A Beetle on holiday in Valencia, Spain Football this morning was like climbing a mountain wading through treacle. But despite being on a path leading to certain defeat, we managed to come back from 7-3 down to draw 9-9. Mammoth stuff. The cultural trip that I have been on recently continued this afternoon when I […]
The past few days have been quite a mix of things. Aside from the usual mix of writing, birding, plotting and planning there was also quite a lot of culture thrown in to boot. I finally finished a piece on Brown Bears that will appear on Birdguides.com in the very near future. I hardly mentioned […]
Sunday was spent at Rainham Marshes of course after a trip to The Scrubs where I scored our second ever Shoveler – 1 high flying bird clearly recognisable by it spatula bill. Russell & Yvette Spencer with TUB I was representing the newly renamed London Bird Club (part of the London Natural History Society). But […]
Black Kite (Neil Kumar) Great game of footie this morning. We came back from a certain crushing defeat – 4-1 down after 15 minutes – to win 7-4 in an almost flamboyant manner. My concentration was only diverted by a bunch of noisy Magpies that were mobbing an unseen assailant that I couldn’t see from […]
Tufted Puffin, Kent, England – (M Wright) What a week for UK birders. A Tufted Puffin in Kent?? Who would have thought? I’m no big deal twitcher, but when I heard the news my right hand automatically started to reach deep into pocket scrabbling for my car keys. It was a reflex action. However, regardless […]
I was dreading football this morning. Half my teammates were either away, working or serving bans for previous non-appearances. How wrong I was! We won 10 – 6 and I didn’t play bad either!. That was a good start to the day. Unfortunately, none of the Scrubs faithful made it today so who knows what […]
Common Redstart (Dave Renham) Things have been pretty busy over in The Urban Birder Towers. TV stuff and brand development were the main issues this week. I have a million things to write about and I’ve just had a couple more commissions to complete before the month’s end. One of which will be my latest […]
Just watched part one of the new BBC series Lost Land Of The Volcano with Steve Backshall, George McGavin and Gordon Buchanan. It was bloody awesome! The thought of being in an uncharted area filled with species hitherto unknown to science. There was great footage of some crazy looking animals. I just loved the farting […]
An early morning visit to The Scrubs resulted in possibly the same two Whinchats that were kicking around in the grassland last Friday, around 7 Whitethroat and four high flying unidentified hirundines. Today, I was invited to be a patron of the Alderney Wildlife Trust, over there in the Channel Islands. They said that they […]
Common Terns (S & N Barbato) Had a nice morning at The Scrubs with a pair of Whinchat (probably the same ones as Friday) and a fly over Common Tern – our latest ever. I must say that I was jealous to hear that the guys at nearby Brent Reservoir kicked out a Grasshopper Warbler […]
I’ve certainly got the autumn migration buzz. This is Saturday and Saturday means football which in turn means no trip to The Scrubs. Well not this morning. I sneaked a quick hour birding before hitting the football pitch. I missed 2 Northern Wheatears seen moments before I arrived but I did connect with a juvenile […]
It’s finally happened! After a wait that seemed to last a millennia, the London Natural History Society’s Ornithological Society (for whom I the Chairman) is to be renamed The London Bird Club (part of the London Natural History Society). The logo may not necessarily end up looking exactly like the one featured above but it […]
Where I need to be – Wormwood Scrubs Two days into September and I haven’t even been within 100 yards of The Scrubs. Shame on me! I have a good excuse. I have tons of work on. It’s 1am…….need I say anymore.
Mediterranean Gull – Dean Eades Yes, on Saturday morning I was most certainly distracted by tits whilst standing around in goal during my football session. I was distracted by loads of tits – mostly of the Long-tailed variety (c25) with a spattering of Blues amongst them and at least one Chiffchaff. All of these birds […]
Savannah Sparrow – Ballona Wetlands, Los Angeles Yesterday, I thought that I was coming down with a dose of piglet flu (not the full blown swine thing). It turned out to be a heavy cold or at best Man Flu. Anyway, I’m alright now. I just swigged some olive leaf extract (which tastes like shite, […]
This morning we reverted back to our usual service regarding the weather – grey skies and rain. Well, drizzle to be exact. A stroll around The Scrubs in the rain was initially fairly drab although I did count over 25 Long-tailed Tits and an almost equal number of Blue Tits in Chats Paddock. My moment […]
Northern Wheatear – art! Got a great coffee table book called called Jean Luc Mylayne (Twin Palm Publishers 2007) for my birthday from my best mate Colin Flapper. It’s filled with amazing images of urban birds artily shot – sometimes blurred, sometimes just a small feature of the main picture. Utterly amazing. Today, was a […]
Before I go on I must issue a major apology to the photographer Dean Eades for using some of his great images (with his permission) for my Bird Fair talk on Wormwood Scrubs. I omitted to publicly acknowledge the use of his images – so Dean, I apologise profusely. I spent Friday and Saturday at […]
The controlled Nightjar I’m holding it!!! Look at that! The BTO’s Dawn Balmer and TUB At last I got the photographic evidence from the other night’s Nightjarring. I’m still buzzing from the experience! I had a 2 hour meeting at the BBC this afternoon which went well then the remainder of the afternoon was spent […]
This morning I took a break from my morning pilgrimage to The Scrubs. Fellow Scrubber, Roy Nuttall, nipped down though and didn’t see much other than a Lesser Whitethroat along the warbler rich embankment. No, I was chilling in bed, exalted from my previous night’s success. I was in the Thetford Forest along with Birdguides’ […]