Rainham again tonight. Nothing doing, again. A pair of wheatears on the foreshore (I'm not enough of a twat to claim them as Greenland race) and an oystercatcher were head-turningly interesting but there was nothing else. Literally nothing, unless you count whitethroats and sedge warblers. Three weeks ago they'd have been interesting, but they've since been relegated, like almost all frequently-seen birds are, to that category that you don't actually look at unless they do something really interesting like get eaten, or turn up out of place, like in your garden. I guess, in most cases, familiarity does indeed breed contempt.
I saw a hare running about on the landfill site as I was leaving, one of those slam on the brakes and reverse up the road jobs. Hares are awesome, and this was my first at Rainham for a long time.
And now, some knowledge: did you know... ring ouzels are just partially leucistic blackbirds and therefore it's actually better not to see them? FACT.
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Yes, it's May. May is the month where I talk about black redstarts a lot, in between complaining about not going anywhere good. Granted, I tend to do both of those things quite frequently in every month, but this is my blog and I'll type whatever the fuck I want.
The black-redstart at work has been in fine territorial mode over the last couple of days, perhaps trying to appease me after his late arrival. He sang today pretty much non stop from around 9.30 to just after 2, with a brief pause to chase off an intruding male. This was all very distracting, so I'm going in early again tomorrow with the camera to get my fix in. I hope he's up earlier tomorrow than he usually is - there's no point lugging in the camera, again, for a bird that's not going to show.
Talking of the work list, it seems to know its days are numbered and is putting in a final flush of effort. In recent weeks it's thrown up ridiculously good stuff like goshawk, long-tailed tit and wheatear, and today it yielded a patch tick with four mallards and a patch second with a blackbird. The total, with just under two weeks to go, stands at a mighty 25.
Which, for a patch that consists entirely of a bland rooftop in central London and some of the most unproductive non-treelined streets in the city, isn't fucking bad at all. It's about 18 more than I'd expected when I started.
I saw a hare running about on the landfill site as I was leaving, one of those slam on the brakes and reverse up the road jobs. Hares are awesome, and this was my first at Rainham for a long time.
And now, some knowledge: did you know... ring ouzels are just partially leucistic blackbirds and therefore it's actually better not to see them? FACT.
---
Yes, it's May. May is the month where I talk about black redstarts a lot, in between complaining about not going anywhere good. Granted, I tend to do both of those things quite frequently in every month, but this is my blog and I'll type whatever the fuck I want.
The black-redstart at work has been in fine territorial mode over the last couple of days, perhaps trying to appease me after his late arrival. He sang today pretty much non stop from around 9.30 to just after 2, with a brief pause to chase off an intruding male. This was all very distracting, so I'm going in early again tomorrow with the camera to get my fix in. I hope he's up earlier tomorrow than he usually is - there's no point lugging in the camera, again, for a bird that's not going to show.
Talking of the work list, it seems to know its days are numbered and is putting in a final flush of effort. In recent weeks it's thrown up ridiculously good stuff like goshawk, long-tailed tit and wheatear, and today it yielded a patch tick with four mallards and a patch second with a blackbird. The total, with just under two weeks to go, stands at a mighty 25.
Which, for a patch that consists entirely of a bland rooftop in central London and some of the most unproductive non-treelined streets in the city, isn't fucking bad at all. It's about 18 more than I'd expected when I started.
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