1st January 2010 Rock n Roll Led Zeppelin – Song Remains the Same film.
Alright, let’s go! It was near dawn as I
walked down an icy country lane at the top of a high hill at Romsley, Worcestershire.
Stars shone in the cloudless sky and Orion, the Hunter, easily seen as distant
traffic hummed on the M5. The hunter would look after a kindred spirit,
wouldn't he? For what is birding but a form of modern-day hunting? A bird not
for the pot but for a jot, a pencil mark in a notebook. I strained to hear the
bird that I wanted to be the first bird on my Green year list for 2010. That bird
I hoped would be a Tawny Owl. Conditions were perfect for the owl, the air
being very still and very cool, with a deep, crispy frost making the country
lane slippery underfoot. The owl’s haunting call would travel a long way in
these conditions and its mate would respond with a similar refrain. Tu-wit . .
. tu-whoo. No rain this morning, the wooing should be intense.
No tu-whit tu-whoo was heard as I walked to
the top of the nearby hill and down the car-free country lanes.
The way became steeper as I approached the
small English Oak woodland along the northern edge of the road, silhouettes of
the trees showing their presence against the grey sky, with the distant
kaleidoscope of the Black Country streel lights providing a backdrop. With an
almost full Moon setting behind the woodland, I waited, straining my ears for
the slightest sound. Birding radar primed with my hands cupping my ears, a
minute passed. Then another. Somewhere distantly an early rising dog barked.
A sudden sound. CAW! A Carrion
Crow cawed. [Bird number – 1]
Oh no! My first bird of the year was a crow,
symbol of doom and death. Hadn’t Van Goff used them to say so in his last
painting before committing suicide, The Cornfields? That caw was a great omen
for what was to pass over the coming months, yet maybe it was “cor!” Read these
pages and decide for yourself how I viewed the Biking Birder year at the end of
my adventure.
Actually I like crows and the whole Corvid
family, for they are intelligent, enterprising and in some cases, such as the
Jay, extremely colourful birds. Indeed so wondrous are the colours of a Jay’s
feathers that, as a teenager, I had an after school part-time job, using them
to make flies for the fly fishermen. Sitting around a large, rectangular table,
ironically covered with the brightly coloured feathers of many birds, a small
vice in front of me to hold the barbed hook and the merry Brummie-accented chatter
of the many older ladies with the same vice, was a lovely way to earn extra
cash for my pubescent hobbies; fishing, football and feathers. All the ‘Fs,’ a
mantra for every teenager. Make sure your hobbies begin with this letter by
adding philately and photography to the list. Flinging for cricket!
A few seconds after the crow, a Tawny Owl [2] hooted, disappointed at being relegated to second. I tried hooting myself with licked, cupped hands but the tawny recognized the falsity and stayed silent. Now if you have not tried this before, here are a few simple to follow instructions:
Put your hands together as if you have just clapped. If the Tawny Owl had hooted first, I would have done. Then clasp your fingers around them, slide your thumbs together and open up the palms, still with fingers clasped, to make a sound box. Put your thumbs together and open them against an index finger to make a small hole revealing your inner palms. Blow into the hole over the middle knuckles of your thumbs. Practice and make a hoot. You will have a hoot trying. If it does not work straight away, lick around the inside of your palms to increase the seal. Wash your hands first though, Health and Safety!
I turned back, returning to my sister and
brother-in-law, Donna and Charlie’s house nearby. I had spent the previous
night seeing in the New Year here, celebrating the New Year with close family
members. A New Year beckoned and what a year it was about to be. I was going to
cycle to every RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and WWT
(Wildfowl & Wetland Trust) nature reserve in the UK. I was extremely
daunted by the task ahead, it will be a long time, a long time, a lonely,
lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time but felt exhilarated at the challenge. I
was innocently excited at the prospect of 365 days of birding and siteseeing
around our fabulously diverse country.
A black male Blackbird was on the lawn
and a Wren was noisily singing and
ticking in the bushes next to road. Strange to hear such a loud song from such
a small bird and at this early time of the year. These being the next additions
to the year list, they were closely followed by a couple of Magpies in a Blackthorn bush, two for
joy, with Black-headed Gulls flying overhead.
[3 to 6]
Thieving Magpies are beautifully iridescent in places with blues and green where the light reflects the colours from their darker feathers. They are not just black and white. Marmite birds, a lot of people are like that with this member of the crow family. You either love them or you hate them and many are they who would like to see a Magpie cull, blaming them for the lack of songbirds around nowadays. However I have seen it put by Bill Oddie, in one of his books, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, an absolute classic, that over the lack of songbirds these days one should blame the cat. Yet it is the preferred moggie that gets a better press.
No one dare take on the cat crazy, crazy cat
brigade, no matter how many billions of birds are slaughtered around the world
by them. Here I might be naughty and suggest that an escaped Eagle Owl’s diet
of a number of cats in the West Midlands recently did more to save little tom
tit than any shooting of the local magpies would ever have achieved. Now do not
get me wrong, I love cats. Indeed, my own sweet feline pet, Frank, named after
Frank Zappa, that I had in the Eighties used to follow me everywhere, including
into my bath! It is the persistent problem over how many birds are killed every
year by the domestic moggie that concerns me. Research the figure and prepare
to be shocked by the massacre that occurs every year of birds and mammals.
8.00 a.m. a quick breakfast of cinnamon-flavoured
porridge and orange juice, eaten whilst listing birds seen from the kitchen
window; Blue and Great Tit, Dunnock, Chaffinch,
Greenfinch, Robin, and Jay. [birds
7 to 13] I always love listing the New Year birds on a new notebook page as
the birds come so quickly and all those common birds briefly have an added
importance. When listing like this a Blue Tit is as vital as a Siberian
Rubythroat and in different contexts would be equally as exciting. Imagine what
would happen if a Blue Tit turned up in Central Park, New York or a Robin in
China!
The relaxing start to the day was interrupted
by a phone call from BBC Radio WM for a live broadcast slot. So, whilst
standing on the lawn watching the bright early morning star, Venus, fade and
the Sun rise for the new decade over the nearby Waseley Hill, I listened to Every
Breath You Take by the Police. Then there was the over the top introduction
from the DJ, all about New Year’s resolutions and how there was a man whose
plan would take this to the extreme.
The ten minute interview went quickly. I was
relaxed on this occasion, unlike during an interview by Joanne Malin on BBC WM.
and it ended with a sincere, “Good luck and keep in touch.”
Goldcrest,
Goldfinch, Wood Pigeon, Redwing and Siskin
were then seen and heard during the interview as I walked around the garden,
added to the growing bird list as we talked. [birds 14 to 18] Eighteen
birds seen and heard already, not a bad start.
Soon it was time for me to get the Cannondale
bike ready with packed panniers all mounted and binoculars swinging from my
neck. Ready, I sat astride my Cannondale ‘Fatty’ bike, a true Rolls Royce of a
bike, especially compared to the mountain bike I had been training on for the
past few years. I was ready for day one of the Biking Birder 2010 experience.
Now I would cycle 5,000 miles on this bike this year, or so I thought. It would
actually turn out to be quite a lot more.
At 9.00 a.m. a good friend, Gerald, more often
known as Gez, arrived from Kidderminster to see me off. Gez and I had become very
firm friends when we both worked at a local special school in nearby Bromsgrove,
Rigby Hall Special School. I loved the school, the staff and the children. There
we had all developed the Eco Schools project to such an extent that the weekly
non-recycled rubbish, landfill stuff, for the whole school was down to a couple
of full carrier bags! Everything else was reduced, reused, recycled, as the '3
is a magic number' song goes. Food waste was either composted or Bokashied; the
latter being a system for dealing with cooked foods. Around the school
playground were a number of circular stacked wormeries where the children would
place their fruit waste, apple cores, banana peels and the like. The liquid
collected from these was incredibly rich and the created soil became the best
potting medium I had ever seen.
Gez, together with Donna, Charlie and my
little niece Emily, shouted good wishes and took photographs as I set off.
Waving goodbye to them all I was saddled with naivety over what lay ahead. Up
the hill and around the corner, avoiding the icy kerbs, I came to my first
junction. So far so good, as it was for the next mile and a half, careering
down a very steep hill towards Halesowen; the freezing air bringing tears to my
eyes. A Mistle Thrush [19] flew over, as did a few Lesser
Black-backed Gulls [20].
The first roundabout, a terribly busy one,
was circumnavigated carefully with me taking the road to the right towards
Birmingham. A hill to cycle up and a full stop, I got off and pushed. Why?
Cyclists do not get off their bike no matter how steep the hill, do they? I
did. I did not know how to change the gears! I had not a clue. It was something
to do with some levers on the handlebars but which ones and how to move them?
If
the truth be known, despite my nickname for the year, Biking Birder 2010, I was
then and possibly still am, more Birder than Biker, a bike rider more than a
cyclist.
Now the Cannondale bike had been kindly and
amazingly, given to me only three weeks beforehand by someone I had only met
for the first time at a work party at Upton Warren nature reserve,
Worcestershire.
During every autumn, through to each following spring, on the first Sunday of each month and every Tuesday, around twenty people spend the day conducting various conservation tasks such as reed removal, brash bashing and grass mowing. All fine tasks designed at getting the reserve in tip top shape for the next breeding season. Well, a new volunteer, whose name is Gert, on listening to the lunchtime chat in the Flashes hide, asked what everyone was on about when talking about my chances of me completing my challenge. I explained pompously that I had three aims for the next year namely to:
- Cycle to every
RSPB {Royal Society for the Protection of Birds} nature reserve in
Britain. Around two hundred of them.
- Cycle to every
WWT {Wildfowl & Wetland Trust} centre, all nine of them.
- Beat the Non-motorized year list BIGBY record then held by Chris Mills of Norfolk. Back in 2005 Chris had seen 251 bird species cycling around East Anglia. There will be more about the amazing contest that Chris had with Simon Woolley from Hampshire, both doing a BIGBY, a Big Green Big Year as the Americans call it, later.
“I’ve
got a bike you can have,” Gert had said unhesitatingly. Two days later it
arrived at my place of work, Rigby Hall Special School and as it was in need of
repairs, the bike spent most of the rest of the time before January the 1st in
the repair shop. Hence the lack of riding on the bike. Thanks for such a
fantastic bike, Gert!
After pushing the bike up that first hill of
many, up to the Quinton Road, the rest of the way to the first reserve on the
year’s itinerary, Sandwell Valley RSPB Reserve, was uneventful and
relatively easy going. In fact so easy was it that I was the first person to
arrive there. No friends and family yet to see me off, no RSPB staff, no press,
I was early. The roads that had taken me through the Black Country via Blackheath
and West Bromwich, were delightfully quiet. People obviously had better things
to do than be out early on New Year's Day driving around. Song Thrush [21] and
House Sparrows [22] I saw along the way. Hellos and Happy New Years I shouted
to the Black Country folk, with my bon homie comments being reciprocated
favourably despite the early hour.
I spent the time waiting for the official
‘Go!’ by birding, adding even more birds to the growing year list.
Sandwell
Valley RSPB Reserve was an obvious choice for me to start the year. First, as I
am a proud Brummie, born and raised in Birmingham, the reserve was chosen
because it is the closest RSPB reserve to that fairest of cities. Secondly, way
back in 1985, I had been interviewed for the RSPB warden’s job there. I
remember the day well. It started with a walk around the reserve with other
candidates for the post and the various RSPB officers. Then a meal at a plush
hotel in nearby West Bromwich and back to the reserve for the individual
interviews. I think I scuppered my chances by asking why the RSPB never bought
small woodlands in places such as Trench Wood in Worcestershire. Instead their
reserves to my naïve mind consisted of being mostly on remote Scottish Islands.
I was to learn over the coming year how myopic that view really was and how
insultingly wrong.
Back in the early 1980s, Trench Wood, close
to Droitwich in Worcestershire, had around half a dozen pairs of Nightingales
and beautiful Marsh Fritillary butterflies. Now both species are gone yet it
remains a lovely woodland and a wonderful place for orchids and butterflies,
being a beautiful, tranquil Butterfly Conservation Society reserve.
Another
thing that diminished my chances of RSPB employment at that interview was my
concentration wavering between answering the rapid-fire questions and watching
and listening to what was going on just outside the office window. Whoever
arranged for Snipe to be drumming outside that day had not helped me. I could
not stop myself from turning to watch and listen to that wonderful humming
sound. Snipe, as you may know, fly high in circles around there chosen
territory and suddenly dive, their outer tail feathers vibrating as they do so,
creating the distinctive thrumming, drumming sound. The final question in the
interview was “how many marks out of ten would you give yourself on bird
identification?” I said eight. Nowadays I would give myself a … I remain modest. I did not get the job.
So,
I arrived at the Sandwell Valley RSPB reserve at 10.20 a.m. early and alone.
Not for long though as down by the frozen lake I met a lovely couple of older
ladies looking for a memorial bench dedicated to a neighbour of theirs. Muriel
and Nora from nearby Aston had stories to tell and were delightful with their
strong Brummie accents and humour.
Eventually back at the large visitor's centre
I was soon joined and greeted by friends, the Upton Warren birders John Belsey,
Dave Walker and Gert. A million thanks to these wonderful lads for the send-off.
Ian Crutchley and Steven Allcott were the next to arrive - the T.I.T.S. were
together again [Terpsichorean Inspired Twitcher Society] - Bearded Tit Ian,
Great Tit Steve and Tom Tit - me. Ian and Steve were pupils of mine many years
before back when I ran a YOC [Young Ornithologist’s Club, the junior branch of
the RSPB now called Wildlife Explorers] at Coppice High School, a large
comprehensive school in Wolverhampton.
Each half term the club would go out in a 50-seater coach on an outing to a well-known nature reserve. A few teachers and local birding experts would travel to various birding hotspots every half term. Slimbridge and Martin Mere WWT [Wildfowl & Wetland Trust] reserves were visited, as was The New Forest. We even had long weekend trips to Norfolk, staying at youth hostels there. Norfolk never knew what hit it! Forty odd Wolverhampton council estate kids turning up to explore the villages and reserves and enjoy the sensation of getting soaked by large waves crashing over the sea wall at Sheringham. Long time ago.
Now in their early forties, the two lads, Ian
and Ste,’ are still very keen birders after all those years. So the nickname
for our little band of carbon twitchers from the last Big Year, 2005, that we
did together, was resurrected for a short while. In that year, 2005, the three
of us had travelled all over Britain, carbon twitching by car to be truthful,
to each try to see three hundred bird species, hence the term Big Year. Ian had
managed it, actually reaching 350! Steve had over three hundred birds too on
his 2005 Big Year list. I missed out, finishing on 293, a whole summer having
been spent driving around France and Spain birding and hill climbing.
That year was mostly fabulous but it still
has a few bitter birding memories for me. I dipped the Belted Kingfisher! You
may know that the incredibly rare bird was found on April the 1st, 2005,
not a good day to find a less than five ever seen in the UK, seriously mega
bird. [CMF – Bill Oddie? Definitely! Read Bill Oddie’s Little Black Bird Book
to see what these three letters denote.] Who would believe that an overly large,
gaudy American kingfisher, only seen twice before in Britain, would be found in
Staffordshire and so close to where I was supply teaching at the time in
Dudley? Well at first no one did. Every birder whose pagers gave the mega alert
tone, a tone that sounds like an old fashioned boiling kettle, thought the
obvious. It must be an April Fool’s Day prank. Only it was not. The bird was
performing fabulously beside a lake near Sherbrook House on the edge of Cannock
Chase to the few believers, including my friends Ian and Steve. They had rushed
there on hearing that wonderful whoop on the Rare Bird Alerts pagers. By the
time I knew about the bird it was late evening and I had travelled back after
a to my brother, Paul’s house in
Warwick by train and bicycle.
Outside my brother’s house my huge, old VW LT
35 camper van, was parked on the drive, my home at the time. I was too late on
this Friday evening to get to Sherbrook. Indeed it would have been illegal for
me to go for the bird in my campervan. The car tax on my van had expired on the
last day of March, the day before the discovery of the bird.
The lads, Ian and Steve came to rescue me and
take me incredibly early the next day, a Saturday, to where a thousand plus
expectant birders waited in the growing daylight. A birder unknown counted each
person present as he always did at every twitch. Hundreds! The wooded slope
adjacent to where the bird had last been seen was covered by birders and their
optical paraphernalia. The well-known, and the not so well-known bird
photographers, were lined up as at the goalmouth edge of some Premiership
football match, each with their over large lens pointing towards the dead
branches extending over the dank waters. A couple of hours flew by with no sign
of the obviously departed bird. People started to leave and we started to
consider doing the same thing. “It was on that branch yesterday,” did not help
ease my disappointment but ever the optimist I waited.
Suddenly there was a rush of people
stampeding towards their cars. The bird had been seen near Goole, Yorkshire. An
hour or so later we were there, negotiating the crush of cars, birders and
bemused police. The bird had chosen to be seen at a small nature reserve and
the way to it was via a very narrow country lane. Panic ensued as the police
tried to make a way through the chaos for a stranded local bus, stuck unable to
go forwards or backwards so great was the crush of cars and excited birders.
Ian, Steve and I followed the crowd but the news was not encouraging. Seen but
gone was the gossip. We had to look for ourselves. A couple of hours later, we
had to admit to myself that it had gone. A pair of Garganey, including the
splendid male was little compensation.
Neither did my woes over this bird end here.
Oh no! The following week was the school Easter holidays and my two wonderful
children, Rebecca and Joshua wanted to visit their grandparents down in
glorious Dorset. So I hired a small car, the campervan being out of action due
to the tax, and everyone was so happy as we drove down to my favourite county.
Then the news broke that that blasted [I would do the blasting if I saw it
now!], Belted Kingfisher had been refound, up near Aberdeen! For a few days I could
not go. Now would a fanatic twitcher be so unselfish? The visit of my Rebecca
and Joshua to their grandparents was paramount. I did manage to sneak off over
to Shoreham to see a Great Spotted Cuckoo on a golf course early one morning,
which was some compensation. Not a lifer but a good bird for the year list
being only the second one I had seen in Britain.
By the weekend Rebecca and Joshua needed to
be back home with their Mum, my sadly divorced from, Jewish Princess. So, on
dropping them off I hared up the M6, over the border into Bonnie Scotland, not
for the first time that year and got to the riverside location of the Belted
Kingfisher just before dawn. I spent the rest of the day, as did many others,
walking the riverbank searching. Someone said they heard it but I have my
doubts. It had gone again. The direction it had gone from Staffordshire to the
east coast of Scotland would have it heading in a beeline for Iceland with a
short hop over to Greenland or Newfoundland. I do hope it made it back over
‘the pond.’ I dipped!
Back at Sandwell Valley RSPB Reserve, Phil Andrews and his partner were the next to arrive but Paul, my brother, was lost, having gone to the wrong Sandwell Valley centre. I phoned him to give him some instructions and relayed what had happened to the general amusement amongst the birders. Eventually he arrived with my children Rebecca and Joshua. I felt proud to have them all there.
Chris, the warden of
Sandwell Valley RSPB Reserve opened up the visitor’s centre and everyone
chatted, drank coffee or hot chocolate and enjoyed the views through the
windows over the reserve. That nemesis bird from my 1985 RSPB interview, Snipe became bird number [23] and
then Lapwing [24]; both of which were seen through the centre’s
telescopes, the former not drumming but sitting beside a frozen pool. Bullfinches [25] were on the
feeder and bird table outside the visitor’s centre, Redwings, Starlings [26] and Jackdaws [27] were flying
overhead and the occasional Siskin.
Now if you have not been to Sandwell Valley,
you might imagine it to be surrounded by high rise flats and industrial
buildings, council estates and motorways. Nothing could be further from the
truth. True, the sound of the nearby M5 can be heard and the way to the reserve
entrance, before the magnificent bird-sculpted metal gateway, is through a built-up
area of mostly older semi-detached houses on expansive housing estates. Yet the
prospect from the visitors' centre is predominantly green and you cannot see
any of those buildings. Oh all that I have mentioned is there all right; after
all Sandwell Valley is in the centre of the West Midlands conurbation. Yet over
the river, beyond the lakes, pools and fields, there is a hillside golf course
and all the built up areas are hidden by the same hill and the thousands of
trees, many planted by the RSPB. Thankfully, West Bromwich Albion's football
ground is fortunately hidden by the same hill. All enjoyed beautiful views,
especially on this day, the first Biking Birder 2010 day, with a deep hoar
frost and strong winter sunshine.
A photographer from the local newspaper, the
Express and Star arrived. He soon had everyone outside doing the Conga behind
me at the front on my bike. Everyones pushes ensured I got off to a good start.
One for the album. Mind you, his last photograph, of everyone doing their
preferred finger gesture advising me to get going, was not the one chosen for
the next day newspaper article! For those who knew of my musical obsession with
the late Frank Zappa's music, some of the hand the gestures all seemed most apt.
Arf! Arf! Arf!
One o’clock and time to go and they all did
just that; friends, family, RSPB staff and press photographer all left, leaving
me to go around the reserve on my own. I rode down to a small area of unfrozen
water where there were plenty of ducks to count. There were seventeen Tufted Duck to be seen, a pair of Mute
Swans, sixteen Teal, a few Canada
Geese, thirty six Mallard, two male Wigeon, eight Pochard and
a male Gadwall, over 150 Coot, around twenty Moorhen, around 200 Black-headed Gulls
and, best of all, six splendid Goosanders
[28 to 38], four of them
males, standing on the ice.
I met a birder, Dave from Gornal near to
Dudley and together we stood watching a small reedbed from behind a screen.
Whilst chatting there we hoped to see Willow Tits. We did not see any but a fox
flushed out a few Snipe and then a Water
Rail [39] scampered nearby. Next, I met a lovely couple. Tracey
and Steve Potter, birders from Derby who were down for the day for a spot of
birding. They were Aston Villa fans, so we had couple of things in common!
Once I had explored the whole reserve; all
birds seen being listed, I set off towards my first night’s accommodation. With
the new knowledge of how to change the gears I soon got to John and Mary’s
house in Four Oaks, Sutton, which was close to the expansive Sutton Park, a
former hunting area for King Henry VIII no less, to the north-east of
Birmingham.
It was still reasonably light as I approached
Four Oaks, I walked through parts of the frozen park, an area looking and
feeling like the Arctic tundra with frozen heath and birch, with lovely views
of a setting sun over the distant Black Country hills. I watched as Redwings
came into roost for the night in holly bushes.
Soon I found their home and was treated to a
lovely meal, during which I enjoyed a lengthy conversation about the pleasures
of being a cyclist. Both of them were very keen members of a local, to them,
Cycling Club and they had a garage full of bikes. The long day ended with a
fabulous and well-deserved hot bath and a dive into a comfortable bed.
At the end of the day the year list
stood at 39 and the distance I had cycled was twenty-four miles.
January the first is
the traditional day for birders to see as many bird species as possible. Over
in the USA birders prefer their ‘big day’ to be on Christmas Day. Over here we
have more sensibly chosen the first day of the year. Well, who wants to miss
the Queen’s speech or is it the turkey fare that is the real attraction, that
and the pressies?
The last few January
the firsts have seen me birding locally in my home county of Worcestershire,
famous now not just for the excellent sauce of the same name but also for being
named as a castle in a Shrek movie! On these days I have seen up to sixty-seven
birds within the county boundaries, including Firecrest and Glaucous Gull, not
bad for such a land-locked county in the centre of England. I used to live in
the beautiful coastal town of Swanage in Dorset. There I abided by my wife’s rule
that the furthest I could go from home on the first of January had to be within
a fifteen mile radius of the town. Within that area I could bird nearly all of
Poole Harbour, Arne RSPB reserve, Middlebeare, Durlston Country Park and
Studland, as well as huge areas of pastureland. By timing which habitats I
visited with the incoming tide I would see close to a hundred bird species. The
most I ever did have on a first of January day was ninety-seven in 2002. The
special birds seen that day included a male Lesser Scaup, a small American
duck, which came back to Little Sea at Studland for a few winters running after
that first encounter.
23.34
miles
1168 feet elevation up 1529 feet down
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