"Another one bites the dust.....boom, boom"

A Book at Bedtime.

Tuesday 8^th August.

Book Reviews.   I thought I would start off by telling you about a couple of books I have read recently, one of which I only finished last night.

The first one “Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to British Birds” is (surprisingly) by Bill Bailey, better known as a stand-up comedian and musician, but clearly with a love for birds.

Generously illustrated with hand drawings, Bill has picked 50 different UK birds, and just writes about his experiences with each bird. His writing style his humorous and informative, and is a book I would refer back to when I want non-technical information about a species that I am going to talk about.

The second book “Deep Country” – Five years in the Welsh Hills by Neil Ansell, records Neil’s experiences of living in a cottage in mid-wales for 5 years, with very little contact with the outside world. He arrives at the remote cottage by hitch-hiking, and it has no gas, no electricity and only an emergency ring-out telephone in his final year. The nearest shop is a long walk away, and his nearest neighbour, a farmer, is only seen once a month or so.

He writes about the many different environments that he visits on his many long walks, and the wildlife, particularly birds, that he encounters.  He gets to see the fauna changes throughout the year, the nests and the juveniles, and recounts many encounters with wildlife. He writes about Red Kites, Sparrowhawks, Ravens and many other species, but the bird that seems to feature the strongest is Goshawk, as well as a good variety of 4-legged friends.

Both books are good reads. The second book I thought would not be my subject from the title, but my “half a dozen pages before I put the light out” got longer as I got more drawn into his well-written and interesting experiences.

Right, Tuesday the 8^th………Wet, wet and very wet…in fact non-stop… all day.

But still Chris and I persevered with our birding day out.    We met at Phoenix Park and Ride tram stop, at 8.45. I had allowed the usual 45 minutes from Derby to meet by 9.00am, but with schools being out, got there in 25 minutes, and exactly as I was turning left into the car park, Chris was turning right! So, we were able to quickly move her accoutrements from her car to mine without getting too wet, and we were back to the M1, M18, M180 and Blacktoft. Good run, but still raining.

Having found the largest tree to park under, to don boots, waterproofs etc, we were in the second hide and about to enjoy the coincidence of the day, something I seem to be getting a lot of these days.** 

We were discussing Redshank and Spotted Redshank with a fellow birder, who told us about his event of 2017, seeing a Red Winged Blackbird on North Ronaldsay. Ears pricked up at the mention of that location as we knew Amanda and Noel went there earlier in the year and had found themselves involved in a mega-twitch for 3 or 4 days. And sure enough, he remembered A and N. Small world? Well sometimes not so small in birding!

** I mentioned last week about 4 new people on my bird walk. Turned out that one of them, was a teacher at the same school in Derbyshire, where my daughter was the Head Teacher.

With the tip that my target bird, Bearded Tits were viewable from the XXX hide, we grabbed our lunch, and ensconced ourselves in the Marshlands hide to see what was around. This modern hide, is excellent for waders and reed bed activity, and gets better still in September. (Good place for lunch, too!)

Whilst we dined!!, our sightings included 10 – 15 Snipe, Avocet, lovely Black-Tailed Godwits (quite frisky and flying around, and thus enabling good views of the black tail), Redshank, Ruff, 4 Spoonbill, Barn Owl peeping out of the nest box, loads of Pied Wagtails hiding in the reeds and peering out at the rain, and finally…… juvenile Bearded Tits.  

So another one bites the dust - Bearded Tit = 194.

PS; On the way home., 3 Peregrines (Mum, Dad and one of the kids?) were on Jury’s Inn in Derby, facing the cathedral, on  the letters U Y and N.  (Make of that what you will!)

Bit of a warning for you. I’m a guy who gets a monthly bank statement, and my June statement received in July, included a fraudulent “hit” on the last day of June, for “Giffgaff.com online store” for £20. The fraud department of my bank dealt with this promptly, cancelled my card and issued another, and refunded the £20. On my July statement, received last week, 2 more hits of £20 each on 3^rd July, same narrative. Again, promptly sorted by RBS.

In this day and age of “charging everything to your card”, would you notice an odd £20 on your monthly statement? Be warned from my experience.

But still keep birding…………….!!