What a tart!

What? Whaaaaat?

Specklebelly

Turned my back on the Richard's Pipit and pointed the car towards the patch and the unshunnable European White-fronted Goose - Gwent and patch tick! Boat Lane also produced Golden Plover and Red Kite plus odds 'n' sods overhead (and, obviously, the Barnacle Goose). Saltmarsh Lane was fairly quiet: a Swallow, the odd Blackcap and Chiffchaff amongst the tits, and a Clouded Yellow along the sea-wall at the far end.

Red Kite and friends over Goldcliff Pill. It flopped around the pools and pill before settling on the grassy saltmarsh. Later on, presumably the same bird, was seen over Rumney Great Wharf.

Right bunting, wrong county

My colleague (who I shall refer to as 'RM', largely due to the fact that his parents gave him names that begin with the aforementioned letters) and I found four Lapland Buntings today (two each, which was uncharacteristically fair of the birding gods). 'My' two headed over NE at 10:00, announcing themselves with the ringing 'tyu', this and the dry rattling call (which pretty much defies transcription) were then alternated as they carried on up the seawall,... lovely. The mysterious RM's were much the more settled, found at lunchtime and still present when we left mid afternoon, they were initially seen on the upper saltmarsh near the noisy kissing gate (between the Power Station and Thornbury Yacht Club) but then went back and forth between here and the adjacent 'sprayed/brown' field just inland,... also lovely.

The only slight fly in the ointment, was the fact that I was in Gloucestershire and not Gwent, ever so slightly taking the gloss (Geddit? Ho-ho,... ho) off an otherwise pleasant birding moment or two. Mind you, had I been in Gwent, the views would have been very distant indeed.

[NB. Actually 'the mysterious RM' would be better referred to as the 'not-that-mysterious RM' but I don't want to run the risk of having all those hysterical squeaming (yes, I do mean 'squeaming') girly Punkbirder groupies reading this and then nipping over to NerdForum to gush to their fellow fans about how they once caught a glimpse of someone who looked quite like [enter Punkbirder here] in their local chippy and then emailing their favourite ornithological knickers to Norwich before fainting onto their keyboards and adding to their post count with the, original yet indecipherable, message "higezcx/'aeihguszzzcnxm,eghswghuuehgstijhsbnjgjhnshjtshbsjhjjhbjtbgbhnshjs;hjij". I mean, nobody wants that to happen do they? And it will,... it will.]

I woke up this morning but I’m still in the dark

Did two lengths of 'The Mighty V' this morning with very little to show for it. 'Highlights' included: Brambling and Hobby (this one?) at either end of Farmfield, five Golden Plover heading east, and a Wheatear at the bottom of Saltmarsh. Pretty steady passage overhead included: 15 Skylark, 80+ Swallow, 5 House Martin, 25+ Siskin and 2 Redpoll amongst larger numbers of other finches and Mipits.

Having pootled around for four hours or so, I headed back to Castle Aberquimcum and, just five minutes from the door, received news that a Lapland Bunting had been seen at Goldcliff Pill,... why I oughta!

Meanwhile, whilst peering over the fence at the blog next door, I noticed one of the "Cossy Tits" seems to be bearing a ring of Gwentish origin. Unfortunately, due to Beardies, frankly annoying, habit of a complete post-juvenile moult, we might not be able to individually identify the bird but stay tuned, hopefully, all the other birds on that string were female.

[Addendum: it transpires that we have only ringed four Bearded Tits on the 'L57****' sequence: an adult female, two first year females and an adult male, all caught on 12th September 2010. As a result, the Cosmeston bird becomes our first recovery,... thanks to Mr. Mitchell.]

I decided to quit and get a zero

Another morning at Uskmouth with one eye on the nets and the other on the sky. The easterly trickle of birds overhead included 20 Swallow, 5 House Martin, 6 Redwing, 30 Siskin and 10 Redpoll; in the scrub, semi-interest was maintained by 5 Blackcap, 5 Chiffchaff plus a few Goldcrest and Treecreeper. However, the really-annoying-bastard-bird-of-the-day was the locustella which flushed from under someone else's boot and instantly disapoofed into a bleeding great swathe of inaccessible (and impenetrable) scrub. I'm assuming it was a Gropper, largely due to the infinitesimally tiny chance of it being anything else, well,... that,... and the fact that just considering the alternatives would likely cause me to experience some form of mental trauma after which purple goo would issue from my ears and I'd never be the same again.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Autumn

Autumn,... 'fall'. The majority of the population are enjoying mellow mists, picking out a pumpkin and packing away the barbecue; birder's are preparing for torture. As August draws to a sweaty close each text alert, phone call or sneaky peak at Birdguides invokes an increasingly nervous reaction; by September every vaguely mobile-like 'peep' initiates a clearly audible intake of breath and minor palpitations. Come October, the phone is passed to the girlfriend, a foetal position is adopted behind the sofa, hankies are readied, and an arse-about-face scene from 'Marathon Man' is enacted,...

Me [Er,... AN Birder]: Is it safe?... Is it safe?
Babe [All birders' girlfriends are babes, right?]: You're talking to me?
Me [Er,...] : Is it safe?
Babe: Is what safe?
Me [Oh, who am I kidding]: Is it safe?
Babe: I don't know what you mean. I can't tell you something's safe or not, unless I know specifically what you're talking about.
Me: Is it safe?
Babe: Tell me what the "it" refers to. [Notices text message] Ohhh,...
Me: Is it safe?
Babe: Yes, it's safe, it's very safe, it's so safe you wouldn't believe it, it's Toyota, your car is ready for collection.
Me: Oh,... great.

Or at least, that's how it was. Now? Now, I'm the the very model of relaxation. The secret? It's all about the management of expectations; you start out wanting to find everything, needing to see everything, fearing to dip anything. These are unrealistic expectations and what do unrealistic expectations engender? Unfulfilled dreams, and what do unfulfilled dreams engender? An unhealthy culture of blame, you project your lack of fulfillment onto your nearest and dearest: your boss won't give your the time off, your girlfriend refuses to relocate to Corvo, your GCSE physics teacher was senile, your mother smoked during pregnancy, your species is an irrational, grinning idiot of a misplaced primate, happily sitting in the fetid gutter of the latest in a series of deity/dollar inspired self-imposed saeculum obscurum. All these things may be true, but their position at the forefront of your mind is symptom not cause.

Manage your expectations. You will not find or see everything, you will dip. In the light of this, inner peace is maintained by appreciating the fact that the Blackburnian Warbler on St. Kilda has been found at all; your cortisol levels are suppressed by revelling in the fact that yet another duffer has turned-up yet another first for Britain; and your risk of acute myocardial infarction or cerebrovascular accident is significantly reduced by basking in the ornithological glow on your buddy's face as he recounts the finding of that mega,... for the tenth time,... today. All these things (when practiced in conjunction with handfuls of Clozaril, Risperdal and Seroquel) will allow you to get through to December with, at least, an outward appearance of quiet contemplative bliss (as long as the drug-induced tardive dyskinesia doesn't give the game away). Job done.

*twitch*

Did I miss something?

Given a week of perusing the net, watching TV and drifting in and out of conversations with the girlfriend and other human beings, it is slowly dawning that, whilst on holiday, I missed several happenings of monumental monumentalness:

1. The Avonmouth Glossy Ibis - given the location, this was much worse than the Bobolink;
2. Punkbirder Flycatchergate - the nice voices in my head say "It's all part of the game...", the evil voices in my head butt in with "... hence Pipitgate, Duckgate, Warblergate,..." [Sits in darkened room, gently rocking back and fore, "Listen to the nice voices, ignore the nasty voices, listen to the nice voices, ignore the nasty voices..."];
3. Reservoir Cats 'misidentification-of-American-warbler-whilst-taking-the-piss-for-the-misidentification-of-an-American-warblergate', a finer example of petard related self-hoistery has rarely been seen; and
4. The Glamorgan Bobolink - I am strangely relaxed about this one, must be ailing for something.

Naturally, given even the cursory appreciation of probability theory I possess, many more happenings of, frankly, bears-shit-in-the-woods predictability also occurred:

1. Precisely no rarities were found in Gwent;
2. Freddie Flintoff's brain finally realised that Freddie Flintoff's body had retired from cricket;
3. Liverpool (as hamstrung by Messers Hicks and Gillett) played 5, won 1, drew 2 and lost 2;
4. Surrey ended up third from bottom in the County Championship; and
5. World peace did not break out.

To all these I say "Meh".

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

The Azores season has kicked off in earnest, yesterday, within five minutes of entering Ribeira da Ponte the colossus below found a Northern Parula. I fear this is just the initial salvo of an El Niño Modoki cum La Niña Mokiki driven yankee fest,... for those of us staying at home, that equals pain gentlemen. We are all destined to become a hand-to-shoulder chain of pale-lipped, leaden cloak laden wraiths, trudging down a dark descending road, lashed by the fearful icy storm, on a stumbling somnambulance to a place where the sun is silent.

Fear stalks my house,... and he's wearing khaki combats.

October in Gwent, black joyless sulkiness,... as so many members of the golfing fraternity are slowly realizing.

Back on the patch

The highlight of this morning's ringing and vis-migging at Uskmouth was an Osprey, briefly perched on a pylon at 09:55, it was rapidly dislodged by a Magpie and dropped out of view. More raptor interest was provided by a Hen Harrier being chased eastwards by half a dozen Carrion Crows and a male Peregrine drifting overhead. Whilst there was little in the way of excitement in the nets, westward passage included: 32 Skylark, 4 Swallow, 60 Meadow Pipit, 10 alba wagtails, 6 Grey Wagtail, 56 Chaffinch, 14 Redpoll and 41 Siskin.

Vireo minus tail

Yet another post aimed at a Californian audience, this time it's "Hello North Bay birders".

I noticed a few messages on the northbaybirds discussion group regarding a tailless vireo at Chimney Rocks from at least 17th-20th September. I was birding the Point Reyes lighthouse during the morning of the 17th and was tipped off about the bird (at that point being reported as Philadelphia Vireo). The following three photos were taken in the afternoon, it appears to be a (brightish?) Warbling Vireo,... it did have me going for a while though. All images can be clicked on for larger versions.

The 'tail' in this image is formed by primaries, at the time I don't think the bird had any visible rectrices.

The bird was feeding in brambles (briars?), etc., above the path leading down to the dock.

Also present were Black-and-White and Townsend's Warbler in the pines/cedars, it was, however, a lot less 'birdy' than on the 14th.