Fuzzy birds

Only a couple of days remaining in August, and it's looking highly likely that this will be the first month of 2013 bird challenge in which my list hasn't been added to. There have been a couple of trips to Dove Stone and another to Whitby but I failed to find anything new there (loads of swallows and linnets though). Annoyingly, there have been reports of little owl, wheatear, whitethroat and redstart in the last fortnight, all within walking distance of my house. So stuck on 109 for now, and a peek at Akira's list shows he's up to 75.

Perhaps I can sneak out for a quick walk this weekend..

Choughed to bits

For the last few weeks I'd be been pondering a trip to North Wales to visit friends who do volunteer work at RSPB Conwy. Being far more skilled birders than I, that would surely be a simple way of boosting my tally. After getting in touch and mentioning that Akira was planning a trip to the Isle of May, it was suggested that I book on a boat trip to Puffin Island where I ought to be able to pick up lots of coastal ticks.

So setting off early in glorious sunshine, here's what I saw:

6th July (Beaumaris / Puffin Island, off Anglesey)

Curlew
Sandwich tern
Eider
Razorbill
Shag
Great black-backed gull
Guillemot
Kittiwake
Gannet
Fulmar
Puffin

 

Spot the puffin

After the boat I had a couple of hours available to try and boost the list further, and had a couple of options: head into Snowdonia and try for a long-distance osprey perhaps? look for waders at Conwy? or travel across Anglesey where I'd be almost guaranteed to see choughs? Having only ever seen choughs once (briefly, in Cornwall a couple of years ago) the decision was obvious. Despite getting lost a couple of times, I made it to South Stack where I added three more species:


South Stack (Anglesey):
Raven
Chough
Stonechat


20th July (Huddersfield Narrow Canal, Stalybridge)
Mandarin duck


All of which takes me well past the century and onto 109 species. Many thanks to Rose and the rest of the boat team for pointing everything out and providing a great day. Without further trips afield my list is unlikely to get much longer so we'll see whether I manage to add to it in August.

Don't listen with mother

As part of their efforts to declutter and remove all of the junk I've hoarded over 20+ years, my parents recently deposited two boxes full of audio cassettes. I couldn't bin them without checking them out so over the last couple of weeks I've been working through them on the commute. Spot the oddball / attention-seeker with the bulky walkman.

100 Hz legend: Need to optimise those sound levels son

I might write more about some of the unearthed gems (and turds) another time, but right now I'm considering sexually-transmitted diseases in music. Haven't we all.

I was prompted to ponder this while a burst of Mansun popped up, taped off the Evening Session. Stripper Vicar - what an odd record!




I'm not aware of anything STD related among the tragic tale of a deceased, cross-dressing member of the priesthood. But hearing it  made me recall the delightful opening line of a previous Mansun single, Skinup Pinup:

'Syphilis, sniff on this'.





...which led me to Turin Brakes' line from Future Boy:
'Syphilis is a bitch, but contracting HIV is much worse'.
Err, yes, yes it is.





And then, like a post-watershed game of Mallet's Mallet, Beck's line on Milk & Honey, 'I can smell the VD in the club tonight'.
I had a similar experience once in the Cabaret Club, Oldham. Perhaps Beck has visited there too.





There's more. Plenty more once you start on hip-hop. For starters, here's the Wu-Tang Clan's 'Shame on a nigga', courtesy of Ol' Dirty Bastard:

"Yo...!
I come with that ol' loco
Style from my vocal
Couldn't peep it with a pair of bi-focals
I'm no joker! Play me as a joker
Be on you like a house on fire! Smoke ya!
Crews be actin like they gangs, anyway
Be like, "Warriors! Come out and playiyay!"
Burn me, I get into shit, I let it out like diarrhea
Got burnt once, but that was only gonorrhea"




Last night I stuck on some L'il Wayne and within 10 minutes I'd collected two more. First, the opening lines of 'A Milli':

'I’m a millionaire I’m a young money millionaire, tougher than Nigerian hair  
My criteria compared to your career just isn’t fair  
I’m a venereal disease like a menstrual bleed
Through the pencil I leak on the sheet of the tablet in my mind'

and then in the superb 'Dr Carter':

"Swagger tighter then a yeast infection
Fly go hard like geese erection.
Fashion patrol police detection
I stay tight like Chinese Connection"

Love the image of a goose flying with a lob-on.
While I'm at it, this website is very amusing in explaining rap lyrics.




Pondering this delightful issue yet further, I remembered 'So What' by Metallica, the source of much amusement during Sixth Form free periods:

"I've had crabs
I've had lice 
I've had the clap and that ain't nice 
So what, so what"



There's 'Crabs' by 18 Wheeler. But that could be about the crustaceans.

So there we have it. Someone could write a thesis on that. Know of any more? Leave a comment. A gold star to anyone rhyming 'human papillomavirus'.

In it to linnet

At the end of May my list was 75-strong, which at the beginning of the year I'd likely have been satisfied with as a final total. But the first week of June was to be spent in Norfolk which offered a good opportunity to boost the tally further. Here's how I got on:


June 1 - Sculthorpe Moor reserve
Barn owl
Cuckoo
Sedge warbler
Marsh harrier

June 2
Linnet
Red-legged partridge (both Cranmer)
Ringed plover
Common tern (both Wells-next-the-sea)

June 4
Grey partridge
Yellowhammer (both Cranmer)

June 5
Avocet
Shelduck
Egyptian goose
Sand martin
Little ringed plover
Reed warbler (all Pensthorpe reserve)
Spotted flycatcher (Sculthorpe)

June 6 (Holkham)
Barnacle goose

June 15 (Dovestone)
Peregrine

TOTAL: 94 species.


The first day alone and I probably would have been happy to leave it at that, with cuckoo and barn owl both being lifers (I probably saw/heard cuckoos as a kid, but I don't remember it and definitely haven't done so for years). The other highlight was the spotted flycatcher that we watched close-up while in a beer garden. Lowlight was narrowly avoiding being mauled by two very aggressive dogs while having an evening walk (and picking up grey partridge and yellowhammer).

(pic from Wikipedia)

I still remain some distance from the real hardcore listers though. And talking of those, while at Sculthorpe Moor reserve on June 1st, we stumbled upon pro-twitcher Lee Evans leading a merry band of birders as part of his week-long round-Britain trip. Surely I ought to get a bonus tick for that?

So the next question is, can I hit the ton?

Gonna break some records in the month of May

Here are the results of the May bird list challenge panel:

May 3
Black swan (Brockholes)
Skylark (")

May 4
Song thrush (Bowness-on-Windermere)
Common gull (Lake Windermere)

May 5
Yellow-legged gull (Lake Windermere)
Housemartin (Windermere village)

May 6
Reed bunting (Brockholes)

May 11
Dipper (Uppermill)

May 13
Swift (Leeds University)

May 19
Ring-necked parakeet (Sefton Park, Liverpool)

May 28
Blackcap (Mossley)

Year total: 75 species

A couple of rather unlikely additions in there, together with a couple that I might have expected to have ticked off earlier. I'm fairly certain that I've heard blackcaps several times over the last few weeks but had not managed to see one and wasn't 100% confident in my ability to identify the song. So it was a relief to finally get this one ticked off at the end of the month with some decent views.

A couple of stops at Brockholes reserve near Preston on the way to/from the Lakes proved fruitful (despite our daughter not allowing us to spend much time exploring the wider reserve), and I certainly wasn't expecting to see a black swan. The Swedish blue duck is definitely not a species that I was aware of, and it's thanks to Akira and Fiona's efforts on internet search engines that we achieved this group tick.

The big bonus for me though was the ring-necked parakeet as I wasn't expecting this to feature in my list this year, unless I could engineer a trip to London at some stage (although I believe there are some knocking around South Manchester). It turns out that there is a small population that regularly gather in Sefton Park.

A week in Norfolk beckons so I'm hoping for a few more to boost the tally further. Looking over the full list, I think I'm now pretty much at my upper limit for what I might have expected at the start of the year. I've certainly got all of the regular visitors to the garden and local area.

Non, je ne egret rien

Time for an update on the 2013 bird challenge. Would a visit to Cambridgeshire bear fruit?

April 2
Nuthatch (Greenfield)

April 5 (all Ely- Earith)
Kingfisher
Rook
Great crested grebe
Oystercatcher
Teal
Little egret

April 6 (Earith - St Ives)
Green woodpecker
Wigeon
Fieldfare

April 7 (St Ives)
Herring gull

April 13
Jay (Mossley)

April 14
Chiffchaff (Uppermill)

April 28
Swallow (Delph)

UPDATE:
April 30
Willow warbler (Mossley)

A decent month then, in large part due to my three days cruising down the Great Ouse. A couple of summer migrants from the middle of the month and I'd expect to pick up at least another 3 of those in May (swift, housemartin, blackcap).

Ought to be an interesting weekend next week too: we're in the Lakes together with competitors Akira and Fiona. Anyone know where I can obtain a stuffed hoopoe to place on the lawn?

New total: 64 species

I'm like a swan / I only love once

Here's my March update for the 2013 bird challenge.

March 12
Goosander (Huddersfield Narrow Canal at Diggle)

March 23
Lapwing (M60, Oldham)
Red kite (Calverley)

March 29 (Mossley/Hartshead Pike)
Lesser black-backed gull
Meadow pipit
Pheasant

March 30
Mute swan (Lowry)


Relatively slim pickings then with only 7 new spots for the month, making it 49 in total. The highlight probably being the Goosander which I managed to spot from a moving train:

Why the pointy-face? (pic courtesy of Wikipedia)

April ought to see some more action with summer migrants returning, plus I've high hopes for some bonus spots with a weekend boating on the Fens at the start of the month...

The birds / are the keepers of our secrets

Time for the monthly update in the 2013 bird list challenge. January saw a tally of 32 species (+1 for the dubious goals panel). Here's what February brought:

Feb 2 (Binn Green)
Treecreeper
Siskin
Great spotted woodpecker

Feb 3
Kestrel (Northwich)

Feb 9
Grey wagtail (Salts Mill, Saltaire)

Feb 10
Buzzard (M60 Bredbury)

Feb 17 (Stamford Park, Ashton-under-Lyne)
Grey heron
Greylag goose
Cormorant

Feb 18
Bullfinch (Mossley)

New total: 42 (+1)

All the way from the slums of Shaolin...

Where is the best place in New York to get cholesterol-lowering drugs?

Statin Island

When large DIY store ad campaigns look like album covers, no. 74

B&Q ad in Saturday's Independent:

Amazing Grace by Spiritualized:

This isn't the first time that Spiritualized albums have popped up in these pages.

Tick tick boom

I've previously mentioned the concept of the 'Big Year' here. At the turn of the year, I was challenged by Akira to a UK bird list battle. Always up for a contest, I agreed. Thinking about it, while I've kept records of birds spotted in the garden for the last couple of years, I've never maintained a year list. I'm not sure why. Possibly a suspicion that down that route only further obsession lies, and continual efforts to increase the tally each year. Only time will tell...

Anyway, to the task at hand. Akira and Fiona are maintaining their lists here and here. I've not got around to setting up a Pinterest account yet so for now am listing my January sightings below:


1 Jan
Woodpigeon (garden)
Jackdaw  (")
Blackbird (")
Magpie (")
Robin (")
Dunnock (")

2 Jan
Mistle thrush (Mossley)
Blue tit (Millennium Square, Leeds)
Carrion crow (Leeds city centre)
Feral pigeon (")
Long-tailed tit (Leeds University)

3 Jan
Great tit (Leeds University)
Waxwing (Huddersfield town centre)
Redwing (Hyde Park, Leeds)

4 Jan
Goldcrest (Leeds University)
Goldfinch (Leeds University)

5 Jan
Tufted duck (Alexandra Park, Oldham)
Moorhen (")
Coot (")
Black-headed gull (")
Mallard (")
Canada goose (")
Tawny owl (Mossley)

6 Jan
Starling (Mossley)

9 Jan
Coal tit (Hyde Park, Leeds)
Chaffinch (")

15 Jan
Pied wagtail (Millennium Square, Leeds)

16 Jan
Sparrowhawk (Hyde Park, Leeds)

23 Jan
Greenfinch (Hyde Park, Leeds)
House sparrow (Moorland Road, Leeds)
Redpoll? (not 100% sure so better not count this)

25 Jan
Wren (Leeds University)

27 Jan
Collared dove (Scouthead)


So 32 so far (+ 1 question mark).

Altogether now, "CASSOWARY....DOWITCHER...":

Bird list (Michael Nyman)