I got sent Richard Crossley’s ID Guide today and I must say, believe the hype! The plates are incredible. I first came across Richard in a recent Birding World issue talking about the process that he went through to produce this book. It was a double page spread of text in which he talked about taking zillions of pictures and how he wanted to produce a radical photographic bird guide. I turned the page and gasped. For me it was a spitting out your cornflakes moment because in front of me were two amazing plates. The one I clearly remember was the Black Scotor plate. It was so surreal and beautiful. I gazed at it for ages. It was so full of life.

I can imagine some of the birding aficionados absolutely hating this book and its approach. But I bet that there will be a load more people that will absolutely love it, especially people new to birding – the main part of the book’s target audience. It’s more like a superbly illustrated book on bird jizz that will be left on the coffee table to be marvelled at. For me some of the plates were good enough to stick on the wall in a frame as a work of art.

I’ve practically become a hermit recently, shunning any public engagements and I’m probably also suffering from S.A.D due to the distinct lack of sunlight recently. It’s just been so grey and often wet outside plus it’s turned decidedly nippy recently too. I am most certainly a summer bod who loves to lap up the rays like a basking lizard.

I’ve been spending time at home nursing a decapitated telescope that was smashed in transit when I went to The Azores last October. The baggage guys were almost certainly playing drop the parcel when they chucked my case into the back of the Jumbo. I should really get it fixed at some point. I’ve also been writing profusely recently which is the main reason why I haven’t even made it to my beloved Scrubs, apart from a brief site visit yesterday to point out were our new ground feeders should go.

Today I tripped up the A1 to visit the boys and girls at The Lodge, the RSPB’s headquarters. The main purpose of my visit was to meet the new editor Mark Ward and the magazine’s designer Joel. They were both great guys and made me feel totally welcome. Apparently, according to the reader research my column is one of the more popular sections of Birds Magazine and as such the guys are keen to pimp up my page to make it more urban. That was brilliant news for me because it means that I can also delve into writing more about urban wildife.

Mark and I went for a stroll around the reserve for a spot of birding and to chat further. He’s a pretty hot birder having been into it all his life and he certainly knew his stuff. The thing I liked about him most was his passion for getting people at all levels of interest involved with the wonderful world of birds and conservation. We watched a large flock of roving Redpolls. There must have been over 200 that included at least one Mealy and a Coue’s that has been floating around with them. Needless to say, I dipped on the regular Waxwings and didn’t see a Brambling.

Hey ho, it back to the writing I go with MTV Dance and the occasional switch to the news on BBC…

Whilst the nation sweats over the Slaty-backed Gull that was at Rainham Marshes, on The Scrubs I’m sifting through gull flocks of my own. Okay, it’s nothing like the thousands that descend upon Rainham, but yesterday I had the pleasure of watching 400 plus Black-headed Gulls take off in unison all flapping lazily low over the football pitches only to settle again a few hundred yards away. The reason for their flight? A wayward dog.

But it pays to sift through flocks though for in amongst my Black-heads were at least 40 Common Gulls of various ages, at least 10 Herring Gulls (I couldn’t string any Caspians or Yellow-legs) and a handful of Lesser Black-backs. But hidden in with my common regular gulls was a visitor that although not as precious as a Slaty-back it was still a heart warmer for me. I had found a fine winter plumaged Mediterranean Gull. To be honest, this bird has probably been kicking around since last November but the moral of the story is that wherever you are always check your gull flocks. Even if you’re miles away from a landfill site or water, like I am.

The Slaty-back hasn’t been seen at Rainham for the past couple of days. Think out outside of the box and search your local gull flocks loafing on that football pitch that you drive past every day on the way to work. You just never know.

Despite the dismal grey rainy day a lot occurred in The Urban Birder office.

Firstly, I had a great meeting with the Tower 42 Management Team about this spring’s migration watch. They were delighted with last year’s results and are keen to push and nurture the Tower 42 Bird Study Group’s profile in the building and beyond. All good news to me. If you want to get involved in the spring migration watch from the top of one of London’s most iconic buildings then drop me an email via my website.

This evening I attended a talk by James Lowen at the Camley Street Nature Reserve meeting room about the wildlife on the Pantanal in South America. A fascinating talk featuring some amazing wildlife. Everyone needs to get themselves out there after buying his guide book!

Happy New Year everybody, may you all be bathed in love and light in 2011.

I’ve been busy writing for the past few days hence the lack of updates and when not writing I was at The Scrubs trying to hit the magical 100 on The Scrubs 2010 year list. On New Years Eve in the last minute I scored a Woodlark that headed east before swinging north right over my head – 98 the joint highest total ever. I must admit that I was on the verge of getting pretty obsessive about it so I’m glad that the year’s over.

Don’t get me wrong 2010 was an amazing year. I met some brilliant people, saw some fantastic birds and visited incredible places. By the looks of it, there may be more of that this year. I’m one lucky urban birder.

Have a brilliant New Year guys and I hope that our paths will cross at some point soon.

x

Me and my fellow Scrubbers are desperately trying to reach the previously unreached target of 100 species for the year on The Scrubs. Regular followers of this blog will realise that the decision to go for a year list was only made last month when we suddenly noticed that we had clocked up 90 species.

The last few snowy days has seen a slowdown in the potential for a new bird for the year list. Prior to the snow there was a lot of movement that resulted in a couple additions to the list plus the welcome sight of a few species that had only been seen once during 2010. When the snows came the skies became quiet apart from a few unidentified finches, multitudes of gulls and a few winter thrushes. The breakthrough came today when we had a heavier than usual passage of gulls yielding a scarce Great Black-back. We had record numbers of Skylarks with over 140 seen including a group of 70 plus that dropped onto the snowy football pitches to feed. They adopted a curious cocked-tail posture, almost as though they didn’t want to get their undersides wet. Our viewing pleasure was ruined after a few brief minutes by a Carrion Crow who seemed to take exception to their presence. He swooped in after flying the length of three pitches, putting the flock up who then all meandered south.

Species number 96 came in the shape of a Rock Pipit that was first detected when it called as it headed southwest over Chats Paddock. We need just two more species to equal our best ever total of 98 in 2008. A fingertip search for new year list birds will be conducted during the course of next week.

Last weekend was due to be one of discovery centering around a trip to Sheffield on Sunday to sample the urban birding. But Sheffield was frozen out and furthermore the PR company dealing with the visit contacted me to say that their client was a victim of the Government cutbacks meaning that they could no longer support the trip. I hastily organised an alternative trip to Staines, Surrey but then I got felled by a bout of flu. So in the end I spent the weekend in bed.

I got back into the rat race today starting with a lovely breakfast at The Dorchester, Park Lane in my capacity as Vice President of the Association for Celebrity Assistants – it’s a long story. It was amazing to check the menu to see that a full English cost the princely sum of £33!

After breakfast, I spent a couple hours writing in the auspicious surroundings of The Dorchester. Later at noon I had lunch up the road from The Dorchester with my old mate, Fred Street, the ex-England and Arsenal physio. He originally treated a football induced knee injury of mine 10 years ago and we’ve kept in touch ever since. Finally, I crossed town to Canary Wharf for a meeting to discuss relaunching the migrant bird project that I originally set up last autumn. It’s going to be relaunched next spring minus the originator of the survey who proved to be a bit of a pain in the process when the project was first launched. We’re going to have a launch event involving the project’s supporters including Transport for London, the RSPB, BTO and the London Wildlife Trust.

2011 is shaping up well despite the impending economic doom and gloom. Hopefully, I may have trips lined up to Ethiopia, Texas, Portugal, Maderia, Alderney, Cape Clear, Rome, New York, Sri Lanka, Dominica and Serbia. It all remains to be seen.

By the way, do you like the Red-breasted Goose image? It’s by a very talented artist Alastair Riley who’s a good mate of mine. Check out his site http://www.alastair-riley.co.uk/

This afternoon I sat in a room filled with extremely rich people mingled in with other less rich people that were either sent by someone infinitely richer or had that impossibly rich art dealer boss on the end of a phone signaling bids. Yes, I was at Sotheby’s to witness the sale of Audubon’s Birds of America at the behest of CBS News as they wanted me to pass comment on this the final stage of their planned piece on the great artist.

This was my first auction so the etiquette was very interesting to watch. Bidding was often signaled by the merest of movements so I was extremely nervous about scratching my head or lifting my glasses. In fact, at one point during the Audubon bidding (which was lot 50) I rubbed my chin and the autioneer shouted out ‘£6.1m’ as he looked in my general direction. Luckily the bid increased to the eventual sale price of £6.4m (£7.5m after commissions etc).

The previous 49 lots were fairly swift with most people not hiding the fact that they were bidding. One book went for £1.1m in just a couple minutes. However, the Audubon auction was the main event and when the bidding began, encouraged by a very animated auctioneer, the room took on a totally different feel. As the cameras rolled, the room became hushed and everybody was looking at everybody else to try and register who the bidders were. Bidding started at £2.3m and towards the end when it broke the £5m barrier the bidding became a bit more transparent.

I just can’t believe that so many people have so much money sloshing around. I think that I should produce an elaborately illustrated art book on the Birds of Wormwood Scrubs and see what I can flog it for in 10 years. What would you pay for it?

Does anybody know the racial identity of this juvenile Peregrine?

Tonight I attended the London Bird Club (part of the London Natural History Society) AGM for whom I used to be chairman. Afterwards, my amazing photographer Russell Spencer gave a brilliant talk on photography and his thoughts on photographing birds, particularly urban ones.

Well done fella. I know that I work with him, but sometimes you have to big up the members of your team!