Grumbling Stumps STQC Reserve has its own little band of regulars .... Here's what I wrote about them the first time they appeared on here ... ... Whenever I'm around Grumbling Stumps STQC Reserve I eventually come across "The Trogs" ... a loose group of five birdwatchers who seem to spend most of their waking lives either sitting in hides for an eternity, or staggering around to the next one. You could, at a pinch, compare them to that lot from the TV .... the Last of the Summer Wine lot. We all call them the Trogs, though they don't know that. As in every group, one of them is an amiable but useless birder... you couldn't really rely on any of his identifications . However, he's really nice bloke,and well liked too ... mainly because he isn't any sort of rival and he makes the other four feel like experts. Win-win. We'll call him Jim. And here's the others ... Dan ..... the best birder in the group, and he's been to Scilly .. twice ! Ed ....... the joker of the group. He's been to Benidorm and seen a Red-Rumped Swallow.. maybe. Stan ... the quiet one. But he carries a bird book with him. Not done in top circles. Mac .... the Scottish one. A giant of a man too. I hope he's a gentle giant. OK ...back to today's story .... This one is a much more recent adventure .... The Trogs and the Ovenbird The Trogs are usually an amiable bunch, if not perhaps top birders, but what does that matter. But, they are loyal, if nothing else, and they provide entertainment to all they meet. But over the last few weeks, their equilibrium has been disturbed by an interloper, a rather bumptious, over-confident type who had latched onto them. But the thing is, he spends all his time criticising them, insulting them, belittling their birding skills, and generally being a prize turd. And he hangs around with them for hours at a time, dogging their every move, and generally being a bloody nuisance. The only positive is that he's doing it to everybody else as well. The tearooms are awash with people complaining about his awful presence, his insulting attitude. In fact, many have stopped going there so often, keeping away just to avoid his attentions. They are all desperate for him to bog off to one of those top twitches he keeps boasting about. Anyway, after a few weeks of this, Ed, the one who's been to Benidorm and claims to have ticked Red-rumped Swallow, hatched a plan. A cunning plan. An ad hominem plan, to boot ! Here we go then .... So there they are, the Trogs, minus Ed for some reason, and sure enough, Stodgy ( that's their nickname for him) turns up and get going with his usual slagging-off routine,when Ed burst into the hide (most unlike him) brandishing his smartphone ,and shows it to the assembled Trogs ... their response is .. "blimey" ..not that any of them has a clue what he's showing them ... for it is an Ovenbird ! Stodgy takes a look .... bloody bastard Ovenbird ... he knows his stuff, fair do's ... and before you know it, they're all racing up the path to the remote corner of the reserve where it was showing... Stodgy continually telling them to bloody well speed up.... but after a bit the Trogs can run no longer, so Ed quickly tells him how to get there ... he's then got to climb a tree ... he can't miss it, an ancient, dead tree which just pokes above the canopy and from there, from the top, the very top branch,he will be able to see it. It's the only viewpoint really ... and off he goes, does Stodgy, at great speed. But guess what ? He never comes back. We'll never know whether he saw that Ovenbird. He's never been seen again, not that anyone wants to. Only 5 people know what happened to him. And that's those five Trogs. Mind you, Ed didn't tell the others for years ... just in case they couldn't keep it to themselves. But once the whole thing had died down, and Stodgy had been forgotten by everybody, he told them what had happened. Here we go ... Ed, besides being a keen birder, was also a local historian. And especially, the interaction between "natural history" as it used to be called, and the human population. And one day, in the County Archives, he came across a curious tale about a large, dead tree which ,way back in the 1700's, had been rumoured to have strange powers. The gist of it was, anybody the villagers didn't like would be encouraged, tricked if you like, to climb up it. Money would be offered, fake " competitions" would be invented, whatever it took. And up they would go .... never to return. As soon as they set foot on the top branch, they vanished. Totally. Gone. And for about a year, Ed had known this. All the locals had been told about it, and if anyone came to stay in the area, they would be warned. Most poo-poo'd the idea,but they didn't risk it ! Some of the locals he talked to were able to tell him of more recent incidents .... or things their parents or even grandparents had told them about that tree.It had brought the tally up to around 20 or so. But Stodgy .... he was a fly-in. He would just come roaring up in his fancy fast car ...and bog off to whatever distant place he lived in. He was a prime candidate to be got rid of ! An ideal candidate for a spot of tree-climbing ...of course, there was no Ovenbird.Ed had just snapped a picture from a magazine. But here's an odd thing ... exactly 1 year later, an Ovenbird did turn up on the reserve... no tree-climbing required ! And it was Ed that found it. Well well. ... and all manner of things shall be well ! If you fancy reading their first story, its here ... 177-the-trogs-first-adventure.html And appropriately, from Stodgy's point of view, here's Manu ... "Goodbye"
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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