THE MONTHLY FLYER No.3. October 2019

I suppose I can understand why some species go into hibernation at this time of year. With my current non-success rate bird-wise, maybe I should do the same. I have been known to “drop off” at the drop of a hat, particularly pm, but I do benefit from a very good human wake-up system, the magic words at c3pm…” do you want a cake with your cup of Hornimans?”  (please note the change of brand over recent months!!).

Wednesday 2^nd October I was doing my weekly duty at Crich Tram museum and found myself chatting to the Museum Chaplain.  I mentioned the bird hide along the woodland walk, and he told me it was quite new. 

I mentioned that whilst the hide was in a good place in the woods, a feeding station or at least a less overgrown view could be more interesting and conducive to attracting some birds. As this volunteer appeared to have the ear of people in higher places(!!!) I think he may take my comments on.

In my duties so far, I have seen little more than corvids, although I did spot a Jay during my tram driving experience. With the proximity of the derelict quarry, I would not be surprised to see Ravens, and possibly Peregrines. It is not a location that birders are likely to visit, so it may well be down to me!!! I will be pursuing the possibilities here

Saturday 5^th October,  Yes, Saturday. I was at a Derby hospital to have a biopsy excision for a cancerous spot on my left elbow. Tanya (my usual lovely specialist) appeared to have morphed into a less attractive male Doctor, and the female tender touch was not in evidence.

Sure, everything was done meticulously, with one stitch to hold things together. Except that it was one running stitch with 9 loops, so for the 10 days until unstitching any wrong elbow movement was quite painful.

Anyway, we took my mind off the inconvenience (can’t mow the lawn; can’t put the plants in etc) by booking a spring holiday in Lanzarote, to go with the already booked Summer holiday in Majorca. No idea whether or how Brexit will influence things, but we are strongly influenced to go abroad whilst we are still young ( Ed; Dreaming again?) and before our annual travel insurance requires a bank loan!!

Sunday 6^th October  I did not make Amanda’s Carsington bird walk due to the aftermath of my minor op,(and the same can be said for our planned visit to Idle Valley on the 8^th) but I gather that just 10 people had excellent views of the Slavonian Grebe; the Phalarope seen earlier in the week had moved on and was just a short stayer.

My SIL Julian got a bit bird snappy whilst staying in Dartmouth and captured a couple of good pictures of a hunting Little Egret.

This first one is a good example of a Little Egret, especially the bold yellow feet. The feet are absolutely diagnostic of the Little, whereas the Great White Egret has black feet.  This differentiation can be important, because some Little Egrets are quite small and in comparison a more mature bird looks like a Great.   So, check the feet!

And this was the result of the patient hunting by the Little Egret…

At the end of the month Mary and I fulfilled one of Mary’s bucket list items, a day in London visiting the Tower of London. Not her first visit there , but one she wanted to do again.

Despite the atrocious weather (necessitating my having to spend £15 on a fold-up brolly complete with Tower of London motif), we kept reasonably dry by dodging from one tower to another, thereby avoiding the worst.

Not long after we entered the curtilage of The Tower, we could hear the distinctive cronking of the resident Ravens. It was to be a call that we seemed to hear wherever we walked.

The legend is that the kingdom and The Tower will fall if the 6 resident Ravens ever leave The Tower,  and by way of insurance and a reduction in numbers due to an unexpected death, there are 7 birds currently resident in the Tower. They are looked after by a resident Ravenmaster. Ravens are recorded as having been in the Tower for 500 years, since the reign of Charles II.

Diet? They dine well!! Each bird has 6 oz of raw meat per day, a raw egg once a week, the  occasional rabbit, and they also have bird biscuits soaked in red blood….oh and fried bread.  Not miles away from my full English that Mary continues to provide daily. (excluding the rabbit!!)

Tuesday 29^th October.  Birding Attenborough?.....abandoned!! again!!

As we say farewell to October, Bercow, Summertime, Amber Rudd and Patrick McLoughlin, we have another visit planned for a day in London. When Mary and I went there last week, we had an excellent meal in the Skylon restaurant in the Royal Festival Hall; this time dining at the hitherto unknown restaurant in the Oxo building, also on the South bank and another of our bucket shop destinations.

1^st November 1922?  97 years ago, the first radio licence introduced…ten bob!!!

Happy Birding……I wish!

THE MONTHLY FLYER No 2. October 2019

Woooosh…. and that was September gone!   I suppose the fact that I was not in England for half the month had a bearing on the situation.

The good news at the start of the September was that the Carsington reservoir was 94.8% full. Not much more and horseshoe island may get back to looking like a horseshoe. In the meantime, the waters edge and hopefully waders, are much closer for birding

Sunday 1^st September,

I joined Amanda’s BwB walk, spurred on by the news that there had been 3 or 4 Osprey sightings in the previous week (a sure sign that they were starting their long journey back to the Gambia), as well as one early on the morning of the walk!! Despite diligent sky watching we all dipped, and the consolation were the tumbling ravens over Hall Wood.

In the evening Mary and I spent the evening, with thousands of others,  enjoying an outdoor concert in Darley Park. The music, of a light classical nature celebrated various golden anniversaries and culminated in a good firework display performed to the music by Franz van Suppe, The Light Cavalry Overture. Stirring stuff at full forte in the open air.

The only early departures I noticed were 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers leaving for a quieter area!!

September 11 > 25 we were once again in Cyprus at the Atlantica Bay hotel  in Amathus, East of Limassol.   We have been there before, and perhaps, influenced by my begging letter, we were rewarded with a luxurious Junior Suite complete with a Jacuzzi on the balcony .….. and a bottle of bubbly as a further reward for our loyalty.

Apart from a 3-hour thunderstorm, we had good hot weather, and I was able to do a smidgeon of birding.

By way of a trip out, we took a bus to Limassol from outside the hotel to a huge but grossly underused shopping centre at the end of the line, called My Mal. (45 minute journey £1.35… that’s good value, especially as we heard of a guest who got ripped off on a 15 minute taxi journey for 100 euros!!)

My Mal is close to Akrotiri, the English military base and a good birding area, with reeds, salt beds and water. The walk from the shopping centre was a bit far, especially as it was very hot, but we soon found a useful tower hide with good views over the reeds. An English couple resident in Cyprus came in while we were there, so we had a useful chat about birding in the area.

Our first bird, squealing like a piglet, was a Water Rail skulking in the reeds. In our short visit the most frequent sightings were of Bee eaters, many of them dashing about above the reed tops. A Crested lark was a nice sighting, a bird I recall seeing many times in Holland a good few years ago, but which is an absolute rarity in England… they obviously do not like crossing water!!

As we did not have transport, we could only salivate on the information about the locations and birds that could be seen in the Akrotiri marshes such as  Flamingos a-plenty, groups of Hoopoes, and what our fellow birders had come to find, Honey Buzzards. 

Recalling our early days of visiting the Atlantica Bay hotel, when the hotel stood alone with just rough land around (but not now, especially since Abramovich** spent his Roubles coastal building and disrupting the view), I did manage a couple of short hill walks, and despite the paucity of birds at 5pm (probably influenced by the large population of feral cats) my efforts were rewarded by a Lifer!!!

What was quite clearly a dove of sorts, I was able to identify as a pair of Laughing Doves feeding on one of the few green bushes. If you don’t know this species, and they are mainly confined to the extreme South East of Europe, have a look at Collins (or Google!!). Doesn’t help my 2019 UK list, but it was a nice addition to my somewhat meagre European Life list.

Anything else? No, apart from Hooded Crows; I gather that is the only Crow they have in Cyprus – No Carrion C’s.

This is meant to be my September report, but I will cheat a bit and include Tuesday 1^st October at Idle Valley with Chris and Gill!!

STOP PRESS………… With heavy precipitation in sight, and Idle Valley having no hides, our planned October 1 bird walk is now the 8^th October.

…. And a convenient link(!!) to a message from Carsington that the water level has “dropped from 95.9% to 92.7% this week in readiness for the large amounts of heavy rain we’re expecting over this next period.”    Which one can anticipate will put a heavy volume on the Derwent

…and this led to a flashback 40+ years ago.    When I worked at Lehane Mackenzie and Shand (later to become known as just Shand) we had a subsidiary called Lemand (see the red letters!!) Motor centre, with outlets at Bakewell and Matlock. And the small Matlock branch backed on to the river Derwent.   With impending high water, and our car show room very liable to flooding, I found myself urgently repeatedly driving our two chauffeurs to Matlock, so that with trade plates, they could move all the cars to the safe haven of our Head Office at Darley Dale.

Quite how I got involved as an Accountant (Special Projects) - I suppose it was all hands to the pump!!!!

Finally, a further NHS experience.  When I started work visits to the Middle East in the 70’s, I had a programme of the requisite tropical injections which were administered over a relatively short period.   I was reminded of this last Saturday when I fully used the NHS system at my GP surgery, by having at the same time an injection of Vitamin B12, a flu vaccine injection, and as  compensation an extraction of 3 phials of blood. Sadly, they had no smiley-face plasters for the 3 wounds!!

In my QI section, the most significant thing I could find happened 60 years ago on 3^rd October1959. Post codes were introduced. Remember the blue dots that used to be on envelopes, and people worrying they could lead to contamination!!!?  And who could have predicted how this would lead to sat navs? We just thought it was to help sort letters for the post-man! 

Happy Birding

** Oh by the way, the home built by Abramovich is on the market for 16 million euros!!