Thayer's the wrong side of the river!

Well fuck me two ticks in a week, I'm now on 464, but then again maybe I already was.  What am I going on about?  Thayer's Gull that's what.  I saw the bird at Poolsbrook a few years ago which many people thought was the real deal or near enough anyway.  I always thought it looked a bit funny round the head, hard to put into words but it's jizz was a bit wide of the mark for what I was expecting.  Here's a couple of pics of it see what you think.  They're a bit shit cos it was phonescoped but I think you can get the impression that the headshape is a bit funny.  And I suppose some might say it's too pale, I'm struggling to believe that pale Thayer's don't exist afterall if they were all the same they'd be practically the only Gull that didn't have massive individul variation

 

 
I'm maybe being a bit harsh on it and many think it was a good bird but you can't argue that the bird I saw today is a better candidate, it ticks all the boxes, for me at least.

Looks pretty good doesn't it?  Well it looks even better in Graham Catley's pics

http://pewit.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/thayers-gull-lincolnshire-first.html

It's surely the real deal, it's certainly better than any I've seen pics of in recent years, in fact the only thing I can see wrong with this bird is it's on the wrong side of the sodding river!

It's been a month since my last post, mainly because I got talked into fitting a new bathrooom in da house, which, as it turned out took nearly all month with one thing and another.  The other mostly being that the wall was falling in half!  I had to take out brickwork and stitch in recycled ones to bridge the gap.  

Yes that is daylight!!!

With the room now usable, a few things to finish off but at least I can have a shit, shower and shave now, so I've spent the last ten days or so catching up on work.  Highlight was somebody who appeared to have fallen/chucked themselves off a cliff.  The coastguard was heard to say 'the casualty has sustined major injuries, there appears to be no urgency', I guess that means they were brown bread.

Birds this month have been few and far between but I've seen my first migrants, a few Chiffs and 3 White Wags being the ones local.  I also played it totally cool with the Yellerthroat and waited until Sat 31st March before going to see it, turns out it hasn't been seen since so it may have fucked off, how spawny.  We got there and with only one other birder on site and reports some have had to try several times before connecting we were prepared for the worst, no worries Tim picked it up with in 5 minutes of getting there, back o the net!  We watched it on and off for about an hour and a half before clearing off for a celebratory Morrisons breakfast.
After this we went for a bit of Gos action at the New Fancy View watchpoint in the Forest of Dean.  We only had about an hour here but what an hour... Loads of Crossbill were flying around and two sat pretty close in the trees around the viewpoint, A Willow Warbler was singing in some saplings nearby which may have been a March tick for both of us and a couple of Bramblings did the odd flypast, then Tim picked up a pair of displaying Gos, they weren't close but views were prolonged as a huge female was in the air for at least ten minutes.  Shortly after I got onto a nice spotted juv bird as it did a flypast the viewpoint at a max of about 75m range, brief but very good views.  Tim [who seemed to be on fire today] then picked up a migrant Osprey which lingered for a bit then one of the locals called out a Hawfinch as it bombed past us.  We headed home via Newnham on the severn where the previous day there had been a 1st w Boney's and couple of Ring billed Gulls.  We couldn't find anything in the birds present and didn't see another birder which seemed strange.  It seemed even stranger when news cme on the Birdnet twitter feed  about 3 hours later that the Boney's was there when we were!  Why do people wait so long to put news out?  Im not gonna rant, mainly cos I can't be arsed with cunts like that but they really need to sort it out, 3 hours for fucks sake, half an hour, maybe, a bit longer even and we would have still turned back, but 3 hours, we were at fuckin home!!!!!

So Yellerthroat a new British bird for me, I don't really keep a British list and never really know what I'm on so when Tim asked I resolved to count it up, I had a pretty good year last year with the Turtle Dove, Short toed Tree,White throated Robin, Sandhill Crane and Greater Legs and Izzy Wheatear plus an armchair tick in the form of Sibe Stonechat, so all told I'm now on 463, it may just make me twitch a bit more cos when I think of all the birds I couldn't be arsed going for I'd surely be on 500 now. If only I'd put the effort in then I too could have had a bright yellow t-shirt and a certificate!!!

The only downside to seeing the 'throat is it'll take the gloss off it when I find my own on Shetland so I'm gonna have to kick out one of these fellas instead

Or even better one of these bad boys, now that really would cause the shit to hit the fan, can you imagine them all trying to get to Foula, it would be carnage.

 Pic courtesy of Micky Maher

Last year I bought myslef the Canon S95 and tried for the first time to do some landscape photography.  My results of Garda stack on Foula were my good enough to make me think I could capture some decent shots, since then though I've realised just how difficult it is to get shots with anything approaching a WOW factor.  Composition is the one I find hardest and I'm beginning to think I don't really have an eye for it.  So with this in mind I've been reading a few tutorials on t'internet and in some old magazines a mate gave me in an attempt to improve.  I'd come to the conclusion one of the most important things is an interesting sky, it seems a good sky can make up for a lot.

So I've been checking the weather forcast trying to predict which day this week would give me a decent sunrise to go play with some ideas on the beach at Hornsea.  Wed saw me there waiting for the sky to get light only to find it was misty and the sea and sky were all the same colour, bollocks I could have stayed in bed.  I reasoned that while I was there I may as well have a crack at it anyway so on went the wellies.

Lesson learned, the lack of a visible sky actually made it easier to see the composition for some reasonable shots.  Plus when back at home photoshop works wonders when applying a bit of levels to the sky, seems the camaera could see the divide even if I couldn't make it out.

Another thing I've been reading about a little is hyperfocal distance for getting good depth of field, although I kind of understand it I had to make an educated guess at distances for focus points due to the not being able to measure into the sea!!  I worked quite well though with most of the image in focus.

Anyway here's my four best shots from the morning.

There is one small problem with not being able to see the divide between sea and sky, I couldn't tell if my shots were perfectly level but I don't think a slightly sloping horizon detracts from these shots too much.

Should I stay or should I go.......

That's the question I've been asking myself lately!  I've been struggling to find time to write updates and I'm experiencing a bout of blog apathy, I've really just been going through the motions when posting without putting much effort into what I'm writing, for the first time in my life I appear to have nothing worth saying!!!!!!!!

Anyway in an effort to see if it was worth carrying on with this blog I had a butchers at the stats to see how many people looked at it, I was a bit surprised it's managed over 20,000 pageviews, no idea how that compares to my friends blog stats but it gave me some encouragement, not least because two of them were from Russia!  I can only assume they were really fit young hotties called Svetlana and Natalya looking for a husband, well they've come to the right place, oh no they haven't they fucked off without leaving a message, bollocks!

They did however look like this, I just know they did!

You would, you really would wouldn't you?

 

Well now that I've relived that little fantasy again here's a quick run down of the birds I've seen lately.  A Glauc and a couple of Iceland Gulls at Hornsea and Scarborough, some Little Gulls and Little Auks on a boat job, a Red necked Grebe in Scarborough Harbour, Green winged Teal at Fairburn and some Bean Geese at Hornsea, including a Taiga.  I was going to post something about claims of Taiga bean in Yorks but maybe I'm learning!  What I wanted to see was this,

 

 

Not that one obviously but that species.  I just haven't had the time, maybe next week.  Here's a few pics of the stuff mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the slide (remember those!) of the demon dog thing from Minsmere I was talking about the other week, weird eh.  I should maybe read up on the t'internet about devil worship and see if that really is what was going on.

You'll remember last year a load of us went to Scarborough for Pilsworths stag do, we had such a good time we decided to do it again, well not exactly nobody was getting married but we fancied another piss up among the bright lights.  A good day night was had by all with plenty of all consumed and a few snedge balls thrown as we were out in the middle of a deluge of the white stuff.  The night culminated in Speighty busting jacks nose with some enthusiastic dancing.

I got up there early and did a bit of birding in the general area with Jack and Tim.  Here's the results

 Hoody on Seamer tip, probably the longest staying Hoody in Yorks for years.

A couple of Med Gulls at Holbeck.  Taken with the S95 on 3.8x zoom.

  A few more of the Dessy Wheatear which after becoming the longest staying in Britain ever romptly fucked off, or keeled over in the freezing weather.

Can you see the bird?

That any easier?  Mad Bittern sat in full view in a Hawthorn clump miles from any fresh water!

Devil worship!

In what seems so long ago it might as well have been a previous lifetime I worked at Minsmere for a about a year from Oct 87 'til Sept 88.  During that time there were some funny goings on on the reserve. We found structures made out of cut saplings, cubes and pyramid type things.  They were usually in the wood but a couple of times they were found in the middle of the reserve entrance road, put there in the night by person or persons unknown, the warden was convinced it was some kind of evil worship going on.  One day as we were going along the road we found a 'thing' in the wood just a few yards from the road, this thing was in the form of a four legged animal like a dog and had a winged creature of some kind coming out of it's back.  It was made from wire coated in resin and then covered in rough brown felt, it looked quite realistic.  The warden (who was a Jehova's Witness, and no doubt absolutely shitting it) sent a couple of us down to remove it and destroy it.  We were never really sure what was going on to be honest, but we put the wind up each other when cycling to the pub, we seemed far less bothered about it all on the way home tho!  Anyway what's the point to all of this you ask, well a couple of weeks ago I saw this very same creature again, but in the flesh this time.  OK so they were minus the fuckin demon coming out of it's back but I tell you they look the same.

Here's one of the evil looking bastards

Somewhere probably back at my parents house I'll have a pic of the thing from Minsmere, I'll try to find it next time I'm over in Wakefield and put it up on here.

Anyway those of you who have been for the crippling northern Long tailed Tits nr Halifax have probably seen the same thing.  Did you see the Tit?  If you haven't been for these you have to, they are amazing stunning little things.  I saw the ones at Spurn/Easington many times but couldn't resist going to see another.  I didn't manage any pics so here's a few of the birds in Easington.

 

Considering these birds were around all winter and these were the best pics I could manage I have to say I think they are probably the hardest birds I've ever tried to photograph.  OK so Swifts or Hirundines are impossible but you know you'll struggle with those.  These are nice cuddly little Tits that just hang about round nut feeders giving pornstar views, did they bollocks, they never sat still and you couldn't get anywhere near them!