I had a bit of a restless night sleep last night. I was in bed by 1.30am (my usual time) and the alarm went off seemingly 10 minutes later at 4.30am. By 6am I was pulling up in the Tower 42 car park and ascending the many floors with 10 other excited birders of all abilities.

Once on the roof we were treated to a beautiful sunny morning with a light westerly and a single flyby Swallow heading west. We had a fairly quiet morning with the highlights being our first recorded Sandwich Terns (7 seen very briefly), a couple of Peregrines on the Tate Modern, a drifting female-type Sparrowhawk, a distant Little Egret, a few Great Black-backs and a handful of Swifts. A nice start. I’m sure there will be plenty more to talk about over the ensuing weeks.

The other bit of news is that I had a very interesting meeting with the Canary Wharf Estates people. The upshot of it is that I have resurrected a survey that was originally carried out by Ken Murray and colleagues between 2000 – 2004. It’s pretty exciting urban birding opportunity that will be open to all and I will announce more next week.

Meanwhile, maybe I will see some of you at Bird Fair over the weekend. I will be filming for Birdguides over the period but still come and say hello.

Until then.

Whilst everyone else in London have been busily cleaning up on the falls of migrants for the past few days, I seemed to be struggling over at The Scrubs. To be fair, I have had good numbers of warblers with Whitethroats topping the list. I had over 30 of those this morning- many of them being youngsters – as well as up to 9 Lesser Whitethroats a couple days ago. Interestingly, one of the Lesser ‘throats had a very white face due to it’s ‘bandit’ mask eyestripe being very fine. Indeed, the whole bird looked particularly pallid.

We’ve also been hosting at least 2 Sedge Warblers, a Reed Warbler and up to 3 Garden Warblers along Lester’s Embankment along the northern edge of The Scrubs. It is currently warbler city. This morning had a very autumnal feel about it. It was hazy with a north easterly breeze. I had high hopes, but after 4 hours of scouring every bush and scanning the skies I only had 4 Swift to show for my effort.

Well, tomorrow is another day and anything can turn up anywhere at anytime – as I often chant!

I never thought that a trip to MK would be so enjoyable. I expected to be circling roundabouts the whole day. Instead, Yvette and Russell Spencer and I saw tons of lakes and watched Little Egrets and Marsh Tits whilst under the pleasurable guidance of the husband and wife team Mark and Gill.

More about that trip in a future copy of Bird Watching Magazine. When I got home later in the early evening I received an email from a birder and his wife visiting The Scrubs explaining that whilst picking blackberries they witnessed a juvenile male Montagu’s/Hen Harrier drift over north being pursued by a host of crows.

Intriguing stuff!

This weekend was perhaps my most knackering for several years after I covered nearly 1,000 miles on the road, spanning 2 countries (3 if you’re into Cornish independance!).

After leaving London at 10pm on Friday, I eventually rolled up in the car park of my hotel in Liskeard, Cornwall at 3.30am. I was wrecked before I started my journey – a situation that worsened considerably by the time I reached my destination. Indeed, the Tawny Owl that flew across the road outside Liskeard, barely registered with me.

After a few short hours kip, I woke up at 7.30am thinking about the talk that I was about to deliver at the Port Eliot Festival in nearby St Germans as part of the ‘Bird Effect’ series of talks. I wrote a few notes on the back of an envelope after breakfast and I arrived at the festival at 1pm. I was on the bill with the likes of Tim Birkhead, Stephen Moss and Phil Daniels who was reciting a couple of poems that he had written.

The talks started at 3pm and were great, especially Tim’s who discussed his fascination with sex in the avian world. My talk on urban birding went down well. Apparently, one woman was weepy at the end because she was overcome by my passion for my subject. I don’t know about that!

Almost directly afterwards, I jumped in the car and at 11.30pm arrived at the home of Julian Hughes, RSPB Conwy Reserve Manager. I crawled out the car and straight into bed via some pre-sleep conversation and being barked at by his highly excitable big dog.

The morning came too soon. After breakfast with Julian and his wife Sandra I spent the remainder of the day leading 3 walks – including one containing at least 60 people with their kids, plus 2 impromptu talks on the wonders of urban birders for beginners.

I had a great day at this my favourite nature reserve in the whole of Wales. The birdy highlight was seeing my first ever Common Sandpiper chick on the lagoon edge. Common Sands breeding on a lowland urban site is incredible in itself. The most amazing moment was when volunteer Audrey Parry gave me 2 beautiful potted plants to give to my mum to help celebrate her 50 years in Britain. She had read my last blog entry before this one. My mum was very touched and has asked me to thank you Audrey, if you’re reading this.

At the end of the day, I was completely talked out and after a quick drink with Julian, the staff and volunteers, I migrated south to arrive back in west London for 10pm – exactly 48 hours later.

Note to self: next time I do a roadtrip get someone else to drive!

Things are looking pretty interesting and I hope to be able to pass on exciting tales to you all over the ensuing weeks.

This weekend I will be ‘performing’ at the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall. I will be part of ‘ The Bird Effects’ a series of talks and poetry recitals on Saturday afternoon. I will be sharing the stage with the likes of Phil Daniels (he of Quadraphenia fame) who will be reciting a self-penned poem, writer Tim Dee and my old mucker, Stephen Moss. Each of us will have 15 minutes and my allocated time will be spent talking about urban birding in front of an audience of several hundred.

Straight after, I will jump in a car and drive for millions of miles to north Wales to be fresh in the morning to be part of the Conwy RSPB Reserve’s wildlife weekend on Sunday. Is this what it is like to be on the road on tour?

More sedately, I enjoyed a nice cup of tea over the weekend with birder, Clare Evans under the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. Clare was the woman that first introduced me to the wonders of Twitter. Mind you, I still don’t really get it! Although, today I gained another follower in the distinguished shape of Sunday Times journalist, Lynn Barber.

Clare was in London to attend the RSPB’s Letter To The Future Conference and we have been trying to meet up for simply ages. She’s a lovely lady whose day job is as a time management coach. Quite fascinating.

Off to The Scrubs in the morning. Autumn migration has already started with a couple of Swallows seen winging their way through this morning. We’ll see what occurs in the morning.

On Saturday morning directly after a fantastic game of football, I bought a Daily Mirror in addition to my usual Guardian. The reason? Prince’s new album was being given away with every copy. Now, I absolutely love Prince. He’s written some of the most wicked music and I’ve been to many of his concerts – all of them brilliant, apart from his recent O2 Arena stint that although polished, was surprisingly like a cabaret – just a series of medleys.

To my mind, he has become a bit lame since he found religion a few years ago. Gone are the edgy references to sex, women, funk, love, dance, music and more sex and instead he’s offering up bland, forgettable music. It saddens me to say this but his new album was atrocious. But despite that, I still think that he is one of the best musical artists the world has ever seen.

I heard the album on the way to Norfolk, where I was going to spend a quiet weekend. By Saturday evening, I was strolling around the RSPB’s Lakenheath Fens – one of my favourite reserves. I caught up with a Kingfisher and several hunting Marsh Harriers. Later, I was at a nearby site watching up to 7 Stone Curlews. Before the sun set, I was in Thetford Forest looking for Nightjar. I eventually heard 2 singing but saw none.

The following day was spent chilling and writing. As usual it’s deadline time and I finally finished my Rekyjavic piece for Bird Watching Magazine today. With the weekend now a distant memory, I have turned my attention to a piece on urban birding in Los Angeles, that needs to be in now. No rest for the wicked!

Early this morning I was at home furiously writing my magazine articles that need to be completed this week – i.e Monday, instead of stalking the urban expanses of Wormwood Scrubs. The articles themselves are flowing fairly easily, it’s just the classic scenario – leaving it too late.

Anyway, I got the news from fellow Scrubber, Roy Nuttall, that I had been waiting for since late April. Like an expectant father, I rejoiced at the news that our first breeding pair of Reed Buntings had fledged 5 youngsters. I had been watching the nest site ever since I first noticed a male holding territory. I had a hint that they were doing well when I saw the male with food plus on another occasion with a faecal sac. The reason for my original concern was that they had chosen to set up home within the area that the Meadow Pipits breed, an area that is very prone to human disturbance.

I’m very proud that our special nesters have successfully fledged youngsters in an urban park away from any substantial bodies of water. Maybe we will now have Reed Buntings breeding in our grassland on a regular basis.

Once again it’s deadline time. I have to complete articles for Birds Magazine, BBC Wildlife Magazine plus 3 book reviews and an urban birding article for Bird Watching Magazine by next week. In fact the first of which has to be in the recipient’s inbox by Monday morning – hence my relative inactivity on the blogging front.

One bit of news though is the fact that yesterday my agent sent me an invite via a production company to participate as a diner on BBC1’s ‘Great British Waste Menus’ a TV programme that will highlight the fact that we as a nation waste huge amounts of perfectly good food. Some of the nation’s top chefs will create some top grub using food that would have been chucked out. The aim is to prepare a banquet for Prince Charles and his missus. So yours truly along with several other celebs will be scoffing the nosh and giving our verdicts in conjunction with several professional food critics.

What’s all this got to do with birds, I hear you ask. I haven’t got a clue either!