Sheffield Wildlife

Sheffield Wildlife Mark II

2008-01-01T15:39:00.000Z

Sheffield Wildlife has moved to the much better looking http://sheffieldwildlife.wordpress.com

I will keep updating it. Promise!

New Year's Resolution

2007-12-30T12:19:00.000Z

BLOG MORE

Sheffield Wildlife Mk II coming very soon - I'm a bit sick of Blogger so will be moving it elsewhere.

Birding meme parts 6 and 7

2007-10-10T08:49:00.001Z

I'm off work with a stinking cold, so a good opportunity to finally get this finished...

Question 6: Who is your favourite birder? and why?

Blimey. I'm not sure what to put for this answer. Birding for me has always been a solitary pastime; I could be quite happy to spend a full day walking and watching without spying a single other human being. This solitary birdwatching is something is something that has perhaps been holding me back slightly - my impromptu trip to Flamborough the other week, for example, may have been more successful if another, more experienced birder would have been with me to point out the shearwaters, and let me into the secrets of where to actually find the buff-bellied sandpipers and yellow-browed warblers. Maybe it's time to get myself some birding buddies.

As for celebrity birders - well they're pretty few and far between. Like Roger, who did this meme before me, I find Simon Barnes is an excellent writer, and his books on birds are a joy and an inspiration. Less said the better about people like Oddie, who whilst undoubtedly bring birding to a wider audience, reinforce the stereotypes that birders are slightly embarassing bearded men in hats.

So I'm yet to find my truly inspirational birder, the Mister Miyagi to my birding Karate Kid, or the Gandalf to my ornithological Bilbo Baggins. Maybe one day...

Question 7: Do you tell non-birders you are a birder? What do they say to you when they find out?

This is my favourite question of the meme. Birdwatching as a hobby is something that I used to be almost deathly embarrassed by in my younger days, so much so I was convinced that if anyone ever found out it would stop me ever getting up to anything with anyone of the opposite sex. This was so strong, I don't think I did a single day's birding during my University years, despite the fact I was living in the heart of "Summer Wine Country", with all its rolling hills. What a wasted opportunity!

Now I'm older, I don't care at all really. Why is watching birds any better or worse than any of the vaguelly anally retentive hobbies that virtually all men have at least one of? Although I never talk too much about it to my mates, I'm sure they all know, if only from my strangely accurate knowledge of birds' Latin names on the harder pub quiz machines. Plus this blog is linked from my Facebook page, so no hiding now...

The reaction is mixed, but sometimes surprising. It ranges from the slight smirk and mildly sarctastic comments you'd expect, to people actually thinking it's pretty cool. Once people know you're into birds, they'll sometimes reveal an interest themselves, which they've been quiet about for similar reasons. Plus I'll often get text messages from non-birders describing a strange bird they've just seen, or wildlife questions from the more unscrupulous pub quiz atendees.

What's the point in a hobby you're ashamed of? Be proud! Stand up for it! If you're honest, you'll get as many interesting, unexpected conversations as you will sarcasm.

And that's the meme finished! Not sure who to pass it on to, but if anyone wants to take it up feel free, and let me know.

Birding Meme part 5

2007-10-04T15:19:00.000Z

Question 5: Do you have a jinx bird? What is it and why is it jinxed?

Is this what birders sometimes call a "bogey" bird? That is one that try as you might, even exploring the right habitats and areas, you never seem to be able to find.

If so, I have many birds that seem to evade me. Some common warblers seem incapable of showing their presence while I'm around, including lesser whitethroat and sedge warbler, and there are some other embarrassing omissions from my list (pintail springs to mind immediately).

I'd count kingfisher in this category - although I've seem a good few glimpses of one in my time, this is disproportionate to the amount of time I've spent walking down riverbanks and canal paths, and I've never had any jaw-dropping plunges or view of perched birds many have had. A flash of azure darting low across the water is always welcome, but sometimes I want a better look.

Also, a recent bogey bird in barn owl. I remember seeing a few as a child, but haven't seen one in my modern, grown-up, birding days.

But many birds I'd count as jinxes, or bogeys, or whatever you want to call them, I have to lay on my own faults. Missing out on several warblers, and all the uncommon gulls, seems to me more like a fault of my own - my own fieldcraft has probably let me down on numberous occasions, and I've more than likely seen much more than I know, and never truly appreciated it for what it is.

Birding meme part 4

2007-09-30T10:07:00.000Z

Question 4: If you could only bird in one place for the rest of your life where would it be and why?

That's a tricky one as birdwatching is, of course, about exploring new habitats and finding new birds. And what's the definition of a "place"? A country? County? Town? Individual nature reserve?

One choice I'd go for would be the Northumberland coast. I love it up there. I've heard it said the Yorkshire coast is better for birding, with more falls of migrants and better seawatching and all that, and it does have some grand spots like Bempton Cliffs, Flamborough Head and Spurn Point. But nothing compares to me like the coastline of Northumberland, which is a stunningly beautiful place, with some good birds to boot. I could spend hours patrolling the shores of places like Low Newton By The Sea, Bamburgh and Seahouses (not to mention the fantastic Farne Islands) and I intend to spend more time doing so in the future.

An alternative choice would be the eight miles or so between where I live and Agden reservoir. Not only is it a great patch with many different habitats and therefore a good range of birds, but knowing the wildlife on your own doorstep is probably the most important thing of all.

Bridwatching

2007-09-29T19:40:00.001Z

I've seen three seas in less than three weeks - the Mediterranean, the Agean, and now the good old North Sea! I've copied and pasted most of this entry from my blog at Birdforum, so apologies if it's any geekier than usual...

Today I was booked in to go on the RSPB's skua/shearwater cruise from Bridlington. Having never seen any skuas or shearwaters in my life, I thought it would be a good way to tick off a few lifers, hopefully see some surprise migrators, and maybe even a few whales and dolphins. Sadly, the trip was called off due to bad weather, despite it actually being quite a nice day (although the sea was quite choppy, and I'd never claim to know maritime matters better than the captain of a boat).

Like a fool, I'd already bought a train ticket, and decided a day in Bridlington and Flamborough would be a good time to spend a Saturday anyway, and I'd be damned if the rail network was getting £24 out of me for an empty seat...

After finally getting to Flamborough Head on the bus and a walk (I'm not convinced I actually got off the nearest bus stop, but ah well), the first birds I saw were a pied wagtail and a wheatear, chirruping round the golf course. The wheatear was a UK first for the year, despite the fact I saw shedloads in Rhodes the other week!

Near the lighthouse there was a goldcrest in one of the trees, more wagtails, and large number of meadow pipits, a small flock of redwings, as well as a few swallows and martins. A kestrel hovered overhead, mobbed by angry swooping jackdaws. There were also large number of starlings and house sparrows, which are both sadly becoming something more and more notable.

Out to sea all the usual suspects - cormorants, shags, gannets, guillemots, a few red-throated divers, oystercatchers, and herring, common, black-headed, lesser black backed and greater black backed gulls.

And then, shearing across the water (as they do), what I'm almost, almost, almost positive was a Manx shearwater. I say almost, because the presense of immature gannets got doubts in my mind, and a total lack of emotion from any of the assembled birders also made me wonder - of course they may not have seen it, or be too "cool" to show excitement for such things!

(Why didn't you ask anyone, you say? Partly due to the "not wanting to look like a twonk" factor, and partly because it had already vanished.)

Back in Brid, the usual array of gulls, a few redshanks, oystercatchers, and large numbers of turnstones and dunlins.

Not a bad day, but no skua cruise! Maybe next time...

(Oh and I've not forgotten about the birding meme, or trying desperately to name the lizards I saw in Rhodes. That may (or may not) follow tomorrow).

Casual birdwatching in Rhodes

2007-09-20T14:11:00.001Z

Well, back in drizzly Britain after a week in sunny Rhodes! An easy, cheating way to get your birding yearlist up is to go to foreign climes, and although the birdwatching was pretty casual between bouts of beaching, eating, drinking and general sightseeing, the island didn't disappoint.

The first thing I noticed was large numbers of quite unexotic collared doves and house sparrows, but more interesting birds started to arrive pretty quickly, with hooded crows overhead during the shuttle from the airport. There were also tantalising glimpses of birds of prey at various points, some which were long-legged buzzards, and some immense eagles I've not managed to identify with any certainty

At the apartment in Pefkos, the first thing I saw was a jay of the Middle Eastern subspecies, and before long a red-backed shrike on a telephone wire. These turned out to be very common throughout the island, and I saw several, sometimes three at once from the apartment balcony. The balcony was a great place to spot things, including loads of blue rock thrushes, wheatears, a hoopoe, another long-legged buzzard, and rock doves, swallows, sand martins, house martins, common swifts and at least a couple of crag martins. There were also a few blue tits and blackbirds. On the Sunday there was a great sight when a large flock of bee-eaters flew overhead.

Elsewhere in Pefkos, a small party of night herons flew from a tree, seemingly disturbed from their daytime roost, and warblers included wood warblers, willow warblers, spectacled warblers and icterine warblers. A patch of scrubland not far from the apartment was good for yellow wagtails, crested larks, orphean warblers, blue rock thrushes and wheatears, including at least one black-eared wheatear. Yellow-legged gulls and lesser black-backed gulls flew over the sea.

Elsewhere on the island, there were Sardinian warblers at the ancient ruins at Kamiros, wrens and blue tits at the Valley of the Butterflies (a famous breeding ground for Jersey tiger moths). Ravens were spotted a couple of times from coach windows near the coast, and a couple of peregrines over Old Rhodes Town. I also saw a couple of kestrels, sadly not close enough to tell if they were common or lesser kestrels.

A trip to Epta Piges (Seven Springs), brought up chaffinches, a kingfisher, some more Sardinian warblers, and a spotted flycatcher.

As well as birds I saw at least four species of lizard, which I'll write about later on when I've actually worked out which species they all were!

More badgers...

2007-09-10T21:44:00.001Z

One last one before I go away...

The badger has been visiting the garden a few times a night since we first saw it. I've been leaving a trail of peanuts out on a few nights, and it follows the scent of them with remarkable accuracy. Tonight it came so close to the French windows that it was sniffing the glass at one point, and we watched its antics for a good fifteen or twenty minutes, mere inches away from where we were stood behind the double glazing. I'm going to have to lay off the peanuts a bit - I don't want it to become over-reliant on our treats, just to provide us with entertainment, however tempting it is.

Also, it's quite powerful as it snuffles for nuts, knocking over plant pots, digging up the grass, and pushing the rockery around. I don't mind this one bit, as its worth it to get so close to one of Britain's most charismatic animals, but I don't want to create a peanut-fed, badger menace that'll terrorise the neighbourhood!

Birding meme part 3

2007-09-10T13:24:00.000Z

Question 3: What sparked your interest in birds?

I always seemed to have an interest in wildlife, and can't pinpoint any particular moment when I made a conscious decision to take particular notice of animals, or birds in particular.

I remember vividly my first experience of birds, though - being wheeled in my pushchair, past the rookery on the main road between Deepcar and Stocksbridge when I was tiny; the dark, forboding caws and hundreds of black birds fascinating me. I also remember the occasional irruptions of birds in our back garden as a child, and being amazed by huge mistle thrushes clomping about, or the occasions plump, pink bullfinches would arrive. The best times I remember was one winter when a flock of redwings arrived in the snow, feasting on the Cotoneaster in the garden, or the time my dad had to rescue a house martin that had got trapped in the netting he'd tacked to the fence to grow climbing plants up.

My dad had a non-obsessive interest in birds since he was young, and there were plenty of bird books in the house for me to get my nose stuck in, includng Bertel Bruun's seminal Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe. I'd learnt a lot of detail about many species years before I ever got close to seeing them. Even today I get a thrill when I see some of the rarer birds I'd read about with wonder back then, imagining them to be mythical things I'd never see in real life.

An interest in birds waned in my late teenage/university years, which is something I regret now as I had more time and freedom to travel around, explore and birdwatch than I do now I'm working full time. Sadly the trappings of music, booze and (well, at least trying to be trapped by) girls caught me for a few years. It was a trip to the Farne Islands a few years ago, watching puffins, razorbills and gannets, that reminded me of this lifelong interest, and that there was a world of wildlife waiting for me to find. I finally "came out" as a full fledged birdwatcher again, and have never looked back!

I'll be on holiday very shortly, but this meme will continue when I get back.

Egrets, they've had a few...

2007-09-10T13:12:00.000Z

Sorry couldn't resist that dodgy pun... just been for a quick visit to Old Moor, and the little egrets that were there at the beginning of August are still there, and have been joined by about eight other birds! We saw about seven of them, showing well and dotted around most of the hides.

Fingers crossed they'll overwinter, and if they do they'll probably breed, and if so that'll be a Yorkshire first. Maybe it is climate change making northern climes more attractive to the egrets, or maybe just another sudden and spontaneous expansion (as collared doves did in the 1950s), but either way I don't think anyone would claim little egrets would be an unwelcome addition to Yorkshire's breeding birds.

Birding Meme part 2

2007-09-06T08:42:00.000Z

Question 2: If you compose lists of bird species seen, what is your favourite list and why?

Ahem. Lists. I've got to admit I'm slightly anally retentive about lists, for some reason I get a lot of pleasure from compiling them. I've heard it said that the listing comes from some kind of male "collector gene", and ticking things off a list is the same drive that made our less environmentally conscious forebears shoot, mount trophies and steal eggs. It's a good thing today's ornithologists are generally only armed with notepads, binoculars and, at worst, a digiscoping kit.

I'm always wary that the listing should never be the actual reason you birdwatch. It's nice to have lists of what you see, and where, and when, as a record of your hobby, and it can even be useful on a surveying scale to input these into websites such as the BTO's Birdtrack. But once you're chasing birds around for ticks rather than to enjoy the birds themselves, well you may as well be trainspotting. Twitching and competetive listing is not for me.

To answer the question, my favourite list is my yearlist. I like the fact it's set to zero every twelve months, and for a few giddy weeks in January you're excited by blue tits, checking every passing crow in case it's a rook, and picking out the slightly less common ducks amongst the mallards with renewed vigour. It's easy to get jaded with birdwatching and overlook the common species as something boring, and it's nice to see in the new year with a fresh pair of eyes, and remind yourself that birds you see every day are still fantastic.

Of course listing is all very silly, and the kind of pointless, geekish pursuit that gives birders a bad name among non-birders, but it can be a lot of fun if not taken too seriously.

Birding Meme part 1

2007-09-05T12:42:00.000Z

I've been tagged by Roger at Words and Pictures for the birding meme. I'm going to steal his format of answering each of the seven questions in separate posts, as there's one or two questions I'll probably wax very lyrical about. So on with the first...

Question 1: What is the coolest bird you have seen from your home?
I can't really tell of real occasions when I saw something amazingly "cool" from the house, such as an overhead osprey or a vagrant Baltimore oriole on the birdfeeders or anything like that, but I always like it when something unexpected shows up.

When I was a child, we'd occasionally get visitors turning up in the garden that excited my young mind, but I'll save these for one of the following questions.

The house I'm in at the moment is brilliant. From the house and gardens I've seen jays, long-tailed tits, grey herons, sparrowhawks, bullfinches, blackcaps, kestrels and great spotted woodpeckers, and been woken by the sounds of tawny owls. Nothing rare, or too unexpected, but seeing birds like this from your bedroom or kitchen window is always fantastic.

And while we're on the subject of television...

2007-09-05T12:21:00.000Z

...this story intrigued me slightly. The BBC have pulled a special about climate change, because they fear it would be against the BBC's stance of impartiality.

Now, I'm not sure a TV special about climate change would have been particularly successful. I mean, Live Earth was hardly a runaway, world-saving success (though that could have been down to the frankly rubbish line up and mind-numbing hypocricy of several hundred celebs jetting round the world, just to be lit and amplifed and preach to the proles that they have to use energy saving lightbulbs and stop going on short haul flights).

But why is climate change an issue that is supposedly so politically sensitive that the BBC cannot be shown to accept it is real and highlight the dangers it poses? Nearly all scientists accept the climate is changing, and there's general scientific consensus it's down to human activity. This is not some political belief. It is what our scientists are telling us, despite what sadly very well-publicised "climate skeptics" would have us believe.

Since when has taking generally accepted scientific consensus been an issue of political partiality? Does this mean the BBC can't make a programme about evolution any more, for example? It's worrying stuff if taken to its conclusion.

I strongly believe that the BBC should hold true to its remit of political impartiality. But they have to be careful this doesn't mean they never stick their neck out and say anything that could be mildly controversial, or they risk being bland, toothless and totally irrelevent.

Dumped

2007-09-05T12:03:00.000Z

I watched an episode of Channel 4's Dumped the other day, which is a bizarre hybrid of Big Brother, Scrapheap Challenge, and some kind of half-baked eco-experiment. A group of mis-matched attention-seekers are sent to live in a rubbish dump for two and a half weeks, living off what other people throw away, a bit like extreme Wombles.

The whole premise of "let's show some people a rubbish dump and shock them into recycling a bit more" was horribly patronising. Well, until you realised that some of the contestants are such unrepenting thickies that they didn't even realise landfill sites existed, and presumably thought their rubbish was magically vanished away by some kind of refuse pixie.

While it is shocking to see just how much of our countryside is covered in rubbish that could be very easily recycled and reused, I'm wary about this kind of programming. There's too many shows throwing the extreme end of eco-living at unresponsive people for comedic effect, making people fear that environmental living can only be achieved by effectively becoming hippies in tents who use bales of hay for toilets. Where are the programmes that depict the relatively easy changes people can do to reduce their environmental impact and help the planet, rather than hectoring selfish fashion models, semi-pro footballers, installation artists and other assorted pricks into building a compost toilet for the sake of cheap entertainment?

The woodpecker's back!

2007-09-02T13:30:00.000Z

Just a quick one today. A female great spotted woodpecker - possibly the same one that visited our garden frequently earlier in the year, and seemed to vanish after the floods - was on the peanut feeder yesterday. If it is the same woodpecker, it's good to know she wasn't washed away!

Badger update

2007-08-30T10:39:00.000Z

Another quick visit from the badger last night. I'm feeling a bit bad, as I cleared up a lot of plums off the garden at the weekend, meaning I've got rid of a lot of potential food for our visitor!

Just as I wrote about how birds of prey are being slaughtered in our area, seemingly by some individuals with game interests, a report by the South Yorkshire Badger Group shows badgers aren't faring much better. Illegal poisoning and trapping are rife nearby, in the Bradfield, Broomhead and Langsett areas, in proximity to grouse shooting estates and a pheasant rearing area. If this is more than a coincidence then it's very sad indeed, as badgers only have a minimal effect on ground nesting birds.

Combined with the grubby, sadistic and highly illegal "sport" of badger baiting, and repeated government plans to cull the population based on quite spurious claims of them spreading bovine TB, the badger is probably one of Britain's most persecuted mammals. Which is very sad indeed, as they're brilliant animals much-loved by the general public, which do little or no harm to humans.

Check out the South Yorkshire Badger Group Website for more details, but be warned you may want to turn your speakers down before you do so, unless you particularly like terrible midi renditions of 'Born Free'...

A welcome visitor

2007-08-29T08:25:00.000Z

Last night, as I was locking up and switching off lights before bed, I saw some movement at the top of the garden. I presumed it was probably a cat, but hung around, squinting into the darkness, on the off chance it was a fox.

Just as I was giving up, I caught a flash of white out of the corner of my eye, and noticed a large badger feeding from the fallen fruit under our plum tree! This was the first sighting of a live badger I've had in my entire life, and not something I ever expected to see looking out of my kitchen window. After a bit of foraging, it sloped up the steps, and out of sight. I watched for a while and sadly it didn't return, but it makes me wonder how many times I've been sat in the living room watching crap telly while badgers have been frolicking in the garden.

According to Paul Morrison's Mammals, Reptiles and Amphibians of Britain and Europe, badgers eat windfall apples and plums from around September, to help build up their fat reserves for the winter. Seeing as our garden is constantly under a blanket of juicy, purple plums at the moment, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for return visits!

Ranty Pete vs Primark

2007-08-23T09:43:00.000Z

After failing miserably to garner a response from Subway for forcing plastic bags on people, I've just fired a missive off to Primark.

My girlfriend went into your Sheffield store yesterday and bought a top. Already having a bag, she told the till operator she did not need a plastic carrier, only to be told she had to have one and wouldn't be allowed to leave the store without one. Her top was placed in a very large bag which was way too big for the product.

At a time when major supermarkets are quite rightly pushing for people to abandon carrier bags in favour of reusable bags, I find it alarming that your company insists customers take one. While I appreciate security is paramount to any retailer, I do not believe that this should outweigh environmental inpact, and supplying customers with an outsize bag that undesirables could then stuff with as much produce as they like doesn't seem to me like much of a solution. Reminding customers to keep their till receipts handy until they left the store would be just as effective.

It is estimated that one million plastic carrier bags per second are used worldwide. As well as wasting natural resources, the vast majority of these are not biodegradable, and many end up in the sea where they kill marine wildlife. Forcing customers to have one even when they have no need shows an out of touch company, at odds with current consensus on environmental matters.

The Glorious Twelfth

2007-08-14T08:32:00.000Z

I've got to say this story has really saddened me. A female golden eagle, half of the only pair in the Borders region of Scotland, has been deliberately poisoned by a banned substance. It is no coincidence, perhaps, that it occured on the 12th August - the "Glorious Twelfth" when the grouse shooting season begins.

Although I'm anti-bloodsports, I'm not naive enough to call for a simple and dramatic solution like an outright ban on shooting. Whether we like it or not, the British landscape has largely been shaped by moorland management for game shooting, and it's the economic interest of hunters that keeps much of the countryside as wilderness. But the killing of one of Britian's most amazing, charismatic and rare creatures to help maximise the profits of greedy landowners shows callousness and cynicism that beggers belief. Which is more important? A conservation of a diverse and healthy ecosystem? Or the ability for rich men with guns to play their daft "sports", which entail shooting some of the fattest, daftest and least able to fly birds in Britain (you only have to see the pheasant corpses littering any busy, rural road to get an idea of how little self-preservation these birds really have)?

While I'm sure a soaring eagle isn't top of your wishlist to see when you're managing a grouse moor, there is no reason on earth why both hunting interests and natural predators can't co-exist.

Of course, this kind of crime is not isolated to Scotland, and a recent report by the RSPB has shown some terrible goings on closer to home in the Peak District. This has included the sickening incidents of goshawks being lured to dead squirrels laced with strong adhesives. The effects of birds of prey on human activities is a lot more important than the birds' survival to many people, so much so they'll break the law to ensure they're wiped out.

I hope the poisoner of the golden eagle gets brought to justice, but you can't help feeling they'll get away with it, and would only get a relatively minor punishment if they did get caught. It's about time the government grew some balls on these matters, and raised the penalties for a criminal element that seems rife within the game industry.

Egrets!

2007-08-10T15:38:00.000Z

Almost forgot to mention that on Monday I had a very, very brief visit to Old Moor, and managed to spot the three little egrets that are reportedly still there.

One of the only good things about climate change is the spread northwards of little egrets (and seeing a few pretty white herons by no means makes up for it, of course!). These birds first reached Britain in any numbers as recently as 1989, and first bred in Dorset in 1996. They are still primarily birds of the south and east of the country, but a quick peek at the species' profile on BirdGuides shows that there's quite a few sightings going on around the country at the moment, in places as far apart as Warwickshire, Cambridgeshire, Nottinghamshire, Conwy, and Cumbria. I suspect they may be a lot more common in years to come.

They're brilliant little birds and well worth seeing - another of those I never expected to get on my list so easily!

Bins and things

2007-08-10T13:35:00.000Z

This week we got a shiny new compost bin. I'd take a photo of it, but it really isn't very spectacular. I got that, and a caddy with a handly to carry your veg peelings up the garden, for the impressively low sum of £11 from the Recycle Now website (for details see here).

This has seen the waste that actually goes into our black wheelie bin now turn to next to nothing. As well as composting and the blue paper bin, we have three bins in the kitchen - one for glassware; one for plastics, cans and other bits that can go in the big bins at recycling centres; one for glass; one for unrecyclable materials such as food scraps and meat.

What struck us was how much plastic and metal we throw away in a week. For a good while this was perfectly recyclable material that we were just packing off to a landfill every week. It's staggering. The non-recyclable waste bin is the least full of the lot, and can be reduced even further. For example, we're now trying to avoid cooking more than we need, and potting up leftovers rather than throwing it away.

The majority of our non-recyclable waste now is probably cat litter, and as the cat is mainly outside during the good weather, this is currently negligible.

There's a lot of teeth-gnashing in the press about calls to have fortnightly bin collections. To be honest, if everyone made as much non-recyclable waste as we do, then there would be no problem with this whatsoever. The problem is that not everyone can get to recycling banks. It's no problem for us to take a couple of bags of recycling to the supermarket every week, but not everyone has the luxury of this. There is also, sadly, enough people in society who would merely let the bins pile up for a whole fortnight without undertaking a jot of recycling, and not care about any accompanying health hazards.

The fact is separating rubbish is an absolute doddle, and I feel guilty for the years I didn't do it and my pointless contribution to landfill waste. But I do think the government should look into increased recycling collection schemes, as those that exist in our area are inadequate for anything other than paper.

Schemes like the cheap compost bins, however, are a step in the right direction. I'll update in about six to nine months and let you know how the compost's doing!

Operation Avocet!

2007-07-28T21:55:00.001Z

Yes, I have remembered the birding tasks I set myself earlier in the year, and today I took a brief trip to Blacktoft Sands RSPB to get one of the birds on the list - avocets.

To be honest, this was a pretty easy one. The first two hides had good amounts of black-tailed godwits, dunlins, ruffs and redshanks, but no signs of avocets. I was starting to wonder how easy they'd be to find, but I needn't had feared as the third hide along had scores of them. And just as I focused my binoculars for a better look, they scattered, due to two marsh harriers swooping menacingly across the sky. Avocets and marsh harriers in the same field of view? Doesn't get much better.

Watching for a while longer, I was lucky enough to see the marsh harriers acrobatically exchanging food midair, and a pair of avocets defending their fluffy chicks from herons and black-headed gulls which were keeping an ominous watch. I also got a great view of some reed warblers, a bird which doesn't give great views very easily.

Sadly I missed out on some of Blacktoft's other star attractions - bitterns and bearded tits - but I think the avocets and marsh harriers more than made up for it!

We had a brief trip to Hornsea afterwards too, and watched cormorants flying overhead, and common terns plunge diving into the sea.

Nightjars

2007-07-25T08:13:00.000Z

Last night was a good, clear night, so Laura and I went to find nightjars at Agden.

We took a stroll up and down Agden Side Road just after 9pm, which was a beautiful sight as the sun set behind the peaks. A kestrel hunted in the dusk, grouse chuckled in the distance, bats flittered overhead, and a stoat ran across the road in front of us.

Then, after about twenty minutes, the unmistakable sound of a churring male nightjar. It was coming from quite a way off, and we didn't see the bird, but the oddly mechanical-sounding noise must surely be one of the most evocative sounds in nature as it drifts through the dusk. Hopefully a return visit before they fly off for the winter will give us a glimpse of one of these elusive birds.

Garden update

2007-07-25T08:10:00.000Z

The long-tailed tits are now very frequent visitors to the feeders, and often arrive with a coal tit. On Monday, we fitted a hanging bird bath in the tree, and as we did so, the long tailed tits landed brazenly within inches from our faces!

A young robin (just acquiring its adult plumage) is also now a frequent visitor to the fat feeder, and I've seen a blackcap twice, on the wall by the kitchen window. At least three magpies are regular visitors to the feeders, including the tail-less one, and I regularly see jays around the garden, but not yet in it.

Yesterday we saw a large blue dragonfly, which I believe was an Emperor Dragonfly, flittering around the garden.

Oxfordshire floods

2007-07-25T08:05:00.000Z

The weekend before last, we went to visit my brother and his girlfriend in Witney, Oxfordshire. The Saturday was a proper summer's day (for once), and we spent the evening sat at the bottom of his garden, eating a curry and playing poker.

At the bottom of their garden is the river Windrush, and as the night wore on we fed a swan that swam up to see us, and shone a torch into the water to look at the crayfish that were snapping just below the surface.

As you can see from the picture above, a lot changed in the course of a week, and now their garden is the river Windrush. You can just see the decking we were sat on at the bottom of the garden, where the river usually ends. Luckily they're safe and the house is unscathed, but others around them haven't been so fortunate.

More rain

2007-07-20T09:17:00.000Z

My heart sank yesterday when I saw the news that more rain is on they way for the weekend. It looks like it won't be at its worst round our way, but enough to dampen things down after a promising week (why does the best weather happen when you're in the office?). At least the new Harry Potter's out to distract me from the gloom...

Still no sign of the woodpecker since the floods, which is a great shame. The feeders are now being frequented by long-tailed tits, though, that turn up in flocks and bubble and trill while fluttering around the trees. We also have a new visitor, a magpie with no tail.

Our cat brought back an unexpected "present" yesterday - a mole. I've no idea where she found it. Although it's horrifying when your pet brings their kills back to show you, at least you can get a gage on what mammals are around (wood mouse and shrews have also been found on the doorstep). I still wish she wouldn't, though...

June...

2007-07-12T13:19:00.000Z

It was a bit of a washout wasn't it? I don't think anyone really saw those floods coming, at quite the scale that they did. We've been lucky where we are, bar power cuts we were largely unaffected. Unfortunately one casualty seems to be our woodpecker, which we haven't seen since the first load of rain. Hopefully she's just found a birdfeeder she prefers elsewhere, and nothing untoward happened to her in the deluge.

My "patch" seems to be pretty much unscathed, although the river's got a lot more detritus in it and some of the softer paths have channels carved in then where the floodwater flowed. A grey tidemark on the vegetation round the banks shows how high the water reached, and it's amazing everything has settled down as much as it has.

It sounds like Old Moor hasn't fared quite so well. I was due to volunteer at the "Big Green Birthday" on the 7th July, but the reserve was hit very badly by the floods and events were called off. The floods made the whole reserve one massive lake, and the water even got into some of the tree sparrow nests on poles. It sounds like the damage to breeding birds has been huge, and recent structural improvements to hides, ramps and paths have been destroyed.

The reserve's open again at the weekend, and I'm hoping things are getting back to normal.

A fairly long walk...

2007-06-11T15:25:00.000Z

Today I went for a long meandering walk, the sort you play by ear and hopefully end up home at some point (you can probably gather by the fact I'm writing this that I did). I took a bus out to Lodge Moor, with the aim of swinging by Redmires Reservoir and Wyming Brook, with the intention of finding dippers, pied flycatchers and (very optimistically) ring ouzels.

From the bus stop, I decided to take a scenic route to the reservoir, instead of simply walking straight down Redmires Road. After trekking for a fair bit of wandering round farmland (seeing a good few meadow pipits and lapwings), I found myself on the moors overlooking the reservoirs, and heading towards Stanage Edge. The one day my walking boots have a broken lace and I'd worn my old Converse trainers instead, I accidentally found myself in a bog, but luckily the last few days of summer have dried it up enough to just about get through unscathed! The area was home to good numbers of low-flying curlews, more meadow pipits, and skylarks.

No ring ouzels though, but this was more than made up for on the dredged reservoir at Redmires. There were some waders on there, too far to make out down the binoculars but possibly common sandpipers, and I was just lamenting the low wader count when I noticed something land on the banks, which turned out to be a hobby. It stood there for a while, before flying off, looking like a giant swift.

At Wyming Brook I saw the dippers almost straight away by the river, and scanned the trees for pied flycatchers. I was starting to think it'd be an impossible task finding them, and decided I'd sit on the bench ahead and have a swig of water. No sooner had I thought this, but a pied flycatcher landed on the back of the bench, stayed long enough for me to have a good look down binoculars, before flying off again! Ah well, two out of three isn't so bad.

The way back was quite quiet bird-wise, but a nice walk nonetheless through various footpaths around the Rivelin Valley, snaking my way back to Loxley Road.

Volunteering

2007-06-09T18:39:00.000Z

I'm currently nicely sunburnt after volunteering at RSPB Old Moor's Springwatch event. It was my first time volunteering at an event of this kind (I was supposed to do one in April, but it was the weekend before I moved house), and it was good fun.

I spent the morning signing in visitors, who had brought their kids to pond-dip, hunt for mini-beasts, make wildlife masks, and go on guided walks. Although your hardcore birders whinge at loads of kids arriving at reserves like this, I think it's great every now and then, and if some of those kids have an interest in wildlife and conservation kindled then it's a job well done.

I spent a chunk of the afternoon helping to mini-beast hunt, but to be honest my helping was more swiping nets around the grass and asking the guide what my bugs were, thus becoming another big child for him to answer questions for! As well as catching some mean spiders, plant bugs and froghoppers, there were some dragonflies and damselflies around, as well as loads of butterflies. The guy leading the hunt got quite excited when he spotted a large skipper, and even more so when he found a dingy skipper. I really must brush up on insects - it's National Insect Week very soon, and maybe I'll have a garden mini-beast hunt to celebrate...

Then I went along on one of the guided walks. The first interesting point was a reed warbler singing its head off in some reeds, very close to the path. Frustratingly you could see branches moving which showed I was inches away from it but never actually caught a glimpse of it. I suspect it was invisible.

Then the walk went on to a wooded part, usually roped off to visitors, where tawny owls are breeding on the site for the first time. The female was roosting in one of the trees, and it was great being able to help point it out to the assembled crowd.

In between I managed a small bit of birding too... common terns are back on the site and I saw a fair few, as well as my first ringed plovers of the year. Apparently a hobby, marsh harrier and some black terns were among recent sightings. Why do I always miss the good stuff?!

So yes, a fun day volunteering. If anyone likes the sound of the events that took place, it's also happening tomorrow (Sunday 10th).

Auks!

2007-06-07T19:29:00.000Z

Last Saturday we went for another trip to Bempton Cliffs, to look for puffins. Although not as puffin-tastic as the Farne Islands, which has thousand of pairs, it still has some reasonably good numbers, and it can be fun trying to spot them among the more common guillemots and razorbills. Can you spot the one puffin in the picture on the left?

As well as the auks flittering around, there were loads of nesting kittiwakes, gannets, a few herring gulls, and quite a few fulmars.

Here are a few photos I took down the scope, which have turned out all right, considering I just held the camera up to the lens rather than using the digiscoping adaptor.

Cocks!

2007-06-04T12:40:00.001Z

I'm going to have to post a link to the latest entry on Roger Butterfield's excellent Words and Pictures blog, because it features three of my favourite things - birds, pointing out how moronic the Daily Mail is, and humorous use of the word "cock".

http://pinguicula.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/cock.html

Enjoy!

First update of June...

2007-06-04T12:20:00.000Z

I've spent May zigzagging the footpaths of the Loxley Valley, like a demented birdwatching ant, as I've recounted in the previous posts. I've seen some very good stuff over the last couple of weeks, including a tawny owl in broad daylight being mobbed by small passerines, another great view of the little owl, flocks of plump pink bullfinches, hunting kestrels, whitethroats scurring around bushes behind my head... very soon I'll write a big post about my patch with accompanying maps, photos and various other bits and bobs, at a point when I get the time and internet connection to do so.

The garden is also getting crazily full of birds. The fat cake was nearly all gone, so I replaced it on Friday with one that has juicy insects in it. I'm not sure whether it's this new ingredient or pure coincidence, but this weekend's seen the birds arrive in droves. The great tits are now arriving in family groups of up to around five birds, long-tailed tits are regularly arriving (though not on the feeder), a juvenile robin has taken to munching down the fat, and the great spotted woodpecker visited at least 15 times on Sunday alone. Laura also spotted two magpies perched pecking at the fat cake, and as much as I hold no truck with the whole "magpies are evil birds that kill all the small ones" rubbish, I hope they don't take this up too regularly as it'll be gone in no time! Other garden spots have included a bullfinch, a grey squirrel, a sparrowhawk overhead, and a wood mouse, sadly clamped between the jaws of next door's cat.

We also have a regular visitor in the shape of a bizarre-looking blue tit with a completely bald face, that we have unkindly named Martin the Mutant. I'm hoping he hasn't got some kind of mangy disease that will spread to other users the bird feeders.

We went to Bempton Cliffs on Saturday to hunt for puffins, but I'll tell you about that in full when I've sorted the broadband out at home and can accompany it with some dodgily digiscoped photos. Can't wait? I bet.

More woodpecker action

2007-05-25T10:26:00.000Z

A quick update... yesterday evening I got another, very good view of the great spotted woodpecker which is feeding on our fat cake. It's a female (no red patch on the neck), and it cramming her beak with so much fat that I feel sure she must be carrying it off for some young somewhere.

We also had a small flock of long-tailed tits in the garden around the same time.

Little Owl

2007-05-24T08:24:00.001Z

Yesterday evening we had a walk to the pub, and on the way, at about 7pm, had a great view of a little owl in broad daylight. It flew across a field on Rowell Lane, near Loxley Road, and perched on the ledge of a barn eyeing us, before flying off again.

Also, the woodpeckers are starting to use our birdfeeders, as this morning we spotted one greedily pecking at our fat cake.

Woodpeckers and others

2007-05-21T09:55:00.001Z

The other afternoon I went for a walk after work, and discovered a new footpath on the network of paths that lead from near my house and over the Loxley Valley. Scanning the water for dippers or kingfishers (I'll get one of them there one day!), I turned I saw what looked unmistakably like a tiny version of a great spotted woodpecker flying across the path. A brief glimpse, but I can now add lesser spotted to both my patch and life lists, and I've seen all three woodpeckers in the Loxley Valley since I moved in.

Speaking of woodpeckers, we got a great spotted in the garden yesterday afternoon, which flew into a tree while we were out gardening (for anyone who knows me - yes I was gardening! Well, does spraying a bit of weedkiller and watering things count?). It made a few alarm calls and flew off.

On Saturday I did the BTO bird survey at my 1km square in Stocksbridge. Due to moving, and being rained off on days I planned to do it, it was well on the late side, but saw plenty. There were loads of swallows flying around me while I walked up the road, singing skylarks displaying in the fields, even more great spotted woodpeckers, and lapwings fluttering around making their silly electronic noises. A quick walk round Underbank afterwards was pleasant if slightly dead birdwise, although I did see my first common sandpiper of the year.

Some quick garden spots

2007-05-18T14:56:00.000Z

In my last house I leapt with glee if as much as a blue tit flew within a mile of the garden. Last night made me realised how good it is to have moved.

Firstly a great spotted woodpecker was busily feeding at next door's birdfeeders. Hopefully it will start to notice all the tasty peanut feeders I've scattered liberally around beyond the height of our cat (hopefully) when she's able to leave the house.

A mere few minutes later, a jay flew into one of the trees opposite the front window, and stayed there for about half an hour. It was the best view I've ever had of a gorgeous bird that you usually only get the briefest flashes of.

Additionally to this, a few days ago I was walking home from the tram stop, and a heron was stood, bold as brass with neck fully extended, on top of a house about five doors down from my own.

Not the rarest of birds by any stretch, but bloody good ones! I'll bore you senseless with any more garden visitors we get.

Ranty Complaint Pete part 1

2007-05-17T12:22:00.000Z

I've decided to actually send stinging emails when I don't agree with a company's environmental policy. Yeah, that'll show 'em. Here's one I've sent to Subway, who always annoy me by automatically supplying carrier bags even when you're about to eat three feet away from the counter. Maybe they're scared that the excitement of asking "do you want a bag?" may disrupt the gradual soul-destroying effects of their poor workers' tedious sandwich-making conveyer.

Dear Subway,
I was wondering what your company's stance was on carrier bags? At a time when there's a growing environmental backlash against the number of plastic carrier bags being used, I'm always horrified to come into my local Subways and be automatically given one to carry my sandwich in, even when eating in and only having to carry it a few feet to my table. It is a totally ridiculous policy.

Surely the simple act of asking customers if they actually wanted a bag, or enquiring if they're eating in or not, will have a threefold effect - saving the environment, saving waste produced by your stores, and saving you money on packaging?

As it is, it really puts me off using your stores, and at a time when consumers are becoming ever more environmentally aware, it makes Subway look something of a fast food dinosaur when you promote yourself in ways that suggest you would like to be perceived on the contrary.

Best wishes,

Pete Mella.

Dusk

2007-05-15T08:18:00.000Z

Last night me and Laura went for a short walk from the house just after 9pm. It was really to look for bats, which we saw quite a few of flitting around (I think they were pipistrelles but my bat ID skills leave a lot to be desired).

On the way back we heard a commotion in the trees right by us, and some harsh "ke-wicks!" gave the perpetrators were two tawny owls. We stood and watched the trees for a while, and got a really good view of one flying between two trees, and scaring the bejesus out of the blackbirds and woodpigeons around it. Excellent stuff.

My new patch!

2007-05-10T12:07:00.000Z

Well I've finally moved. My updating will be a bit sparce this month until we sort the Internet out, but I'll try and get a few posts done in my lunch hour at work like this one.

The house is great, and living in the Loxley Valley is every bit as good as I thought. I've gone from having a garden virtually devoid of birdlife, to one that's bustling with great, blue and long-tailed tits, chiffchaffs, magpies and jackdaws, and various other visitors. From the front window I've spotted herons, mallards and a sparrowhawk in flight, and at night the swifts that reel overhead are replaced by pipistrelles, that flit across the living room window and distract me from what's on TV.

Almost opposite the house is a footpath that leads to the Loxley Valley's Easy Going Trail. I've done a couple of walks down here since I moved in, including one where I kept going and went all round Damflask, and I've already seen over 50 species of bird. Highlights include green and great spotted woodpeckers; willow warblers, garden warblers, chiffchaffs and blackcaps; teal and cormorants on Damflask; a curlew, a tree sparrow, a reed bunting, and a bullfinch. In a two hour walk, you're by rivers, ponds, reservoirs, farmland, deciduous woods, coniferous woods, and right on the edge of the Peak District.

It's a shame that the abandoned factories along the Loxley Valley have been bought up by property developers. I'm not totally against housing on brownbelt land, and don't want to be a NIMBY about these things, but I really do hope that if they're given the go ahead to build, the properties compliment rather than detract from the wildlife of the valley. Time will tell, I suppose.

I will, of course, be writing loads about this new patch that I've suddenly got! I've also got to do my BTO bird survey this weekend (sadly on the late side now due to the moving house shenanigans), so will probably have stuff to write about there too.

A quick'un

2007-04-24T19:12:00.000Z

Busy busy busy... today we actually signed the contract on the new house at Loxley (at last!) which means we now only have just over a week to move. I won't bore everyone with a load of off-topic rantings about rental properties, but it was a lot more faff that it should have been. Expect lots of posts about my new "patch" very soon!

I have to mention quickly a short walk we went on just over a week ago up at the moors at Strines. It's easy to take the Peak District for granted, and forget how lucky we are to live on the edge of it here in Sheffield. We took a picnic, and spent time watching the Red Grouse, and listening to their bizarre maniacal cackling, while meadow pipits flitted round us. I also saw my first reptile of the year - a common lizard scurrying through the grass.

I probably won't be posting again til after the move, but I'll try and write something good after. Promise!

Tawnies!

2007-04-14T12:56:00.000Z

I've regular heard Tawny Owls around my house for the last two years, and never caught a glimpse of one. Last night we had the window open in the bedroom, and around midnight we heard a couple calling to each other very close to the house. I looked out of the window just in time to see one flapping over the row of terraces opposite, silhouetted against the sky like a giant, fat moth. I'm glad I saw one before I move!

And finally a plug...

2007-04-12T17:56:00.000Z

...if anyone's got the new Sheffield Wildlife Trust Kingfisher magazine, I've got a bit in it about wildlife to look out for in Spring!

A fantastic day's birding...

2007-04-12T17:39:00.000Z

Today I had a day off work, as I went to Old Moor to discuss volunteering there. It looks like I'll be helping out at some events, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

The birds today were absolutely fantastic. I was a bit early for my meeting, so I had a quick walk down the nearby Trans-Pennine trail which was alive with singing willow warblers and yellowhammers (how come you wait to see a bird all year and then you can't stop seeing them?).

After the meeting, the birds came thick and fast, with beautiful plump bullfinches on the feeders, along with the usual tree sparrows, goldfinches, greenfinches, great tits, reed buntings etc. There were singing chiffchaffs and blackcaps, my first willow tit of the year, and more yellowhammers!

In the hides, I saw this year's first swallow, some little ringed plovers, great views of snipe, and best of all a kingfisher, which sped across the water and which I was lucky to be pointing in the right direction to see.

It was such a good day that I completely effortlessly passed the "50 Old Moor birds in a day" target I set myself and failed to get the other week! Do you want me to list them? No? Well I am anyway...

Blackbird, Blackcap, Black-headed Gull, Blue Tit, Bullfinch, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coot, Collared Dove, Cormorant, Dunnock, Gadwall, Goldfinch, Great Crested Grebe, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Greylag Goose, Jackdaw, Kingfisher, Lapwing, Linnet, Little Ringed Plover, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pochard, Redshank, Reed Bunting, Robin, Ruddy Duck, Shelduck, Shoveler, Skylark, Snipe, Song Thrush, Starling, Swallow, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Tufted Duck, Wigeon, Willow Tit, Willow Warbler, Woodpigeon, Wren, Yellowhammer

Easter and onwards!

2007-04-12T17:21:00.000Z

Agh, so much to write about since I last updated.

On Good Friday, I went to Laura's parents' new house in Bollington, Cheshire. They live very close to the canal, and it's truly beautiful. We went for a short walk, and I got mildly excited when I spotted a brambling. I don't think anyone really shared my excitement by a bird that's almost a chaffinch... We also spotted a common toad on the ground, which luckily Laura spotted before she trod on it!

On Easter Sunday we took a trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which was pretty busy but did allow me to spot my first siskins of the year, as well as great crested grebe.

On Easter Monday morning, I started my BTO Breeding Bird survey, by doing the initial survey of the area. My area is in Stocksbridge, just north of Underbank Reservoir. The path is through farmland and nudges into a wood, and there were plenty of birds to see, including curlews, lapwings, skylarks, goldcrests, meadow pipits, coal tits and long-tailed tits. Just outside the surveying area, in the wood, I heard an irate wren, and saw a sparrowhawk zooming away.

From there I took a reasonably long walk to my parents' in Deepcar, via Underbank, Midhopestones and Bolsterstone. In the plantation round Underbank there were nuthatches, treecreepers and various other small birds, and great crested grebes, tufted ducks, mallards and Canada geese on the water. The presence of large, blue eggshells scattered about the wood was explained when there was an almighty crash, and two nesting herons took off from the treetops above my head! Annoyingly I also heard what I'm almost certain was a loud party of crossbills flying above out of sight in the treetops, and didn't catch a glimpse. There was also a great spotted woodpecker drumming.

Midhopestones brought up more lapwings, curlews and skylarks, and a pair of courting toads walking across the road. I also saw my first yellowhammers of the year (how had I not seen one yet?!). Walking across some moorland towards Bolsterstone, there were large numbers of meadow pipits, and red grouse calling in the distance. Another great view of curlews and another great spotted woodpecker (this time seen and not just heard) finished off a great birding walk.

I'll split this in two and do today in another thread...

House update

2007-04-04T12:52:00.000Z

Well, we may have found a new house, in Loxley. It's a great house, with a garden, brilliant views and a shortish walk to Damflask which excites me a lot. Plus, even though it's so close to the country, it's also a short walk to Malin Bridge tram stop. We've put an application in (and paid the extortionate £120 "application fee" at the estate agent - don't get me started on that!), so fingers crossed...

The migrants return!

2007-03-31T17:13:00.000Z

I was just about to leave for a day at Old Moor this morning, packing my scope into my bag, and from outside the kitchen I heard "Chiff-chaff-chiff-chaff-chiff-chaff". I couldn't spot it, but then Laura shouted me upstairs because there were two birds in the top of the tree in the back garden, a "blue tit and a little dull one". Any birds in our garden is a blessing, and this was a particularly good find.

I wish more confusing birds were like the Chiffchaff, and shouted their name to help identification. It would be great to travel through woodlands and hear "Willow-Tit-Willow-Tit-Willow-Tit", or walk by the sea and hear the plaintive cries of "Arctic-TERN! Arctic-TERN!".

So on to Old Moor, and one of the first birds I saw was my first Sand Martin of the year, flying over the mere, and I saw a couple of more of them there later. There were also a few more Chiffchaffs chiffchaffing away.

I set myself a playful goal today of finding 50 species on one visit. I failed, but got a healthy 47 (yes I will list them in full anally-retentive glory at the bottom of the post). I thought I may have 48, but the grey goose I thought would be something exciting turned out to be a Greylag with a funny beak.

I do love this time of year, as you can see practically anything - for example the first of the migrants were joined by a straggling Whooper Swan.

Two target species I had today were Ringed Plover and Green Woodpecker. The Ringed Plovers completely failed to show (ah well, later in the month...), and I spent ages in one hide scanning the trees for the woodpeckers. I left and walked into another hide, and a man with an unfeasibly large telescope said to me, before I'd even closed the door, "you've just missed a green woodpecker!". Fantastic. I console myself with the fact that with his scope he was probably watching one in bloody Doncaster or something.

As promised, here's today's full list:

Blackbird, Black-headed Gull, Blue Tit, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Collared Dove, Coot, Cormorant, Dunnock, Gadwall, Goldeneye, Goldfinch, Goosander, Great Crested Grebe, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Greylag Goose, Jackdaw, Lapwing, Little Grebe, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Oystercatcher, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pochard, Redshank, Reed Bunting, Robin, Ruddy Duck, Sand Martin, Shelduck, Shoveler, Skylark, Starling, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Tufted Duck, Whooper Swan, Wigeon, Woodpigeon, Wren

Anyone know any houses to rent?

2007-03-30T19:54:00.000Z

Sorry to waste blogspace on pleas like this... We've decided to move, and have handed our notice on our current house. It's time for a change!

We're kind of (optimistically) looking in the general Bradfield/Loxley area, two bedrooms, no more than £600pm, and need somewhere before the end of June. We have one small, clean, well behaved cat. If anyone knows of anything going give me a nudge! (you can email me at peterjmella(at)googlemail(dot)com).

That swan

2007-03-26T17:26:00.000Z

I've solved the mystery of the tame Whooper Swan at Hornsea Mere.

From 'Where to Watch Birds in Yorkshire' (Mather, 1998, p58): "The resident pinioned Whooper Swan at Kirkholme Point has a predilection for vehicles and can be a pest, albeit an interesting one."

According to a reply to a query about the swan on BirdForum, it was a crippled bird, pinioned through injury, that was taken to the mere and got a bit too used to its cushy lifestyle. He can get sulky round breeding time, and sometimes attracts passing Whoopers in the winter months.

If anyone's got any more information about this swan then please let me know!

Bridlington!

2007-03-25T21:20:00.000Z

Me and Laura had a trip to Bridlington today. We started by swinging by the RSPB's Bempton Cliffs reserve, which is an impressive breeding ground for Gannets, Kittiwakes and other seabirds. There were also loads of Guillemots around in the sea, although sadly we were a bit early for Puffins.

Walking past a couple, one of them told us they'd just seen a dolphin not far from the cliffs. Pointing it out Laura clearly saw it as it broke the surface, and I completely failed to see it. After that it wasn't seen again. Annoyingly I dipped a dolphin today. Bah.

Bridlington was, as usual, home to a scary amount of huge, cocky Herring Gulls, plus large numbers of Turnstones which busied themselves round your feet and begged for chips like strange-looking starlings. There were also quite a few with gammy feet, just like the usual affliction that affects town pigeons.

As well as gulls and Turnstones, the harbour was also home to many Redshanks, and examining some cormorants paid dividends... one turned out to be my first Shag of the year (anyone sniggering there should be ashamed), and one wasn't a cormorant at all, but a Diver! No expert on wintering divers, I've been flitting between Black-throated and Red-throated identifications all day, but on reflection I feel Red-throated more likely, as the bird seemed pretty small (smaller than the Shag which is was near to), and greyer than you'd expect from a Black-throated. Jury's still out though...

On the way home, we made a quick detour to Hornsea Mere, which is a large lake, the banks of which include a cafe and boat club that seems to have been unchanged from the 1950s. Mainly Mallards, Greylags, Mute Swans and Canada Geese, the mere also included a Great Crested Grebe, Tufted Ducks and quite a large flock of Goldeneye.

I also got quite excited by a Whooper Swan, before realising it must have been a tame one, as it was harrassing some men in a hut until they came out and fed it a bowl of seed. Is it a resident there? Or a bird that got a bit used to being looked after? If anyone knows this swan's story then let me know!

Bradfield, Agden, Damflask and Loxley

2007-03-24T16:35:00.000Z

Today I went for a walk, starting at Low Bradfield, round Agden Reservoir, past Damflask Reservoir, and back home through Loxley.

Agden Reservoir itself was a pleasant walk. Not too much to see on the water, bar a few Mallards, Canada Geese and Moorhens. The woods were full of the usual small species of birds, including a few tit flocks that included larger numbers of Coal Tits that usual. I also heard my first Curlews of the year. I was watching these for a while around the Agden Bog nature reserve, and became aware of a ludicrously tame Robin that decided to stand just behind me. I discovered why it was so unafraid of people - there was a recently topped up pile of bird food on a wall post, on which it posed so close that it could even be snapped by a compact digital camera.

Right at the end of the Reservoir, there was a Kestrel, sat hunched in a tree in plain sight.

Walking back through Low Bradfield, I then took the road down to Damflask Reservoir. The lack of interesting birds on Agden was made up for on Damflask straight away, as almost immediately there was a Great Crested Grebe resplendent in full summer plumage (photographed below, honest!), and a Cormorant drying its wings in characteristic fashion. In the adjoining woods, I also saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker, Long-tailed Tits, a Treecreeper and Goldcrests. I also caught sight of the Curlews I'd been hearing all morning, as a flock of circled above the water, crying out as they did so.

Walking back towards Loxley, I saw a flock of small, brown, streaky birds in a field that I'm not 100% sure enough to identify. They appeared to be bunting or finch-like, feeding on the ground, and panicking and flying back into a nearby tree every few minutes. My first thought was Linnets, though I didn't see any that resembled summer males.

Down Loxley Road there was a large flock of Carrion Crows, Jackdaws, Rooks, Magpies, Woodpigeons and Black-headed and Common Gulls feeding what appeared to be vegetables scattered around the fields for the sheep. There were also plenty of Mistle Thrushes around, and a few Song Thrushes too. I walked through Loxley and the adjoining footpaths, with a vain hope of spotting a Kingfisher or Dipper by the river, and then to Malin Bridge and hopped on a tram home.

I've not done this for a while, but here's today's full list...

Blackbird, Black-headed Gull, Blue Tit, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Common Gull, Coot, Cormorant, Curlew, Dunnock, Goldcrest, Great Crested Grebe, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Kestrel, Linnet(?), Long-tailed Tit, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Magpie, Mistle Thrush, Moorhen, Robin, Rook, Song Thrush, Starling, Treecreeper, Woodpigeon, Wren

Today's lunchtime spots

2007-03-21T14:16:00.000Z

It's hard to believe it was snowing yesterday isn't it? There's still a chill in the air, but a nice warm Spring sun making you believe it's the end of March again.

Today's lunchtime trip to Weston and Crookes Valley Parks included some good views of a small flock of Treecreepers in Weston Park, which were making their weird high-pitched bubbling calls and crawling around the branches in a way that always reminds me in a strange way of giant, crawling insects.

I also saw my first Rabbits there, scurrying about by the margins of Crookes Valley Park, not far from the children's playground. There was also the usual birds, including Long-tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Greenfinches, Mallards, Moorhens, Blackbirds, Carrion Crows, Magpies, Woodpigeons, Robins and a Wren, and of course loads of squirrels.

Why you've got to love Dunnocks

2007-03-17T14:12:00.000Z

The Dunnock is the perrenial "Little Brown Job" that birdwatchers talk about, the drab, brown bird that skulks around the undergrowth, and is more often heard than seen. Even the name "Dunnock" means "small brown bird". It's actually quite handsome, but coloured in with a particularly unimaginative pallette. Its song is pretty but not as spectacular as other birds out there. First impressions would suggest that the Dunnock is the Mr Average of Britain's common birds.

But there are some very interesting secrets that the Dunnock keeps close to its chest. Firstly it's not like any other British birds, being an accentor. Accentors are usually mountainous species of Europe and Asia, but the Dunnock is one of only a couple that occur in lowland areas, and the only one representative in Britain. Confusion as to its true affinities led one of its most common names, Hedge Sparrow. Nowadays the most "correct" common name for it is supposed to be Hedge Accentor, but its very little used outside official bird lists.

Ok so that's not the most dramatic secret a creature can have, I admit, but it makes up for this by its remarkable sex life. Truly, the Dunnock is a filthy, filthy bird, by human standards. Their complex sexual relationships include much partner-swapping, and practically every combination you can think of between males with two females, females with two males, and even two or three males sharing a small harem of females. They copulate more than any other small bird recorded, once or twice an hour over a 10-day period, and the male is so speedy to do so as he leaps over a female that it took years for observers to work out what he was actually doing. Courtship largely consists the male pecking at the female's cloaca until a droplet of sperm from a previous mating pops out. Far from the dance of the Great Crested Grebe, or the display of a Bird of Paradise, isn't it?

The drab, boring Dunnock getting up to all this is akin to suddenly finding out your perfectly ordinary next-door neighbours are hosting particularly kinky orgies on a Saturday night. Next time you see a Dunnock scrabbling about in a hedge like a little, innocent, feathered mouse, remember that its life is probably a lot more interesting than you would ever imagine...

(Pic from Wikipedia Commons - license here)
Some sources for this post: Birds Britannica, Mark Cocker & Richard Maybe (2005); Wikipedia

Farne Islands!

2007-03-15T21:33:00.000Z

I'm considering another trip to the Farne Islands in a couple of months, if I can scrape together some cash for a B&B. To whet my appetite, I've been look at my photos from last time, and so you can see what a special place it is, have a look at this photo slideshow.

If anyone knows any good reasonably priced B&Bs in the area let me know! Laura's parents are moving away from the hotel the own in Co. Durham in a couple of weeks, so that's sadly the end of my freebie holidays up north!

Long-tailed Tits

2007-03-13T22:11:00.000Z

I didn't want to write this so quickly after the blue tit post, as I didn't want to look like I was obsessed by tits (make up your own jokes, please). But I noticed that a lot of my posts say "...and I saw some Long-tailed Tits". I very rarely put "...and I saw a Carrion Crow", "...then I saw a Robin", even though I see loads of all of them.

The strange thing is Long-tailed Tits still seem special to me. When I was kid, pouring over the Hamlyn Book of Birds of Britain and Europe, they were on my wish list of birds I'd really, really like to see, but somehow never did. But now I see them all the time. I saw a large and fairly tame flock in Weston Park this afternoon. Yesterday I sat in the Botanical Gardens and a pair flittered above my head. At the weekend they danced around us at Langsett, and I keep spotting them at the tram stop. I probably see more Long-tailed Tits these days than Great Tits, say, which wouldn't give me anywhere near the quick flit of excitement as these pink and black balls of fuzz with the stupidly long tails.

It isn't the case that Long-tailed Tits are now more common than they were. They might be, but I doubt it. The fact is with naturewatching that the more you look, and the more you know, the more you see. I've learnt that the weird, high-picthed, almost electronic squeaks and bleeps from the trees means they're around, and can put a name to the long-tailed sillhouettes scrabbling about thr branches, and know to stand still and wait for them to get a bit closer. And bloody hell, there's loads of them once you know what you're looking for.

Jizz, birdwatchers call it, that instinctual knowledge that lets you know what something is before you've even thought about it (anyone who sniggered about the tit obsession can amuse themselve here as well, of course). And you only learn the jizz by watching, and observing, and getting used to something. You have to be careful you don't get too obsessed with list and ticks, because however much pleasure you get from putting another tick next to a name, it never compares to the true joy of knowing that something you once considered rare and sought-after is actually all around you. And that includes the brilliant Long-tailed Tits. Did I mention I saw some today...?

(Pic by Marek Szczepanek, once again cribbed off Wikipedia Commons, see here for details)

Langsett

2007-03-11T21:54:00.000Z

Today me and Laura had a trip to Langsett reservoir. Although the Sunday sunshine brought out too many dogwalkers, cyclists and ramblers to see anything too interesting wildlife-wise, we still saw a quick glimpse of a Great Spotted Woodpecker, plenty of Treecreepers, and a roving tit flock, which included Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed Tits, which flittered around for ages just a couple of feet away from the tops of our heads. There was also a single drake Goldeneye on the reservoir itself.

I think I maybe heard the jupping of Crossbills at one point through the plantation too... possibly an earlier morning visit shortly may yield the next successful mission!

Why you've got to love Blue Tits

2007-03-10T13:41:00.000Z

Just look at this bird to your left. Just look at it. Some people say we don't have brightly coloured birds in Britain, but one of the most commonly seen species is a gaudy mixture of blues, yellows, greens, black and white. It's probably the bird most associated with gardens in this country - it's the first one at your hanging feeders, and the the most likely to take up habitation in your nestbox. There are 3.5 million pairs in the UK, with a further 1 million pairs in Ireland, and the BTO Gardenwatch survey shows it present in 95% of gardens taking part.

The Blue Tit is a chirpy, cheeky little scamp, charming you so much you don't even mind the fact it'll take the cream off the top of your milk. In the past, there are tales of flocks blue tits following milkmen on their rounds, which is both highly endearing and vaguely frightening, in a Hitchcock-style way. This behaviour seems to have evolved from a love of attacking and shredding paper, which was recorded as early as 1693 - obviously some shredders discovered that targetting the tops of milk bottles yielded special rewards. It's said that the behaviour spread quickly and the birds learnt the habit from each other. It was first observed in Southampton in 1921, and became much more widespread after massive irruptions of Blue Tits in the late 40s and 50s. Some were such adept thieves that they removed tea towels and jars positioned to protect the milky prize, while others were less fortunate and drank too deeply, fell in, and drowned.

For birds so associated with milk, it's an ironic fact Blue Tits are actually lactose-intolerant, and milk can cause them severe diarrhoea. The cream on top, however, was safe for them to consume. The rise of skimmed and semi-skimmed milk, as well as the slow death of milk deliveries in favour of supermarkets, explains why this once common habit has now virtually died out.

But despite this mischief-making temprement they have their uses, as they're also voracious devourers of caterpillars and aphids, and so can be seen as a gardener's friend. They can, however, bite the heads off young tree buds in particularly overeager prey-searching, and fruit growers of the past have persecuted them, sometimes killing them using mouse traps.

If the Blue Tit was a rarity, people would flock for miles to catch a peek at its colourful beauty, but as it is people curse it for wasting a lift of the binoculars as it flits past, which is a shame because it's an infinitely more attractive bird than many that would make most birdwatchers collapse in apoplectic joy at the merest glimpse.

Next time you see a Blue Tit, actually take time to take a good look at it, and marvel at one of Britain's great avian treasures. Sometimes nature watchers, especially birdwatchers, can be chasing rarities so much that they ignore the beauty of what's right in front of them.

(photo by Andre Karworth, cribbed off Wikipedia Commons, see license here)

Sources for some of the information in this post:

Birds Britannica, Mark Cocker & Richard Mabey (2005); Fauna Britannica, Stephan Buczacki (2002); RSPB Handbook of British Birds, Peter Holden & Tim Cleeves (2002), Birds of Britain; RSPB; Wikipedia; BTO Gardenwatch

Quick lunchtime spot

2007-03-09T13:20:00.000Z

Had a great view of a female Sparrowhawk down at Weston Park just now, which I was alerted to by the frantic alarm call of a Magpie. Also saw some Long-tailed Tits by Crookes Valley Park.

I also heard a bizarre, loud mewing call coming from a tree, which confused me a bit until I realised it was coming from a squirrel. You can forget how noisy they can be when they want to!

Missions update!

2007-03-07T20:42:00.000Z

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about my birding missions for 2007, although I haven't had chance to follow them up. Despite this one of them has already been ticked, with the Red Kites I saw over the motorway at Wetherby last week. I will still make a trip to Harewood House or Eccup Reservoir later in the year for a better look, though.

I've been given a tip off as to a site in the Peaks where Ravens and Goshawks can probably be ticked off in one go. Before setting out on that trek, I may also hunt fot Crossbills at Langsett reservoir.

And speaking of Crossbills, perhaps Wyming Brook isn't such a good place for them after all, and a trip round the woods around Ladybower Reservoir would possibly be much more productive.

I still need to go to Potteric Carr and nab a Bittern, and I'd probably better hurry up about it too with the Summer hurtling towards us at breakneck speed.

And yes I will start going out and doing these things rather than just writing about them! Next report - probably Operation Goshawk - coming very soon. Promise.

Guerilla cloth bag warriors save the planet

2007-03-06T19:18:00.000Z

I got an email linking to this site today. It's a seemingly dotty yet strangely genius idea - you get your mates round for a pissed up evening, which you spend making cloth bags out of old curtains, and then go out en masse to supermarkets on set days to give them out free to unwary shoppers in an effort to prevent them adding yet another pile of polythene bags to the landfill.

While I can't help thinking the idea of spending an evening drinking wine and sitting over a sewing machine seems like a very unlikely way for me to spend my time (unfairly, I can't help thinking it's the type of party where there's way too many bean bags and a pan of lentil broth on the stove), it's an effort that I'd like to see do well, and Sheffield already has a "Pod" signed up. Carrier bags are an environmental scourge and a complete waste of resources, and anything done to cut back on them can only be a good thing.

Say no to pseudoscientific claptrap in schools

2007-03-06T18:03:00.000Z

This is grossly off topic, and I'm sorry if I offend anyone religious who may have stumbled across this blog (well, slightly), but here is what I think is a very important petition on the 10 Downing Street e-petitions page, against a scarily rising trend to keep slipping "intelligent design" into the curriculum as a valid alternative to evolutionary theory. This religious dogma through the back door is stifling children's understanding of a powerful and elegant scientific concept, and laughably purporting that the process of evolution is somehow an equally valid or invalid theory to "life is very complicated, therefore it must have been made by a supernatural entity". It's a kind of fundamental religious interference which, if left unchecked, could lead to a new Dark Age of pseudoscientific thought from young people, at a time when science is breaking frontiers in all fields.

By all means teach children about Creationism... in Religious Education. That's where it belongs, and not anywhere near a science textbook. For a story about this kind of thing check out here, and, perhaps even more scarily, here.

So if you agree, please sign the petition! http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/NoCreSciEd/

Another trip up north

2007-03-03T23:27:00.000Z

I got back from a great trip up to County Durham and Northumberland today.

From a wildlife watching point of view, the trip started before we even got there. A few posts ago I listed ten birds I was planning expeditions to find in the year ahead. One of these was the Red Kite. Almost annoyingly, the intrepidness of this particular search has been ruined by spying three flying spectacularly down the side of the A1 around Wetherby. They really are beautiful birds.

The first stop was a place called Blackhall Rocks in County Durham. A beautiful, windswept rocky beach, there were great views out to sea of Common Scoters, and Oystercatchers and Turnstones bumbling round the beach. Most impressively, what appeared to be a blunt black rock out to sea kept doing the rather un-rocklike action of ducking under the waves, and turned out to be a particularly showy Grey Seal bobbing about in the water. The dunes also gave brilliant views of singing Skylarks.

We were staying at Laura's parents', which is a bed and breakfast in Castleside. Their bird table is brilliant, and as well as the usual species such as Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Blackbird, Blue, Great and Coal Tits, Dunnocks and Wrens, also gets regular visits from a Great Spotted Woodpecker. It's got a rather strange habit, of finding peanuts on the ground, and taking them to a stone on the floor, where it bashes them with its beak until all gone, before finding another one and repeating the process.

As well as these, the fields surrounding the hotel housed a good few Lapwings, and a vast flock of about 200 Fieldfares. During a night-time walk, Tawny and Little Owls could both be heard hooting away in the darkness.

On Friday, we took another trip to the coast. The first stop was Bamburgh, a town with a mightily impressive castle, and a beautiful sandy beach. Pointing the scope out to sea brought up Eiders, Common Scoters and a small flock of Long-tailed Ducks. Out to sea you could clearly see the Farne Islands, and tiny white dots of Kittiwakes along the cliffs. There were courting Stonechats flitting around the dunes, and there was also a large rookery, with the Rooks making a brilliant cacophony of caws, a sound that took me back to a tiny child, and walking past the now sadly gone rookery on the main road to Stocksbridge.

And then on to Low Newton By The Sea. This town is brilliant. The beach was covered in small waders - Redshank, Oystercatchers and Sanderling mainly, with the odd Purple Sandpiper thrown in for good measure and a few Rock Pipits darting around. The was a huge flock of Eiders, and another flock of Common Scoters, close examination of which threw up a distinct white wing patch on a couple that showed there was at least a few Velvet Scoters among them. Greater Black-backed Gulls swooped overhead, and a couple of Kittiwakes flitting over the waves. Low Newton also has a nature reserve with a hide behind the dunes, which housed numerous birds, including Goldeneye, Teal, Mallards, Moorhens, Coots and Greylags.

In all, a great trip to one of the finest parts of the British Isles.

Okay, it wasn't such a bad thing...

2007-02-27T17:42:00.000Z

A few posts ago I lamented the fact I'd be leaving a job with panoramic views of Sheffield City Centre, meaning I'd miss seeing the occasional brief but tantalising glimpse of birds of prey.

But, to be honest, being able to wander round Weston Park and Crookes Valley Park on my dinner hour much outweighs this. It's great to be able to sit and eat dinner watching the ducks at play. All are Mallards at Crookes Valley, though a few are obviously a bit dubious genetically and it's always fun to try and guess their parentage (most are with farmyard types, of course, but I saw one today with a yellow eye, bluish beak and blue sheen to its head which suggested a bit of Tufted in there somewhere). There's also Moorhens, Coots and Black-headed Gulls, the latter of which really prove themselves to be proper pirates when there's bread being thrown and they swoop in and steal it straight out of a Mallard's beak.

There's also plenty of songbirds, including as Long-tailed Tits (one of which I've seen collecting lichen for nest material already), and a stupid amount of Magpies, as there seems to be everywhere in Sheffield at the moment. Just down the road in the Ponderosa, I saw 14 in one tree. Now there's not a rhyme for superstitious people for that one, is there? I thought it was pretty good going seeing that many in one place, but I read up and apparently you can occasionally get roosts of up to 100 magpies, which is a sight I'd like to see.

And going back to raptor spotting, the first lunch hour I spent in Weston Park was just after it had snowed. Magpies, Carrion Crows, Woodpigeons, Feral Pigeons and Squirrels were hopping about after what bits of food people had left for them, and suddenly a female Sparrowhawk swooped out of the sky and sent them scattering, before settling in a tree not far away, keeping her beady eyes on proceedings.

Now that's better than a fleeting glimpse out of the office window...

Second digiscoping attempts...

2007-02-25T12:50:00.000Z

Here's my second digiscoping attempts from Old Moor yesterday. I was trying out my new digital camera, but made a schoolboy error and had it on anti-shake mode, which seems sensible but I not realise just sets the ISO to the highest possible to ensure the quickest shutter speed, meaning the noise on these is terrible. Still encouraging though. Practice, practice, practice... (note - these have been through Photoshop for a bit of colour balance and contrast alteration).

Good birding too... saw a Goldeneye which I've been trying to spot there for a while. For the first time there I didn't see a single Golden Plover, after seeing thousands there ever time, and for some reason there's now loads of Shovelers. I'd do a full list but can't be bothered today!

A quick trip to Old Moor

2007-02-18T22:01:00.000Z

I had a quick trip to Old Moor today. Plenty of small birds on the feeders, and a good variety of ducks. No waders bar an Oystercatcher, which was a first for me there.

Yearlisters seen were:

Tree Sparrow, Golden Plover, Ruddy Duck, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Reed Bunting, Gadwall, Tufted Duck, Goosander, Cormorant, Pochard, Stock Dove, Wigeon, Teal, Oystercatcher, Mute Swan, Canada Goose

Others:

Black-headed Gull, Blackbird, Blue Tit, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Common Gull, Coot, Dunnock, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Lapwing, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Pheasant, Robin

My first digiscoping attempts

2007-02-17T14:43:00.000Z

I've just been a trip to the Botanical Gardens to try my first attempts as digiscoping. It's quite a tricky way to take photos, especially finding your subject and focusing correctly, but with practice (and possibly a new camera!) I think some half decent shots could be taken. My first attempt was of a magpie, and is drastically out of focus:

But some attempts on some inanimate objects proved a bit more successful, especially with the camera on timer mode, to help cut down on wobble.

And I did manage to get a few decent ones of squirrels. The first one, as you can see, is more focused on the wall than the squirrel, but I'm still inspired enough to try for some more at a later date.

I'll post any future attempts on here...

Breeding Bird Survey

2007-02-15T20:22:00.000Z

I got confirmation today that I'll be taking part in the BTO's Breeding Bird Survey. That means that from April to July I'll have to visit my allocated 1km grid reference and count all the birds I see and hear on a series of walks there. Yes, I'm a little daunted as my counting and birdsong skills are lacking a certain something, but hopefully I can buff up on both before April arrives.

My grid reference is around the centre of here, which is Underbank Reservoir in Stocksbridge, not far from where I lived when I was living with my parents. A good range of habitats to search through!

In other news I got a widget for my scope this week that means I can comfortably attach a digital camera to it, and start having a go digiscoping. I'm under no illusions that the camera I've got and the scope I've got are a match made in photographical heaven, but I'll post the results of my first experiments on here this weekend...

Operation Crossbill - part 1

2007-02-11T16:01:00.000Z

I thought about calling this blog post Mission Incrossibill, but realised that would have made me look stupid.

Today I took a trip to Wyming Brook to search for Crossbills, which I'd heard lived in the area. Sloshing my way through the sloppy remains of Friday's snow I scanned the treetops of the conifers for anything that vaguely resembled one, but sadly the search was unsuccessful. Maybe it'll be wise to try again when there's less dogwalkers around, and on a day when I'm not keeping my eyes on my own feet to make sure I avoid deep pools of meltwater.

I did, however, see some good close-up views of Goldcrests, Nuthatches and Treecreepers, and it was a good, slushy Sunday afternoon out.

New yearlisters...

36. Meadow Pipit (Lodge Moor) - 37. Treecreeper (Wyming Brook (WB)) - 38. Nuthatch (WB)

My birding missions for 2007...

2007-02-10T18:39:00.000Z

I've decided to set myself some missions for this year. As previous posts have probably clearly stated, I don't consider myself a twitcher and would never travel from one end of Britain to the next to find a rarity. However, I don't see the harm in setting myself some challenges for the coming year...

1. Bittern
I've never seen a Bittern. During a family holiday to Norfolk as a child I did hear one booming away in the distance, so I can have it as an unsatisfactory tick on the lifelist. A quick trip to Potteric Carr will hopefully sort this one out.

2. Avocet
I've never seen an Avocet in the wild either. The closest I've been is seeing some captive ones at Cotswolds Wildlife Park. They nearly became wild ones when I somehow knocked over one of the panels on their enclosure, and the delicate, curvy-billed birds started to make a bee-line for the new exit. Luckily I managed to prop up the panel and all was well. I suppose that would have been a lot more impressive story if it had involved lions or something. Anyway, a trip to Blacktoft Sands would solve this.

3. Raven
Again, I have an unsatisfactory tick of this one, as when I was a child my godfather pointed to something crow-shaped in the sky and said "that's a Raven". I think it's about time I found one for myself, and I intend to scrabble about the moors a bit more to do so.

4. Kingfisher
I've seen a few Kingfishers over the years, but not since I was at university when one darted across Huddersfield Canal, and I graduated in 2002. Early mornings at the Deepcar end of The Don always seemed a good time to spot one when I was younger, so that's where my search will take place.

5. Red Kite
My brother lives in Oxfordshire and regularly and casually spots Red Kites wheeling overhead when he's out and about. Git. To be honest this isn't a difficult one to solve, Yorkshire too has it's reintroductions, and the RSPB run a Red Kite 'Aren't Birds Brilliant' event at Harewood House, so that will be the best place to start.

6. Crossbill
I've heard it said many times that Crossbills inhabit the conifer plantations in parts of Sheffield, despite this area being bang in the middle of the white patch on the bird's RSPB distribution map. Is this a mission impossible? Ah, we'll see.

7. Goshawk
I have little clue where to find the Sparrowhawk's larger cousin round here, but I'd love to see one and any suggestions would be well received.

8. Little Auk
The time's more or less passed now, but after watching Puffins, Guillemots and Razorbills in 2006, it's be great to finish off the 'set' (although I'd need Black Guillemot as well of course). A trip to the East Coast in the late autumn/early winter would be a good idea for this. Hopefully I'll be able to drive by then, because persuading someone to take me will be hard seeing as Little Auks get washed up in Britain in the wost weather...

9. Short-eared Owl
Apart from a glimpse that was too short to be sure, I've never seen a Short-eared Owl. Finding their hunting grounds is the key, and possibly one to combine with the Little Auk at Bempton Cliffs. However, if anyone has any more suggestions closer to home let me know.

10. Smew
Again, a bird I've never seen in the wild. One may show up at Old Moor before the end of this winter (which seems to have only just begun...), but if not a trip to the Wash at the end of the year may be in order.

So that's my ten missions for the year. I will, of course, be keeping this blog up to date with how those are going, hopefully starting with Operation Bittern in the next week or two...

Most recent yearlisters...

30. Chaffinch (Botanical Gardens (BG)) - 31. Goldcrest (BG) - 32. Jay (BG) - 33. Mistle Thrush (BG) - 34. Grey Heron (Chester Zoo) - 35. Jackdaw (Chester Zoo)

The end of urban birdwatching

2007-02-02T12:25:00.000Z

Well, I ended my old job this week. While it puts an end to a woefully monotonous working life, it means I no longer spend much of my day staring out of the 7th floor window with a glorious view over the city, across to Meadowhall and beyond.

The birds seen while I've been working there haven't been that numerous in variety, but the one time a peregrine flew past the window made me keep looking (sadly this was never repeated). I also saw a sparrowhawk on two occasions, and a kestrel on one, so it wasn't a bad position for bird of prey-spotting.

The view did however give me a new found respect for magpies. Not only are they very nice looking birds, which would be something realised more often if they were any rarer, but their acrobatics are quite spectacular. I remember on one occasion watching one just jump off the roof of a building and freefall a full six floors before steering upwards at the last minute like a particularly foolhardy fighter pilot.

Other birds have included large flocks of carrion crows, rooks, and common gulls (I'm pretty sure on this, although my gull identification from below leaves something to be desired!), and the odd mistle thrush and even a skein of geese.

However, my new job is quite close to Weston Park, so maybe that can be a new lunchtime patch...

A walk up the canal

2007-02-01T15:28:00.000Z

You wouldn't think it was snowing a few days ago would you? Today's been like a warm day in Spring, and by a great coincidence it was also a day off work (and I had a hangover to walk off...).

I started at Meadowhall, walking up the canal, and ended up at Blackburn Meadows. There were loads of birds out today, including a couple of Green Sandpipers flitting about on the canal, a Grey Wagtail, and some Bullfinches at Blackburn Meadows. The trees at the reserve were full of small birds, including Robins, Goldfinches and more Long-tailed Tits than I've ever seen in one place.

Still hoping to catch sight of a Kingfisher on Sheffield's Waterways, maybe one day...

New yearlisters...

16. Starling (Philadelphia Green Space) - 17. Collared Dove (Langsett Road Tram Stop) - 18. Great Tit (Home) - 19. Pied Wagtail (Valley Centertainment) - 20. Wren (Tinsley Canal (TC)) - 21. Mallard (TC) - 22. Green Sandpiper (TC) - 23. Grey Wagtail (TC) - 24. Lapwing (TC) - 25. Redpoll (Blackburn Meadows (BM)) - 26. Bullfinch (BM) - 27. Dunnock (BM) - 28. Moorhen (BM) - 29. Coot (BM)

Where did January go?

2007-01-27T12:09:00.000Z

I can't believe it's over a month since I posted here. Christmas came and went, January arrived and now... it's nearly February. How did that happen?

The truth is I've not been out doing anything wildlifey, and not had much to report. I saw a fox trotting along West Bar just after Christmas, the tram pheasants are still there, and I keep seeing Sparrowhawks out of the office windown, but that's about it.

I do have some rants coming, though, and I may write something about alien big cats in Doncaster. I kid ye not.

In the meantime my birding yearlist has reset, and I'm going to bore everyone with the new one as it happens, at the end of blog posts here. Sorry.

1. Carrion Crow (Philadelphia Green Space (PGS)) - 2. Blue Tit (PGS) - 3. Song Thrush (PGS) - 4. Blackbird (PGS) - 5. House Sparrow (PGS) - 6. Magpie (PGS) - 7. Black-headed Gull (Home) - 8. Robin (Langsett Road Tram Stop (LRTS)) - 9. Woodpigeon (LRTS) - 10. Long-tailed Tit (LRTS) - 11. Pheasant (LRTS) - 12. Sparrowhawk (Work) - 13. Rook (Work) - 14. Common Gull (Work) - 15. Goldfinch (PGS)

The sad death of the Baiji

2006-12-17T21:31:00.000Z

Last week it was announced that the Chinese River Dolphin, or Baiji, was "functionally extinct", meaning that there aren't enough individuals left on the planet to repopulate the species. An intensive six-week search of the Yangtze River, the dolphin's only home, came to a blank, without a single specimen spotted.

The main problem was of Chinese industrialisation leading to pollution, and river traffic drowning out the sound of the dolphin's echolocation, leading to the animal's senses being completely overwhelmed and effectively "blinding it". In the 1950's there was an estimated 6,000 animals, now there are more than likely none.

The Baiji was one of the animals featured in what is probably my favourite book of all time, Last Chance To See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. In it and the accompanying radio broadcast, Adams, a sci fi writer, and Carwardine, a zoologist, searched for the world's rarest animals, which also included the Komodo Dragon, Mountain Gorilla, Kakapo and White Rhino.

It's such a shame that the world's media are putting the species' decline so low on the news agenda (as well noted here). If it has been the Giant Panda or the Tiger it would be a different story, but an ugly, blind dolphin never gets the public support of its furrier cousins. Maybe "functionally extinct" isn't dramatic enough. The idea a handful may survive is enough to make it un-newsworthy. But while history books can tell you, for example, the very date the last Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet died in Cincinnati Zoo, they often fail to mention that in a very real sense the species was extinct long before this, survived only by single, ever-ageing birds in the corner of a zoo's aviary.

Unfortunately the modern version of Last Chance To See seems to be ITV's 'Extinct' TV series. I maybe doing the show a disservice, as I've not seen it, but I find it very hard to see exactly how Dermot O'Leary's presence can add to the debate. A rent-a-celeb and a few shots of cuddly, well-known endangered creatures (panda, tiger et al) may be a financial shot in the arm for animal charities in the short-term, but I doubt the long-term effect. It's stating the obvious - anyone who doesn't know the Giant Panda's endangered is an idiot quite frankly (and even then they're a lot more common than they used to be, due to the efforts of Chinese scientists who are churning out baby pandas at an alarming rate). The only non-obvious animal I've noticed them cover is the Hyacinth Macaw, and that's hardly some kind of giant land snail.

So even while this supposed TV landmark is going on the Baiji slips away and no-one seems to notice or care. And a few days later it's announced the Saola, an obscure Vietnam ruminant that was only discovered in 1992, has dropped to just 200 individuals, and the situation's so dire Vietnamese scientists are thinking cloning it may be the only way to save it.

While the panda, tiger and all those need saving, and any mainstream conservation TV should be welcomed, the media should be introducing the world to the species that could be gone before the general public even know they exist.

I'm oh so quiet...

2006-12-17T12:00:00.000Z

Oops, my posting prowess is slipping. Hopefully I will get time to post some things I have on my mind before Christmas, including...

Windfarms - greens vs greens
The extinction of the Chinese River Dolphin
And something vaguely Sheffieldy...

Tram pheasants and sparrowhawks at work

2006-12-05T20:19:00.000Z

I was standing at Langsett Road tram stop this morning and commented that there were a lot of birds around - including magpies, feral pigeons, wood pigeons, crows, gulls, mistle thrushes, blackbirds, blue tits.

Then two female pheasants walked into view in the grass bank right by the tram stop on the other side of the road. I know they're hardly the rarest of birds, but you don't expect them by the side of a busy urban road, especially as as bird species go they're remarkably good at getting squashed under vehicles.

Saw another raptor out of the work window today, albeit a brief glimpse. I'd love to say it was a second sighting of the peregrine, but I'm almost sure it was a sparrowhawk. I must be in a prime position for raptor-spotting...

I'm going blog crazy...

2006-12-01T18:41:00.000Z

I keep setting up new blogs...

One I've just set up is an archive of old features I've written over the years. Check it out at http://petemella.blogspot.com

Another is a wildlifey one, where I'm aiming to keep a record of all the news stories I come across of newly discovered, rediscovered and out of place animals. http://hiddenzoo.blogspot.com

I just checked my webstats, and found someone found this blog using the search criteria "Myleene Compromising Pictures". I can only think they were disappointed...

I'm a small, Anipodean animal, get me out of here

2006-11-28T18:42:00.000Z

I've watched a lot of bad telly recently, including a scary amount of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. And while there is something strangely satisfying about seeing arrogant, Z-list celebrities undergo tortures so bad they're probably banned under the Geneva convention, I must admit the programme-makers' use of animals is a bit iffy.

We've seen Jan Leeming scooping up cane toads and throwing them down a mineshaft, David Gest wrestling baby alligators, and Myleene Klass sharing a tiny shower with several eels. While sharing a confined space with Ms Klass may not sound too tortuous to all of us, a former member of HearSay's shorts isn't the natural habitat for a startled fish.

Then there's the eating of live insects. I'm not quite sure where I stand on insect rights, but my previous post on Octopus intelligence makes me wonder if we can be quite so sure that insects are quite happy to have some bloke from Busted biting their thorax off.

Of course I'm not the first person to think all this, and the production folks have told the Guardian:

We have the RSPCA involved in Australia, so it's quite bizarre when we've had criticism. Nobody wants to be needlessly cruel. We breed our own rats and we have special animal handlers.

But it's not just the actual, physical cruelty we see done to the animals on screen. The show reinforces animals as man's plaything, there to be used in games, laughed at, repulsed by, something to be conqueried to prove our dominance over nature. Snakes, spiders and rats, merely exist to frighten, and to shock.

In 2003 the British RSPCA blamed the show for "desensitising" people to animal cruelty, and blamed it for a dramatic increase in cases of animal cruelty cases during the period the show was on air. (Full story here. If you can't remember 2003's series was the one with such luminaries as Wayne Sleep, Daniella Westbrook and some bloke from Coronation Street).

It's strange how all this is deemed acceptable, as if the fact it's filmed in Australia makes it all right - because, like, that's what they do over there. They fill septic tanks full of crocodiles, snakes and crayfish and pour them on Liza Minelli's ex-husband. They do it all the time.

By all means torture Dean Gaffney, that's funny. But leave the animals alone.

A plug

2006-11-28T18:18:00.000Z

A very quick plug... if anyone's a Sheffield Wildlife Trust member, I have a couple of bits about climate change in the latest issue of the SWT magazine, Kingfisher.

A very quick Old Moor trip...

2006-11-28T18:11:00.000Z

Went to Old Moor for an hour or so on Sunday. Not too much to see - there were two coach trips of retired folk taking things over a bit, so we couldn't squeeze into some of the hides (I didn't even get near the birdfeeders).

Strangely, the Wath Ings hide was virtually bereft of birdlife, which is unusual. Maybe they saw the two coaches parked outside and had similar thoughts to me...

Today's full list:
Black-headed Gull, Blackbird, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Coot, Cormorant, Gadwall, Golden Plover, Grey Heron, Jackdaw, Lapwing, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Pheasant, Pochard, Robin, Shoveler, Starling, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Tufted Duck, Wigeon

My second Peregrine (!)

2006-11-21T17:42:00.000Z

Okay, this is a bit bizarre...

Last Wednesday, less than I week ago, I spotted my first ever Peregrine at Old Moor, and got rather excited about it. Roger B replied to my post about it with:

It's worth keeping an eye for peregrines in the built-up parts of Sheffield. I'm told that they are sometimes seen in the Netherthorpe area.

I work in one of Sheffield City Centre's tall office buildings on the seventh floor, and I'm lucky enough to get a panoramic view of Sheffield from the window, facing out towards Meadowhall and Don Valley. Not many birds to see generally, except for crows, Magpies, Feral Pigeons (of course), and on one occasion a Kestrel.

But today I happened to be staring into space as a bird flew past in the distance. I presumed it was a Carrion Crow at first, but it didn't fly right, its wingbeats seemed a lot different, and it kept changing direction in a rather uncrow-like way, plus it was lighter coloured.

Remembering what Roger B had posted, I cursed the fact the office wasn't equipped with binoculars, and then noticed it was zigzagging towards the window. Eventually it was about five feet away, so close I could clearly see its black "moustache" as it flew round the corner of the building.

A crazy, crazy coincidence, but not an unwelcome one! I'll spend even more of the company's time staring out of the window from now on, and post any more sightings I have.

Twitchcraft

2006-11-19T15:09:00.000Z

It was all over the news the last couple of weeks - a Long-billed Murrelet, an Asian species never sighted in British, or even Atlantic, waters before was sighted at Dawlish in Devon, sparking a twitching frenzy that led to birders from around the country flocking on the seaside town to point their scopes at the poor lost auk.

I must admit a slight pang of jealousy - it's one on the lifelist I'm probably never going to get - but I've never been one for twitching. Driving 200 miles to have a brief glimpse of something that three hundred telescopes around you are pointing at too? No thanks.

The best spots for me are the ones you unexpectedly discover yourself. Like the time I was walking on a path the bypass at Deepcar, and a flock of Pied Flycatchers suddenly appeared and flew into a tree. Or suddenly stumbling across a Green Woodpecker, or seeing the azure flash of a Kingfisher, or picking out a Whooper Swan among a flock of Mutes, watching Buzzards or Barn Owls hunt, or just seeing a species on your local patch you haven't seen before.

These aren't rare birds, and ones I'll probably see countless times again, but finding something new on your own doorstep, and learning about your own area, is more of a thrill to me than travelling from one end of Britain to the next rarity-hunting.

It's sad that for every birder watching a local patch, surveying, gardenwatching, or countless other variations on the hobby, the press (such as here) only ever focus on the ones darting around the country to catch a fleeting glimpse of something that, let's face it, is more often than not something like a warbler with a slightly different eyestripe to the one they can see in their own back garden. No wonder young people are put off birding - the media build it up as something akin to trainspotting, and, sadly, always manage to find individuals to back this up.

While obviously I'd love to see a Long-billed Murrelet, I think joining the scoping throng on Dawlish front would have been a pretty unrewarding afternoon for me.

British Swallows threatened by World Cup

2006-11-18T16:47:00.000Z

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa looks like it'll have major repercussions on the UK's Swallow population.

The planned building of a new airport to facilitate the football-loving hordes happens to be near the Mount Moreland Reedbed in Kwa-Zulu Natal, an area that acts as an important roosting site for wintering Swallows, as well as other birds such as Corncrakes, Lesser Kestrels and Crowned Eagles. Not only will this be in the direct flightpath of air traffic, it's feared that the reedbeds may be cleared in order to stop the birds being a safety hazard.

Three million Swallows can be found there, and thousands of these will end up in Britain in the summer. These actions could lead to a long-term decline in the British Swallow population.

This from the RSPB coverage:

"An environmental impact assessment is under way at La Mercy but BirdLife South Africa suspects an adverse outcome will be overturned in favour of potential economic opportunities including new jobs and trade."

Even as someone who isn't too interested in sport, I can see that large-scale events like this bring a lot of money and development to areas, but it seems ludicrous to me that countries would consider compromising their environment, and their environmental reputation, for a few week's footballing action.

After all, Europe's Swallows will be feeling the repercussions of this long after the events of the South Africa World Cup are consigned to pub quiz trivia.

Full story here BBC News and here RSPB

(EDIT! - Thanks to user Yzerfontein for rightly suggesting it's not too fair for the UK press to suggest the airport is being built purely for the World Cup. A quick dig around tells me it's been planned in that locality for decades, although the timing of its completion seems to be heavily influenced by the World Cup)

Upgrade culture

2006-11-17T14:13:00.000Z

Bear with me, there is an environmental point somewhere near the end...

My iPod died a few months ago, and I finally got round to taking it to the Apple Shop in Meadowhall today. I've had it for just under two years, and I was told that the hard-drive's packed in, and you shouldn't expect it to last "any longer than a mobile phone". A repair would cost £150, and I'd be better off buying a new one.

While this obviously got my back up (I spent £200-odd quid on it in around Feb 2005, and spent weeks putting my CD collection on to it), it also got me thinking that we're all getting ridiculous when it comes to upgrades.

I got my first mobile phone when I went to university, so it was probably just over six years ago. It was a basic, unattractive Philips job, that while pretty primitive was doing good service as my mum's hand-me-down until very recently.

Since then I've had a Nokia 3210, a Nokia 3330, a Nokia 5210i, some kind of Motorola flip-phone that was awful, a Samsung slide phone, and now a swanky new Nokia. I've gone from having something about the same technology as an electronic personal organiser you can make phonecalls on, to what is to all intents and purposes like a phone, digital camera and mini-computer rolled into one.

As happy as I may be with what I have, come free upgrade time the gadget freak in me comes out and I march down to the T-Mobile shop and get a new one. While some of them have been hand-me-downs to family members, a few of them are just knocking about forgotten in the back of drawers throughout the house.

This idea that technology has such a small lifespan is stupid. While I'd probably find the features on the old Philips phone a bit limited now, there's no way my life would be significantly worse off if I still had, say, the 5210i, and I've had three new handsets since then.

There's an estimated 40 million mobile phone users in Britain. 4 million new phones are bought each year. If only a fraction of these replace "obsolete" handsets that end up on landfill sites then we have a big problem. Not only are valuable substances that can be re-used being wasted, but the batteries contain toxic chemicals such as cadmium. Recycling schemes do exist though, and should be encouraged more - perhaps phone shops should demand the old phone back and send them for recycling, before they'll give you a new one?

Maybe we should sometimes take a deep breath and think if we really need those upgrades. Because not only are we polluting the planet with perfectly good items thrown on the scrapheap, but encouraging the manufacturers to make items with lower and lower lifespans.

As for the iPod, I'll just have to dig out the Walkman I've had for about 8 years. That still works perfectly.

Birdsong for dummies

2006-11-16T18:05:00.000Z

I realised I'm a very visual birder, that is I'm quite poor at identifying birdsong. On the walk by the reservoirs the other day, I realised that there were plenty of crazy exotic bird sounds that someone else may have got mildly excited about, but I didn't have a clue. I'm sure I could have doubled my tally with a bit of aural knowhow.

This is all hammered home by the fact that I started a BTO Birdtrack list back in June, and there's only one species of warbler on it, being the Chiffchaff (come on, even I know that one). Now, I'm sure I've been in the vicinty of plenty of warblers over the summer, but as they've not been in my line of sight have escaped my bird radar.

I decided to rectify manners and bought a Collins double CD/book combo which is pretty good, but it's not really the sort of thing that I can put on the house stereo when anyone else is in, and when I do put it on, the cat goes mental and spends the entire time looking round the living room for tasty winged treats.

I'm considering putting the whole thing on my iPod and listening to it while I'm at the gym, but that seems like such a bizarre clash of activities, like trainspotting while snowboarding.

I'm sure I will get to listen to it in its entirety at some point, and maybe next year I'll get those damn warblers...

My first Peregrine!

2006-11-15T15:21:00.000Z

A mid-week trip to Old Moor today, and I'm nearly positive I saw my first ever Peregrine, which has always been on my "to-see" list. Definitely a falcon, darkish grey, significantly bigger than a Kestrel, and scared the bejesus out of the Lapwings. Yep, almost sure it was a Peregrine, despite only being a fleeting glimpse.

The rest of the trip I thought was rather disappointing as a whole - no really fancy waders or ducks to speak of - although did spot a couple of Snipe and a few Dunlins and Redshanks, and got a good up-close view of a female Sparrowhawk as it menaced the assorted flock on the birdfeeder. And I still managed to clock up my record species tally - maybe I'm just getting a bit too used to what's there and need to move on to another site.

No Whooper Swans, obviously the lone one I saw last time has moved elsewhere, and the rest of the flock never arrived.

Today's full list:
Blackbird, Black-headed Gull, Blue Tit, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Collared Dove, Common Gull, Coot, Cormorant, Dunlin, Dunnock, Gadwall, Golden Plover, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Jackdaw, Lapwing, Magpie, Mallard, Marsh Tit, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Peregrine (woo!), Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pochard, Redshank, Robin, Shoveler, Snipe, Sparrowhawk, Starling, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Tufted Duck, Wigeon

The aliens are coming, run for the hills

2006-11-14T19:44:00.000Z

During the usual inane banter between weatherman Paul Hudson and the Look North newscasters the other day, he mentioned a viewer who's been having regular sightings of a Ring-necked Parakeet on his allotment in Beighton. Why his first port of call was a cheeky regional weather forecaster and not, say, the BTO is beyond me, but as proof he sent in a photo, to which the newscasters said it looked stuffed, and made the predictable Monty Python gags.

Now, this could be an escapee, or it could be a sign that the UK's only naturalised species of parrot is moving north. It's not the only species of parrot that has bred in Britain (surprisingly a pair of lovebirds once bred in Scotland, for instance), but the only one with a sizable, self-sustaining population.

While being quite a colourful addition to the fauna of Beighton, parakeets are large, noisy, boisterous birds that can more than hold their own against any British species, and will see off all contenders at the birdtable. They also have a tendency to make short work of fruit crops. It's for these reasons that the government are considering a Ruddy Duck-style cull of the parrots.

You see you never know how a species is going to shake things up when introduced. While the American Ruddy Duck is a handsome bird which fulfils a niche that doesn't lead it into direct competition with most other ducks, it has managed to spread itself from Britain to mainland Europe, where it's proceeded to mate with the endangered and closely related White-headed Duck in Spain, thus thinning the gene pool. In a contraversial move, the British Government are footing the bill by shooting all the ones they can find (they must have missed a couple, because I saw one at Old Moor the other week).

Of course Sheffield's full of introduced species. Grey squirrels are the most obvious, and they've been accused of everything including ousting the reds (now considered greatly exaggerated), destroying trees, killing baby birds, and starting World War Two (the last one was a lie). American Mink ponce about the Don, eating every small mammal they can get their teeth into, including endangered Water Vole (we need Otters back, they'd show them who's boss). And custodians of our nature reserves are fighting a losing battle against terrifying triffid-like monstrosities such as Japanese Knotweed, which strangle everything in their path like something from a more outlandish 50's boys' story about Darkest Africa.

I'm being a bit flippant, because all these really are a problem, but is wasting time and money shooting parakeets really worth doing? While some invasive species, such as Coypu and Muskrat, are now extinct in the UK, other species, such as Grey Squirrels have shown just how difficult it is to erradicate an introduced species. But then the release of such tenacious and agressive species as these is a threat to native species, and maybe attempts do have to be made at all costs. It's a tough one to call.

Several species that are now considered typical British creatures - Pheasant, Rabbit, Common Hare, several deer species - have all been introduced at some point by man. While it's not a good thing to do this, and there should be heftier penalties for releasing non-natives on the countryside, maybe one day parakeets will be as mundane a sight as these, and the deafening squawk of parrots will be a normal part of the dawn chorus, in Beighton and across the British Isles.

A reservoir walk

2006-11-14T10:01:00.000Z

I went on a good old walk yesterday, from Wharncliffe Side, and round More Hall and Broomhead Reservoirs.

First decent sighting of the day was my first fieldfare of the year, and walking through the More Hall Plantation, I was surrounded by small birds, including tits (blue, coal and great), treecreepers and nuthatches, as well as loads of squirrels.

I was a little disappointed that there wasn't more to see on the reservoirs themselves - it was mainly feral ducks, mallards and every shade between. A couple of herons were stalking around, and there were three female goosander on Broomhead, which almost made up for the fact I was dragging my scope and tripod around with me.

What I was really wanting to see was some crossbills, I've read that they do live in the conifers in this area. Maybe next time.

Today's full list:

Black-headed Gull, Blackbird, Blue Tit, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Fieldfare, Goosander, Great Tit, Grey Heron, Jay, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Nuthatch, Pied Wagtail, Robin, Rook, Treecreeper, Woodpigeon, Wren

Anyone know their fungus?

2006-11-10T22:18:00.000Z

Does anyone know their fungus out there? Loads of this stuff suddenly appeared at the bottom of my garden a few weeks ago, seemingly within the space of a couple of hours. It's starting to wither a bit now.

A few posts ago I think I painted my garden as a utopia for cats, but totally devoid of wildlife. Aside from this fungus, we do get the odd bits and bobs. A Common Toad set up home at the bottom for a while, and the neighbours have seen a hedgehog on a number of occassions, although I haven't and that really annoys me.

Birdwise, there's been a smattering of magpies, blackbirds, robins, woodpigeons, collared doves, house sparrows and blue tits. A very plucky wren took residence at the bottom for a while, but I fear it became a fun-size treat at one point. Ducks, geese, gulls, swifts and swallows have all flown overhead at some point, and feral pigeons can be heard cooing from the rooftops.

Whenever it rains, the lawns on our block suddenly get covered in snails, and if you walk outside in the dark when it's wet, you just hear a sickening crunching noise under your feet as you squash the poor things.

Insect-wise a few interesting things show up. The tufts of ragwort in the garden housed Cinnabar moth caterpillars during the summer, large ichneumon wasps with their scary yet harmless "stings" in the living room, and recently some weird plume moths which look like letter T's with legs stuck to the walls in the kitchen.

And the spiders in our house are another matter which I'm sure will one day merit their own post.

There'll be loads more that I miss, and I itend to start keeping my eyes open a little more close to home. While it's hardly going to have an SSSI stuck on it, there's things to find even here.

Octopuses are geniuses. Official.

2006-11-08T19:14:00.000Z

I've been reading an interesting article here - the gist being that octopuses are so intelligent that there's a new move to ban live experimentation on cephalopods, offering them the same legal protection as cats, dogs and monkeys.

Octopuses may look like big, army bags of gas, but have shown many of the signs considered demonstrative of higher thought. For example, they can not only learn tricks and puzzles, but learn by watching the actions of other octopuses. They have been shown to feel anguish, fear and pain.

Yet it is currently legal to do, well, anything to them, alive or otherwise. No license is needed to experiment on them, and it's not uncommon for restaurants in some parts of the world to serve them up live for particularly horrific customers (anyone seen the Korean film Old Boy? You'll know what I mean.)

You just wonder how many animals have some remarkable levels of intelligence, but don't have ways to demonstrate this in ways human beings understand. For example I saw a documentary years ago where pigs were given computer games to play for treats, and they outstripped the efforts of dogs and monkeys.

It's a scary thought that one day we may develop new ways to communicate with animals, or at least gage their basic thoughts and emotions. Then we may have to realise that we've caused quite a bit of suffering over the years and have to come to terms with that. Because if "primitive" lifeforms such as octopuses can be legally designated sentient beings then we have to consider the intelligence of many other species way further up on the evolutionary ladder.

Yes. I've been to Old Moor. Again.

2006-11-08T19:05:00.000Z

Yes, I had another trip to Old Moor on Saturday. I really must start varying my birding days out...

Not a bad day's spotting. Not a good day for waders, but plenty of ducks. A flock of goosanders were there that I hadn't seen before, and one lone Whooper Swan was floating about dejectedly waiting for its kin to arrive. Surely there should be a lot more of them around now? There also seem to be some Common Gulls joining the black-headeds.

Today's full list
Black-headed Gull, Blue Tit, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Common Gull, Coot, Cormorant, Dunlin, Dunnock, Gadwall, Golden Plover, Goosander, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Jackdaw, Lapwing, Linnet, Little Grebe, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pochard, Starling, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Tufted Duck, Whooper Swan, Wigeon

Old Moor (yet again)

2006-10-29T10:38:00.000Z

Another trip to Old Moor yesterday. Lots of snipe around, at one point I was watching four sat together at the edge of one of the lakes. Also gadwall seem to have arrived, there's quite a few, and I hadn't noticed any there the last few weeks.

Today's full list:

Black-headed Gull, Blue Tit, Canada Goose, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Collared Dove, Coot, Cormorant, Dunlin, Dunnock, Gadwall, Golden Plover, Great Crested Grebe, Green Sandpiper, Greenfinch, Grey Heron, Jackdaw, Lapwing, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Pheasant, Pied Wagtail, Pochard, Redshank, Reed Bunting, Robin, Shoveler, Snipe, Starling, Teal, Tree Sparrow, Wigeon, Wren

A trip up north

2006-10-23T09:10:00.000Z

Been away for the weekend to my girlfriend's parents' house in County Durham. The house is actually a B&B in Castleside, and sits in the middle of nowhere, overlooking fields and woods. A good sign was that as we drove down the path to the house, a little owl flew in front of us and perched on the wall next to us. It allowed us to inch the car right beside it, and stood staring us out for a good few minutes.

The birdtable by the window at the house is incredible. It's visited by hordes of greenfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch and blue and great tits, and semi-regular visits from a great spotted woodpecker. There's also dunnock, wrens, robins and various others skulking about the undergrowth.

We took an excursion to Low Newton By The Sea, a beautiful piece of Northumberland shoreline owned by the National Trust. The beach is beautiful, and there's a small nature reserve with a hide overlooking a pool that houses a large amount of geese and ducks. There were huge flocks of curlews, lapwings and golden plovers, lots of different species of gull, cormorants flying low over the sea, and eiders bobbing about. There were also redshanks, oystercatchers and turnstones exploring the rocks.

Sadly another sight for the weekend was a roadkill badger, on the A1 near Corbridge. I've only ever seen two badgers in my entire lifetime, and both of them have been dead by the side of the road. Hopefully one day this will change.

The weekend's full list:

Little Owl, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Pheasant, Grey Heron, Mallard, Teal, Tufted Duck, Eider, Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Mute Swan, Moorhen, Collared Dove, Woodpigeon, Cormorant, Little Grebe, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Curlew, Redshank, Turnstone, Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Dunnock, Robin, Wren, Jackdaw, Rook, Carrion Crow, Magpie, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail, Starling

Recycle and be fined!

2006-10-17T18:27:00.000Z

Oh dear, it seems Swansea Council have potentially put a vast swathe of people off recycling for good. A man - who also happens to be a journalist on the city's local newspaper - has ended up being fined £200 for allegedly putting a junk mail letter in a recycling bag designed for bottles.

Now I have sympathy, and I'm sure recycling workers are sick to death of opening public recycling bags and finding whatever random rubbish, half-eaten takeaway or bodily fluid people have decided to throw in that week. But for the sake of the effort of removing a letter from a bin of bottles, this is ridiculous. I'm sure several people will now stop recycling for fear of an offending piece of rubbish sneaking in, and Daily Mail types will be snorting indignantly about the state of the country, and frothing about how environmental do-gooders should be lined up and shot.

For the full story check out BBC News

The killer in my living room

2006-10-16T20:32:00.000Z

It's such a horrible cliche to write about your cat in a blog that it's almost paining me to actually type this, but practically the only time I ever see birds in my garden is when they're clamped between the jaws of the bundle of black fur I share my house with.

The other day she brought home a young, female greenfinch. I've never seen a greenfinch in the garden before. Can you tick it off a list if it's been brought to you deceased by your cat? I suppose it makes a change from sparrows, which I've regularly had to scrape off the living room carpet with a dustpan.

In fact I don't see many birds in the garden at all, as between the four houses on our little block there's five cats, all of which start drooling menacingly at anything vaguely feathered and flappy. I saw three blue tits, a robin and four starlings early the other morning and it almost felt like some kind of a bird orgy compared to what I'm used to.

The first time your cat kills a bird you see them in a completely new light. Rather than beeing a cute little purry toy that exists to play with string and hide in cupboards, it becomes a smug, evil bastard, squinting away with self-satisfaction while it bats an almost-dead blackbird around the lawn.

So how do I reconcile having a cat with being a lover of wild birds? You've basically brought a small, bird-killing machine into your house and set it loose in the garden. However people wibble on about magpies and the like killing small birds, it is in fact the little, purring, dribbly thing in your house that kills more than anything else. Yes, sometimes I do feel pretty guilty, and use the "there's loads of cats anyway" get out and change the subject quickly.

Ahem.

Old Moor (again)

2006-10-15T21:42:00.000Z

Another trip to Old Moor on 15th October. Only spent a couple of hours there, and didn't see anything I didn't see the week before, but still some good spotting.

It's a lot further to walk from Wombwell Station to the site than I thought. Bloody Sunday bus service.

Today's full list:

Redshank, Common Sandpiper, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Black-headed Gull, Little Grebe, Coot, Moorhen, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Mallard, Teal, Wigeon, Shoveler, Tufted Duck, Canada Goose, Woodpigeon, Mute Swan, Magpie, Starling, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Reed Bunting

Old Moor

2006-10-13T20:44:00.000Z

On 7th October I had a trip to Old Moor RSPB reserve near Wombwell, and it was great. Oh yes.

You can't really beat RSPB reserves for birdwatching, and Old Moor is up there with the best. The Dearne Valley is home to several large, man-made lakes caused by mining subsidence, that are now a protected sanctuary for a staggering variety of birds. I counted thirty eight species, and I was only there for about three hours.

The hides are incredibly comfy, and were rammed with birdwatchers, ranging from pros with serious scopes, to small kids with tiny plastic binoculars. There's about half a dozen hides, all giving different views over the lakes, except one that looks over the reserve's birdfeeders, the highlight of which being the flock of tree sparrows.

Ducks, geese and swans were in abundance, as well as grebes, a small flock of cormorants, a group of herons, a few pheasants, and loads of passerines on the birdfeeders and in the bushes by the lakes. And some of the best birds of the day were waders. Among the vast flocks of lapwings and golden plovers were snipes, redshanks, dunlins, and common, green and curlew sandpipers. A good day's birding in all.

All right, just saying "there's vast flocks" of lapwings and golden plovers isn't doing it justice. There's thousands of both species, stood wading around as waders do. Some lapwings break off now and again to chase away a group of starlings for, I don't know, just being small and annoying. In fact the lapwings seem like particularly tetchy birds, taking time off from general wading to see off the crows, the herons and anything else that disturbs them.

Then suddenly the golden plovers get spooked, by a heron flying through them or a passing helicopter, and they all fly off together, forming a big egg-shaped mass of birds in the sky which eventually decides its safe to come back to earth, but not before circling a couple of times first to check the coast is clear. Magnificent.

Anyway, a good day's birding.

Today's full list:
Curlew Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper, Dunlin, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Redshank, Snipe, Mallard, Wigeon, Shoveler, Teal, Tufted Duck, Ruddy Duck, Canada Goose, Mute Swan, Coot, Moorhen, Pheasant, Cormorant, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Grey Heron, Black-headed Gull, Kestrel, Collared Dove, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Robin, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Greenfinch, Pied Wagtail, Starling, Reed Bunting, Tree Sparrow

Blackburn Meadows

2006-10-13T20:25:00.000Z

On the 30th September I took a trip to Blackburn Meadows, the Sheffield Wildlife Trust reserve at Rotherham.
A former sewage works on the outskirts of Sheffield and Rotherham may not be the most obvious place for a wildlife reserve, but Blackburn Meadows is an oasis in the middle of the former industrial area. Its two lakes form a magnet for a number of bird species, and there's hides facing out to view what's out there.

There wasn't too much to see on the day I went, a cold but fine Saturday afternoon. The lakes were home to mallards, moorhens and coots, and the trees filled with goldfinches, magpies, woodpigeons, blackbirds and robins. I do feel that an earlier start later in the season will yield better results. Other than the birds, there were plenty of rabbits, and some amazing dragonflies and butterflies.

The problem with the reserve is lack of seating in the hides. Kneeling on cold, dirty concrete doesn't really encourage you to spend much time watching birds, and, sadly, one of the hides had obviously been used as a urinal judging by the smell. Luckily the best view of the lakes is via the "viewing sculpture", a nice metal fence looking out over the water. I wouldn't want to use it in bad weather, though, or try and cram in if there was a serious twitch going on.

The site links to the Sheffield Canal Walk, and I had a walk back to Meadowhall, seeing more mallards, some mute swans and a heron. One day I'll see a kingfisher down the Sheffield Canal, but not this day. Bah.

Today's full list:
Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Grey Heron, Woodpigeon, Robin, Magpie, Blackbird, Goldfinch, Rabbit, various dragonflies and butterflies.