Jesus holy mary mother of god. There's mega RBA stars all over the place. But none at all close to my home. The best I've done lately was to go and have an 'educational' look at the 'educational' American Black Tern. An 'educational' bird, it showed brilliantly after the long (for my hips) trudge around the bank. I'd seen photos of the Farmoor (is that correct?) bird from a couple of years ago and read some literature on this (sub) species and was NOT bowled over immediately by the bird in the flesh. When you read about tricky birds when you actually see them they usually stand out through jizz mainly I find, Pacific Goldie for example, though this was much more subtle. Even at this range it was sometimes hard to tell where the auxillaries ended and the flanks began, making the feature of 'dark flanks' not as obvious as I would have imagined. This feature is obvious in the photos splashed about though and is clearly an indication of just how shite I am. Covenham Reservoir is not that far from Spurn as the crow flies so Mr Hutt has probably picked it out already from Clubley's and added it to the Spurn list!
Still, a good bird, nay a great bird. Distinctive in the end after a decent grilling.
Photos are on the finders' website here. I love the head-on shot (9th photo down).
Fuck me I was drunk last night. Not as drunk as last Sunday though I suppose. Or Tuesday come to think of it. Nicola tells me what I get upto the next morning just so I know. Apparently last night I kept falling into deep, uncontrollable giggling fits like a little girl for no apparent reason whatsoever with, and I quote, "tears rolling down my face". Sounds like a good night. Just wish I could remember what the fuck I was laughing at because it was clearly highly amusing.
Glenn "Ollie" Oliver, whose father is hopeless at The Sun Dream Team, is working in South Africa (...and I've never met a nice South African and that's not bloody surprising man cos they're a bunch of arrogant bastards who hate black people) and has sent me a nice photo of a dickie bird he's seen there.
Here it is.
Hornbill sp. Let's see that again heavily cropped.
Ah, Yellow Billed Hornbill.
Ollie described it as "I don't know what the fuck that is but it looks hungry".
The woods.....and the darkness....and the howling vind,
will the snows never cease, they seem to reach back for ever.
After Garry Yorkslister had relocated the Semi-P the previous night at Patrington Haven, I decided to brave the howling vind and have a look down there. It was probably the least successful days birding I have ever had. And believe me that's against some pretty stiff competition. On balance I probably identified around 3% of all birds seen today with the howling vind buffeting, nay, BUFFETING me and my optical equipment which included an onslaught of 3 tuna triangle sandwiches, a party sausage roll, a pineapple/sausage/cheese combo on a stick, and 4 obligatory mushroom vol-au-vonts! Buffeting? Get it?
Sigh.
Meanwhile......the howling vind continued. Some distant waders had some black either on their breast or belly (I couldn't tell) which made them either Dunlin or Turnstone. Not sure which. Then a few more were narrowed down to Plover sp. with either Grey, Ringed or White-tailed the favourites. A curlew was fully identified until it flew directly into the air and sort of swirled around then hit the deck not far from me to reveal it's true identity as a bag. A dead bag at that. All the other waders present didn't even make it to genus level, entering the mental notepad as 300 wader sp! How's that for cutting edge birding? Then a dazzling kingfisher shot across before my very eyes. Result! An identified bird, even down to species level! 10 pipits (obviously Pipit sp.) fed not far away when I noticed a much paler and taller bird amongst them! 12 hours of grilling later I decided it was a juvenile Yellow Wagtail. A cream-crown flew across the sand dunes and salty air shitting up the wader sp, the Dunlins/Turnstones, the plover sp and the bag. Some of the Shelduck flew but some didn't. There. Just thought you needed to know that.
The woods.....and the darkness....and the howling vind,
will the snows never cease, they seem to reach back for ever.
Interesting reading about the satellite tracked Cuckoos which are now in their wintering grounds south of the Sahara. You can read about it on Birdguides here. Basically the project caught five Cuckoos and tagged them with a tracking device. Expensive tracking devices mind. The results were this. We know of course that Cuckoos winter in Africa south of the Sahara but some Cuckoos took a westerly route through Spain and some took a more easterly route through Italy but they all, upto now, have ended up in the same general area.
General approximated migration routes.
Notice the blue route, the Cuckoo stopped in Senegal for
some time (probably refuelling) before relocating to the "correct" wintering grounds.
Also notice the red Cuckoo naturally avoiding Malta.
I questioned why such behavior should occur. Birds must migrate using a combination of magnetic north, the sun, the moon, the stars (?) etc yet using any of the last three would also mean a explicit comprehension of time, i.e. set off a month later and the sun is in a different position, nay, set off an hour later and the sun is in a different position! Instinct? Instinct is widely used in the animal kingdom, less so in humans, frogs returning to their places of birth to breed, Salmon likewise, insects copying the behavior of their oft long dead parents. Is instinct genetic? It must be.
The blue Cuckoo must be taking the route one of it's parents took, the red Cuckoo likewise. Both parents were successful (i.e. they arrived and returned fit and well to provide offspring) so instinct surely tells the offspring that this journey is the way to go. No one way is the "right" way to go, different means, same outcome i.e. both routes finish in the general target area. This project is fundraising to be able to sat-track these birds for another year (and beyond). I'd wager the blues and the reds take the same west or east routes when they migrate next year, both to and from England although the blue will surely take a more direct route when going north.
Something's just occurred to me. The blue route actually skirts the Sahara! It doesn't cross the Sahara directly, it follows the cooler coast then when south of the desert, cuts east to the target area. This could be an individual thing, i.e. the Cuckoo itself starts to cross the Sahara and doesn't feel strong enough at that time, so skirts it and refuels in downtown Senegal before heading east.
Instinct in animals is well known yet we as humans feel we learn instead of it being genetic. Since we cracked the genome this has changed somewhat with some studies showing that instinct is indeed genetic even in humans, for example a gene on chromosome 7 actually turns on an instinct for learning grammar! Amazing brilliant stuff. But not everything is genetic in humans. You would've thought that a fear of snakes is a natural in-built deterrent. It's not, something like that has to be learnt. Imagine your 8 month old daughter, she'd poke and prod at a huge spider that's near her, yet your 4-year old would run off! True, this is a generalisation and not all would run off, but if you have a mother, say, that warns your little girl of spiders, in turn your little girl will learn to run from spiders. It's the done thing. Mummy taught me subconsciously.
So, instinct is built-in genetically. So what? Well, apply this to vagrant birds. It has been questioned before whether vagrants who do this "reverse migration" are maybe challenged genetically. Indeed the Cornwall Varied Thrush was of a form very rarely observed even in the U.S. so the chances of it arriving here seems minute! Unless of course it was genetically programmed to "go the wrong way" and to have strange plumage then this would greatly increase it's chances of turning up here. If the next one is of this form then proof therein!
Could we combine the two (main) subjects above? i.e. Could we sat-tag 100 Yellow Brows in Asia and watch 99 of them winter in Indo-China whilst watch the poor lone genetically challenged mite arrive dumped in Kilnsea churchyard? Then the fun would really start! Where would the Yellow Brow go next?! What amazing viewing. If it had done this reverse-migration thing then what would be the chances of it trying to continue north or west? To watch it's signal lurch out into the Atlantic continuing it's supposed journey to it's wintering grounds "target area" only to sadly lose the signal 200 miles out would be quite something. Not for the Yellow Brow of course. I'm guessing, but who knows? It would and could be one of the greatest ornithological projects, although expensive. I for one would put into the fund to see it happen. Would you?
I suppose it would be quite a long shot to actually tag a vagrant. Also is the equipment too large for a Yellow Brow? I presume so. Miniturisation. Maybe in a few years?
Please leave comments, I'm interested in opinions on this.
And you thought I couldn't go a whole post without doing a childish cock joke or adding some stupid picture. Well there you go, I am sensible after all. It was even about birds!
Finally have a look at this interesting flight migration route of the last sat-tracked Cuckoo. See how it ends up wintering somewhere in north east Germany!
Honestly. Fuck Trevor Francis. I don't need to write short childish verses about him anymore. I went out yesterday. In the field! I know you can't believe it that Q has now got the all clear from the Doctor clearly of eastern origin to drive, which means I can drive to places like Cornwall for a great seawatch, Shetland for rare hunting, and The Scillies to regain it's lost reputation by finding 14 mega rare American Yankee Doodle Dendroica Dandies. Today I went to Barton. Far Ings.
First up, Chowder Ness for a bit of Gulling and the very probable chance of a Semi-P or better. I'd even settle for a Baird's. Here's the cracking results:
3 Curlew
4 Black Headed Gulls
3 Teal (east on the Humber)
[pause]
[still pausing]
Now that you're over the shock of my finds I'll continue with wild tales of deprivation, rock 'n' roll sex orgies and a photographer whose battery had ran out on his camera and he had to go back to his car to get his spare! Crazy days.
Far Ings was a little bit quiet as well although a crazy hybrid duck with the head pattern of a teal, the head shape of a wigeon and the body of a tank did warrant closer inspection. It also had the tertial plumes of a Falcated. In fact I think there was a bit of Falcated (this bit is true honestly) in this duck. Or maybe not.
A young male Marsh Harrier did a fly-by so close to the hide that I could actually see it's wings, it's head and it's body. A Cormorant fed on fish, probably Sturgeon, and the Coots were just swimming about minding their own business and not really doing much. One swam about 5 metres to the right then, amazingly, turned and swam towards me, only to turn again back in the direction from where it had come then it carried on feeding and that. This is the level of excitement that was witnessed here at Far Ings. Truly shite and a very good example of why I should not write about birding and continue with odes to Trevor Francis.
Oh Trevor Francis,
I was you had wings,
Then I could spot you,
From the hide at Far Ings..............et fucking c.
With easterlies about to hit the coast I decided to try to see if I'd be okay to drive the car, against doctor's advise. It didn't feel right and I had a bit of pain just after so that's that fucked then. Not happy. It was going to be a dawn raid on Spurn this morning. Upto now it seems I'm not missing much though.
The cricket was good though eh? Apart from the distinct absence of a certain Mr Trevor Francis. Even the commentators noticed he wasn't there. Bumble Lloyd even said during commentary "...Ohhh, he's bowled him! Swann's bowled him, he's played on. It's all over, England win the series 4-0, it's a white wash! England have outplayed India in all departments. It's just a shame Trevor Francis isn't here. Has anyone tried to ring him to see if he's alright?" Trevor Francis, first million pound player. Was he the first million pound player only from a British perspective? Brum to Forest. Must've been a British transfer record.
Here's a few for you then, who was the first TWO million pound+ player...
a) ...in the world?
b) ...involving a British player?
c) ...between two British clubs?
No Googling you bastards. The person with the first correct answers will receive a holiday for four in Tenerife, £500 spending money, and four Trevor Francis masks including two junior sizes for the kids. Please give preferences for your departure dates in your answer. Holiday is for two weeks and is non-transferable. Holiday is based upon family of four, self catering. Destination in Tenerife to be confirmed before departure. No employee of Q@Spurn can enter. Terms and Conditions apply. Suck my balls.
Oh Trevor Francis,
I say with a tear,
Here at the Oval,
Why weren't you here?
Now Trevor Francis,
As it's getting windier,
I thought I should tell you
We've beaten India.
So why, Trevor Francis,
Was it the weather
Why you never came
To hear willow and leather?
Swanny bowled well,
We took all our chances,
We missed you so dearly
Oh, Trevor Francis.
So which is better?
Us beating the tourists
Or being European Champions
With Nottingham Forest?
So one final question,
I'm not being clever
But who in their right minds
Would call somebody "Trevor"?
Was it your parents
Did they not like you?
I know they're from Plymouth,
Did they do it to spite you?
Iread your life story
Your parent's are central
But calling you fucking Trevor
Are they fucking mental?
'An Ode to Trevor Francis', taken from "No Darkness for Love" by Barbara Cartland 1974.
Trevor as a newly-wed with his new wife Karen Brady
and pop star Roy Orbison
Trevor Francis in action for Nottingham Forest
Trevor Francis as he is today in
white T-shirt and blue shirt get up.
Trevor Francis and his wife of many years, Karen Brady.
With a ball.
Trevor Francis's Panini sticker
Trevor shares a joke after the London riots.
This is and always will be, my favourite picture of Trevor Francis.
It show him as kind and sensitive, but also shows his fun-loving side.
A really nice photo.
A free Trevor Francis mask for you to cut out and wear at funerals.
With this one you can even pretend that you tongue is
Trevor Francis's tongue and stick it through the mouth bit.
No one will ever know.
Please ignore all posts since my operation as I'm stir-crazy and have obviously got too much time on my hands. I only came on the computer to have a look at my Dream Team standings in The Sun and look what happened!
Fuck me, I've really fucked up this time. I'm absolutely gutted. I can't believe it.
I've just been to get my first tattoo, been really looking forward to it. Went in and said to the bloke "I want a big dragon right across my back please" cos I'm always polite. He said "Any particular one, any particular style?" I said "Whatever you think mate, as long as it looks good. Do a little bit of a design if you want".
Here's how it looks:
Fucking Theo Paphitis?
So now you know why I'm gutted, I'd rather have had Deborah Meaden!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha. That was a good joke.
sigh.
I'm bored.
Can you tell?
Back driving in a couple of weeks so I'll be at Spurn and I'll have some birding related antics to tell you.
Even the cricket finished as early as your hat, cat, so I can't even watch that. Do you know who I saw on TV at the cricket? You'll never guess. Amazing. Couldn't believe it.
Trevor Francis!
Honestly Trevor Francis was at the cricket. Trevor Francis! I wonder what Trevor Francis was doing watching cricket, Trevor Francis played football. I saw Trevor Francis at the cricket on the first day's play but never saw him on day two, so I just thought it was just a one-off for Trevor Francis to be at the cricket. But then, on day three, who should turn up at the cricket again? Fucking Trevor Francis!!! What's going on? Trevor Francis on day one and three but not on day two? I couldn't for the life of me work out what was going on.
I'm still recuperating but it's going well thanks for asking, alas I'm not allowed to drive for another three weeks. Luckily not much has turned up recently close-by, the Little Blue Heron is, by common concensus, looking like it was a juv Little Egret, I'd seen Marsh Sand in Yorkshire before so the Blacktoft bird wasn't creating too many tears, but I may have travelled to see the Semi-P in Cleveland as it's my bogey bird and have twitched this fucking species on a least four million seperate occasions, the latest of which I ended up chinning a Greenshank here. If you're bothered. If you're not bothered just don't bother.
So, as usual, I haven't any birding tales to tell you as I can't get anywhere. I sit and gaze longingly at Surfbirds gallery and can only dream of being out at Spurn trying to find the next rarity and stringing a fly-by Atlantic Petrel. Instead I sit queitly and lonely, staving off malnutrition by eating only Pot Noodles and tinned Lidl's own Ravioli dressed in ill-fitting jogging bottoms, surgical stockings and a white T-shirt with Pot Noodle and Ravioli stains down the right hand side. From my darkened room I can see green trees yet there is no children's laughter anymore as the school at the top of the hill is peaceful, almost desolate as it is the summer holidays.
It seems trendy again in birdingblogland to chuck a tune in.
Here we go.
As a lad I listened to an unfathomably diverse list of artists from (honestly) Maiden to Wet Wet Wet, Bad Company to Lou Reed and Metallica to The Stylistics! What the fuck? I suppose Maiden were the band of our youth with Jim, Darren Burnett and I seeing the band several times in the late eighties/early nineties. But from being brilliant they released No Prayer for the Dying and became a bit shit. Okay, maybe Tailgunner was okay, but what the fuck is Public Enema No 1 all about? Running silent running deep, we are your final prayer warriors in secret sleep a merchantman's nightmare, sorry I'm not buying this. As for Mother Russia what kind of epic is that? Five and a half minutes? Fuck off. It shouldn't be even mentioned in the same breath as Mariner or can it lick the boots of something not exactly brilliant like Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, it's all so futile. Then Metallica (and Diamond Head) started wailing:
My mother was a witch,
She was burned alive,
thankless little bitch
for the tears I cried.
What what what? What the fuck am I listening to? I'm eighteen, have a unhealthy interest in girls and here I am blasting the above lyric out from a c90 tape on my stereo in my Capri Gear! What are those girls over there going to think? If they're not dressed in black with black and crazy purple eye shadow and stinking of petulia oil then they're not exactly going to come over and go for a spin round the block in my imaginary Capri Gear are they? As for fingering, you've got no chance.
Rightly or wrongly, I split from the heavy scene and found my way into guitar based mainstream bands like Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene and the Stone Roses, not that it was a deliberate switch I suppose.
I was going to carry on talking about my music background but nobody gives two fucks about it to be honest. Even I'm bored so I'll stick to talking about Maiden even though I've said all along that I'm not going to talk about Maiden as it would be stepping on a fellow blogger's toes. Anyway, these are the things that only a true Maiden fan can ever know. Did you know the following pointless facts?:
Gangland should never have made it to the Beast album, Total Eclipse should've been included instead
Even Maiden founder, leader and bassist Harry admits the above.
West Ham will beat Arsenal 7-3 sometime in the future.
On the album Live After Death the sleeve gives to the lyrics to Revelations as 'a cleaver path for the fools who know' which is during the 'Just a babe in a black abyss' bit which is after the "excellent guitar bit" which made McKinneys Long Tailed Tit drop dead out of the tree. Fuck AC/DC though, they're shit and sound like Quo.
Adrian sings lead vocal on only one Maiden song called Reach Out. "It's over your head and you don't seem to undertstand". To which Bruce seems a bit put out because he absolutely fucking belts out the backing vocals in the chorus as if to say "There, that's fucking singing Adrian, stick to fucking She's a Roller".
The Mekon lives in L.A.
On the live version of Remember Tomorrow which featured as a B-Side to Number of the Beast in 1982, you can just hear Brucey warming up right at the begining, he sings "Unchain Unchain the colours" really fast and low-pitched. Interesting eh? You bet your ass it's fucking interesting.
Rod Smallwood had a fiver bet with the organiser at The Marquee when Maiden first played there. Rod said that Maiden would sell out, the organiser said that an unsigned band who had never played the Marquee before had NO chance of getting anywhere near selling out. As the last ticket got sold there were still fans outside trying to get in...
Harry's first band was called Gypsy's Kiss which is cockerney facking rhymin slang innit.
Actually, Gypsy's Kiss were due to play the 'Metal Club' on the back cover of Somewhere in Time.
I actually built the Somewhere in Time Eddie during my art A level. I finished the head and torso then had a big fuck off steel frame built for the legs so it would be free standing but I ran out of time and the papier-machee (fuck you spell-check) started stinking in me Dad's garage so he took it to tip.
The frequent time changes in a lot of Maiden's songs are due to a lot of material being recorded during jamming. The band jam and record the bits they like (that at this point are nothing to do with any song) and introduce them to a song when writing. i.e. the really slow bit in Mariner could've actually ended up as a slow bit in Powerslave if they'd so wished. When I found this out, it actually detracted something from the songs for me. I'd had this preconception that they "wrote a song" and it was all meant to be and it was amazing how they'd written such riffs, lead-breaks and time changes for these songs. Spoilt it a bit really.
I best leave it there.
Here we go...
Finally a tune...
Here's Depeche Mode!
Only joking.
What song then? It really depends what mood you're in as the music is really quite diverse. How about a floor filling crowd pleaser that they play at every gig like Run to the Hills or Beast? Well, I think ultimately the seasoned Maiden gig-goer is "bored" of these kind of songs, if bored is the right word. When we used to go we used to hope that these songs be omitted and they play some old school stuff that we'd never heard them play before like Prowler, Rue Morgue or Innocent Exile, y'know stuff like that. What about stuff like that then? What about brilliantly written later stuff like Infinite Dreams or 7th Son? Fuck it, I could go on forever with this debate as to which song to 'play'. Initially I was gonna give you a Rock Top Five today then in a few weeks a sort of Indie-Madchester stylee Top Five and so on, but it looks like I'm gonna have to, just for you Jimmy and Darren, give you a Maiden Top Five to give a true cross section of The Irons.
Pull up a chair, a bottle of Jack, have a lengthy toot on that bottle of poppers you were saving, put your denim cut-off on with Rainbow and Saxon patches on the back, sit back and and listen to this lot. Here's a song, dur, called Driftaaaaa...wanna here you singing on this one, eh...
Maiden live at the Marquee in 1980 doing Drifter with Di'anno on vocals.
Must've been Dennis Stratton and Clive Burr in the line up too.
Two days after this gig Toyah headlined The Marquee.
And that's true that.
I think I'd have a go on Toyah.
Yeah, why not.
I bet it looks like last years hanging basket nowadays
I just can't she her keeping it tidy these days.
I bet it looks like Terry Waite's allotment.
Changeover period with Brucey now doing the "older" stuff. Rue Morgue.
That's all I'm saying.
Apart from: I can't speak French so I couldn't explain and like a fool I started running away!
Revelations from Live after Death from the now infamous
Longbeach Arena in Southern Californiaaaaarrr!
I actually missed a great Maiden fact earlier.
It was actually ME that shouts "Mother Fuckers" at the end of Revelations.
And that's true that.
Well, it might not be but I can tell you something about the "Mother Fuckers" incident though.
The album was recorded on a different night to the video release
yet they BOTH have the "Mother Fuckers" incident on!
One, or both, has been dubbed on! Believe me, it's true.
This clip is from the video, you can tell it's a different recording to the
album yet it has the Mother Fucker incident at the end!
Amazing factoids for you all today.
What's that? You're not bothered? Well fucking Jimmy and Darren Burnett are so fuck you.
7th Son live from Maiden England.
Later masterpiece with fucking synthesisers!
A fan once said to Bruce: I want to play Heavy Metol with synthesisorrr!
And Bruce said No, you can't play Heavy Metal with a Synthesiser.
But they did in the end.
Bruce is still having a go here but not long afer this became disinterested and
started covering David Bowie numbers and his Maiden performances
started to suffer so Harry replaced him with Blaze Bayley and
everything after 7th Son is shite and Blaze should've stayed with Wolfsbane.
And you have the audacity to call US fat bastards? You fucking wankers!
Hello. I used to work at Dhombzonz Blazdigz. It is always ten to five. I don't go anywhere anymore. I watched a "rom/com" last night! It was absolutely terrible.
