Piglet Flu

Savannah Sparrow - Ballona Wetlands, Los Angeles

Yesterday, I thought that I was coming down with a dose of piglet flu (not the full blown swine thing). It turned out to be a heavy cold or at best Man Flu. Anyway, I'm alright now. I just swigged some olive leaf extract (which tastes like shite, I'll have you know!) and soon began to feel its healing effects. I can't afford to be sick right now.

Unfortunately, I had to postpone my forthcoming trip to Lisbon, Portugal - planned for early September - due to up and coming filming commitments. Luckily, the Portuguese Tourist Board were understanding and we have now rearranged it for the penultimate week in October. I was really happy with that because I was really looking forward to writing about the urban birding there.

I'm signing off now to watch Family Guy. Night night.

Walking through the grass

This morning we reverted back to our usual service regarding the weather - grey skies and rain. Well, drizzle to be exact. A stroll around The Scrubs in the rain was initially fairly drab although I did count over 25 Long-tailed Tits and an almost equal number of Blue Tits in Chats Paddock.

My moment of inspiration came shortly after a noticed a Common Tern flapping elegantly south. It was our latest ever record as this bird is rarely encountered after late July. I then decided to walk through the grassland, something that I usually refrain from doing until at least early September.

I've flushed a whole manner of things from the grassland in previous years from moggies, moths and occasional fox to Sedge Warbler, Song Thrush, Lapwing, Snipe and even a Short-eared Owl once. Add to that the expected Meadow Pipits, Skylarks, Stonechats, Whinchats and occasional Reed Buntings and the picture is more or less complete. Oh yes, and there were the two Richard's Pipits. How could I forget them?

My first venture into the grassland this autumn immediately resulted in flushing two Tree Pipits. I was very happy. It fired me up for the rest of the day.

Typing

Northern Wheatear - art!

Got a great coffee table book called called Jean Luc Mylayne (Twin Palm Publishers 2007) for my birthday from my best mate Colin Flapper. It's filled with amazing images of urban birds artily shot - sometimes blurred, sometimes just a small feature of the main picture. Utterly amazing.

Today, was a fairly hectic day starting with a trip to my agent's office to have a meeting with a production company about a couple of ideas that they have with me in mind. I then tripped down to the nearby Birdguides.com offices for their views on my nearly completed Belfast film that I shot last October. Their criticisms were very constructive and in short, I needed to add more birdy stuff.

Last night at the Columbian bird lecture I managed to potentially get a trip to Bogota next year to write about the urban birding. Tourist Boards seem to love what I'm trying to do. Next month I hit Lisbon and Istanbul. I can't wait.

In the meantime, I'm writing a my next Bird Watching piece on west London (featuring The Scrubs and Beddington Farm), a sample chapter for my potentially forthcoming book and a piece on Finnish bears for Birdguides.

And all before I get to bed tonight.....

My face is red....

Before I go on I must issue a major apology to the photographer Dean Eades for using some of his great images (with his permission) for my Bird Fair talk on Wormwood Scrubs. I omitted to publicly acknowledge the use of his images - so Dean, I apologise profusely.

I spent Friday and Saturday at the Bird Fair chatting to numerous people, giving a talk, going to meetings, participating in 'Call My Ruff' with fellow panelists in the shape of Nick Baker and RSPB man Bryan Bland (we won) and I even squeezed in a touch of birding with Hobby, Osprey and Tawny Owl on the list.

Oh, and it was my birthday on Saturday.

More to follow.

Sorry to go on......

The controlled Nightjar

I'm holding it!!!

Look at that!

The BTO's Dawn Balmer and TUB

At last I got the photographic evidence from the other night's Nightjarring. I'm still buzzing from the experience!

I had a 2 hour meeting at the BBC this afternoon which went well then the remainder of the afternoon was spent on various errands. I'm planning urban birding trips to Bradford and Leicester in the New Year. Anyone out there prepared to lead me around?

Off to the British Bird Fair tomorrow morning. I'm in the 'Call My Ruff' team on Friday afternoon so I was rehearsing my lines for that and I was also putting together my talk on Saturday morning.

There's nothing like the last minute!

Ohh, what a night!

This morning I took a break from my morning pilgrimage to The Scrubs. Fellow Scrubber, Roy Nuttall, nipped down though and didn't see much other than a Lesser Whitethroat along the warbler rich embankment.

No, I was chilling in bed, exalted from my previous night's success. I was in the Thetford Forest along with Birdguides' Fiona Barclay and Max Whitby and some of the British Trust for Ornithology's finest to film the possible capture and ringing of that mystical bird - the European Nightjar.

After setting up the nets we whiled away the time watching a nearby Hobby family and spying on the invertebrates that happened to fly near us. At 2105 hrs a Nightjar suddenly piped up, churring away and then took flight. We soon had the call from the second net, a short drive away, that they had caught a male. We raced over to the sight of a fine male. I had the rare opportunity to hold the bird. It was amazing!

The waiting game

TUB breaking down the intricacies of Nightjar identification to his mum

Setting the scene

With filming done and dusted by 2200 hrs I had dropped my mum home and was myself tucked up in bed by 0030.

Nightjar

Nightjar (photographer not known)

I held a Nightjar tonight!

I can't believe it!

I'm delirious!

Emotionally overcome!

I'll talk tomorrow!