucks about what I think exclusive.

I'll tell you what fucking Ferdinand, fuck off you fucking mancs bastard you fucking stinking twat. If you fancy your chances I'll meet you anywhere and give you a proper kicking you stinking mancs bastard. And he played for them stinking white bastards too! Fuck me, can you get any worse? He might as well go and play for Jihadi Beheading XI just to complete the set. 

There, I said it.
Excellent rant.



1 Curlew. 









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

Patch!

I've found a patch. Sort of. I was wasting time as the kids were asleep in the back of the car and Fats wasn't leaving work for another 20 minutes, the conundrum being : children asleep : 7-8 minutes from home : by the time I got home it's nearly time to leave to pick fats up : may even wake children in process of going in 'home' : ergo, pointless trip home, : ergo, may as well wait around here (here being St. Andrews Quay just off the A63 in Hull). Hang on, I have binocular aids with me. I'll have a quick scout round the bushes near Mr Chu's the chinese restaurant in which I saw Two Jags Prescott once which is a top celebrity story I think you'll agree. I 'birded' from the car and viewed only two bushes! These two bushes held 3 Willow, 2 Whitethroat, 2 Greeneth Fincheth and 2 Robins. Okay. And? Well it gave me enough in 7andahalfminutes to warrant a return next morneth with more time.

Next morneth, more time, although only halfanhour:
5 Willow
1 Chiff
6 Whitethroat
1 Reedeth Bunting
1 Lesser Whitethroat
1 Reed Warbler.

Now this isn't bad. The 'patch' is on the side of the Humber, I think liddle blighters fly south, see an expanse of water and ditch down for a bit. I actually had my phone in my hand after viewing the Reed W in a few short bursts. The first few times I saw it, it was in Elders, scurrying down branches and it looked short winged! The jizz and the habitat (there were a million rushes right next to the Elders it preferred) said 'not reed'. I honestly thought I had a Blyths even though I hadn't seen much of it, I had upto now an acro that wasn't behaving like a Reed and I was about to ring for backup and run through a few features. Then it showed well and sat on a rush and it appeared to be a Reed Warbler. The short wings now had a fairly standard 'long' primary projection, the supercil stopped at the tiny eyeball...... I am shit. But you know when something's not right? Well I just had that feeling.
Bah!

In Henley I saw this sign:



What do you do if you only what a small rug?
Nicola called me stupid.
Maybe I am. Maybe I am when it comes to unstreaked acros anyway.

I will continue to check my little patch, especially as there's easterlies right now and clear weather.





Fin
................

Porsh

We're darn sarf. Henley to be precise, camping. It is porsh rarnd har. £4.40 for a pint of piss-flavoured Fosters?! Gordon Bennett! (James) Gordon Bennett (jr) was a newspaper magnate around the turn of the century. Did you know that? I aren't telling you anymore about him as it is a) uninteresting b) pointless and c) if I tell you lot you'll then know as much as me.
Etc.
I ataken (atook) the children and Fats to Woburn to the safari park (that is) there. It's actually the first time I've seen tigers, alright not "tickable" tigers but tigers in the flesh all the same. Tigers are brilliant. FA cup finalists and in Europe? Ha.
That was a good joke.
The park held Black Bear, Giraffe, Lion and Zebra amongst others. There was a tiny deer at the side of the road which didn't look well as someone was attending to it. The guy turned 'round. It was Louis van Gaal!
"Fawn ill?" I asked.
He said "don't you fucking start......"
Hahahahahaha. Ha.
That was a good joke.
Ha.

Right. This is a birding blog. Right? Supposedly centred roughly around Spurn. Right?
Well here's some bird bits. Right.
The campsite holds Red Kite, Willow, Chiff, Blackcap, Treecreeper, RN Parakeet, Green Wood, and an Egyptian Goose with one good arm. Pheasant, "Mallard" random ducks, one of which Ruby has befriended and has named it, rather preposterously, "Friendy", and several other more dull species than the ones I've already highlighted.
And now a Spurn bit. Just for you.
I went to Spurn last week, alas with children. They like it though. I managed a seawatch of some description and observed the following species in varying numbers:
Little Tern, Sandwich Tern, Common Tern, Your Tern, Right Tern, As Tern, Gannet, Common Scoter, Eider (5 north - important figures)....and other stuff as well. Med Gull betwixt Kilnsea and Easington, etc. What I did see though was a Grey Partridge with one young opposite Kilnsea Wets. Evidence of breeding! Successful breeding! I had a conundrum:
a) Do I report this? or
b) Is it lame to report this?
In the probability that it is in fact b) lame to report this, I sort of forgot to report this. Poor observatory skills. Again.
I atook the girls to see Alan's Little Owls. Alas, to no avail. I had promised them Owls, tiny Owls. Cute Owls. Tiny, cute, bald, baby, beautiful, bald, baby Owls yet I could not deliver. Poor parenting skills. They cried all the way home and through the night although that may be due to me downing 14 pints and singing "We're by far the greatest team...." at the top of my voice whilst stood on the dining table with only some ill-fitting socks as attire. EXCELLENT parenting skills!




A toast! Here's to holding them to only four......






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

Vivid piss death

Is blogging dead? No one seems to bother in the ornithological world of ornithology. Apart from a few obviously. And well done to them I say. I'll tell you what is dead though, the Willow Warbler population. Is it just me but has there been a massive decrease in numbers? Has anyone else noticed similar trend? Also Kestrels. I spend a lot of time travelling these days and on any given journey you used to see several hunting the roadside verges. Sometimes many. But now I'm lucky if I see one. Birds of prey are, generally, doing fantastically well and numbers are expanding at an alarming rate, Red Kite and Buzzard in particular. I do not know why Kestrels have slumped. Let's think about it.

Kestrels hunt by spotting the vivid piss of a vole as they can see through their eyeballs in ultraviolet mode, they then edge closer to the vivid piss and watch for movement, ultimately pouncing on the unfortunate vole whom met its death due to its own vivid piss. Has evolution acted so quickly that a vole can now disguise it's own vivid piss as to further its own chances at the big game that is survival? Selection of the fittest, natural selection, evolution in work, go figure.

As for Willow Warbler decline I can only guess that devolution has occurred and Mother Nature has lumped willow and the chiff complex back into the single species they obviously were some.....I'm guessing......50,000 years ago?

What am I talking about? Maybe blogging SHOULD be dead. Well, MY blogging anyway I hear you cry.

If this blog is dead I'll leave you with this I've recently found out:

After strangulation, which organ in a woman's body stays warm the longest?
My cock.




Goodnight.






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