Quiz Time

Tuesday 17^th October, and as Mary was away to Nottingham with our daughter for some retail therapy, I spent the morning at Attenborough Gravel Pits.   I’m still hoping to add a Bittern to my 2017 list, but it is very much a matter of being in the right spot when the bird decides to emerge from the reeds. Which was not to-day.

However, it was chilly but sunny, and I had a good count of 33 species, the hi-lights being a pair of Ruff and a pair of calling Ravens. I love hearing that deep throated “cronk” from a Raven, which is always enough to make me look up to see where the bird is.

Attenborough was very much a run of the mill day but the beef and mushroom casserole in Guinness was good (as always), and as half-term in Notts is not until next week, all was calm!!

Amanda, as you will appreciate is absolutely ethical about what birds she has and has not seen. Having been on North Ronaldsay earlier in the year, and having witnessed the major twitch for a red-winged blackbird, she waited until the sighting was ratified by the BTO before adding it to her 2017 list.  And now it has been confirmed, it can go on her year list, (probably in pole position!), giving her 220 to date. Catch that if you can!

Harking back to my other interest Micro-Tibialism, I’ve spent most of this week, fitting out a multi drawer wooden tool box, as a display cabinet to hold the 101 items in my leg collection. So my birding activity has been zilch. I did intend to go to Carsington this morning, but it was windy, cold and raining, so I decided to leave it to the dedicated team of Pat, Mac and Amanda.  An e-mail from Pat will let me know if I’ve missed anything.

I was recapitulating on my blog this week, and realised that today is my 89^th diatribe since I started in December 2015, encompassing  a total of c60,000 words, at an average of 680 words per post.  The blog has been viewed 7,000 times, of which 4,160 were from the UK, 350 from the USA, 440 from France, and……1,460 from … Russia… I wonder why or were they just computer generated hits?

In the absence of any significant bird news, her follows my the first ever blog test, to see how much you have learnt from my articles, or indeed learnt in other ways whilst birding.

The following is a list of 14 bird nicknames, contractions or names from folklore or local custom. See how many you know, and the answers are further down the page.

1 1. Spink

2 2. Dabchick

3 3. Bumbarrel

4 4. Cuddys Duck

5 5. Gropper

6 6. Yaffle

7 7. Windhover

8 8. Harry Redcap

9 9. Fudge Duck

110.  Storm Cock

111.  Spuggy

112.  Barwit

113.  Bonxie

114.  Sprawk

OK? Answers below.

I’m adding a small poster to the bird food donation box in the Wildlife Centre at Carsington. It reminds visitors that as they cannot use the old £ coins for shopping, if they are dropped in the donation box, WE have ways of converting them into bird food for the Carsington birds.. So please save any you happen to find, and drop them in the donation box when you are next there.

Thanks.

Diary wise, the next Beginners Bird Walk will be in two weeks, on Sunday November 5^th, at 10.00am, as usual.

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1. Chaffinch

2. Little Grebe

3. Long Tailed Tit

4. Eider

5. Grasshopper Warbler

6. Green Woodpecker

7. Kestrel

8.Goldfinch

9. Ferruginous Duck

10. Mistle Thrush

11. House Sparrow

12. Bar Tailed Godwit

13. Great Skua

14. Sparrowhawk

Happy Birding.

Mr J.S.Nail RIP

When I was in Articles training to be a Chartered Accountant, I used to carry out an audit at a vewy posh Girls School in High Wycombe. With my staff we were only allowed to audit during the summer hols, but we were still finishing the work when the Rollers and Bentleys brought the rich little darlinks back for the Autumn term.

They were met by the education Head Miss Fisher, and the large cheques (this terms fees and last terms extras) were paid to the Head of Admin, known as the Bursar. I remember it was a surprise to find that the admin head of the next girls school down from Roedean could not say Certificate, but said Sustificate.

This all came flooding back when I paid a post-holiday visit to my GP to see whether the continuous leg and thigh pains were a by-product of my Pneumonia. He told me I had a Bursae!!

“Bursitis is a painful condition that affects the joints. Bursae are fluid-filled sacs that act as a cushion between bones, tendons, joints, and muscles.  When these sacs become inflamed it is called bursitis. Tennis elbow is a common form of bursitis.

Remembering the lady in question, “to have a bursar on my thigh” is not a memory I want to relish.

Sorry for the digression. So what about the Avian world?

Candidates for the 200 club are making good progress, and Severn Trent Volunteer Lorna has breached the 200, now on 204, and Mac has accelerated from 171 to 183 due to a week in Norfolk. Amanda? She just keeps going! She is on an incredible 219 (probably more as I type!)

Mary and I are in Exmouth (again!) at the end of the month, and whilst I don’t expect to add much to my year list, I am staying in Hunstanton for a couple of nights at the start of November, so Mary’s I-Pad and I will be tracking what is around Norfolk coast for 60 hours.   

Markeaton Bird Walk for Beginners this morning was not very productive, but as the trees are starting to shed leaves, and the tree tops are becoming more visible, deciduous woods should be more productive in November.   A couple of young Goosanders and 5/6 Goldcrest were the pick of the crop.

Some sad news, I’m afraid. It was in the news this week that Jeremy passed away last Wednesday.       However, he very recently sired 56 young, and he is to be preserved for students of genetics.

Sorry it’s a sad news, but the press article did say that he died “not without a smile on his face!”

I’ll finish with a picture of a bird which I still need for 2017, a Purple Sandpiper, but as he can only say Ola and Gracias, and is Spanish, he does not qualify for the 200 club!

 Oh……………… had you not heard about Jeremy?

He is, sorry was, a lovelorn “lefty” snail that could not find a mate with the corresponding anti-clockwise shell with which he could mate, and as they mate by sliding past each other, the wrong combination becomes a head-on crash, with nothing to show for it!

  

Initial efforts were made to breed Jeremy with 2 lefty snails, one from Majorca and one from Ipswich. They both shunned Jeremy, in fact in favour of each other. (You don’t need me to draw pictures, do you?)

Researchers finally announced that Jeremy did actually produce 56 eggs and the experts have somehow worked out that an estimated 19 will belong to El Caracol (and thus Anglo/Spanish) and 37 will be Gippeswykians (Anglo – from Ipswich).

Ed: Bad news day?

Happy Birding