A foggy day in paradise

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Fog over The Scrubs
This morning’s shoot with CBS News at The Scrubs was decidedly murky. They filmed me taking some members of the Peut-Etre Theatre (www.peutetretheatre.co.uk) on an urban birding crash course. They are putting together a children’s play that featured city birds and had wanted my advice. After a fairly birdless wander I did a piece to camera about John Audubon. I will be doing more filming with them next week.
This afternoon I sent my errant Blackberry to the menders and picked up the most basic of phones to tide me over. It’s amazing how used I had got to having a personal computer at my fingertips. How am I going to cope with a phone that you can barely send a text from?
This evening I journeyed up to Stevenage in Hertfordshire to deliver a talk to the Stevenage RSPB Group. It was a fun night and the audience seemed to enjoy themselves. Got home pooped after midnight and after enduring a couple of arduous train journeys.

John James Audubon

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American Flamingo & Gyr Falcons (JJ Audubon)

A frustrating day was had today crowned by the loss of all 600 or so of my contacts and phone numbers from my stupid malfunctioning Blackberry. I won’t even bore you with the details. All I will say is that there was a lot of shouting involved with the occasionally interspersed blue word!

I have been indoors in self imposed imprisonment trying to honour the copy deadlines that I have looming. I have two pieces to scribe for Bird Watching Magazine, one for the Guardian and some stuff for my newly sexed up website.
Tomorrow morning will be fun as I am filming with CBS News who approached me to feature in a programme called Sunday Morning to be screening in the US. They have asked me to comment on John James Audubon especially in the light of the upcoming auction of some of his art at Sotheby’s in December. I will be shooting at The Scrubs.
Also, tomorrow night I will be speaking to the Stevenage RSPB Group delivering my well travelled Scrubs talk.
If you are in the vicinity pop in and see me.

Catch-up

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Black-headed Gulls (Russell F Spencer)
It looks like Lee Evans is the flavour of the month as I met with him this morning at the Birdguides offices for an interview. The idea was for him to put the record straight after his contentious appearance on Twitchers – A Great British Obsession. I thought that he gave a very good account of himself despite a heavy and uncompromising grilling from myself. You will be able to see the interview online on Birdguides’ site fairly soon.
Other news from the past few days included the fact that my remixed and funked up website relaunched yesterday. Take a look and see what you think.
Finally, I got a call from CBS News in their London office asking me to appear on a programme imaginatively called Sunday Morning to talk about John James Audubon and in particular, the Southerby sale of some of his original artwork in December. They will be filming that next week and my little bit will be broadcast across the States. Thanks to my good buddy, John Hague for sending them my way.
Enough writing. Time for sleeping.

Lee Evans

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Searching (Russell F Spencer)

The topic of the day on the birding forums and my twitter was the Twitching programme on BBC4 last night. I think it left the viewer under no uncertain terms as to what a twitcher was and to what lengths they would go to achieve a tick. In a nutshell, it followed the stories of four or five different twitchers in their quest to add to their respective life and year lists. Central to the whole show was our very own Lee Evans who proclaimed his self appointment as guardian of twitching etiquette and birding standards.

Of course, he was hammered – and I mean, hammered – by most forum participants. But if you ask me, we need characters within our birding world. Love him or hate him, he makes us think, debate and for some people, laugh. I’d be the last person to slate him because although I may not necessarily agree with some of the things he says, I admire his sheer nuts.
My turn on Wednesday night on Birds Britannia, BBC4 at 9pm.

And here’s the news

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(Russell F Spencer)

A busy week was had since my last posting.

The highlights included being invited to be a writer on the 20/20Vision (http://www.2020v.org/index.asp). For those who don’t know about this innovative project it is – in their words – Britain’s most ambitious conservation multi media initiative to communicate the link between the restoration of the UK’s natural systems and our own well being. Check out their website to find out more and I’ll feed you with more information plus my input in due course.
The other great thing to happen this week was that I was invited to be a judge on 2011 Observer Ethical Awards. The actually judging ceremony will be next April with the winners being announced thereafter.
On a negative note, the Canary Wharf Migrant Bird Project that I set up seems to be floundering due to several reasons. I didn’t have a hands on approach to this project unlike with the Tower 42 Bird Study Group and as a result there has been a distinct lack of data. I think that this project has the potential to be pretty interesting but it seems as though the Canary Wharf people themselves have lost interest and to date have not been corresponding with me. I get the impression that they expected the trees to be dripping with migrants and I don’t blame them given the way the previous study there was sold.
It is a project that has to be judged over a period of years and not after one poorly attended season.
Ah well, you can’t win them all.

Migrant Bird Blip!

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Looking east to Canary Wharf
It’s a long way down!
The empty skies looking south
Our viewing platform
What a gorgeous day today was!
My day started at Canary Wharf at 8am trying to find birds in the estate. Apart from a pair of Peregrines, a couple of Robins, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Magpies, a few crows and gulls there was absolutely bugger all to hold our attention. We then journeyed onto Tower 42 for phase two of our Migrant Bird Blitz.
The skies were empty bar a few gulls including an adult Great Black-back, a soaring Sparrowhawk and a couple Peregrines around the Tate Modern. This was despite the efforts of several birders scanning along with a couple of Austrian women and their kids that I had met on the street outside and had invited up to enjoy the view!
Maybe I should have stayed at The Scrubs today.

Fishy

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My new charges

I am now the proud babysitter of a pair of goldfish that were foisted onto me by a holidaying neighbour. What she doesn’t realise is that I have a terrible record with this member of the carp family. Most if not all have died whilst in my care. It’s funny, I was contemplating looking after a Daschund for a week but decided against it for logistical reasons. I’m not sure if an menagerie at The Urban Birder Towers would work somehow. I shall keep you up to date on the life and times of the two nameless fish in my care.

Otherwise, today was a day behind the laptop writing. I had to miss the Tower 42 venture this morning, but by all accounts it was totally crap for any movement. This Sunday will be the Migrant Bird Blitz that will see birders scouring the parklands of Canary Wharf Estate and the London skyline from Tower 42. That could be interesting.
Anyway, time to prepare for football in the morning.

I’m back!

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Wood Pigeons (Russell F Spencer)
Today was an important day. I actually woke up before sunrise (which is what I do every day) but this time I headed out of the house and went to The Scrubs to be greeted by a gorgeous – if cold – sunny day. The visible migration was good with over 700 Wood Pigeons, 80 Fieldfares, 400 Starlings, 30 Redpoll, 20 Chaffinch and a single Siskin.

It was good to get back into the saddle after the emotional turmoil and roller coaster ride I’ve been on since the appearance of the bird of the century – our first Great Grey Shrike. I have a feeling that because I missed that bird that I will find an amazing rarity at The Scrubs that no one predicted.
You read it here first folks!

Azorean wonders

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Upland Sandpiper
Cory’s Shearwater
Atlantic Canary
Bar-tailed Godwit being harassed by a Blackbird
1st winter American Redstart
White-rumped Sandpiper
All images copyright of Russell F Spencer
As you probably know, I got back from The Azores on Tuesday after being held up on Flores (my favourite Azorean island) due to the tropical storm created in the wake of Hurricane Otto.
They are a group of nine islands in the mid-Atlantic between Portugal and the States. I though that all the islands would be within sight of each other, so I was surprised when we landed on San Miguel (the main island) to learn that Corvo and Flores were a whooping 400 miles and 2 hours flight away. In short, I found some the European twitchers on Corvo full of testosterone, arrogance and unfriendliness. They just seemed interested in finding the next American rare to add to their Western Palearctic list. And that was it. Birding didn’t seem to come into it. One of them, a Belgian photographer, poured scorn on the thought of us heading off to nearby and far larger and under-birded Flores. More reason for me to go, I thought.
Birding on Flores was like birding on a island with the blended characteristics of Scillies, Yorkshire, the Mediterranean with a tropical forest vibe thrown in. We ended up working around four areas as patches and as a consequence found American vagrants on a daily basis. We also found a few birds that were arguably Nearctic including a winter male Snow Bunting and a rather buffy looking juvenile Peregrine that lunched on one of the flock of four White-rumped Sandpipers that we were watching.
There were not many species to entertain us in between finding rares. Basically, there were Blackbirds with strange weak alarm calls and strange ‘seaaa’ calls. Also the females were quite dark almost like 1st winter males. The Goldcrests looked dingier and longer billed than our birds, whilst the Chaffinches looked like the North African birds with very little white on their tails and wings making them look quite dark. They seemed to flutter lacking the strong flight that I’m used to. There were tons of Canaries around. They reminded me of Serins. Starlings were prevalent seeming more spotted than usual. Finally, out to see were hundreds of Cory’s Shearwaters, although some of us saw a few Great Shearwaters and I noticed a petrel on the boat over from Corvo which seemed like a Leach’s.
I found the trip very interesting and although the weather conditions were perfect for bringing over falls of vagrants, it was very humid and wet which meant wet optics and sometimes poor visibility. Regardless, it was a great adventure that was supported by The Portuguese Trade and Investment Office and SATA Airlines. There, plug done!

Eviction

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Flores: the view above the clouds
The Flores Birders
The angry sea
I finally left Flores yesterday after several days waiting at the airport. We headed to the main island of San Miguel, some 400 miles away, to pick up today’s flight to Lisbon that connected with one to Gatwick.
I will furnish you with lovely pictures of some of the bird life of the islands that were taken by Russell F Spencer plus more details of the adventure of the next couple of days.
Until then…..

The Azores – Day 8 (said in a Big Brother-like Geordie accent)

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Great Grey Shrike (Anders Price)

I have been in tears all day – from the second I opened my eyes this morning to this very moment. You see, I have been on The Azores for 8 days now. Many of you will be thinking ‘lucky bugger’ and you would be right for thinking those thoughts, but my problem is not as simple as that.
I have been marooned on Flores, my favourite of the nine islands that make up the Azores, since Saturday. There has been no flights out of the island since last Thursday due to the inclement weather born from Hurricane Otto that had been threatening to lash the east coast of the US. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been keeping myself busy, often in the driving wind and lashing rain, finding a dowitcher sp and enjoying such beauties as a personally long awaited Upland Sandpiper, American Redstart, Grey Catbird and Rose-breasted Grosbeak plus a host of tantalizing views including the merest of glances at a cuckoo sp.
Not being able to get off the island was one thing; as I had a host of things to do this week including giving a talk to the Preston Bird Watching and Natural History Society. But the biggest thing and the reason for my day long tears was the discovery this morning of a Great Grey Shrike at The Scrubs. I had predicted the appearance of a shrike as our next bogey bird shortly after putting the ghost of our previous bogey bird to rest. After 18 years, we had seen our first Red Kite drifting over this summer, so I had told my fellow Scrubbers to look out for a shrike this autumn.
One has now turned up and I’m stuck on the bloody Azures! I couldn’t care if I found a first for the Western Palearctic tomorrow – I’m a Scrubber, get me out of here!

Life and Death on Wormwood Scrubs

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A poor Red Fox
It’s been a bit of a manic few weeks for me – what with a touch of traveling and a shed load of writing. I’ve also been trying to keep an eye on The Scrubs, although I have dipped on two separate Ring Ouzels (my favourite bird as a lot of you may already know).
I had a great session on Sunday morning though when I scored at least 500 passage House Martins, 250 Swallows, 130 Meadow Pipits, 2 Yellow Wagtails and a high flying Hobby that proceeded to dramatically stoop at great speed onto some unfortunate and unseen prey item. We also had a pair of low flying Peregrines that gave us a great aerial display including some talon-locking. It was brilliant to see all that literally a couple of miles from central London.
This morning I discovered the above depicted fox that must have met with an untimely death during the heavy rain last night. It was undamaged bar some cuts on one of its back legs – no doubt as a result of some pecking by our voracious local Carrion Crows. Poor little thing.
Today was my last session down at The Scrubs because tomorrow morning I will be on Tower 42 (although it is promising to be a dismal day filled with rain and grey clouds) and on Saturday morning I will be between the sticks. Later that evening I will be on a plane heading for The Azores. Now that will be an adventure!
Oh, and by the way, I managed to catch up with the Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens White-winged Black Tern. My face was saved!

Dipping terns

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Whilst everyone was sweating over the true identity of the Alder/Willow Flycatcher on Blakeney, Norfolk, a few London listers were fretting over inner London’s first White-winged Black Tern discovered on Sunday over at Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens.
Although a truly amazing record, like the Norfolk Emphid flycatcher, it only went to illustrate that age-old urban birding ethos – anything can turn up anywhere at anytime. I got the call this morning about the tern, but as I was occupied on other things I decided to be ‘sensible’ and fore go the opportunity to see it – this was despite the fact that it was showing down to 20 feet.
Burning desire eventually got the better of me and at 4pm I drove down to the park only to be confronted by a host of blank faces. Our bird had flown. East at 3.30pm to be exact!
Despite swearing to return at dawn to track the bird down (I had decided this before it was seen again at 5.30pm) I knew in my heart that I probably wouldn’t return in the morning. I would be too busy kicking bushes at The Scrubs as I have my own rarity to find.

The latest fashion

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TUB at Rainham

You probably won’t believe this but last night I was rubbing shoulders with London’s fashionistas in an impressive building situated in salubrious Belgravia. Despite the presence of pretty fashionable people, it was in the main a most dull evening. Catwalks bore the hell out of me. Bone-freak models strutting up and down hold no interest for me.
On Sunday, I co-led a walk around Rainham RSPB with reserve warden, Howard Vaughan. It was a nice morning/afternoon spent with over 20 people. We saw a Hobby, a pair of Knot, many passage hirundines plus a Wasp Spider, Marsh Frog and several Common Lizards.

Usce Tower

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The very top (photographer not known)
The assembled crowd (milan obradovic)
The Usce Tower (vlada marinkovic)

I journeyed over to Serbia on Thursday morning in the company of documentary maker, Ceri Levy, as he was attending to shoot some footage for his forthcoming film ‘The Bird Affect’. Arriving in Belgrade I was surprised as to how hot it was. Having left decidedly chilly London 25 degrees felt tropical!

We were met at the airport by Dragan Simic, an effervescent birder from the city who had originally contacted me via Facebook a couple months previously about setting up a Belgrade watchpoint. Fortunately, Ben Crampton, an Englishman working in the tower, plus a birder and friend of Dragan, stepped in and helped to negotiate with the building’s owners and management team to allow access to their roof for migration watching.
Usce Tower stands on the confluence of the Sava and the Danube rivers and overlooks a wooded island that was formally home to a colony of egrets and is now the winter roosting site for up to 2500 Pygmy Comorants. Built in 1964 the building is the 2nd tallest in the city at 141 metres (462 feet).
On Thursday afternoon, we met up with Ben who took us to Kalemegdan, a Turkish Fortress and park that was heavily populated with people. We managed to connect with a couple Spotted Flycatchers, Blackcaps, a Kestrel and a female Black Redstart – along with the ubiquitous Hooded Crows, Magpies, Collared Doves and House Sparrows. Later, I gave a TV interview by the Danube before jumping on a small boat for a quick cruise around the wooded island. The best birds apart from the regular Caspian and Yellow-legged Gulls were 2 juvenile Little Gulls.
The following morning was the actual launch of the watchpoint. I was surprised to see over 30 people assembled to go on the tower to watch for migrants. I gave 3-4 more TV interviews about the importance of people noticing nature in their cities before heading onto the roof. We didn’t see much but the observers all thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
Later, I had a whistlestop tour of a couple birding locations outside of the city that resulted in 1 White-tailed Eagle, Middle Spotted Woodpecker, a threesome of Black Storks and around 4 Greenshank that were apparently unusual. Before I knew it I was back at the airport heading home.
Many many thanks to Dragan, Ben, Mike (the Usce Tower building manager) and Zorica (Serbian Tourism) for making this event happen. I feel really proud to be involved and excited about the future records that will emanate from this site.

Belgrade – The Home of mainland Europe’s 1st high rise Urban Migration Watchpoint

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Born out of a Facebook conversation a couple months ago with Belgrade birder, Dragan Smic, the Usce Tower, Belgrade was set up.
Full story tomorrow. I’m knackered!
TUB & Dragan Simic (Milan Obradovic)
Enjoying the view (Milan Obradovic)
Birders viewing Caspian Gulls (Milan Obradovic)
TUB being interviewed by Serbian TV (Milan Obradovic)
TUB briefing Serb birders (Milan Obradovic)
Usce Tower (Milan Obradovic)
TUB & documentary maker, Ceri Levy on top of Usce Tower (Boris Bajcetic)

Migrants galore

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TUB with some of the kids from a local schools outside Queens Park
What a few days!
I have been working my proverbials off on the several projects that I am running concurrently. These schemes range from setting up a new migration watchpoint in Serbia to organising the Canary Wharf Migrant Bird Project, working on my new book and attending various meetings.
Things have also been quite interesting down at The Scrubs with a host of common migrants showing up including a few local goodies like several Buzzards, Hobby, Common Redstarts, Whinchats, Swifts and an array of warblers. Tomorrow morning will see me on the summit of Tower 42 hoping to see some migrant movement there too.
Finally, I was asked to declare open a wildlife interpretation board outside Queens Park in west London. The area is frequented by many media-types and is certainly up and coming. All was going well until I started to give a short talk to the assembled local residents. The heavens opened and I got totally drenched!

Sun worshiper

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Common Lizard – my first on The Scrubs!
Oops! He’s spotted me!
This morning, indeed the whole of the day was superb. Beautiful sunshine throughout. This morning I was up at The Scrubs on the hunt for newly arrived migrants, especially of the raptor variety. We were successful in seeing a couple of coasting Sparrowhawks, a hunting Kestrel and a proper raptor migrant in the shape of an ultra sexy Hobby, swooping through being pursued by a bunch of Swifts.
The best migrant was a male Common Redstart that we flushed from the grassland. Nice. Our second for the autumn. The Common Lizard though was one of the highlights of my life in The Scrubs. These animals have been present at Wormwood Scrubs for years, having been introduced after some of their range was destroyed by the Channel Tunnel development during the ’80’s. I’ve never seen one until today – and that’s despite occasionally looking for them.
You see, I’m always looking up never down. If lizards squeaked I definitely be finding more!

Roll over Beethoven

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TUB knocking out a concerto (Penny Hayhurst)
Tuition on bow holding (Penny Hayhurst)
No birding for me this morning, despite the fact that there seems to be tons of migrants swilling around at the moment. Maybe I’ll catch up with some tomorrow. Instead, I had a violin lesson!
It was a surprise birthday present from someone who knew about my love for the sounds of strings. This love started when I was a teenager playing air violin to my ELO albums. By the end of my hour long lesson I had played a very simplistic Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – hardly Beethoven’s 5th – but give me time!

What a grey day!

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Looking SW from Tower 42
Looking into murk
I arose from my bed at 4.30am with a heart filled with so much hope, despite the constant drizzle that I encountered in the darkness. At 6am when I rolled up outside the Tower 42 building, I greeted the other fellow watchers under a blanket of grey clouds, spitting rain and a northeasterly breeze. Perfect.
Things didn’t get better on the roof and we had to call off proceedings at 7.30am after seeing a Peregrine a few gulls and little else. Me and couple of the guys then traveled to Canary Wharf to recce Canada Gardens (at the foot of Canary Wharf) and Jubilee Gardens (behind the western entrance of the Jubilee line station). The habitat looked good though all we could muster was a Peregrine overhead, a Willow Warbler, Blackbird, Wren and a few tits.
On the way home I dropped into Wormwood Scrubs and glimpsed our super elusive Pied Flycatcher for literally 5 seconds as I craned my neck looking up into its favourite Maple tree whilst on the phone to my publisher!
Back at Canary Wharf in the morning to see what’s kicking around in the trees. I will tell more about this interesting new project in due course.