Am I missing something?

"Covid-19" Has the whole world lost its' collective mind? At worst, this is a very unpleasant illness with death being a possible outcome if you are already suffering underlying health issues, even more so if age is also an issue. What it ain't is the end of the world!
Yet our leaders are in total disarray - no collective, or correlated, response to the "pandemic" as it marauds around the globe. I'm sat here in my study having just got home from work, where Sky News is streamed into the tea room as the workforce had requested long before the Brexit fiasco, but the commotion being whipped up by this latest development beggars belief. Italy in lockdown, France soon to follow suit? Across the pond, that fake tanned idiot is blurting out contradictory statements by the minute, whilst our own clown prince hangs onto the tails of our scientific advisers. Yesterday I was told that I should self isolate if I had a "new cough" or fever symptoms - for seven days? Isn't the incubation period two weeks, so if I'm already coughing it's too late to prevent me passing it on ?
Utter chaos, yet our political elite are still attempting to point score at a party level when what is needed is a unified strategy.  As unpleasant as it might be, the one thing that every living entity on this planet has in common is the fact that death is not an option. The way you make your mark is what you do with the time between two dates; very simple when viewed at this level. So there was Boris, all serious and sombre, addressing the cameras and admitting that his government were following the best advice, as was to be had from our chief medical scientific team, who are the very top of their field. I have to agree with this definition as I feel sure they have a massive influence over the direction our NHS is headed. If you look at the current figures, nothing but positives can be given to the NHS for the paucity of deaths from Covid-19 in ratio to those diagnosed cases. The recent budget had our new Chancellor saying that whatever the NHS required it would get. Why do we need a global pandemic? The NHS should get whatever funding it requires - no ifs or buts!
So if Boris is so convinced by the advice about combating Covid-19, as supplied by the scientists, why the f*ck doesn't he, and all the other world leaders, take any notice when science is providing the evidence of global catastrophe via the climate change situation? Do you really need me to spell it out?

THERE'S NO PROFIT FOR THE POLITICAL PAYMASTERS - END OF

In 2020 over 1.5 million people (out of a global population of 7.7 billion) will die as a direct result of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) Covid-19 won't ever get close to this level of mortality, yet because if might affect profits in the "western world" it has caused utter panic amidst those who have nothing more than the "mighty dollar" as a reason to exist. A very short sighted strategy based upon the the time spent between two dates - birth and death!  I've really enjoyed my journey, thus far, and have no intention of stepping off this mortal coil any time soon, but do have very serious worries about the chances of my grandchildren ever being able to experience the same joys of seeing their own grandchildren. Global extinction is the real issue, not another version of the poxy flu! My guess is that it will be far too late before any money orientated effort is fully supportive of change to the way the comfortable elite run our planet.

If you've made it this far - many thanks. Please don't feel the need to spit your dummy if you don't agree - they're just one bloke's thoughts in a population of billions.

A bit more like it

After ending my last blog entry with a rather "clutching at straws" type of effort I was very grateful when this Jay turned up at the feeding station this morning. Taken through the double glazing of my study door, it's certainly an improvement on that first image.

Not much activity around the feeders so far, the garden having been visited twice by the local male Sparrowhawk. Tends to make the regular visitors a bit jumpy as you can imagine.

Plagiarism, inspiration or idea theft?

Somewhere in Ramsgate lives a lady, with two beautiful daughters, who works in a school and regularly sends photos into the BBC "Weatherwatchers" page. Her name is Kerri Baker and, although we've never met, I'm forever in her debt. I discovered all this info from "Twitter" although I have no account, nor intention of ever signing up. I think it was the weekend of Storm Ciara when the BBC used one of her efforts as a background image for the national weather forecast. It was of a sunset with Ramsgate as the title. I was totally mesmerised by the image as the forecaster rattled off the details of doom and gloom bound for many areas of the UK.
Ramsgate? I'd never seen anything like it. Where had she taken the photo? Two hands, holding an arc of baubles, with the sun setting over Pegwell Bay. Obviously it had to be along the West Cliff and I'd walked past the sculpture hundreds of times without a second glance. Kerri had spotted the image, making the best of her opportunity and produced a magnificent result. Inspired, I was having a bowl full of that, all I required was the weather and my shift pattern to align to allow me the chance to have a go for myself.

It has taken until today to be able to get across to the West Cliff for a chance to recreate Kerri's image for myself. I wasn't to be disappointed, although a dirty camera sensor didn't assist my effort. As the sun sunk below the horizon, the clearing skies revealed the almost "super moon" high in the skies overhead. So, once back home, had a bash at grabbing some shots of the event, knowing that tomorrow, the night of the full moon, I'd be at work until 22.00 hrs and the forecast was for heavy cloud cover!

I think I'm right at the limit of my technology?
Still using the Sigma 150 - 500 mm lens with a 1.4 x converter.
EOS 400d mounted on a tripod with a 10 second delay shutter release option.
ISO 100 - 1/250th sec exposure

Other stuff going on around the bungalow included more rat action beyond the garden fence, a tail-less Magpie and the first chance of a Jay photo. It would seem that there is a major problem with Blogger and the comments option on my blog. I have no explanation, but am hopeful that it will get sorted out. If anyone reading this post actually knows Kerri, please pass on my thanks for the inspirational image she shared - sorry I stole her idea but the original is still the best!

A Magpie with no tail

Not much, yet there's no problem with an id so it counts!

Blast from my birding past

It's 2010 and Kent birding central to my waking hours. Bev and I had been together for a decade and well settled in our bungalow; Thanet now my stomping ground with Newlands Farm my "local patch". Everything in the garden was rosy. I'm not too sure if I could look up the statistics of the time, but know that I was well up in the Kent Listers rankings, certainly in the top twenty five.(The KOS website reveals I'd still be well within the top fifty today if it were important!) I'd been truly privileged to have seen some extraordinary birds within the Kent boundaries, finding many rarities for myself. The further up the list my total progressed, the more obvious it became that Alpine Swift was a proper "tarts tick"; a glaring omission which needed addressing. Indeed, I already seen two, finding one, Pallid Swifts within the county. What was going on? I think that it would be true to say that Alpine Swift were, almost, annual on Thanet? Barry Matlock, Dave Gilbert, Mick Davis, Francis Solley, Simon Mount, et al, will all recall their discoveries as little more than another early Spring morning highlights. Could just have easily been a Serin or Hoopoe that they'd stumbled upon whilst wandering around the Thanet coastal strip. Exciting yes, extraordinary? No way, these Thanet stalwarts have their sights set on much bigger prizes!

However, everything comes to those who wait, or so the saying goes. It was always going to happen given the amount of time I spent in the field and yet, no matter how many words I use, nothing I write will come close to relaying the unbridled joy and sheer relief that occurred on that fateful afternoon of 29th March 2010. After finishing my early shift I drove across to Elmwood Avenue, parking up just above Joss Bay, probably in the hope of a Wheatear if the truth were known. As soon as I got out of the car I spotted a large swift sp. flying over the adjacent North Foreland Golf Course and knew exactly what it was before I'd even lifted my bins. I can't condone trespassing but, with no-one on the course, I grabbed my camera gear and headed straight over to the "triangle" where I was within fifty metres of the patrol route the bird was using above the fairways. I remember punching the air and shouting something silly - I was absolutely elated, absorbing every emotion that moment produced. I must have spent the best part of an hour just savouring the experience as the bird continued to patrol the airspace, just in the wind shadow of the Port Regis boundary. With my photos taken and Bev needing to be picked up from work, I drove across to Broadstairs grinning like an imbecile. It is events like that which ensure life is so much more than an existence. Sure, I'd seen loads of Alpine Swifts before that date, and have seen many thousands more since yet, somehow, that individual, the ridiculous, random nature of the encounter, just amplifies the memory and elevates a disorientated waif to the highest echelons of my most precious birding moments.

You can't get much more Thanet than a rare swift in company of a Herring Gull?

News of the bird's presence was released and, fortunately, it hung around for a couple of days thus allowing others to share in the experience. Less than a month later, down at Minster SF, I was to discover a Red-rumped Swallow as well as a Chiffchaff x Willow Warbler "mixed singer". Birding really was a huge part of my life it seems incredible that one week in Scotland could alter my journey so radically.

When your luck's in - make the most of it

Clicking away

The garden photo challenge is slowly coming along with two new species already added at the start of March. I have no rules, just a simple desire to photograph fifty species in, over or from the bungalow footprint. Quality images are always nice, but so long as the species depicted, is recognisable that'll do for me. I can always hope to improve on the original if the opportunity should arise. Common Buzzard is an obvious case in point, Goldfinch being another.

This sneaky sod was perched on the aviary netting, the dappled light making photography rather tricky.

The most frustrating part of my project is the missed chances. Just today, whilst sat in my study, I've seen Jay, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Rook, Lesser Black-backed Gull and, to really rub it in, a Mistle Thrush. Fleeting encounters which offer me no realistic chance to grab the camera kit before they're lost from view. If it were any different I could hardly call it a challenge?

Number 23 for the year and I'll settle for that

This next one might make you smile? My neighbour's rodent problem doesn't seem to be under control,  despite calling in Pest Busters.

Feeding station harmony

1999 - flashback

August 1993 and fresh back from the Atlantic Blue Marlin experience in Madeira. Unilever, my then employer, facilitated the relocation to Kent, from Hemel Hempstead. It is a pivotal event in my life, and, obviously, resulted in an interesting, although not painless, pathway to where I'm at today. I mention the Marlin purely because on my return from this ridiculously successful trip, any thoughts of pike, tench, barbel, roach or chub were completely without purpose. How could anything which swims within the freshwater environs of the UK ever hope to compete with sheer adrenaline overdose that a Marlin hook-up evoked? Rods were consigned to the loft as a new obsession took hold. I became a Kent "twitcher" lister. Okay, it took a couple of years to get my feet under the table, so to speak, but I was already fascinated by the county birding scene via the writings of Don Taylor.

The catalyst for an obsession. Even today, they are still well worth a read.
I'm very grateful to be able to say that I met the great man on many occasions and have nothing but respect
for what he put back into the county birding scene that he so loved.

Don was a huge personality within the county, at this time. Chairman of the Kent O.S. and county year list record holder. Unbeknown to me at the time, but it was Don who had pointed out a Marbled Teal (Duck if you would rather?) on a roadside island of the ARC Pit, at Dungeness, in the May (?) before I'd made the permanent move. Yeah, it was very much the fascinating tales of how he, and his friends, made the frantic journeys in order to "tick" another species within the county boundary which had me enthused by every sentence. His two books still have a very special place on the shelves within my study alongside the KOS Bird Reports for the 1991-2000 period.
So I bode my time, whilst establishing myself within a very clique orientated Kent birding scene. I had myself a superb local patch, out on the Ash Levels. Just a mile, or so, up the road was Sandwich Bay Obs - still a ringing centre, not a community coffee club, at this time and what a crazy place? Full of characters and extraordinarily talented birders; my introduction to Kent birding was a very pleasurable period and that county year list was a goal to which I became drawn as the years passed.

I took this from a light aircraft that Dad had booked as a surprise for Mum.
We flew from Manston over Sandwich, Deal & Dover before heading across to Sheppey, Oare Marshes and back
over Ramsgate Harbour before returning to land at Manston

So on to 1999 and that quest for a county record year list. Mobile phones had just become part and parcel of the birders kit, although it would be a few years before digital image technology would become equally available. The Kent 300 Club had just kicked off and as a result those of us within the clique had a list of contacts that needed to be called should a good bird be encountered. Jerry Warne, at Birdline SE was party to this and, as such, information was incredibly quick to circulate within the gang. Chris Abrams had got two phone rotas in place, and what a great piece of fortune that it coincided with the best year in the history of Kent birding. The stars had aligned to allow me the best chance of setting new year list figures as I now was well established within the Kent crowd and to top it off Unilever had given me a two day week contract (24 hrs - 2 x 12 hrs over the weekend) so free time wasn't an issue.  This single factor was to allow me to spend all, or part, of twenty eight days at Bockhill Farm, St. Margaret's Bay, during that October - result! A car, limitless time and enough dough - I couldn't fail?

The target was 242 and I smashed it! I finished the year on 263 species, which didn't include Yellow-legged or Caspian Gull, as they'd not been split, nor the Pratincole sp. that I'd found over Grove Ferry whilst the Baillon's Crake was still in residence. I missed Iceland Gull and Stone Curlew, both of which were at Dungeness, but still ended up finding 233 species for myself during the year.  My total was registered, all sightings accepted by the KOS and associated birding authorities. I have no idea as to whether this still remains a record? To be honest I don't really care. It was a fantastic year, huge enjoyment, camaraderie, adrenaline and umpteen other experiences which made for lasting memories and friendships. On the flip side, it cost me my first marriage - so how clever is that? Under no circumstances can any sane individual think that this is a price worth paying? However, without this event I'd never have married Bev and be in the very comfortable position I now find myself. Clouds and silver linings? It was the discovery of one of my old note books, not a diary as such, but more of a highlights collection of birds seen that I've been moved to write this blog entry. There are very poor record images, via the medium of paper and pencil, which just demonstrates how far we've come since the advent of the digital era and exactly why the mobile phone/camera has so revolutionised bird recording.

An hour over at Oare Marshes

Much the same as yesterday, I dropped Bev off at the Kent & Canterbury hospital before heading off, beyond Faversham, to spend an hour, or so, at the wonderful Oare Marshes KWT Reserve. It's been quite a while since I was last at this site but, given the weather, wasn't surprised by the number of visitors taking advantage of the facilities. It was rather nice to see a good number of families, with young children, just enjoying a day out in the sunshine. The reserve isn't only about birds and birdwatchers, there is a whole eco-system to be explored with free access to anyone wishing to make the effort.

The white balance, hence colour, is all over the shop in this image - it still was a very pleasant scene to behold.

How did I get on? A brilliant short session without any outstanding sightings, I still found space to loose myself and experience the vibe that exists within this very special habitat. The camera was pointed in the direction of several species which I encountered on my wanderings, the star turn being a winter plumage Dunlin that I discovered in the salt marsh near the sluice gate beside Faversham Creek.

A great place to get up close with some superb birds - Oare Marshes has much to offer anyone seeking outdoor enjoyment.