Hummer in the house!

Many of us enjoy seeing Hummingbird Hawkmoths in our gardens in summer, but this evening whilst having dinner, I was amazed to find a Hummer roosting above us on one of the kitchen velux roof windows!

Craptic!

Well, one of the lighter moments of today's BOU Records Committee (BOURC) meeting was a discussion on species diagnosibility. This included the term 'cryptic' in the sense that some species might not be identifiable to the ear or eye without the use of technology (sound recording, UV light, etc).

So if these unidentifiable species how should we refer to the 'subtlely different' species which we can just identify from one another. 'Craptic' (or maybe that should be craptick!) got blurted out. Like it!

Well, craptic, I know we've all had a few!

For the official definition of craptic, pleae see the BOURC's very own taxonomic and all things meaningful guru, Doc Martin.

Ladies and cheeky chaps

Anyone with even a smidgin of wildlife interest wont have failed to either notice or hear about the recent butterfly 'invasion' . Well, what probably amounts to millions of Painted Lady butterflies were seen moving north through Britain over the last week or so. They originate from North Africa and Butterfly Conservation want your records. Well, I saw a few thousand go through the garden and over the last few days they've stopped moving through and are now hanging around in good numbers. Apparently there's also been good numbers of Hummingbird Hawkmoths, but I aint seen any yet, but we do record them annually in the garden.

One of the other notable things in the garden are our Tree Sparrows. These cheeky chappies nest around the gardens here and the first fledglings are now begging for food in the garden. This one likes to sit on the phone wire outside on of my office windows and chirp his little head off!

Recent garden moths

I ran the 15 actinic treap a few tims in recent weeks but caught nothing. I dusted off the Robinson MVB trap and bingo!

Purple Thorn, Farcet Fen, 5 Apr 09. Caught at light (160w MVB).

Hebrew Character, Farcet Fen, 5 Apr 09. Caught at light (160w MVB).


The Herald, Farcet Fen, 5 Apr 09. Caught at light (160w MVB).

Powdered Quaker, Farcet Fen, 15 Apr 09. Caught at light (160w MVB).

Dotted Border, Farcet Fen, 15 Apr 09. A new species for the garden and last caught in TL29SW in 1992! Caught at light (160w MVB).

Unfortunately my first Streamer eluded me whilst trying to pot it!

Common Cranes! House tick no. 128!

Well, its been some time coming but I knew they would fall in the end. We've had cranes pretty much in residence in the area for at least a year. Two in particular are not infrequently reported from the Nene Washes and Woodwalton Fen. Our house lies pretty much slap between these two large areas and I've been banging on for ages about how they must be flying over the house! Well, at last I've caught them! I was just nipping out to the bins when I saw two shapes in the sky. Immediately recognising they were moving far too slowly for Cormorants, they then banked and even at distance I knew immediately what they were. I dashed in to the kitchen (nearest pair of bins) and once I realised they were heading straight for me, back in to the house, upstairs to the office, grab the camera and hanging out of the bathroom window got a couple of record shots. Grand stuff!

Deformed Chaffinch - elephantiasis?

Not a great image, but this male Chaffinch turned up in the garden yesterday (along with a nice fem Bramble Finch which didn't hang around for photos). I've never seen anything like this on a wild bird. I've seen captive birds with these 'swellings', but only species like Zebra Finches, etc. Is it an avian equivalent of elephantiasis (although with humans this is most commonly associated with legs and genitals)? I can't find anything on the web or in avian dictionaries covering this.

What's that in the wood pile?

Staring bleary-eyed through the bathroom window I noticed a strange shape in the all too regular lines of our large pile of wood (hangover from the recent house renovation). No glasses to hand but knowing it was (a) obviously a bird, (b) a wee bit too big for the usual wood pile Wren and (c) totally wrong for a pheasant (see how attuned by birding senses are just minutes after rising) I reached for a pair of bins from the office and bingo! A smashing young male Sparrowhawk! Showing signs of naive youth, sitting low down (only 2ft above the ground) right by one of the feeding stations isn't the best way to lay in wait of its prey. Or perhaps it chased something in to the wood pile?

It decided to change perspective and moved a few meters to perch on the top of one of the sheds overlooking a shrubby area of the garden before a Carrion Crow chased it off.

Tits and nuts

During the recent snow we had a wee flock of 12 Long-tailed Tits turn up in the garden. They arrived with the snow and they left with the snow. Only my fourth record for the garden/fen.

Interestingly, the granivorous species bumped up when the snow hit, and as soon as it melted, the ship-out was instant with most of the Chaffinches, Greenfinches and half of the Tree Sparrows leaving the garden - or at least not spending every waking minute here. They might all stil be here but just taking it in turn in the garden!

Hanging ice

We had a sleepless night last night. The cause. The gradual slip of the snow on the roof as temperatures fluctuate. The snow on the roof is a solid block of snow ice and during the late evening and all last night this 17m x 6m block began to slip downwards! It judders down the slate roof and off the edge of the roof, hanging before the next judder cuases large chunks to break off and down with a thud on to the kitchen roof and the canopy.

Here's a lump hanging over the kitchen roof (above) and the build up on the canopy roof (below) - itself sliding off on to the ground below. It makes one hell of a thud when a block falls from the main roof on to the canopy 3m below.

Fox and pheasant

We saw this fox from the living room window yesterday. I spotted what I thought was a characteristic 'pounce' through the bushes. Waited and eventually this animal appeared on the edge of the treeline and sat watching over teh snowscape for a few minutes.

Just look at that fantastic tail. This is only the fourth time I've seen fox on the fen. I've rarely come across any sign of them either which indicates that they are genuinely scarce here. Interestingly our walk round the fen yesterday afternoon found fox prints in the snow which looked like from Saturday.

Mr Fox is happy to help himself to any of our plump Pheasants! They do taste very nice!

Winter thrushes

A second day of snow here. A slight thaw overnight (surprisingly) but then heavy snow from 8.00am means it might just be a top up.

Redwing diffing on edge of garden dyke. These winter thrushes know how to cope with snow! The Blackbirds spend most of their time defending the feeding stations, the Song Thrush just looks like its in a sulk. But this Redwing was busy pulling out leaves from under the snow, digging in the leaf-litter it exposed and finding plenty to feed on. A great bit of behaviour from a male Pied Wag then followed and feed in the holes the Redwing abandoned.

This Fieldfare was happy gobbling up what few berries remained on our garden trees.

Snow, birds and hares

7.00am waiting to see how bad it was and whether we could get Liz to the station. The station run was later aborted when the radio told us that Peterborough had copped the best/worst of the overnight snow, the trains were stuffed and central Pboro was either clogged with snow or clogged with car playing dodgems!

7.30am and blanket snow - a nice thick layer of the pucker, crunching-under-foot, snowman-building, snow-balling white stuff.

Grit isn't something we know about in the fens. Mind you, nipping into the village and then to the supermarket, it doesn't seem to be something they use much round here anyway!

Cock-bobbin and a dish-washer picking away below one of the feeders.

Plenty of dickies under one of the three feeder sites. The cage is to keep the colly-doves and pheasants from scoffing all the seed that falls to the ground! Chaffinch numbers bumped up again with some obvious continentals amongst them. Fieldfares also in the garden and a Snipe nearly landed in the garden! It decided on the field edge by the house and looking decidely lost, it departed high to the west!

Treeps and Greenfincks at one of the feeders. Note the adult Treep (completely dark bill) on the right has white millet in its gob. They do like red and white millet. The bird on the left is a first-winter bird with extensive pale to base to the bill (some winter adults do show a little pale at the bill-base but not to this extent). Toadsnatchers and Yellow Bunting also in the garden today.

A close up of one of the 50+ Treeps around the house at the minute. A lovely, nice adult. Just look how varied its plumage is. Definately not just a boring sparrow!

Blobs in the snow! Two of five hares hunkered in the field behind the house throughout the day. Watching these I chanced upon a roaming flock of 135+ Skylarks which are new in. I think they struggled to find any bare ground on which to feed in all this!

Broadway blues!

It might not be the cultural centre of the world, but we've started to enjoy our visiting Peterborough's Broadway Theatre in recent times with great gigs by Russell Howard and Frankie Boyle (we missed last week's Jimmy Carr gig cos it sold out mega quick).

But we wont be enjoying the Ross Noble gig we were booked for in April. Why? Cos some tossers decided to set the place alight. Thanks very much whoever you are. Full story in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph.

Photos top (c) of Broadway Theatre and bottom (c) Peterborough Evening Telegraph.

Left you can see the devastation to the stage. Its gonna be up to six months before we can go there again. Oh hum.

2009 - more pish, piffle and bolllocks then

Well. Its nigh on the end of January already and I've posted nowt on here for some time. Mind, that does mean I probably done nowt for some some time. So what have we been up to -

1. the house - overseeing the kitchen and final bits of builder-realted stuff - yippee!
2. decorating - hoo-bloody-raa! House update here
3. not birding - boo-bloody-hoo!
4. xmas - yippee! (apart from both being ill with the usual xmas bugs) and enjoying our new woodburnding stoves with lots of friends and family calling in
5. writing my Lesvos book - little yippee! I like working and it gets me away from the decorating!

More building progress!

Still my favourite view of the house! We've been 'in' no.4 (this end) for four weeks now and the pace of progress in no.3 has been relentless. Full update on our renovation blog.

Frankie Boyle - contains swearing from the start!

Fuck! Frankie Boyle live at the Peterborough Broadway!! What a great gig!!! The not-so-PC comic gave however what I thought was a short set at under one and a half hours, but, and here's the rub, I don't think the fuckers who started leaving as he was still saying his 'thank you Peterborough' line helped! I'm used to encores at the Broadway, and I'm sure Frankie had more material to deliver, but, on sight of the arseholes who wanted to get out of the car park before the rush leaving the theatre when he was still facing the audience on stage, he will no doubt of thought 'fuck it!'. No, I don't blame Frankie. Once he had left the stage I saw the side curtain twitch. No doubt someone making sure an encore wasn't needed as most of the useless tossers in the audience were already on their feet and running for the exit! What the fuck?! You might have got the impression the show was crap. And perhaps this the message Frankie got as he walked back to his dressing room, picked up his list of tour dates and drew a thick black line through Peterborough Broadway muttering 'brainless twats'. He wasn't wrong when he suggested Peterborough city centre looked like a 'holding pen for the Jeremy Kyle show' - a line he probably uses for every town, but in this instance, how very observant Frankie!

Its always great seeing an audience's response to different topics. Gags about peudos and cerebral palsay were well received, but one gaga about Stephen Hawkins drew a single 'hiss' which didn't go unnoticed!

Crackin gig Frankie. Please come back next time you're on the road - and bring ya Ulster buddy Martin back with you - he was cool too.

Pies and Prejudice

Well, I was bought Stuart Maconie's Pies and Prejudice for my birthday last month. I was really looking forward to reading it, but to be honest, apart from the very occasional chuckle, it bored the fillings out of my teeth.

I was disappointed mainly on the point that Maconie appears to have lived in the south for far too long and hasclearly become very soft and soppy about t'north.

Now, I ain't thick (some would argue with that). I'm no academic neither (no one would argue with that). But I consider that I have a pretty average vocabulary, but Maconie, as a journalist and broadcaster, has a far better one, and doesn't he like to show it. For me, a good simple book about t'north could have done with being written more simply. Not 'showing off' as Maconie's, and my own Mam, would have said.

Maconie's basis for writing about any of the towns visited is largely based on a single recent re-visit. As a northerner I'm disappointed. As someone who lived in 'Skem' I can see that Maconie's view of at least this (and a few of the other towns I'm most familar with) is very accurate, but his commentary is dull. He seems to have written a book for a very southern audience where he can come across as the educated northerner taking them on a wee tour of t'north - some nice bits and some of the dirty bits (nice balance).

Pies and Prejudice, In Search of the North - well, based on a few day trips back home and a little beyond, Maconie was never going to find it was. And he didn't. If this was the other way round and someone had written a book about 'down south', then I would have come away thinking that it was small and deeply dull. This book gives no sense of scale of the north. It doesn't come close to delving into its depths or feeling its breadth. He would have been better writing a book about his home area, west Lancashire, and providing us with a more meaningful, deeper, grittier view of the area he knows intimately. As it is, his lack of knowledge of the wider north shines - simply cos he missed so much of out.

Pies and Prejudice scores 3/10 - and I'm being generous.

Building progress!

Currently my favourite few of the house now the oak windows are being installed! The pace of things is now relentless. Full update on our renovation blog.

Chocolate-tip

A new species for me. This fabulous Chocolate-tip was one of two new species in the trap this morning, but the Small Waved Umber scarpered before I could get photograph it! If my database from Barry Dickerson is correct, the last (and only?) record for Chocolate-tip for my square is from 1878! Caught at light (160w MVB).

More of my and other Camb moth pictures on the Cambs Moth Gallery.

White-spotted Pug

Its not been great for moths in recent days being largely cool and wet. A few year firsts and my first White-spotted Pug (caught at light, 160 MVB, 14 Aug 08).

A new species for the garden and TL29SW. Caught at light (160w MVB).

Twin-spotted Wainscot, Farcet Fen, 14 Aug 08
Only the fifth I have caught here. Caught at light (160w MVB).

More of my and other Camb moth pictures on the Cambs Moth Gallery.