Twas a few nights before Christmas

Seasons greetings, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlefolk. Have a wonderful christmas and a productive new year. All the the best.

James

p.s. checkout the new link for Green Withens.

Finding ones self

I have been thinking and after the pain a thought struck me. Now im near the coast i could concentrate on finding my own birds. So next year im gonna try and keep track of a self found yearlist. I will still be chasing lifers but hopefully the focus will be on finding my own birds (he says after commintting to the Yorkshire forum lets-start-our-year-list-off-in-style-despite-not-being-near-the-sea meet). Areas i intend to work are basically Flamborough head and its surrounds. Not gonna have a local patch per se just want to get back to a bit of grass roots birding. Some of my most enjoyable times this year were aimless wanderings around old fall so that may become a feature.

Gone for a Potter

Had a fun dudey day with my olds to show them some birds and year tick bittern and life tick caspo gull. Succeeded on the first count and failed on the latter two. No woodies toady. Or bitterns. Or jays or Redpoll or Caspian Gulls. Did find a perched up sprawk and see Buzzard, Willow Tit, Kingfisher, Water Rail, Golden Plover and got good views of Treecreeper, Goldcrest, Bullfinch and Redwing for my parents. Also saw Lawts - hope your cold has improved mate. All said a fun day perforated by Bacon Sarnies.

Yesterday I volunteered at tophill, roping off a LRP island and cutting down Willow. Only bird of note was a Water Rail at the feeding station.

He he - im a published author! True I only wrote a paragraph of it but I was the stooge involved. In the Bioscience Education E-journal (ooh the prestige!) is the very very soon to be published

Scott, G.W., Turnbull, S. & Spencer, J. (2008)Promoting & Engagement: Using species action plans to bring together students and conservation professionals, Bioscience Education e-journal, 12(5)

http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/journal/vol12/ - no link to the full article as yet but only a matter of time.

Sorry to bore you with that but as a lonely student (currently avoiding doing any work) im a smidge proud. But pride before a fall and all that...

Punctured Dreams

Went down to Tophill to do some work on my disertation. The car felt a bit all over the place on the way down but when i checked it out it looked fine. Had an amble about but it started pouring down on the reserve so i turned tail to come home without garnering any results only to find that the rear nearside tyre was flat as a fart. Half hour of grubbing around in dirt to put it on made worse because my spare isnt in the boot but under it and further messing about in the mud ensued. The couple of woodies and treecreepers i saw did not warrant that! Happy birthday to eBirer, Marcus Conway who turns 30 today (you old bugger!). Check out his site for some truely magic pictures.

p.s. im on commission

Hit the rails

Water Rail - Year tick 256. Was under the feeders at Tophill on an icy saturday lunchtime.

White Noise

Not been out birding for a bit - its snowed here this week. A lot. After getting stuck on Garrowby Hill on Tuesay night as they closed it it got much worse. The 34 miles home on Thursday morning took 160 minutes. Thats nearly triple the normal time. My clutch stank as i had to sit on it far too often as eejits in 18 wheelers tried to negotiate the 1 in 5 garrowby. Snow covered the roads and the ineffectual snow plows were a joke. As was the woman using maximum revs - how i laughed at that one - i drove straight past as she slithered everywhere. Had to cancel my night thursday night and hand my uni work in via the internet. Which would have been a problem if that didnt come online this morning. All said the worst snowfall i have ever seen. I have not had the pleasure of seeing drifts before or making long journeys on snow covered roads. I enjoyed it but wouldnt repeat it as far too many were left in ditches.

Hurt

Have you hear Johnny Cash's take on hurt - it speaks to me, especially the part about tearing a hole in your skin because thats what i spent all of sunday afternoon doing. There were 8 of us loons taking down a hawthorn copse that was infilitrating a reedbed. I managed to get under one particularly spikey bush to cut it down only for it to collapse on me. Yowser! Only birds of note were a Little Egret, Peregrine and a few Curlew plus one of the regulars was trying to string a LBBG 4th winter as a YLG 3rd winter. Which was nice.