The Birdwatching Fraternity

Not our normal Aigronne Valley Wildlife post...
but the weather is dull... and some humour is needed!

Birdwatchers come in all shapes, sizes and types...
these are just some of the "species" that can be observed in the wild....
especially now... with the migration in full swing!!

The Birdwatching Fraternity
by Tim
[cartoons by Seppo and Rohan]

The occasional birdwatcher....
cartoon by Seppo

The Occasional Birdwatcher
Weekend vagrant...
Has a good pair of secondhand bins...
occasionally a cheap 'scope...
and a wobbly tripod...
carries a dog-eared original '60s copy of Collins...
that they've had since they were fourteen...
tucked in the pocket of an old water"proofish" coat...
gets out at weekends if the other half allows!
If married, has the sprog in tow!!
Somewhere at home is an old RSPB spotter's list...
with one dedicated to a Life list...
ticked in many different colours...
with lots of gaps!!

On his site Rohan posted a poem and a cartoon...
he's now posted a fully illustrated version...
it sums up perfectly the problems that some birds create...
for the birdwatcher.
[There was an Olive-backed Pipit in Norfolk this w/e...
and a Blyth's Pipit on the Isles of Scilly!]

The Birder
Often to be seen at weekends...
rare vagrant during the week...
has bins, 'scope and a decent tripod...
nowadays, often carries a "bridge" camera...
with a 20x to 30x zoom ability.
Has a first edition of the more recent Collins...
often plastic covered.
Might well be single....
or have an understanding partner...
Much rarer sub-species is...

It's no use... it was up against the sky...
I'll need another look at it... perhaps it will come lower!?

The Paired Birder
As for The Birder...
but this will be a couple...
one struggling to keep up under all the gear!!
The other "travels lite"...
sometimes have their chicks in tow...
which can cause havoc for other serious Birders who have never had chicks...
however, the chicks can be palmed off onto older Birders whose youngsters have long flown the nest...
and will chickmind and enjoy passing on their knowledge to a younger generation.
These chicks will very rarely be seen in their 'teens...
but can reappear as they reach their young adulthood...
no real research has been done in this field...
but rumour has it that they retreat into darkened caves...
and perform strange acts upon tablets and computer screens...
called "gaming"!

"Patchers" will often have excellent records of migratory species!

The Patcher
Out as often as is possible...
but never willing to to travel far...
decent quality bins and 'scope...
good SLR camera and assorted lenses....
record books, a couple of field guides [one on "jizz" perhaps]...
always has a notebook on the go... or a page-a-day diary...
often looks miserable if an entry can't be made!
Often has a dog... the excuse for numerous walks around "the patch"...
the back garden, if there is one, tends to be converted...
into a haven for birds!!

Not a species to be dismissed lightly...
The Patcher is an important part of the naturalist research community...
often a "Citizen Scientist"...
their observations cover many years for the same area...
can evolve into "The Wildlifer" but remain as a 'patcher'...
this adds to the value of their records!!

Occasionally to be seen as a vagrant "off patch"!!

Confusin' the SeaWatcher!

The SeaWatcher
Similar to the Patcher... but much hardier...
spends very long periods sitting in one place...
on damp shingle, in dunes...
or on clifftops...
trying to spot Pomarine Skuas, Such'n'Such's Petrel or JoeSoap's Shearwater...
and have very large 'scopes and SLRs with extremely long focus lenses...
the latter to photograph the dot...
for identification and proof that they have seen the damned thing...
and it isn't that they've been sitting in one place for so long...
and they've got "floaters" from staring at grey sea and grey sky for six hours.
They will know their stretch of coast exceptionally well...
they keep extensive records...
and again play an important part in record keeping for science.

However, both the above species would play an even bigger scientific role...
if someone doing research could get their hands on all those records!!!

The sexes are the wrong way round... but this will be recognised by someone we know!!

The Wildlifer
As for Birder, with the qualities of the Patcher...
started as a Birder... but discovered other things along the way...
so the couple of field guides have become...
field guides [asst'd]....
birds, plants, insects, fungi, mosses and liverworts, butterflies&moths...
the latter in addition to the insect book...
they carry lots of notebooks... as well as all the other gear...
often single or divorced...
always has need of a car...
but some can be seen on bikes...
including one in Britain on a converted tandem [for one]...
there are some biking birders, too.

Number two... the Wildlife Photographer
From Rohan Chackravati's "The 11 Types of Wildlife Photographers"
which is here...

The Wildlifer can evolve into the The Wildlife Photographer...
this species may travel lighter...
but often not...
the guides may have been left at home...
but a lot of "glass" and other accessories have replaced them!

Has this ever happened?
Very possibly...
there is great kudos attached to being the person....
who spots the bird first!!

The Twitcher
Perhaps the most well-known...
a lot of this species are to be found in sudden eruptions at remote sites.
These are the Skuas of the species...

If a field has crops growing...
most twitchers couldn't give a ****!!

Can be a pest to permanent residents...
and can also cause terrible damage to habitats...
especially fragile ones...
if a large number gather in one place, the surroundings get trampled severely!

Twitchers at Cley, Norfolk...
this bit of Cley is normally VERY quiet!!

The more "juvenile" of the species will behave very irresponsibly...
breaking into peoples' property and couldn't give a damn about anything....
but getting a sight of that "twitch"!!

The amount of equipment carried varies considerably...
but always involves a pager or other means of instant communication...
always has an excellent pair of binos and a very good 'scope...
if one of their means of communication is a mobile 'phone...
then they will have the 'scope adapter...
for that combination of lens and 'phone!
It will probably be an EyePhone...
they will, also, probably have a tablet...
in fact an EyePad... major or minor...
the purchase of these is because you cannot get Collins or the BWPi for an Android!
In fact a lot of naturalists carry these....
mainly because all the worthwhile identification "Apps"....
are only released for EyePads and EyePhones.

The Chequebook Twitcher has ALL the equipment!!

The Chequebook Twitcher

The ultimate raptor of the Birdwatching Fraternity...
has all the latest equipment...
access to fast transport...
access to "loadsamoney"...
willing to pay to have someone "bumped" off a plane...
if young... has inherited a fortune...
if middle-aged... is self-employed as a consultant...
if retired... they are spending the kids' inheritance!!
They don't have a pager... they have multiple pagers...
They have a life list... that runs to several volumes....
Like all "twitchers"... they "tick" and move on...
they have no real knowledge of the birds...
instead, rely on others to "let them know"!
Because there is always a real birder...
usually local...
at any rarity sighting...
for them it will be a...

......"mega"!!! 

Not a "twitch"!!

Dedicated to all those Blue-nosed Coldtails...
who braved the elements to see the Red-flanked Bluetail....
at Holkham in Norfolk this week! !!
Another one of Seppo's cartoons...

As you may have gathered from the above....
I'm not very impressed by "twitchers"....
or "tickers" of any persuasion!
Get a life...
there is a "patcher" I follow...
his blog is called "Birds and Beer"...
and includes a list of Norfolk pubs that are good for watching birds from...
that is real luxury birding...
Pauline and I were out with the Leeds RSPB to the Wirral...
it was bitterly cold... we retreated to a nearby pub...
found a window seat that overlooked the marsh...
and watched seven spoonbills feeding...
just outside the window!!
That's birdwatching luxury...

Perhaps we should just let them fly around us and say
"There's yet another bird over there!"

-----ooooo00000ooooo-----

I was inspired to write this after reading another blog I follow....
written by a Norfolk birdwatcher who coined the term "chequebook twitcher"!
Thanks, Penny! And the Red-flanked Bluetail is dedicated to you...

-----ooooo00000ooooo-----

Thanks also to the two cartoonists featured here...
Seppo Leinonen from Finland....
and The Green Humourist,  Rohan Chakravarty from India....
both of whom put their cartoons up as Creative Commons artwork...
both their sites have some wonderfully drawn environmental 'toons...
and I can't draw 'toons!!

Seppo
Rohan

Posted by Tim 

Wow, wow and thrice wow

Our profound thanks to our friends Martin and Denise for alerting us to the sight of the year - migrating cranes coming in to their overnight stopover in the Brenne. This is just a quick post and we have all the videos (with stereo sound) and Tim's photographs to come.
If you can, GO TOMORROW!!!!

We've visited l'Étang de la Mer Rouge many times without seeing much. Our friends had visited on Tuesday and were raving about it - would the birds all have gone on? We saw not one crane as we pottered around the Brenne this afternoon. However at La Mer Rouge I caught the sound of a few calls on the wind.

At last (4:20ish) parties of cranes started to fly in. Lots of cranes. They milled around a bit - and flew on! Just over the wooded hill on the other side of the Étang.

Should we go or should we stay? We went. We found them again near the chateau de Bon Asile down a dead end off the D20, which turned out on further map study to be a continuation of the Chemin rural du Blanc that leads past La Mer Rouge. There were a few hundred cranes in the fields opposite the house but the incredible noise hinted at many more on the far side of the hedge.

Still they were restless. Tim spotted an osprey perched on a post in the middle of the field. A murmuration of starlings happened. Then...

Then the cranes took off en masse. Thousands of them. They were streaming back towards La Mer Rouge. What a sight! Both of us switched our cameras to video and filmed until we could no longer hold up our hands. Still they came  past.

Another dash, this time back to La Mer Rouge in rapidly failing light, and the cranes were visible as grey bands on the far bank. Marvellous!

But why thrice Wow? We were just eating our tea back home when I thought for an instant that one of the cameras had started playing a video by itself. I could hear cranes. I could hear cranes outside! Two large parties were circling up there, one above us and one above Grandmont or La Jarrie. No idea how many, it was pitch dark, but there were easily several hundred, going by the racket, and could have been as many as a thousand. And they were looking for somewhere for a little R&R. Forty minutes later, we heard them again. I think as I write this that they are just along the valley...

Update: 11,500 cranes were counted in Indre the following morning.

A further update [Sunday 16th at 11AM]:
We missed them... but there have been parties and singles seen over our region...
yesterday, we saw a group of twelve flying south-east....
in the direction of the Brenne...
and a singleton flying west...
the weather has bottled them up... and yesterday Grus-Grus reported...
that from Indre...
"plus de 35 000 grues sur les dortoirs en Brenne, ce qui constitue un nouveau record"...
so the spectacle goes on...
and will stay this way until the weather improves!

Flying South.... Southwest... 'ish...

A very large flight of Cranes [Grus grus] came over very late on Friday evening...
it was almost totally dark, with low cloud, and we didn't see them.

But Pauline heard them first...
through the double glazing and with the radio on...
and the tap running!

They must have been quite low and directly overhead...
They had a 7.2 kph tail wind to assist them and vanished into the distance at amazing speed...

Boy, were they a'bugling!!
Their conversations were probably on the lines of...

"Told you it would turn nasty this week... we should have left much earlier!!"

"Yes, dear... you've been repeating that all the way! Can we change the subject now, please!!"

... and from the juvenile wing...

"Are we there yet?!"

We've been (w)ronged!

Winter in a rural area is always a time of movement...
our meadow, as you can see from the previous post's pictures, is not a good place for an underground...
or even undergrowth...
existence.
As I type I can see an ever growing molehill appearing beside our Viburnum...
a mole is a rare critter this side of the bridge, but they aren't equipped with gills, so a migration is demanded...
just hope it doesn't damage the roots.

It is bigger now!!

But that would be nothing to the damage that has just been done to our electrics...
especially the phone line...

A rongeur... most likely a rat...
has got into the space between the two floors and had been visiting our cellier to scavenge...
in the first instance potatoes... until we moved them to safer, reasonably rodent proof place...
it wouldn't respond to a live trap...
baited first with a hunk of spud...
then with chocolate...
the latter irresistible [allegedly]...
whilst I have been trying to discover where it was getting in.

I blocked off the access from the barn... again!
It is the major point of weakness...
the place where the barn wall was breached to bring the services into the house.
This is probably the original point of entry...
blocked once, and the soft limestone  at the side now dug away!
But, due to the design of the house, they could have a route in via the loft!!

Still we had visits...
and heard scratching in the walls...
aaaaAAARGH...
the night time scratching...
not conducive to a good rest!

And it had been visiting the cellier....
I blocked holes that I found with some scraps of the hemp insulation that is between the plasterboard and the original wall....
that showed me two places where the rat had got in again by its disappearance.
I blocked those off more permanently...
so I thought...
and then we lost the 'phone line and my thoughts turned to the damned ex-Christmas tree that had been planted outside the front door of the longére many, many years previously...
the 'phone line runs through that tree....
close inspection showed a branch pushing down on the cable between the post and the house...
nothing to do but wait for the engineers...
and for me to remove the branch and let the cable run loose again...

Or, so I thought...
I had gone over to the longére yesterday to open up the grenier so that they would have easy access when they arrived...
and the 'phone rang... WHAT!!
It was  one of the engineers...
so it wasn't the cable into the house...
that meant it wasn't their problem, but ours...
and that means money...
but they have the necessary test equipment...
and wire, too!

I busied myself getting other points accessible...
like the point of entry of the cables into the house...
yes, you've got it...
THAT point of entry...
the entire fuse box and house cable run is there too!

Having cleared the corner so that I could remove the section of worktop just there, I looked up at the back of the cable run and saw that, like the Alien from John Hurt, something had exploded from the back...

An 'ole...

So I took that cover off... and yessss!! Bingo...
the rongeur had been there...
and had chewed the phone line to bits at the distribution block...
I took the cover off the cable run to give them access to the phone line...
and discovered that, down at the bottom, greater havoc had been wreaked...

It sat here while it gnawed, and gnawed!

Well nibbled... but nothing severed!

But at the bottom... havoc! [New hole to barn is visible at the left!]

This is the Ethernet cable.. still passing data... fortunately!
It is a 60 metre continuous run!

As you can see from the above pictures, it had nibbled at the shielded Ethernet cable linking our computers between the buildings, as well as totally destroying the the phone cable just there...
it had also had a go at the power lines to a plug socket and a light...
somewhere!!

Insulation stripped... now repaired!!

As much as I hate using something like this, the poison is now down and waiting!!

Overnight, nothing has changed...

I will spend the morning re-insulating the intranet cable with clear nail varnish, before wrapping it again with some cling film and then kitchen foil to re-shield it...
then I will split some 'gain' as a covering and fix it over the two cables...
then I might be able to start on the things that I was intending to do yesterday!!
Like making nestboxes...

The "smell chequer" wants me to replace "rongeur" with "Roger"... 

as in "we've been Rogered" perhaps!? 

APT!!

---ooo000OOO000ooo---

Other observations.....
We've now had 115mm of rain this year.....
but earlier today the Hen Harrier gave a fly past and the valley's Great White Egret was hunting frogs in our meadow.