Green green grass of home

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I write this sat on the edge of my bed, pretty tired after the early start this morning and the traveling – an act that never ceases to make you tired.

I was remembering this morning when Malka and I were filming the Nightingales that I was telling you about – the ones that were hopping all around the grounds of the hotel. To be exact, they were mostly under bushes though occasionally they would come right out into the open, stand on a fallen branch and preen or feed a nearby fledgling. We even had one sing from its low perch.
Whilst we were filming in the background were singing Blackcaps, Golden Orioles juxtapositioned with police sirens, park buggies and shouting people. What a heady urban mix!
All in all, I had a fantastic time in Budapest with some great birds, a great guide in the shape of Gerard Gorman (who’s lovely wife I met last night at dinner) and superb hosting by Malev Hungarian Airlines, Danubious Hotels and the Hungarian Tourist Board and their PR agents.
I’m currently looking through the rushes of what we shot in Budapest and I must say that some of the birdy images are great. I can’t wait to post it on Birdguides’ website.

Urban Budapest

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Malka knocking out a shot

At 7am Malka and I were trying to stuff scrambled egg and a weird vegetable concoction down our throats in double quick time as we were meeting Gerard Gorman at 7am. We eventually linked up with him 15 minutes later. Thereafter, we visited his local patch in the Buda Woods where we filmed and hunted unsuccessfully for Black Woodpecker (well, we did see one fleetingly). We also scored there with Middle Spotted Woodpeckers, Golden Orioles and a family of Collared Flycatchers.

We then nipped over to a posh cemetery where we came across a mobbed grey phased Tawny Owl that was being mobbed by some angry Blackbirds in a willow tree. I’ve never seen this colour morph before.
After dipping Crested Lark at a nearby Tescos car park we finally hit a tiny urban park to register Syrian Woodpecker. The filming went well today and Gerard performed very well in front of the camera.
That evening, we all went for dinner in town along with Gerard’s missus. Had a lovely evening telling stories and talking about pubic lice!

Birds birds birds

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Day two in Hungary was truly stupendous!
Malka, my camera woman and I met with Gerard Gorman and his client Joan Clark who was an amazing octogenarian with an incredible world list of over 6700 species. She has spent many years traversing every continent in the world to accumulate this grand total. Indeed, she has seen a representative from every bird family known to science.
She was in Budapest for a couple of days whilst cruising up the Danube on what looked like a mega-long luxury liner. Instead of going off on a group expedition to explore Budapest she chose to contact Gerard for a birding trip.

Gerard Gorman, Joan Clark and TUB
So, 45 minutes after picking her up, we were in the Hungarian hinterland finding such mouthwatering delights as Great Bustard, Roller, Bee-eater, Caspian Gull, Little Bittern, Spoonbill, White Stork, Purple Heron, Ferruginous Duck, Saker, Red-footed Falcon, singing Quail, Savi’s Warbler (both of which I didn’t see of course!), Marsh Warbler,  many Turtle Dove, Tawny Pipit, Blue-headed Wagtail, Great Reed Warbler, Red-backed & Lesser Grey Shrikes and more Golden Orioles.
The moment of the out of town excursion was seeing an Otter scamper across the road in front of us as we slowly drove down a dirt track in a fish pond area. It was a magical and unexpected moment, as man and beast were both surprised to see each other – both momentarily eyeing each other up before the Otter broke the spell and crept of into the reedbed on the other side of the road.

The typical countryside vista outside Budapest

A White Stork nest in a town whose name loosely translated means ‘Woman’s knickers’!
After an amazing half day, we returned to southern Budapest and another island in the Danube to chase down some woodpeckers in a small urban park. Within minutes we were watching a family of Syrian Woodpeckers whilst Gerard broke down the pertinent id features. It was an education.
We dropped a delighted Joan to her ‘cruise liner’ and Gerard dropped myself and Malka at our hotel. Malka had been ill all day with suspected tonsillitis. So she got sent to bed for an early night, in order for her to be shipshape for tomorrow’s shoot day.

Nightingales and Orioles

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The view from my hotel balcony
I arrived in Budapest with Malka, my camera operator, under dark rainy skies – a far cry from the solid hot sunshine that I had originally imagined. In fact, a friend of mine had just returned from this city raving about the weather. Thankfully, the rain soon subsided to reveal a cloudier day.
We are staying at the Danubius Health Spa Resort, Margitsziget (Margaret’s Island) in the middle of the Danube. The island is about 5km around, so was a bit bigger than what I imagined. After receiving a tour around the hotel’s impressive health and spa by the duty manager, I nipped out to meet with Gerard Gorman, my guide for the next few days. We strolled around the island whilst chatting and discussing the plans for tomorrow. The island itself was like a large area of wooded parkland inhabited by tons of people. Despite this we heard several Nightingales in full song and to Gerard’s great surprise, several were out in the open hopping on the ground like Robins!
Aside from the by now obligatory Hooded Crows and Blackbirds, several Golden Orioles rang out their beautiful tropical sounding songs. I never tire of hearing these gorgeous birds. My pained achilles ruled out any major walk so we ended our stroll back at my hotel to watch a male Black Redstart belting out its scratchy song.
 

The sky above

Spring Birdfair

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Sheena Harvey (Bird Watching Magazine editor) & I
What a gorgeous day today was. The hottest day of the year so far. Just the way I like it. My twitching instinct continue to grow within me unabated. If I wasn’t obliged to be at the Spring Birdwatchers Fair at Middleton Hall in Tamworth, I would have been walking the marshes of Norfolk looking for Black-winged Pratincole or be strolling Pagham Harbour in Sussex looking for my personal second ever Oriental Pratincole (my first was the Norfolk bird that travelled up from Essex in the 90’s). Yes, today had a definite Pratincole feel about it.
Instead, I was to be found hanging around Bird Watching Magazine and Birdguides’ stands signing autographs, chatting and drinking tea. Because I am heading off to Budapest tomorrow for a week of birding I was able to contain the urge to go birding around the site and look for what would have been my first Cuckoo for the season, as one was heard calling by others near the car park.

TUB and Birdguides’ lovely Fiona Barclay 
After pulling winning raffle tickets and saying my goodbyes to mates new and old, I headed back to Londinium full of excitement for the next up and coming days.

Joy and pain

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Yesterday, I became a cover boy for the first time in my life. I was interviewed by Brent Magazine who are doing a feature on me for their July issue under the banner of ‘Citizen of the month’. You see, I was a London Borough of Brent resident during my formative years – despite being born in the Republic of Park Royal, in Acton which is home to Wormwood Scrubs. I obviously haven’t migrated very far in my life!
Today, I got injured within minutes of starting football with a strained achilles, which I can tell you is bloody painful. I played the whole game despite hobbling and we still won, which was remarkable.
Tomorrow, I’m off to the Bird Watchers Spring Fair in Tamworth in the Midlands to do a public appearance. I will be hanging out all day on the Birdguides and Bird Watching stands respectively if you want to come and say hello.
Maybe, I’ll see you there.

Somebody find me a vomitorium!

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We came, we saw and we bloody lost!

I’ve just returned from a couple days in majestic and hot Rome after witnessing the slaughter of Manchester United at the hands of Barcelona in front of 70,000 baying fans in the Stadio Olimpico. It wasn’t a pretty sight as United were reduced to a shadow of their usually mighty selves. They were simply out played.
Anyway, enough talk of football. It was my first visit to this noble city and unfortunately, I had absolutely no time to even walk down the street, let alone visit monuments or even go birding! 
On the two mornings that had in the city, I managed to oversleep on both of them, instantly negating the opportunity for some urban birding. As I went with 3 totally football mad mates, my days were spent lunching, dining, talking about Manchester United (which was quite dull at times), being stuck in traffic jams and sleeping. It didn’t leave much time for much else.
And as for the birds, the only ones that I regularly noticed were Pigeons, Swifts, House Sparrows, Jackdaws, Hooded Crows, Starlings and Yellow-legged Gulls. The only time I managed to raise my binoculars at any avian quarry was when I was watching the match. Whilst sitting in the stadium, I noticed that there were literally thousands upon thousands of moths flying around. In the dusk skies above the arena several hundred Swifts were busying themselves swooping on this food bonanza.
As the natural light faded with Manchester United’s resistance to Barcelona’s superior play, I looked up to notice multitudes of moths by the floodlights around the rim of the roof. In the night sky at least 200 Yellow-legged Gulls were gorging themselves on the moths whilst in flight. When I looked at them through my bins the sky was thick with moths. I even watched a White Wagtail moth catching within the stadium with the backdrop of celebrating Barcelona fans.
I will return to Rome one day to conquer its urban birding. That I can promise. 

Bird Walks

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Addressing the masses at The Scrubs Dawn Chorus
Yesterday’s bird walks were a resounding success with over 40 attendees. The Dawn Chorus was surprisingly good despite many birds having already fallen silent. We still managed to see singing Willow Warbler, Lesser & Common Whitethroats plus I also managed to show the group displaying Meadow Pipits.
At one point I noticed a female House Sparrow in the grassland, so I announced to the group that I was going to show them a rarity. As I uttered these words, 4 Little Egrets flew over! How amazing was that? We have no water at The Scrubs and these birds were totally unexpected – our 4th ever record for the site!

Little Egret – photographed at the Ebro Delta, Spain
The later walk (that started at 9am) was more of a birding affair with many of the group being members of the London Natural History Society. By this point, the sun was beating down making it the warmest day of the year so far.
The avian highlights included a high flying Common Buzzard and our first Spotted Flycatcher for the year. Overall, it was a great morning that totally restored my flagging faith in my beloved local patch.

Is summer here?

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Had a good game of footie this morning. We lost 8-7, although the official score was listed as 7-7. Being a goalkeeper, you tend to know how many times you had the scoop the ball out of the back of the net!

For once the sun shone today and it was reasonably warm. I took the rest of day off from being The Urban Birder and strolled around, read the paper and watched ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ before turning in early. I have 2 bird walks tomorrow at The Scrubs starting with a Dawn Chorus at 5am.
Night night.

Manchester

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As I sit here listening to some vintage Herbie Hancock on Spotify I am praying for some fine weather over the weekend, because Sunday morning will see me leading a group of fellow foolhardy early risers around my beloved Wormwood Scrubs on a quest to hear nature’s finest west London singers. More on that dawn chorus on Sunday.

This morning I arose at a reckless hour to catch the first train out of town to Manchester to pick up my groups European Cup Final tickets. I left London bathed in pleasant sunshine and arrived in Manchester under a dark leaky cloud. I got a cab straight to Old Trafford and within an hour had picked up the gold dust-like tickets and was seated on the train back to London. 
A real smash and grab raid.

Brent Bird Boy

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Me aged 11 in front of the first birdtable I ever made!
This morning was spent in the BBC Radio 5 Live studios in the company of Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogerty talking about birdsong. Nicky asked me to identify a Chaffinch, Blackbird and Robin for the nation. I had a very pleasant time.
The rest of the day was spent corresponding, pitching ideas to The One Show and resurrecting an identification book idea with A&C Black that I have been harbouring for many years. I’m meeting up with those guys in a couple of weeks. I also learnt today that I will be giving a talk at The British Birdwatching Fair on the Sunday – the day after my birthday.
Got a call from the Brent Magazine, who asked if they could feature me as an ‘outstanding’ Brent citizen in their July edition. I duly agreed, so they will interview me next week at The Scrubs.
Tomorrow morning I will boarding a train heading for Manchester to pick up my European Cup Final tickets – at 6.20am.
Ouch!

Let’s make a film

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Today was quite interesting. For once, I spent a lot of time answering and sending emails that I should have sent about a thousand years ago. I also heard that I had received my European Cup Final tickets in the club ballot. The bad news is that I have to journey up to Manchester to pick up the tickets at Old Trafford. I’ll probably do that on Friday.

I received a great email from Visit Finland inviting me up to the Finnish/Russian border to film the bears in the forest in July. How exciting is that? This trip would be over and above the scheduled trip to Helsinki on the behalf of Bird Watching Magazine to study the urban birdlife. My agent shared my enthusiasm too. She’s a very lovely woman.
I also discovered Spotify for the first time today. I’d been meaning to get hooked up for sometime, so I was glad when I did it.
Tonight, I was in a private cinema in the plush Covent Garden Hotel watching a film called ’44 Inch Chest’ directed by my mate, Malcolm Venville. It’s a London based film that will be released in the autumn. It’s well worth a gander.

The Lee Valley Wildlife Weekend

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Me and a young birder who came all the way from Harrow to meet me
Did the Lee Valley day today. Unfortunately, the weather was not too kind initially with lashing rain and wind. Although there were sunny spells later, the damage had been done and far fewer people attended than originally hoped for.
Met fellow wildlife presenter, Steve Backshall, who I must say is a lovely man. We spent a lot of the day chatting shop as well as talking about his remarkable recovery from his recent terrible accident in which he broke his back and crushed an ankle. 

Steve Backshall and I trying to decipher the audio visual equipment
I gave a talk in the main marquee about the virtues of looking for wildlife in cities. I admitted to a childhood crime against wildlife when I drowned bumblebees whilst testing to see if they could swim!

The Urban Birder relaying the Wormwood Scrubs Prison story
My second talk was within a lecture room and was about how to become an urban birder. I embellished it be showing a couple of The One Show clips. 

Steve Backshall and I
Later, I appeared on the Eddie Nestor show on Radio London discussing the week’s topical subjects that ranged from Jordan and Andre splitting to the cheating MP’s scandal.
All in all, a tiring though enjoyable day.

Winning

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Good day for footie today! 

We drew 18-18 this morning and United won the league!
Today was an industrious day working on my talk for my stint at the Lee Valley Wildlife Weekend tomorrow.
If you’re around pop by!

Portugal off

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Early morning saw me at The Scrubs under incredibly bleak skies. The highlights were a Mistle Thrush and nothing much else.

I received the news today that my trip to Portugal next week was been postponed apparently because of a cock-up from the tourist board’s end. The annoying thing was that I had to chase the organisors as I hadn’t heard anything.

Anyway, I’ve got two legs and I’m still breathing. I’m a very lucky boy, so what have I got to complain about?
Whilst fighting off a sore throat and runny nose (although I don’t feel ill) I started to work on my presentation for this weekend’s Lea Valley Wildlife Weekend.

Mottos

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I love this shot of a female Golden Oriole (D. Stanic)

Yesterday’s twitch was just the tonic I needed. I sprung out of bed with renewed vigour and optimism. As I travelled to The Scrubs, I remembered one of the several Urban Birder motos; ‘Go out expecting everything or nothing. Then you’ll never be disappointed.’

My patch was fairly quiet bar a singing Sedge Warbler, 2 Swallows and a couple Meadow Pipits were observed carrying food in the grassland. There were plenty of Common Whitethroats, Song Thrushes, Linnets and a singing Lesser Whitethroat. All was good in the hood.
I learnt today that the White-winged Black Tern had moved on along with its 13 or so Black Tern congeners – so I got in just in time. Checking Birdguides’ website showed a large movement of Black Terns around the country with a sprinkling of White-winged Blacks. All very interesting.
This evening, I popped down to my local chippie for a fish and chip dinner. As I strolled down the road, I looked up and flying leisurely over was a Peregrine with full crop heading in the direction of nearby Paddington Station.
Another Urban Birder motto sprung to mind: Look up and enjoy.

Temptation

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The Black Lark Twitch on Angelsey
I finally had to succumb. I could take it anymore. I had to reach out take the drug.
I went on a twitch.
On a whim, I headed over to Staines Reservoir near Heathrow Airport as a White-winged Black Tern had been hanging around  there for the past three days. This is the only marsh tern that I had yet to see. It was my bogey bird. Every one that I had gone for in the past eluded me. I even dipped on one that showed up at my then patch, Brent Reservoir. 
It was a grey misty day today, but it felt like a great migrant finding day. Anyway, to cut the story short I saw the tern distantly from the causeway at first but after chatting with some of the birders in attendance it came really close to us. I was delighted. A lifer.
One of the last times I twitched was when the Black Lark showed up on Anglesey, North Wales. I gave up twitching per se in the ’80’s and my criteria for the lark was that since it had come all the way from Kazakhstan it would have been rude not to have seen it!
I fancy going on another twitch now. That Black-winged Pratincole at Grove Ferry, Kent sounds pretty good…..

Dispirited

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The weather’s been a bit weird lately. Quite windy and nippy, despite the sunshine. I woke up at 5am with the intention of going to The Scrubs. I’m still a bit dispirited at the moment and I blame it on a mixture of the embarrassment of avian riches in Poland and the lack of anything decent at my patch. It has left me feeling like writing the rest of the month off. Of course I won’t, but such is the curse of an Urban Birder.

Today was spent largely behind my laptop screen dealing with emails and trying to complete my April Scrubs bird report. I have written one every month for the past 6 years and with each month it gets harder and harder. They are over 3,000 words long and as I try to keep them original and witty, they take so long to write.
Rain is forecasted for the morning so it’s an extra lie in for me!

Let’s work

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After knocking out my Bird Watching article last night in double-quick time I’m now riding the crest of the creative wave, rearing to write. So much so, that I called my potential future publisher to chivvy up the process of writing my first book. Anyway, that will be another story.

I’m looking forward to going to Lisbon, Portugal next week to study the urban birding for Bird Watching Magazine. It’s gonna be great! The following week I will be in Rome to hopefully see Manchester United lift the European Cup.
I might even be able to get a urban birding piece out of it too.

ITV shoot

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I had a great day shooting my segment on urban countryside for ITV’s Countrywise in Kensal Green Cemetery. It was a beautiful day and the shoot ran fairly smoothly with great images captured of a Green Woodpecker emerging from its nest hole, dandy Stock Doves, not so loveable Rose-ringed Parakeets and some loafing Cormorants.

Perhaps the most unexpected find was the swarm of honey bees clumped together in some brambles. They were amazing. Although we spent the whole day there, I saw nothing untoward ornithologically apart from a possible Siskin that flew overhead.
We wrapped at 6pm and I went home to finish my Bird Watching article on Krakow – which needs to be in by tomorrow morning. My next major deadline is now to prepare a talk for next weekend’s Lea Valley Nature Weekend that I will be attending next Sunday.
Come down and say hello if you are around!