Early Success, aka Jam

I can honestly say that this is the first time I have ever felt the need for suppression, but oh my word...

The Reluctant Conservationist

If you managed to chew your way through parts 1-4 of my recent treatise on records committees you might have drawn some conclusions regarding my view of them. If so, you are probably correct:

Yes, I feel that they are a necessary institution and do a necessary job.

But my opinion is based upon a possibly dubious premise: that accurate record-keeping is itself a necessary thing. Well, is it? Do birds - does nature - really need carefully identifying, counting, measuring, recording and archiving? In a comment on Part 1 Dylan Wrathall made this thought-provoking point: "...the natural world doesn't require judges and juries - it is there to be experienced, enjoyed and embraced." I could so easily subscribe to this view at its most simplistic level. Why not simply enjoy it all without feeling the need to convert what we see into just so much data?

I am not a biologist, not an ecologist, not a scientist of any kind. I am not even what you would really call a conservationist; personally I am convinced that man's arrogant hand is quite incapable of successfully managing this planet or its wildlife. However, I do acknowledge that to many, many people this is vital stuff, and I recognise that sound data is often the driver for thoughtful, well-intentioned conservation efforts from which our environment does seem to benefit. For that and many related reasons I am happy to provide such data when I'm in the mood. And if that includes complying with some sort of vetting procedure, so be it.

So I am probably what you might call a reluctant conservationist.

For example, no one could deny that right here we have a success story...

Cirl Bunting press release dated 17/11/2016, lifted straight off RSPB website

And I imagine that a great deal of careful observation, recording and subsequent data analysis contributed to this happy outcome. As a result, in 25 years we've gone from 100-odd to 1,078 Cirl Bunting pairs. Undeniably a success. I mean, who wouldn't want to enjoy more of these little beauties...?

Male Cirl Bunting with Brambling at Broadsands, Devon in February 2008

While we're on the subject of success stories we could make reference to Red Kite perhaps. Certainly a description species when I was still a London birder, but now a ubiquitous feature of many a skyscape, including some of London's. More controversially though, Common Crane. "Between 2010 and 2015, 93 Common Cranes were hand-reared to release onto the Somerset Levels and Moors - doubling the UK population, and helping to secure the future of the Crane in the UK" says the blurb on the The Great Crane Project website.

"Why?" says the cynic sitting at this keyboard. Were they not doing pretty well on their own?

And how about Great Bustard? Earlier this year I came across some rather gloomy data re. mortality and suchlike that confirmed for me what I've always thought, i.e. that the UK Great Bustard project is a ridiculously optimistic endeavour. Unfortunately I cannot seem to find this data right now, and a careful search of the Great Bustard Group website produces nothing that we might truly call 'results'. Maybe because they are so depressing? Ah well. Anyway, when it comes to reintroducing this species I am once again forced to ask: Why?

Evidently, time, money and massive effort is invested in all these and similar projects, but sadly I can only draw this analogy: to me it is all like polishing the wing mirror on a classic car with terminal chassis rot. Is it just me who sees things this way?

And there, dear readers, I leave you with my joyous Sunday offering...

Scilly Exercise

I do love the Scilly Isles. And it's not just the birding. It's the scenery, the atmosphere, everything; it's just a beautifully tranquil place to be. But of course our visits are always bird-oriented, and timed to coincide with a decent chance of a vagrant or two, in other words spring or autumn. Never summer. Until this year, that is...

Our younger son got married in July, an event which saw the Haig clan descend from far and wide. My sister Karen and her husband Mark flew in from Sydney, and as we hadn't seen them for years we arranged to go away for a few days together after the wedding. They both enjoy walking but had never been to Scilly, so choosing the destination was easy.

Scilly in late July is a very different place. There are no birds at all. None. So you have to find other amusements. Walking is clearly an option. You know, the same as what you would do if there were birds, but without the lengthy pauses by this hedge or that gateway. But there are other, perhaps less obvious pleasure possibilities. For example, you could rent a bike...

Rental beast-bike at Porthloo. See? No birds.

The same spot at Porthloo, looking towards the harbour at Hugh Town. And again, complete lack of birds.

Some 20-odd years ago I remember hiring bikes for myself and the boys one day during a family holiday, a fuzzy memory that holds images only of carefree delight. Well, my motive this time was different. I was not intent upon some joyous, two-wheeled frolic around St Mary's. No, I wanted the bike more as a means of exercise than sightseeing. So, early one morning I headed out into the familiar lanes...

I admit I have been spoiled these recent years. My bikes are relatively lightweight machines, their componentry slick and efficient. In other words, a pleasure to suffer on. Well, this beast was hideous in the extreme. Its monstrous weight was not the problem - that's called 'resistance training' - no, it was the little orchestra of squeaks, clicks and clunks! And the horribly untrustworthy gear-changing! And that saddle! My backside has never endured a more uncomfortable saddle. Yes, I know, it looks all big and soft and squashy, but that's exactly why it's so painful. It is perhaps paradoxical that the most comfy bike saddles are almost bereft of padding, but it's true. Anyway, I was quite relieved to get my wincing posterior off the thing for a quick photo-shoot at Porthloo.

Lesson learned. Next time I'll take my own bike over.

My brother-in-law Mark is a good runner. In fact in his youth he was a completely mad runner. He completed the South Downs 80 (yes, eighty) for example. Twice. Twenty five years ago he and my sister lived on the outskirts of Edinburgh, and several times we ran together up into the Pentland Hills from their home. Well, the last time I went for an actual proper run was in 1993, so I'm not quite sure what I was doing asking Mark if he fancied going out for a little jog round St Mary's...

We followed the road to Old Town - quite slowly - and then headed out to Peninnis on the footpath. I was doing okay, even looking forward to the climb up to the lighthouse, when suddenly Mark pulled up, limping; he'd twisted an ankle on the gnarly path. So that was that. We jogged/limped/walked back to our digs by the shortest route possible. We'd been out maybe 20 minutes, and I was thinking to myself, "Hmmm, not too bad. I'd quite like to do that again..."

What a fool.

Strolling along Porthloo Lane one day we spotted this...

Mark and Karen would be gone by the Sunday, but Mrs NQS and I had a few more days. Worthy cause, I thought. Five kilometres isn't too far, I thought. Why not? I thought.

Sunday July 24th dawned wet and dull. Perfect conditions, said the veteran runner within, as he peered out the window and nodded knowingly. I lined up, paid my fiver and received a number and some pins. Wow. I hadn't pinned a number on since...ooh...must have been that fateful Harrow Marathon when I knackered my knee. Anyway, at 11.00 we were off...

Alway, always, always, at the start of a race there's someone on the front who really shouldn't be there! There I am, sensibly (and conspicuously!) towards the back of the field. I was fiercely determined to hold on to this position.

Yes, lots of fun to watch before going for a coffee and huge cake. You can just make me out, level with the back of the bus. Notice how lots of very young girls are well ahead of me? That's how it remained.

By about 4k I was struggling. Bike-fit is not running-fit, and my poor old legs were looking for muscle groups they didn't have. A little twinge in my left calf got me worried for a moment, but that quickly eased, so as we climbed the slope past the school I was looking forward to going for it a bit on the descent past the dairy and along the Strand towards the Finish. However, topping the rise I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my right calf which almost stopped me dead...but I kept going, limping pathetically to the line. In the next five minutes my calf seized up completely. Mrs NQS was very quiet, but there are a million ways to say "I told you" that don't involve words. I heard all of them.

I was limping badly for a couple more days, and the muscle didn't heal completely for at least a fortnight. Another lesson learned.

Still, I got a nice medal...

It's the one on the left, obviously. The one on the right is another story...

A Poignant Moment

Last week the heater on my van suddenly went cold. Initially I was simply annoyed (and chilly) but quickly the penny dropped and a memory from the days of ancient motors past reared its ugly head and said "You're losing coolant, old son". Sure enough I was, and rapidly. So, right now I am vanless until a crucial new part is delivered and fitted.

Being unable to work is a nuisance but, with the outdoor temperatures at finger-numbing lowness just now, I can live with it. So what have I been doing instead? Earning a few brownie points here and there. Also cycling. Wrapping up and getting out on the bike is highly satisfying. Yes it's cold, but the sunshine and scenery more than compensate. Mind you, today I kept mainly to gritted roads - the lanes were decidedly iffy where the sun hadn't melted the frost. It's a long time since I've properly fallen off my bike, and I'm quite happy to extend that period indefinitely.

Early this afternoon I walked into town and completed a couple of errands. On the way back I strolled with deliberate slowness along the little river that runs down the valley just east of our house...

This is the River Asker, one of Bridport's two main watercourses

I was looking for fish. The Asker contains small trout. I say small, but who knows, perhaps there are big ones in there too? As expected I spotted one or two darting for cover as I meandered along. Then, rounding a bend, I saw something quite unexpected: a piece of wood the size of a book floating downstream towards me, with a blazing fire aboard! Watching its progress were a woman and two young boys, aged around seven and five. I could hear the boys' eager voices from some distance, and naturally wondered what it was all about. I had my quip ready for when I drew level. I was going to say "That looks just like a Viking funeral ship!" or something along those lines...

Before I could say anything though, the older boy turned to me and said, quite matter-of-fact: "We're burning it for our dead daddy's birthday." As you can imagine, I was not expecting that. After exchanging a few appropriate words with the boys and their mum I walked on, my mind suddenly on quite other matters than fish...

Back in the Day...

If you google 'nostalgia' you'll see it can be defined 'a...wistful affection for a period in the past'. As far as I'm concerned that fits nicely. I have no sentimental longing that such times were here again, I simply enjoy the memory of them.

Given my age you might expect my nostalgia trips to reach far back in time, and of course some do. But not all. Recently I was searching online for a photo I knew I'd published somewhere, and thought I might find it on Birdforum. If you followed earlier incarnations of NQS you'll probably be familiar with Backwater Birding, a Birdforum thread which began in January 2006. Like a little soap opera it documented the fortunes of the Backwater Birders as they exploited the potential of the Axe Estuary and surrounding area in East Devon. It was quite lively right from the start, but at its peak there would be several posts a day - 30 or more in a week was not at all unusual. It is safe to say that 2007 was the big year in many ways, not least for this amazing event (scroll down to post #2795 and on...). However, change was in the air, and 2008 saw three of the principal contributors start up their own blogs. Pretty soon the writing was on the wall and Backwater Birding eventually fizzled out in 2012.

Well, I didn't find my photo but I did enjoy enjoy a delightfully nostalgic time browsing the Backwater thread...

I can't believe how rude I was about Steve Waite, who now of course is the venerable and respected ex-county recorder for Devon, but then...well...let's just say there was a reason I regularly referred to Steve as the Eating Machine, and the Doughnut Jedi. I'm sure it's just a total coincidence that he married a girl whose Twitter handle is Jessicakes!

On 27th October 2007 Steve found a putative 2nd-winter Caspian Gull on the estuary at Coronation Corner. I quickly joined him and together we watched the bird and managed a few poor photos. This was early days of tricky gull ID for both of us; if confirmed as a Casp this would be Devon's second, following a juv in Torbay in 2006. On October 30th I wrote this on Backwater Birding:

"I have done a good bit of reading up on Caspian Gull ID, and am happy enough with our bird to a) submit it, and b) tick it. I think we are getting better and better at gull ID here, so hopefully Caspian will appear again before too long..."

In the event we had to wait another two years for our second Caspian Gull (and Devon's third) but even so I cannot help smiling wryly at what seem slightly prescient words now. I'm not sure how many the Axe has had to date, but it's comfortably into double figures.

Here's one from December 2011...

And then again, here's a...er... 'possible Casp' we wrestled with in April 2007. I even posted a few photos on the Birdforum ID thread. At the time I was hopeful...but clearly also quite ignorant!

Today my 'gull eye' would filter out this poor creature in a moment, but this was more than nine years ago.

Yep, back in the day I was pretty rubbish at gulls.

Bike Ride Imitates Life

On Wednesday I skived off work early and went for a hefty bike ride. This was naughty. After a lot of wet weather I should really have been earning money, but...well...

It was only about 6 or 7 °C, so I was trying a little dodge I'd read about somewhere. It's always my feet that suffer first in cold weather, but apparently if you wrap kitchen foil over your socks it keeps then all toasty. So that's what I did. Wooly socks, foil, shoes, neoprene overshoes. And off I went, like something ready for the oven.

The country lanes around here are quite lovely, like this one between Eggardon Hill and Beaminster...

This little section is downhill, and as I stopped to take this photo I felt all at peace with the world, life, everything. At the bottom of the slope you go under a disused railway bridge, and on approaching it I noticed a temporary road sign: 'Flood'. Sure enough, beneath the bridge was a stretch of water. Ah well, I thought blithely, I'll coast gently into it and see how we go. Well, we went deep. In just a few yards my 'gentle coast' was grinding to a rapid halt in two feet of water. Nothing for it but to unclip, put down my carefully wrapped tootsies and wade the bike through as quickly as possible. What now? Well, I certainly wasn't turning around and going back! So, drippingly, onwards...

My plan was to ride to Sutton Bingham Reservoir and back, some 45 miles. So far I'd done about seven. By the time I got to SBR my feet were very cold indeed. Walking across the road to take this photo I wasn't quite sure if I had feet at all; I certainly couldn't feel them.

A mile or so later I passed a tractor cutting a hedge with a flail. It's happening everywhere locally right now, and many of the lanes are consequently littered with twigs and chippings. I was just thinking how fortunate we are that most of our hedges down here comprise elm, hazel and suchlike, rather than the diabolical hawthorn, when 'tick-tick-tick-tick...' why, there was a little chunk of wood stuck to my front tyre. I stopped and tried unsuccessfully to flick it off. So I pulled at it. Reluctantly, a thorn about a foot long eased itself out, and a thin hiss of precious air made a bid for freedom...

I got home as it was getting dark. My feet looked - and felt - like huge fillets of refrigerated cod. As I waited patiently for them to thaw naturally before poaching them in a hot shower I meditated on the day's lesson.

Hmmm, I thought, that floodwater was a like a little metaphor for life. You plunge in, all cheery hope and optimism, you wind up seriously out of your depth and you suffer the consequences for ages afterwards.

Then I uncorked a bottle of wine...which cures everything.

The Records Committee. Part 4. The Decision.

So, you send in the description of the rarity you've seen and the records committee sits down to assess it. They come to a decision. In London, in the 1980s, that decision would be Accept or Reject. In Devon today (and probably everywhere else) it is Accept or Not Proven. I'm not sure when 'reject' morphed into 'not proven' but one can't help wondering why this happened. After all, there's no actual difference in the decision - it's certainly not 'accepted' is it? And isn't the end result for that particular rarity description precisely the same? In the bin!

Well, yes...I suppose it is...but rather than just mock this little game of semantics, can we learn something from it?

A bit of insight into what 'not proven' means can be found on the Devon Birds website. Here's a quote:

'Records will be accepted if a majority of the Committee agree that the evidence presented is adequate. The criteria used by the Committee are necessarily strict to maintain the credibility of the Annual Report and Devon Birds database.' 

'if...the evidence presented is adequate.' Notice that? What we as observers have to realise is that when we send in a rarity description we are not telling the records committee what we've seen, no, we are presenting evidence for what we've seen. We are making a case. And, as in a court, the evidence may, or may not, be adequate to prove the case in the eyes of that court. The case might possibly wind up 'not proven'.

In a courtroom the decision will affect lives, of course. But what's at stake in the County Records Committee room? Well, it's there in the above quote: '...the credibility of the Annual Report and Devon Birds database'. The committee is simply trying to safeguard the credibility of the county's Annual Bird Report and birdy database for posterity, trying to keep them free of anything that might in the future be pointed at with a raised eyebrow and a "Hah! Re-e-e-e-eally??!" *

Logically then, our description - our 'evidence' - will need to meet a very good standard. And the rarer the bird, the higher the bar.

Unfortunately we don't necessarily see it in such sanguine terms. Our view might be that we've seen what we've seen, and we are graciously offering the records committee our description for their files. And quite often we're a bit miffed at being asked to go through such a process at all. So if our offer is deemed 'not proven', well, it's been turned down, hasn't it! Our offer has been...yes...rejected!

We don't tend to take rejection well. We're much better at taking offense.

I suspect this is why we've seen the move from 'rejected' to 'not proven'. In a sense, I think the records committee represents the Establishment. It doesn't mean to, and certainly doesn't want to, but it does. In previous generations, most folk would willingly kowtow to various forms of the Establishment. Indeed, historically many birdwatchers would have come from its ranks, would have seen no problem with having a committee act as guardian of avifaunal records, and certainly not been upset by a 'reject' decision. "On the chin, dear boy..." Feelings towards the Establishment are very different today. Many, understandably, do not wish to conform. Folk are much more prone to bristle, fume and kick hard against what they will now see as imperious, high-handed behaviour by jumped-up, self-appointed twerps in questionable authority. Records committees do not wish to be seen as imperious and high-handed. Or jumped-up twerps. Hence...softly-softly...whisper it...

Not Proven...sorry about that...

To put it simply, we're more touchy these days, and need gentler handling. I reckon the move from 'reject' to 'not proven' is a recognition of that shift in sensitivity, and though a bit of a cheesy move perhaps, suggests to me that records committees are keen not to alienate us, but to win us over and gain our support. Anyway, that's my little theory.

_____________________________________________________________

On a different note, some have asked what happens when a committee member submits a rarity description. Well, that's easy. All his mates on the committee clap him on the back and out comes the rubber stamp marked 'Accept'.

Next question?

Okay, seriously. I've seen it happen many times, and their descriptions go through the process just like anyone else's. It is worth noting at this point that the vast majority of descriptions which pass through a committee's hands are unanimously accepted. A very small number are unanimously deemed not proven, and another small number give rise to a split decision or otherwise come up for discussion. In my experience that statistical outcome was equally true for committee members...with the notable exception of the 'unanimously deemed not proven' bit - after all, I think you'd expect someone on a records committee to be better than that.

So, what occurs when a committee member's description came up for discussion? Well, it happened to me a few years ago. I was asked to step outside for a bit so the others could freely express their thoughts, then I was invited back in - with my fresh pint - and clapped on the back while somebody got out the rubber stamp marked 'Accept'. But of course, this is what you would expect. These were my imperious, high-handed buddies after all, and I was one of their number...

Here is the description that had bothered them...

What do you think? Safe decision? Ah, you're thinking, has the observer conclusively ruled out Pallid Harrier? Hmmm. By the way, nowadays there is a nice electronic form that you can download from the Devon Birds website.

You might recall from Part 2 that in London in the 1980s we didn't get descriptions in advance. Unless they had been posted to us personally, the first time we got to see them was at the next committee meeting. I well remember one meeting when a committee member presented a description of his own for us to consider. Just to be on the safe side I shan't say which county, but I will tell you this: it was a Goshawk. Status in London at the time? Seriously rare. Probably still is. Add to that the fact that Goshawk is notoriously hard to describe convincingly - along with Black Kite it is probably responsible for more 'not proven' decisions than everything else put together. So, the description was read, and there was a lot of coughing and shuffling and looking at the table, while our happy Goshawk observer beamed excitedly at his colleagues...

I'll cut to the chase. Yes, it was accepted **. Yes, I obviously think it was well dodgy. And yes, it probably still happens on occasion. As I said in the last post, what we have here is a subjective, imperfect system. But, as Steve Waite pointed out in a comment on Part 1: if you want to gather and preserve records, what's the alternative?

* Like Sooty Tern at Staines Res, say...

** By the way, that's not a cue for any London readers to reach for their 1980s LBRs...though I wouldn't blame you.