An uneventful day, birdwise, until 5:40 pm when a hefty female Sparrowhawk flew in and landed half-way up the Eucalyptus ! OK ... nothing rare ...and they're not unusual around the house, but never before has one landed on said Eucalyptus. Woo! Even The Significant Otter was impressed. It is now a welcome addition to my World-Beating Eucalyptus List.... Which, of course, I cannot find (how cruel is fate on all mankind) I know that Little Owl's on it And Tawny too, Too-woo, too-wit And Magpie with its pied plumage Plus the shuffling Sparrow ( Hedge) Kestrels have frequented it And almost every sort of Tit A Treecreeper, but one, that's all And I'm still waiting for a "Wall-" [Unlikely, yes, incredibly .. but the Euc is a long-lasting tree] .. Finches Gold and Chaff and Green Plus many others have been seen, S. (vulgaris) comes in droves As do (sometimes) Carry On Crows Wrens , the cloaking ivy browse . And what of Warblers, yes, they're seen And Woodpeckers ( Gt. Spot and Green) Have frequented our Towering Tree Planted, by the way, by ME ! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ But now, the music.... a beautiful song and performance .... À Lille sur la grand place Par un jeu subtil de glaces J'avais son profile de face Elle a glissé l'argent sous la tasse S'est levée, je l'ai perdue J'aurais dû C'est presque toi, presque moi, ces amoureux dans la cour C'est presque nous, presque vous, c'est presque l'amour C'est presque toi, presque moi On a presque poussé la porte Presque passé sous le porche Et puis dans la cour fleurie Le mot qu'elle a dit Sur sa joue j'ai posé mon index Elle a glissé sa main sous ma veste Un peu plus et là tous les deux, tous les deux C'est presque toi, presque moi, ces amoureux dans la cour C'est presque nous, presque vous, c'est presque l'amour C'est presque toi, presque moi, ces amoureux dans la cour C'est presque nous, presque vous, c'est presque l'amour Je t'ai presque écrit ce matin Presque pris mon courage à deux mains Te dire qu'à Lille sur la grand place J'avais ton profile de face C'est presque toi, presque moi, ces amoureux dans la cour C'est presque nous, presque vous, c'est presque l'amour C'est presque toi, presque moi, ces amoureux dans la cour C'est presque nous, presque vous, c'est presque l'amour. ( He also has a nifty "side-hustle" as a rather unusual weather forecaster ...
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I never seem to shut up about my 3K Local Patch, I think it's called " Virtue Signalling" so I looked around in cyber-space to see if there were any videos about other birders ( yes, there are others out there) doing "it" as well ...and there are. Here's an example ........ In my first ever "job" as a "Researcher/Lecturer" * at The Polytechnic of Central London I often strolled along to either Regents Park ( v. close) or, if I had more time I could whizz along to where those two up there are .... and always hoping for some stray oddity to turn up ... scarce gulls and "ducks" were the most likely candidates ... not that many did for me ... but I consoled myself with the thought that it was the "doing" of it that counted, not the "outcome." Here's a spot of music from that era ... October Song ... very appropriate.... .. and it's as thrilling a song as it ever was.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * It wasn't as brilliant as it looks !" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, as you all know, the post-before-this detailed a drastic hoodwink at my very own front door. Here's a handy recap ... Most nights before climbing the Wooden Hill To Bedfordshire I stand at the front door and just listen. It isn't as rewarding as it used to be.... owls vanishingly scarce now, of any sort. Whimbrel was a possibility, but it was a bit early for them. So ..what did I hear ? I wish I knew .... here's what I wrote in my special Bird-Spotting Spotters Book, free with the Bunty ( subscribers only.) 10pm ..... strange bird flying around fairly high up ( I think.... I never saw it) , and its call was, as they say ,"unfamiliar" .... which is both good and bad. Bad, because I might never find out what the blasted thing was, and good because if I do find out it might be a good find, maybe even a "House Tick" ... The call had a squeaky, badly-oiled-bicycle sound, variously described by me as .. a very thin ,faint "Kweek-kweek" or "Kwik-kwik" ... and sometimes more like " skweek-skweek" .... The Significant Otter suggested Tawny Owl, understandably, but their calls are far more robust and far-carrying. So.. what do you do with that ? I could, I suppose, make a shortlist of what it might be ... ... and then spend hours and hours listening to recordings of lots and lots of birds. .... what I should have had at the ready was this .... 934-tick-tootling-and-treecreepers.html ..... so far I've ruled out Goldcrest, Carrier Pigeon and Bittern. So ...... what have I found out so far .. ?? ... first up, I you-tubed various relevant bird-call videos ... nocturnal birds, calls of waders, that sort of thing ... to no avail. A total lack of avail, actually. So then I perused my bird book. And I made a list. We like lists. So ... here's what I found .... I assumed it was some sort of wader, for some reason or other. Or maybe, an Owl..... or not. Here's the various noises that were " somewhere near" to what I heard .. sort of .... there are elements of "barrel-scraping" in there ... .. in no tarpricular order [1] a ringing "weet, tluitt, weet-weet" [2] "tleea-tleea-tleea" ( not a top candidate) [3] When flushed, a shrill, piping " twee-see-see" [4] Usual note "tew-tew-tew", a repeated ,scolding "tyip" etc [5] A long, shrill, "keeek", repeated when flushed. [6] A short, high, nasal "tree" ( rather a long shot) [7] A thin, mouse-like "jeet" ( an even longer shot) [8] A quick, staccato " tuk-a-tuk" ( no mention of squeakiness at all) [9] A high, sneezing "tsiwick" (hmmm ... possible , slightly) So ... I've done all the hard work ( especially as it's got me nowhere) so now it is your turn. Here's the 9 candidate birds ... your mission is to work out which is which.... Common Sandpiper Wood Sandpiper Woodcock White-rumped Sandpiper Greenshank Dunlin Turnstone Long-billed Dowitcher Green Sandpiper But really, none of them fits very well ... where's that squeakiness/squeakyness for a start. And some of them are rather scarce in the Flintshire area. Remarkably so. BUT ...here's a song that does fit ... and here's another ... Wir sind Helden ... Die Nacht ( If only I had deployed my "Vismigophone " before opening the front door ) Oh dear oh dear..... Most nights before climbing the Wooden Hill To Bedfordshire I stand at the back door and just listen. It isn't as rewarding as it used to be.... owls vanishingly scarce now, of any sort. Whimbrel was a possibility, but it was a bit early for them. So ..what did I hear ? I wish I knew .... here's what I wrote in my special Bird-Spotting Spotters Book, free with the Bunty ( subscribers only.) 10pm ..... strange bird flying around fairly high up ( I think.... I never saw it) , and its call was, as they say ,"unfamiliar" .... which is both good and bad. Bad, because I might never find out what the blasted thing was, and good because if I do find out it might be a good find, maybe even a "House Tick" ... The call had a squeaky, badly-oiled-bicycle sound, variously described by me as .. a very thin ,faint "Kweek-kweek" or "Kwik-kwik" ... and sometimes more like " skweek-skweek" .... The Significant Otter suggested Tawny Owl, understandably, but their calls are far more robust and far-carrying. So.. what do you do with that ? I could, I suppose, make a shortlist of what it might be ... ... and then spend hours and hours listening to recordings of lots and lots of birds. .... what I should have had at the ready was this .... 934-tick-tootling-and-treecreepers.html ..... so far I've ruled out Goldcrest, Carrier Pigeon and Bittern. ...... well, it's a start .... and it might have an end ... Oh yes we do ! And in today's paper, there was an absolute smasher. Let's see if you can spot it ... it was in an article about those Covid19 outbreaks in universities..... "On Thursday, the Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer held an online Q & A with students, with many describing how the virus has spread like wildlife through their halls." Oh yes. What a wonderful mental image that conjures up in our tiny bonces !! Of course, such things are not unusual. A while ago in our local paper there was a misprint in the long and tedious obituary of a long-serving vicar, known for his rather abrasive manner .... especially at weddings... " Jeremy was famous for his love of birds, and his church abounded in paintings and photographs of Harsh Marriers." You can't help wondering if that was a sort of " deliberate mistake" by the writer. There's the mysterious "Mr. G." at the Nutcracker site Here's another round-up of "rarity" sightings from my many Octobers in the past. There's a few "other" things in there too . OCT 1st Nothing. Oct 2nd 1995 White-crowned Sparrow, Seaforth. Woo ! Oct 3rd Zilch Oct 4th Zilch² ( Lee Evans' birthday)(1960) Oct 5th Nuffink Oct 6th 1996 Blue-winged Teal , Pennington Flash. Oct 7th Dim byd ( Welsh for nowt) Oct 8th 1995 Pec Sand, Leighton Moss Oct 9th 1988 Long-tailed Skua, Heysham Oct 10th Zilch³ Oct 11th Nowt Oct 12th Nowt at all. Oct 13th 2005 Hummingbird Hawk Moth in a neighbour's garden. Not actually a bird though. But I thought you ought to know. Oct 14th 2008 Ruddy Duck. Can't remember where it was. Oct 15th Nada. Oct 16th 1999 Short-billed Dowitcher, Greetham Creek , Middlesborough. Wizzard ! 2004 Ferruginous Duck , Public Hide, L. Moss. 2010 On this day, I became 22,222 days old. Oct 17th Absolutely devoid of owt. Oct 18th A veritable blasted heath of birdlessness. Oct 19th 1991 Nutcracker !!!! Stoke-on-Trent ... the entire birding world was there. 1991 Desert Warbler,Flamborough. Did we really get both on the same day ? * Oct 20th A barren promontory of barren barrenness. Oct 21st As above. Oct 22nd 1985 Marsh Warbler, Heysham. ( Dutch ringed) 2001 Great White Egret, Banks Marsh, Southport-ish. V. Rare then. Oct 23rd 1985 Yellow-browed Warbler, Heysham. 1999 Red-flanked Bluetail, Skegness. I think it came to a sticky end. 2002 St. Mary's, Scilly Wryneck Red-breasted Flycatcher Gt. Northern Diver Red-rumped Swallow. 2 Serins Oct 24th 1989 Pallas's Warbler, Jenny Brown's Point, Lancs. 1999 Red-breasted Flycatcher, Whitburn. 2002 St.Mary's, Scilly. Melodious Warbler Bluethroat Oct 25th 1997 Purple Gallinule, Roanhead, Dalton-in-Furness Oct 26th 1996 Great Knot, Seal Sands, Teesside 1996 Pallid Swift x 2, Flamborough .... terrific, in more ways than one. Oct 27th 1985 Black Stork, Walney Dump, Cumbria. 1997 Pied Wheatear, Seaforth Oct 28th After all that lot, a complete blank. Oct 29th Yet another complete blank. Oct 30th Yet another Scarcity of Rarities. Oct 31st 1995 American Golden Plover, Blackburn. So ..there we are. Sixteen blank days. But lots of terrific stuff in between. I've written about several of those events ..... and if/when I find them I'll put the links on here.
Well, I could only find this one .... 260-24th-october-2002-on-st-marys-ac-ati.html ...but there must be others. * Yes we did. I know I often take the mick out of him ... but I'm only mucking about. (He's looking a bit glum on that picture up there ... so I've put some funny stuff at the end .) And as I might have mentioned once or twice on here, his " Little Black Bird Book" which exploded onto the bookshelves in 1725 blew a breath of fresh air into the birding world . Well, a hurricane really. So here he is at Cape May...... he looks a lot happier... It seems we're going to have to restrict our birding expotitions for a while ... or will we ? So .... with gloom and doom approaching, here's something to cheer you up.. ...well, it cheered me up anyway ... ... it's got silly dancing/prancing, English, French and everything in-between .... |
AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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