The Inexorable March of Time

As I am growing older, it seems that events conspire more and more frequently to remind me of this unfortunate fact. I'd like to share some recent examples...

Just yesterday Steve tweeted this pic:

In the text of his tweet Steve asked, "Gav, am I right in saying you've seen Leach's Petrel from here?" Steve was right; I have. Sunday morning, 6th November 2005. It was blowing a hoolie, tanking down with rain, and my usual favourite seawatching spot of the day, the thatched shelter partially visible in the photo above, was too exposed to the weather to be viable. I wondered if the concrete hut thing below might be better (I had no idea it was an ex-WWII searchlight emplacement) and headed down to give it a try. Although a bit buffetted by the wind, at least it kept the rain out. By the time I had to leave at 09:00 I'd seen two Leach's Petrels slowly work their way westwards. Phil joined me in time to see the second one, and I think had another after I left. At the time it was a mega patch-tick, and since then I've only seen one other, which was brought to the Seaton Marshes hide in a box in December 2006.

But, my goodness, was it really thirteen years ago?! Aagh!!

Just lately I had a bit of a garage clear-out, and ruthlessly pruned a load of old stuff that I really didn't need any more. Like this, for example:

This rusty old cantilever tool box was nice and shiny when I lovingly applied those stickers to it. I bought it at Wembley market, which was a weekly event at the old stadium in my youth. It would have been in 1978 or '79, which I am painfully aware is basically four decades ago...

Did I really once buy a copy of Hot Rod & Custom Magazine??

And then there was this...

I am doing some work in our loft right now, and beneath the bottom layer of ancient insulation I found a sheet of newspaper. It's the front and back page of an old Sunday Express. Just in case you can't make it out in the photo below, the date is 6th May, 1973...

Photo taken within moments of discovery

What is of special significance for me is the subject matter. I can vividly remember watching that FA cup final on the telly. I had no loyalties to either Leeds or Sunderland, but was rooting for Sunderland because they were such desperate underdogs in this contest. As a 2nd-division team it was a small miracle that they'd even made it to the final, and now they were facing Leeds United, the previous year's winners and one of the most dominant sides in football at the time.

Amazingly, Sunderland scored after 31 minutes and then hung on to that slender lead for the rest of the game to claim victory. As you can imagine, the tension mounted relentlessly with each passing minute, so as the final whistle blew there was this incredible release, and scenes of absolutely massive euphoria from the Sunderland supporters, team and staff. As a 14 year-old I was totally caught up in it, despite not really being a football fan, so the discovery of this little time capsule in my loft took me straight back there...

Forty-five years!!

Horrifying.

Our eldest son will be 36 in December. He is a chef, and has worked all over the place, including a year in Australia and three years in Indonesia. He's just taken a job in Switzerland. When it comes to travel he has ten times more experience than me. Our younger son is 33, and works as an electrician in London, supervising commercial installations. It's sometimes hard to think of my children as mature, responsible adults, in many ways far more knowledgable and accomplished than me. That's bad enough. But in conversation with them I sometimes detect, in the gentle father-and-son banter, a note of amused tolerance, and realise that they are wise to the flaws and frailties of their ageing parents, and patiently accept them...

Now, where's my bus pass?

If Only I Was a Proper Birder...

If only I was a proper birder...

This recent rough weather would have got me all excited, that's for sure. A few storm-blown waifs guaranteed, I reckon. And sure enough, several Grey Phalaropes have turned up along the nearby coast. In times past I would have been out there looking for such gems, and hoping for even better, like a Sabine's Gull perhaps.

Or a Leach's Petrel. Like this one, found in Christchurch Harbour yesterday...

My sentiment would typically have echoed that of @amythebirder there, along with a little envy. If I was a Christchurch Harbour birder I would quite possibly have been popping down for a look, even in my current mode of deep phase. Yes, I might have rocked up, peered at it through some pricey glass, maybe taken a snap or two, willed it to fly around a bit, and so on... All pretty standard birding behaviour which, over the years, I have exhibited many times. On a handful of occasions with this very species in fact.

However, not all the Twitter comments had a tone of such innocent delight...

Now it's true to say that sometimes I have had 'poor thing' type thoughts because of the sorry state of a particular bird (or even a lot of birds during hard-weather movements) and certainly it detracts from one's pleasure when you can see that a bird is clearly on its last legs. But the comment above caught my attention. Evidently it reflects a measure of concern about the bird's condition, and I can appreciate why. Fine. However, the suggestion that observers need to mute their pleasure somewhat because of the bird's seemingly unhappy circumstances surprised me. Putting aside my initial reaction that it was a bit preachy, I gave it some thought. And it has me wondering whether I am somehow out of step with current birding sensibilities...

Let's be frank. If I was out birding in foul weather, an encounter like the above would be exactly what I was hoping for. If I chanced upon a storm-driven Leach's I would be extremely chuffed. And I can say without reservation, worries that I might be experiencing 'too much joy' would be far from my mind; in fact it would be difficult to think of a more satisfactory outcome to a stormy afternoon's birding! Even if the bird was found by someone else, who then texted me, and I twitched it...again, no worries. If it was a patch-tick, I'd be celebrating. If it was a lifer, even more so!

So, is there something wrong with me? Do I lack compassion or something? Is my sensitivity chip corrupted?

Maybe all of those things. Because I have to confess, if I were ever to find a Nearctic cuckoo of some kind (and let's face it, every single one of them is basically a dead-bird-flying, or, more often, a dead-bird-hunched-miserably-on-the-deck) I would be absolutely ecstatic, and no amount of social media moralising would have me feeling any different. Is that not normal any more? Do I need to ask my conscience some hard questions...?

A Small Wriggling Thing, and Other Stories

A couple of weeks back I revisited an old birding haunt...

I hadn't been up here for ages, certainly it was prior to the installation of this information board. Three days on the trot I popped by, but with little reward; just a few Wheatears, Willow Warblers, Whitethroats and so forth. All the same, it was enjoyable to retrace old footsteps, and to remember the successes (and occasional failures) of yore. I'm pleased to note that local birders are still covering Beer Head on a regular basis, with frequently half a dozen or so getting up there of an autumn morning. It's hard to believe that almost 14 years have passed since I first came across late-autumn Firecrest and Ring Ouzel on the headland and vowed to investigate the obvious potential next year. That 'next year' was 2005.

And it's that all-too-rapid passage of time that occupied my thoughts as I sat down with the laptop this afternoon. Where has the year gone? July and August have slipped by without a single NQS post, and to be honest I've covered all I can say about birding in the paragraph above. So, other stuff then...

The Turf Hotel, Exeter, Devon, EX6 8EE

Taken on Friday, 17th August, this photo features a few bicycles. The one on the right is mine. Perhaps you're thinking "Hmm, the Turf Hotel...that name rings a bell somehow..." Well, if you twitched the Devon American Robin, so it should, because this pub is just across the Exeter Ship Canal from where that bird hung out in November 2010. As I sat in the sunshine here, savouring a nice coffee and a melting, sticky cake-thing, I pondered this trivial fact: I have enjoyed high points of three separate hobbies within a stone's throw of this very spot.

1. Said American Robin - the only one I've seen in this land, and a rare 21st-century twitch
2. My biggest-ever pike of 24lb 14oz, in December 2016
3. An idyllic coffee stop during one of the most enjoyable long bike rides I've undertaken

Because yes, it was a lo-o-o-ong bike ride. 90-odd miles in fact. Without a lot of careful route-planning I'd found myself at the Exmouth Marina, and remembered that there was a ferry you could catch from here to take you across the Exe Estuary to Starcross, Why not? I thought...

In the queue

En-route...

Number one novel discovery of this jaunt was learning that there is a floating restaurant in the middle of the river, accessible only by boat. Who knew?

Perhaps I should now find some way to incorporate Turf Lock into an epic run, and chalk up a four-hobby moment in the one spot.

While we're talking Exeter Canal, I should mention a recent event that definitely qualifies as one of my most unexpected - bizarre, even - angling happenings ever...

I joined Rob for an overnight session on the canal last week. Rob was after carp mainly, but I was kitted out with a lighter set-up, aiming for tench. I used an open-ended feeder with a short hook-link on a helicopter rig, and baited with a couple of dead red maggots and a plastic one [with apologies for the esoteric language there]. We were pretty confident of catching something, because we'd seen signs of feeding fish quite nearby, but the downside was that we were in just about the noisiest spot on the canal. Or in the whole of Devon possibly...

That's Rob's bivvy, with the M5 directly above (deafening!) plus occasional passing JCB and heavy engineering works off-stage left. Also, a million cyclists, walkers and dogs.

Compare this spot with the one we fished back in April (as illustrated in this post) and it's a wonder they could possibly be on the same venue. But they are. Mind you, there's over a mile between them, and they're on opposite banks.

Anyway, the fishing was great. Rob had just landed a nice tench when I arrived...

Not the carp he was hoping for, but 5lb 3oz of pristine tench is always going to put a smile on your face.

In just over 24 hours my tenchy tactics outwitted three tench to 5lb exactly, five bream to 7lb 4oz, and something else, entirely unexpected...

It was after midnight. I'd just landed a tench, unhooked it and recast, leaving the fish in the landing net to weigh in a moment. I was just taking out the slack and setting the bobbin and alarm when I felt the line tugged from my fingers. A fish had taken my bait within moments of it settling on the bottom! Whatever I'd hooked felt rather small as I wound it in easily. So small in fact, that I swung it straight to my hand. Whereupon I got a mighty big surprise...

It was a wels, or European catfish! In 1990 I spent a memorable summer fishing for this species at Tiddenfoot Pit in Leighton Buzzard, where I caught something like 16 of the things, up to 27lb 10oz, which was reputedly the biggest in the lake at the time. Back then the species was rare indeed, with just a handful of accessible venues providing a realistic possibility of catching one, and a 30-pounder being about the biggest you might expect. Fast-forward 28 years and the angling scene is very, very different. Catfish now reach an astonishing 90lb in Tiddenfoot, and according to the Leighton Buzzard Angling Club website "...anglers can expect multiple captures in a session." They are also far more widespread. As well as legal stockings in various stillwaters, there have been loads of illegal ones too, and catfish are potentially present just about anywhere. Rumours of their existence in the Exeter Canal are rife, and Rob and I know of a definite 40-pounder caught several years ago. However, we reckoned that in the highly unlikely event that either of us hooked a mythical Exeter Canal 'cat', the ensuing battle would involve an unstoppable force steaming off down the canal like a U-boat before snapping our line like cotton. Because certainly I have never experienced a fish that, pound-for-pound, can pull as hard as a catfish...

And yet here I was, holding a wriggly little tiddler catfish in my hand; an incy-wincy 'kitten'! Evidently the mummy and daddy catfish have got it on, and been fruitful. I bunged it in my huge carp retainer (that I have yet to retain a carp in!) so that I could get a quick phone-snap in the daylight.

And that, dear reader, brings to a close the latest NQS offering. Until next time...

O What a Beautiful Mo-o-o-orning...!

Well, what a glorious morning for a run! I really ought to get a post out while the mood is upon me, especially in the light of what I wrote a couple of days ago...

I was up at six, and at Burton Bradstock by about half-past. Apart from a solitary dog-walker the vista was human-free. Perfect. After a gentle trot round a clifftop field to warm up I headed off towards West Bay, via the Freshwater Beach Holiday Park and Bridport Golf Course. It was simply sublime, the morning air cool and crystal clear, the sea calm and as blue as you like. Apart from a lone golfer and a greenkeeper, fairway life was mostly avian: a few Pied Wags, Crows and other typical June stuff. Coming off the golf course, you drop down through a rough field into West Bay. The view was well worth pausing for...

West Bay is far from my favourite seaside resort, but just look at that coastline...

Then it was round to the sea, and up that vicious cliff path which featured distantly in a photo in the previous post. Arriving at the top I stopped to catch my breath, using the excuse that it was only polite to at least have a cursory look for the plant which Steve Gale mentioned in a recent comment: stinking goosefoot. I had actually checked out some photos online, so knew it was green. Well, there was a lot of green stuff on view. Loads. All of it supremely cryptic. I gave up and headed on, soon coming to the 'stairs'...

The steps on the far side of the dip are actually much steeper than these ones. Even so, a controlled descent is required here; those are proper cliffs, with a proper vertical drop.

After climbing that far slope you drop down the other side to the Freshwater Beach Holiday Park again. Arriving there I was reminded once more of something that they never tell you about running. Not before you first start anyway. No, they let beginners find out all about it when they are out for a run one day in the middle of an extremely public, built-up area, far, far from the nearest loo. Yes, that's right. One of the joys of running is the occasional digestive malfunction...

The prudent runner knows the precise location and opening times of each and every public loo on his/her patch. Well, let me tell you, The Freshwater Beach Holiday Park has a sumptuous shower and toilet block. Well-maintained and delightfully clean. For which I am very grateful.

There is a stiff climb up the cliffs again from Freshwater Beach, and then a smashing path along the top, back to the car. I finished off with another brief jog around the field where I started, a bit of a stretch, and then home.

As a birder - even a pretty shabby one - you can't help noticing birds, wherever you are. In Bridport town centre recently I glanced up and spotted a Peregrine circling, only the second I've seen away from the coast here. Likewise, this morning I couldn't help noticing birds everywhere. As it's still June I didn't bother looking too closely - except at Starlings - but I'm very conscious that autumn will soon be here, and anywhere along the Lyme Bay coast can potentially produce just about anything. I have very fond memories of Beer Head, near Seaton, and the many good birds I saw there, and running along this local stretch of coast reminded me of it very much. In fact, I remembered that we used to see runners at Beer Head quite regularly, and back then I did used to wonder how many decent birds they must have run past during the course of a year...

Which brought another memory flooding back. A runner at Beer Head. A female runner. Late August 2006. Yes, she ran right past a good bird that day. A really good bird. And flushed it...

Beer Head Ortolan
Disclaimer: may not be actual bird on actual date

Should I apologise for finding yet another reason to trot out this lovely little bit of grip?

Nah!

And anyway, it might just happen again. Right here on this beautiful stretch of coastline, while I'm out for a run. So, stay tuned for some sweaty-browed, bins-less stringing...

The Joy of Offroad

There is a satisfying, unpretentious pleasure to be had from running offroad. Tracks, footpaths, bridleways...all provide an unambiguous connection with the proper outdoors that roads and pavements cannot. The River Chess valley near Rickmansworth provided just such jollies for a much younger me - you could go miles and miles with barely a hint of tarmac - so it will come as no surprise to learn that I've been seeking similar routes locally. But I am beginning to draw a depressing conclusion: away from the coast the footpaths are mostly dreadful. Frequently overgrown, unsigned, so rock-strewn and rutted that you daren't raise your eyes from the ground and can't really run at all, or in some other way deeply unsatisfactory.

Here's a typical example...

This photo was taken on May 29th, following three weeks of bone-dry weather. Prior to that it was a lake.

However, when you get near the sea it's a very different matter. I've barely scratched the surface yet, but already feel quite spoiled by what is on offer locally. And there is so much scope for exploration along the coast here...

Clifftop view from Burton Bradstock, early morning. Just me and the odd dog-walker. Bliss.

Roughly 7:00am last Saturday morning, the East Cliffs at West Bay. Twice, so far, I have run up that slope. Well, not 'run' exactly... Anyway, it is as steep as it looks, and demands three lungs at least. On the top is a golf course, and a great view.

Regular readers will hopefully forgive the weeks of utter silence, and the blithe segue into running mode. Standard NQS protocol of course...

Several Things

Several things then, starting with birds.

May 15th, and it's the second day of the now-annual Red Kite convention in the west country. En route to darkest Cornwall the delegates meander wherever the weather dictates, and at least seven of them pass over chez NQS. This is unprecedented, and if I'd been looking skywards more often (or even spent the whole day at home) I'm sure the count would have been twice that, or more. I managed a couple of dire photos, so here's one...

Now that I've managed to photograph (however poorly) a Red Kite or two from the garden, I doubt I'll bother again. I'm satisfied with a record shot. I do understand the desire for the Ultimate Capture but, not having the gear for such an image, there is no point me trying. However, I do struggle to understand what drives photographers to visit Colin the Cuckoo at Thursley Common. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but published pics of the situation there appear to depict a set-up which is basically staged, with 'nice' mossy perches carefully positioned so that Colin is 'pleasingly' lit and has a complimentary background. Ooh, I've just had a thought. Is he tempted in with bait too? Please tell me he's not. Anyway, whatever, the whole scenario stinks. Photos of the gallery of snappers in attendance I find quite depressing. Maybe there's something wrong with me and I am missing the point, but to me wildlife should basically be just that. Wild. Difficult. Challenging. Dare I say that photos taken in such circumstances are slightly fraudulent? That's my opinion of course, and I suppose I ought to acknowledge that other viewpoints are equally valid. Well, maybe not equally...

Please feel free to argue the toss; this blog is not an echo chamber.

So. Back in December or thereabouts, I entered a proper race, the Egdon Easy 10k. This somewhat reckless move was precipitated by my happy discovery last summer that I could still run. The race was not until May 26th, so there would be plenty of time to sharpen up speed and endurance before the fateful day. That was the plan, at least. Then I got a niggling groin injury and my progressive running routine went out the window. In the last couple of weeks I'd begun to get out regularly once again, but approached last night's race under no illusions. The course was billed as flat and fast - a couple of laps of RSPB Lodmoor in fact - and I set myself a target of under 53 minutes, which would equate to 8:30 min/mile or less. My secret desire was to go sub-8:00 min/mile (ie. under 50 minutes) but I thought that highly unlikely, and subdued such inappropriate lusting.

This was the scene about 20 minutes before the start. Runners gathering in little clubby clusters. I was feeling pre-race nerves at this point, a weird sensation that I hadn't experienced for a very long time indeed.

Trying to listen to the completely inaudible 'safety briefing'. I hoped I hadn't missed any good advice, like "mind the bollards right in the middle of the path" and suchlike. Notice I am well away from the front. Wisely...

And then we were off! Deliberately I tried not to get carried away in the excitement and set off too fast. It worked, and after a few minutes I could tell that the breathing was still easy, and settled into a steady rhythm. My Garmin kept telling me that I was trotting along at roughly 8-minute mile pace, and after three or four kilometres I realised that sub-8s might be on the cards after all. Very gradually it got harder and harder to maintain the pace, a feeling I remembered from those many races of years ago. A nice feeling though. Satisfying in fact, knowing that pace-wise I had got it spot-on, and in the final few hundred metres was even able to wind it up a bit for a final sprint to the line. Okay, 'sprint' might be a bit strong, but definitely 'very quick shuffle'...

Totally oblivious of Mrs NQS capturing this historic moment, I hammer past in a speedy blur...

Strava has all the numbers. Look at that epic pacing!

So, 10k in 49:41 or 7:57 min/mile. I can honestly say I was delighted with that. Much better than expected. I felt fine afterwards too, and today there are no aches or pains. Onwards and upwards then...

I came 77th out of 302 finishers, and 10th out of 37 in my age class (m50). Next year I will be a brand new m60, but to win that category I will need to beat some bloke who did 43:20 yesterday! Bit of a tall order I think. Actually it's very sobering to consider how age affects athletic performance. At the peak of my powers, aged 33, I would potentially have finished in, or very close to, the top 10 of this race. So I'm very pleased that my friend Ric told me about something called 'age-graded performance' where your times are seen in the context of your age group. Old people are slower, and that's that. "Live with it" said Mrs NQS, sympathetically...

Skua Fix

When it comes to skuas I am quite easily pleased. It could never be said that Lyme Bay is crawling with them, so the odd one or two here and there generally does the trick for me. Despite an almost 100% birding hiatus so far in 2018 I have been keeping an eye on the weather with a view to getting a seawatch in at some stage this spring. I had an abortive go back in April, but the rain and lack of visibility saw me scuttling home after about twenty minutes. This morning, however, looked very promising I thought...

We've had very little wind with much east in it so far, but the forecast predicted a swing from SW to SSE overnight, and a breezy SSE (more or less) for most of the day. My fairly limited seawatching experience at Burton Bradstock tells me that anything with west in it is a bit of a trial at best, while a raging SW (a potentially excellent wind at Seaton) is basically a straight-onshore nightmare. Anything from S through to E, however... yes, please. The orientation of the coast here seems to encourage almost everything to fly from right to left in such conditions as well, which is extremely helpful.

So, alarm set for 05:15; in position at 05:40...

Almost immediately it felt promising. Auks and Manxies were already passing in little groups, and a few Gannets very close in. The trickle built to a gentle flow, and I can honestly say that the next four and a half hours flew by. No boredom whatsoever. And there were skuas. The first was an immaculate dark-phase Arctic at 06:15, just 2-300 yards out and superbly lit by the low morning sun. Its chocolate-brown loveliness even made me exclaim out loud: "Oh yes, you beauty!" Bit sad, but there you go. Hopefully I will always feel that way upon reacquaintance with nice close skuas after a little break.

Next up was an equally close Bonxie at 08:00, plus another, more distant, some 15 minutes later. Lyme Bay clearly was not packed with skuas, and a couple of tweets from observers further west suggested likewise, with just a few Arctics and Bonxies reported. This helped me feel that at least I was getting my share, but didn't quite prepare me for 08:43...

Panning right I glimpsed a dark shape low among the waves. In the nanosecond before it dipped out of sight I knew it was a Pom, and sure enough, as it heaved upwards, there was a stonking light-phase Pomarine Skua in all its spooned-up glory. Superb! It was a little further out than any of the previous three skuas, and appeared to forge a path straight into the wind and gradually away from the shore. Too soon it was gone.

I packed it in at 10:10. There were no more skuas, but it's not often that I've had three species in one seawatch along the coast here. And there was plenty of variety in the chorus line. Although I didn't bother with much counting, here is a list of the rest of this morning's action...

Great Northern Diver, 4
Manx, 500+ (I actually counted to 200 before remembering how lazy I am, and stopped immediately).
Gannet, lots (200+?), many really close
auk sp, hundreds, many more than Manx.
Kittiwake, 10+
Sandwich Tern, 25+
'commic' Tern, 5
Common Tern, 2
Roseate Tern, 1
Common Scoter, 21
Sanderling, 4
Whimbrel, 5
Bar-tailed Godwit, 11
Grey Plover, 3
Gadwall, 1 female, a seawatch surprise!

Did you notice the Roseate Tern hidden away in that lot? Bit of a Lyme Bay biggie there, and only about my fifth or sixth local bird I think. I picked up a little group of Sandwich Terns coming slowly towards me from the west and quickly noticed that one of them was a bit small and had a ridiculously long tail. It was clearly as white as a Sarnie though... Er... My poor little cogs were struggling a bit, but finally the penny dropped and I eagerly awaited the close fly-past that was imminent. It didn't happen. Instead they all gradually drifted back W again and that was the last I saw of it.

There was also brief excitement when I tried hard to turn a distant single auk into a Puffin, another local rarity. It all looked okay except that I couldn't get any colour at all on the bill, and I thought I should have done at the range involved. So, safer to let it go.

Anyway, I enjoyed it so much that I might even return later. I've done this kind of thing before though, and I know exactly what 'anticlimax' means...

In other hobbies, well, I hooked and lost a single tench on Tuesday, while Rob caught one. I was rather disappointed. The area we've put a bit of effort into doesn't appear to be rewarding us to the expected degree, though Rob is happy enough with a fish or two each time. Me though, I'm greedy, and want more. Still, I certainly can't complain at the lovely surroundings...

The Exeter Canal, late evening on Bank Holiday Monday. Lovely.

Our set-ups are a bit different, and while I am mostly using a combination of fake and real maggots for bait, Rob is only using fake stuff, bits of foam and plastic designed to mimic sweetcorn and red maggots. The upside of his approach is that Rob is not pestered by small fish, which home in on my real maggots like moths to a flame. On the other hand, at least I get a few bites to keep things lively, while Rob gets very, very few! A couple of my maggot-raiders were bootlace eels, which are never welcome, but the rest have been gorgeous little rudd, and I've yet to tire of them...

5lb 12oz of immaculate canal tench