Collecting Books. Not

There must be something about February...

Several of my fellow bloggers have been moved to talk about their libraries. Is it the long, dark evenings? The dreary weather? An excuse to sink into the comfy chair with a nice, hot mug of cocoa? Whatever the reason, I shall join them.

I use the word 'library' advisedly, because it sounds serious, scholarly, grown-up. What in fact they have there - taking up valuable space and straining the joists - are nothing more than 'book collections'. A book collection is like a gnome collection, but not as easy to mock. After all, most would agree that books are attractive and somehow worthy. Nevertheless, 'library' is still very much a euphemism for a bit of literary hoarding.

Don't get me wrong, I love books. The smell of them, the chunky feel, the way they look so welcoming when crammed just a wee bit untidily in a bookcase; they make a house a home. On this basis alone I would condone their acquisition. However, I seem to be much more ready to part with them than some! When we moved to Seaton in 2002 I used it as an excuse to thin my collection, well aware that many of my books were almost never opened. Goodbye BWP et al. I made a few bob and relieved myself of about two tons of box carrying. Moving from Seaton to Bridport provided a similar opportunity, also taken. Even now though, a number of my books are no more than home decor. Some of those are kept for sentimental reasons, but some are simply kept...

I don't really get that precious about books, and am always ready to loan them out, sometimes for ever. One or two good 'uns have gone that way. I used to have a fairly decent collection of fishing books, including the first annual of the British Carp Study Group. I bought it in 1974 I think, at a fishing tackle show at the Royal Horticultural Halls in Vincent Square, London. I loaned it out, and haven't seen it since 1970-something. Never mind, I can always get another from a second-hand bookseller...

er...or maybe not!

There is a slightly ironic footnote to this tale. Some years ago Mrs NQS returned from a tour of the Rickmansworth charity shops and announced that she'd bought a couple of books for me. Here they are...

Published respectively in 1980 and 1983, they wound up in my 'library' in exchange for something like a £2 donation to the British Heart Foundation. A copy of The Third BCSG Book is now being offered by the dealer in the screenshot above for £150! Tucked into one of them was the scrap of paper. As you can see, it is entitled 'Carp List'. Straight away that suggests to me a juvenile hand. A list of hefty carp follows, recording the weight, what type of carp it was, and the venue. Any carp fanatic reading this would instantly pick up on the venues, 'Conservative' and 'Fisheries'. These are both Colne Valley carp waters, both operated by clubs with a waiting list of about a hundred years. In other words, highly exclusive, don't bother to apply. The initials? LL = 'Large Lake', SL = 'Small Lake' and NL = 'New Lake'. I know this because I too was once a member of the 'Cons' club, as it was affectionately known. By the time I was fishing the Cons from about 1999 it held carp to over 50 pounds, including several over 40. Huge fish, hence why membership of the Fisheries and Cons clubs was so highly sought after. Judging by the size of carp in the list above, our mystery angler was most likely fishing the lakes in the 1980s. To be honest, that little bit of paper is probably responsible for me hanging on to those books. It adds a small measure of intimacy and makes me curious. Who was the angler? Was he young like I imagine? Why did he part with the books? What's the story?

Perhaps there is some middle-aged bloke out there now, going 'You know, I once had the 3rd and 4th BCSG books...I used to keep my list of carp in one of them. Now, who did I lend them to...?'

Barbour Jackets

When I was a young angler in the 1970s a waxed cotton Barbour jacket was part of the uniform. My first was a Solway Zipper. This was the Barbour to which my angling pals aspired. It was hideously expensive but absolutely essential to angling maturity, like a Mitchell reel or Bruce & Walker rod. When birding began to dominate my outdoor activities I was still in a Barbour jacket; a Barbour Border it was by this time. Still waxed cotton.

Waxed cotton...

Of course, it is still around today, but I cannot think of any other clothing material less deserving of such longevity. It was, and I imagine still is, absolutely foul stuff. It's okay when new, and even has an attractively rustic smell - in my mind's nose I can smell it as I type, in fact - but give it some time and out come its true colours. A waxed cotton jacket is about the most disgusting thing you can wear on a cold, wet winter's day as you sit by the river, waiting forlornly in the drizzle for a bite. Pretty quickly my Solway Zipper lost its supple, slightly-oily-cloth feel and became a clammy, stiff, shiny horror. It was like wearing barely articulated cardboard tubes; it could easily stand up on its own. It also rapidly became less waterproof. Not all over, I'll admit, just in strategically unhelpful areas like the shoulders and most seams. Naturally, being an uncultured oaf I wasn't going to 'maintain' my jacket with a regular dose of Barbour Thornproof Wax Dressing. And anyway, like that was going to make any difference!

Thornproof...

Yes, that was the Barbour tag line. To be fair I don't recall ever ripping a Barbour on thorns, but barbed wire went through it like a hot knife through butter. Never mind though, because Barbour operate a repairs service, or you can buy a repair kit with dressing, spare bits of tartan lining cloth, needles and some good strong thread. Please! It ain't gonna happen, is it! We're talking smelly teenage angler here. No, a coat simply needs to be robust, reliable and comfortable, without the need for human intervention every other day.

Oh, and the fit. Dreadful. I was (and still am) a gangly 6'4". Barbour jackets were not designed for such a frame. Even in XL the sleeves were still too short by some 2" or so. And the chest was simply immense. Finally, the hood. Laughable. It clipped on with four press studs. That was fine. It pulled tight with a drawstring. This was okay, though you had to tie a knot to keep it tight. But the thing was just so small! No peak, and it barely made the front of your hairline. The only way to get any funtionality from the hood was to wind in your neck like a tortoise.

Despite all this, when my Solway Zipper finally rotted to death I replaced it with a Border. More of the same. What possessed me? I don't know, but can only assume there wasn't much else available, or I was just a sucker for the label. Of course, the label is still going strong. Still very expensive, and please help yourself to waxed cotton if you must. But I don't see many anglers or birders wearing Barbour jackets these days. Perhaps they all owned a 1975 Solway Zipper and therefore know better...

Edit: forgot I had this pic. Solway Zipper in action on the Royalty Fishery, Hants Avon in Dec 1979. Evidence that, despite my recollection to the contrary, it did actually allow me to bend my arms.

A Gull for Lunch

Whenever I'm working in the Seaton area I do try to wind up next to the Axe Estuary at lunch time. At this time of year there's always the chance of a decent gull. Today there was a good collection of birds down by the tram sheds, so after a quick look upstream I pulled over and checked them out, trying not to get sarnie crumbs all over my optics. Nothing much though, so lunch break over and back to work. Heading through the town I pass Steve going in the opposite direction...

A few minutes later, 'ding', a text: 'Nice ad argentatus cori corner'

Typical!

Thankfully I wasn't mid-way through a job, and was back by the the river pretty quickly.

Steve has already mentioned the fact on his blog, but it's worth pointing out just how scarce a bird is 'Scandinavian' Herring Gull in Devon. It is an A-list rarity, along with Red-throated Pipit, White-billed Diver and Alpine Swift, and rightly so. Including this one I have seen a grand total of just three in this neck of the woods - both the others (also adults) were on 28 January, 2011. Compare that with five Ring-billed Gulls and something like nine or ten Caspian Gulls (er, yes, I can't recall exactly. I know, shameful) and you get the picture.

Here it is on its own - and yes, I know -  looking exactly like every other Herring Gull, ever.

But here it is with an adult argenteus, significantly darker.

Argentatus Herring Gulls tend to have more white/less black in the primaries than argenteus. This bird seems to fit the bill okay, with a long white tip to p10, no black in p5 and just a bit in p6. Also interesting was how little black is visible from underneath; if this is a useful feature, I wasn't aware of it. Compare with the argenteus underwing pictured below...

[see caption to photo above]

As we know, gulls are variable, hybridise like crazy, and eat radioactive plastic, so I suppose this bird could be anything really. However, it looks alright to me and I am quite happy to call it an argentatus Herring Gull. Very nice it was too.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the estuary the Island Hide on Black Hole Marsh was apparently creaking at the seams. Why? Because there's a Green-winged Teal to be had. It hadn't been seen for at least an hour and a half when I popped over, so I didn't even get out of the van but headed straight off to work. In a way I was glad it wasn't showing. It's funny, I had kind of felt obliged to go and make an effort, yet knew I'd not enjoy it much. The gull had been in a different league. There's never going to be a crowd for that! Just Steve, Ian M and myself, watching it from the side of the river, out in the open...so, SO much better than crammed in a hide...

Maybe that's why I like gulls? Because so few others do...

The Age Card

A couple of months ago I made a small effort to unearth blogs written by young birders. By 'young' I mean under 25 or so. I found no more than a handful, and have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of regularly updated blogs with a mainly birdy theme are written by those who might be described as middle-aged. Middle-aged is a handy tag that fits anyone from 40-ish to...well, I expect the upper limit will stretch infinitely to accomodate whatever age I might currently be.

Is this dearth of prolific young bloggers real, or is it just that I didn't look hard enough? Whatever the truth of the matter I have to admit that I don't really care that much, because my preferred reading material is generated largely by the older bloggers anyway. There is something about the output of older writers that sits well with me, though to be honest I am struggling to put my finger on exactly what it is. Maybe it's a measure of wisdom that comes with years? Or that ability to sometimes draw material from days of yore? Perhaps it's as simple as the fact that many are my contemporaries and I can therefore easily identify with their experiences? Yes, that's probably it. For example, if any of them were to tell me that they'd been shifting and leveling several tonnes of scalpings over the last couple of days and were now aching in muscles they didn't know they had, I would know exactly what they meant. Because I've been doing precisly that, and only a middle-aged person would be able to empathise with the resultant agony!

As well as building a base for the Man Cave I have been converting the front lawn into a car park. These days you don't have to have concrete, tarmac or brick pavers, you can opt for the more eco-friendly (porous) plastic grid pavers filled with gravel. But you still need a solid sub-base, thus...

Yesterday. Loads of scalpings.

And today. All neat and tidy, ready for a good whacking.

Round the back is a large shuttered area, also filled with scalpings, which will be the base for the Man Cave. However, there will be no photos just yet because the attentions of a 1.5 tonne Takeuchi excavator have left our so-called garden looking like the Somme. Later...

Another thing about older bloggers. All of them will no doubt recall how, back in the 80s and early 90s, everyone (and I mean everyone) was into jogging/running. It was the thing. Any village with a population of more than ten held its own marathon. Like everyone else, I got caught up in this craziness. Here I am in the Oxford half marathon in 1992...

Notice how I'm winning. Obviously.

This photo was sent by my old mate Ric, who has known me since I was about 12 and knows where all the bodies are buried...

Ric also sent me the following.

As I said, everyone was into jogging back then, so it was perfectly normal to see people going about their everday affairs dressed in short-shorts and singlet. Honestly. Really, I cannot understand why you are chuckling at these pics, because it was quite natural to go fishing in your running kit...

These were taken in 1990, and my elder son Rob, pictured here, is now older than I was then. Hmmm...sobering.

Man Cave

Two weeks without a post...what's going on? Can't be phasing already can he?

I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I must confess that I am struggling for material at the moment. Well, I am if I want NQS to maintain a predominantly birdy theme. Perhaps the solution is simply not to worry what I write about? Yes, I think that will have to be it, just talk about anything.

The weather, say...

The weather is currently playing havoc with my life. Relentless rain is not good for window cleaners, so any dry days are mostly earmarked for work right now, which is a pain. Can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of birding in the stuff either, so there hasn't been much of that. Or cycling in it, so there hasn't been much of that. However, I've not been completely idle...

Moving from Seaton to Bridport last March was more than just a change of location; it also meant some significant downsizing, from a four bedroom house to a two bedroom bungalow. This is what pragmatic folk do just prior to old age, before they are so irredeemably knackered that the only viable move remaining to them might involve an urn. However, the truly pragmatic would downsize all their various needs as well, so that a smaller home doesn't cramp their style too much. Well, things have worked out okay in the main - I have a garage for my fleet of bicycles, and the front room is easily big enough for both the 'his' and 'hers' sofas. Unfortunately though, I did overlook one crucial need - I didn't foresee quite how much I would miss having my own space. In Seaton I converted one of the smaller bedrooms into an office/study. It had a bulky desktop computer with a widescreen monitor and I would retire there for most of the summer to watch the Tour de France highlights on catch-up, slouched in a big comfy chair with a glass of wine. I miss it hugely. I expressed this concern to Mrs NQS, in the slim hope that she might bequeath me the spare bedroom. Not. A. Chance. To her credit though, she did offer a solution: "What about a big shed?"

My scant knowledge of outdoor buildings led me to presume that a 'shed' wouldn't really be practical for year-round use. Wrong. A bit of Googleage introduced me to log cabins, Black Friday introduced me to a 25% discount, and now the garage is full of a massive wooden jig-saw puzzle waiting for the weather to let me convert it into this:

It's insulated, it's double-glazed, and I can heat it...

I have learned a new term: Man Cave. Apparently that is what it will become once it is appropriately kitted out and stocked with wine. Who am I to argue?

Perhaps I can add DIY projects to the scope of this blog? Actually, I think I shall have to...

Extracurricular Activity

I've just returned from a couple of days in The New Forest. The route took us right past Blashford Lakes near Ringwood, and it seemed only sensible to have a look. We visited on Sunday afternoon, and again this morning. Blashford Lakes is a complex of gravel pits, some managed by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. There are footpaths, hides, a handy leaflet with a map for visitors, and millions of birds. Impressive! For example, some 200 Pintail on Ibsley Water, along with masses of more everyday floating stuff. Also, single Black-necked and Slavonian Grebes here, plus - on Kingfisher Lake - a typically skulking Ferruginous Duck. This was the tip of the iceberg, and I reckon you could easily spend all day on this complex and not cover it all.

Ibsley Water is regularly hosting an adult Ring-billed Gull at the moment, and on Sunday afternoon we coincidentally timed a visit to the Tern Hide with the early arrivals at the gull roost. There it was among them...

It's the one in the middle, and there's an adult Common Gull far right for comparison. How can I tell it's not just dross? Ok, even though it's glaringly obvious to anyone, I'll elucidate. Differences from Common Gull: paler grey (like BHG), with far less prominent tertial crescent; chunkier head, bit like a mini-HG. Plus, in this photo you can easily pick out lots of clinching detail: the heavier, bright yellow bill with its broad, black subterminal band (or 'ring'), pale iris, smaller white primary 'mirror', bright yellow legs and diagnostic banana-shaped spleen. Sorted.

It's got to be 25+ years since I last did an inland gull roost, so it was great to sit there for a while and watch some of the big stuff arrive. I tracked a darkish looking adult bird with very limited white in the primary tips as it flew all the way to the front of the raft. I paused just long enough to check the mantle colour and note the clean white head, then announced to the hide: "Adult Yellow-legged just dropped in on the far left," making sure my voice had exactly the right level of relaxed gravitas and didn't squeak with excitement. 'Still got it, hotshot' I thought to myself. I didn't say it out loud of course. That would have been pathetic...

By now the hide was beginning to fill with the evening shift, the gull roost specialists, and it was a shame to have to leave. But Mrs NQS was worried that the one correct ID might go to my head and I'd start blurting out all kinds of guff and embarrass her. So, at 15:30 we left, my reputation intact.

Back again this morning, counting Pintails. Look at the little beauties...

Pintails...with some pretty ducks attached

On Sunday afternoon the place was crawling with birders, but today we were predicting an empty car park. Wrong! It's funny, Blashford Lakes is undoubtedly a superb venue, with huge potential I'm sure, but I'm so glad it's not my patch. Too many people, too much hide-based birding, and too much scanning through floating goods. This afternoon I had time for a walk at Cogden. I didn't meet a single person, entered no hides, and the only scanning was hedgetops and sea. I didn't see a lot, admittedly, but for me there is much, much more to enjoyable birding than birds...

Mud and Memory

Yesterday morning there was time for a quick jaunt down to Cogden. One Coot and four Teal comprised my only year ticks, and the best bird was an adult Little Gull lingering distantly offshore. Also nice were two 2w Med Gulls, two Red-throated Divers and three Fulmars...or maybe the same Fulmar three times!

I also had a look for the Firecrest seen recently. No joy, but never mind, because nothing beats a gentle stroll through ankle-deep mud...

So far for me it's been wellies only at Cogden. How different from the Axe Estuary and the nice hard footpaths at Black Hole and Seaton Marshes, say. Very glad I invested in some Muckboots a while back!

As I lounge here in a nice New Forest hotel room, tapping this out with one finger, David Bowie is all over the telly. It's one of those 'remember where you were when you heard they'd pegged it?' moments. I don't have many of those, but my most vivid is 9 Dec 1980. It was early morning and I was driving to the River Colne near Uxbridge to go pike fishing. The radio newsreader announced that John Lennon had been shot dead just a short time ago. I went on to catch about ten pike that day. Mrs NQS would find some irony here. How is it that I can clearly recall something which happened 35 years ago, yet fail to do likewise with a thousand far more vital things within ten seconds of her telling me?

One of life's little mysteries...