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Don’t forget to sign my petition. Last count: 12 signatures. That’s almost enough to change Governement policy, but I may need a few more. In the meantime, I’m too drunk this evening to respond to the comments/queries about bird names, so I’ll do it tomorrow.
Here’s something to look at whilst you’re waiting for the S.H.I.T. verdicts:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.channel&ChannelID=388226440
I like this subject, as do some other people. Abbreviating bird names or using nicknames is bad. Unless I think the abbreviation is OK, in which case it’s acceptable. I have therefore come up with some Guidelines endorsed by the Society for Halting Idiotic Trash-names (S.H.I.T.)*. Please note that this list is not exhaustive and further suggestions are welcomed.
Acceptable abbreviations/nicknames:
Geese can be abbreviated to Pink-foot, White-front etc. . Small Canada Geese are best abbreviated as either “escape”, “bullshit”, “desperation” or “don’t care”
Gippo (Egyptian Goose)
Monty’s (Montagu’s Harrier)
Oyk (Oystercatcher)
LRP (Little Ringed Plover)
Barwit (Bar-tailed Godwit) (but not Blackwit - see below)
Semi-p (but only for Sandpiper) (also see Sand below)
Pec (Pectoral Sandpiper)
Sand (Sandpiper)
Pom (Pomarine Skua)
Med (Mediterranean Gull)
Bimac (Bimaculated Lark)
Mipit (Meadow Pipit) (but not Rocket, Tripit etc - see below)
OBP (Olive-backed Pipit)
Wag (Wagtail)
Subalp (Subalpine Warbler)
Gropper (Grasshopper Warbler)
Pallas’s Gropper (Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler) (but not PG Tips - see below)
Lancy (Lanceolated Warbler)
Fly (Flycatcher)
Please note that S.H.I.T. does not encourage the use of the above abbreviations/nicknames, merely tolerates them.
Old names are fine (Dabchick, Mother Carey’s Chicken, Windfucker etc) and their use should be encouraged.
Shetland names are also acceptable (Bonxie, Tystie, Dunter etc), but only when in Shetland.
Non-acceptable abbreviations/nicknames:
Fudge Duck (Ferruginous Duck) - this nickname is presumably designed for halfwits who can’t spell/pronounce ‘Ferruginous’. Learn to spell/read.
KP (Kentish Plover) - KP make peanuts. They are not wading birds.
Blackwit (Black-tailed Godwit) - slightly borderline, but sounds crass.
Lesserlegs/Greaterlegs (Lesser/Greater Yellowlegs) - it’s not that difficult to say the word ‘yellow’, so start using it.
Bony’s (Bonaparte’s Gull) - what’s this all about? This word and it’s derivatives should remain in porn films where they belong.
Dick’s Pipit (Richard’s Pipit) - ANYBODY CAUGHT USING THIS WILL FACE INSTANT DEATH.
Pech (Pechora Pipit) - sounds like the name of a dog. Stop it.
Rockit, Tripit etc (Rock Pipit, Tree Pipit) - no no and thrice no. Idiotic.
Sprosser (Thrush Nightingale) - summed up perfectly here. It doesn’t make you big and clever to know a German word. Even I know a few.
PG Tips (Pallas’s Grasshopper Warbler) - I’m sure somebody once upon a time thought this was a very clever play on words. To me it sounds utterly ridiculous.
Icky (Icterine Warbler) - sounds like an illness. One of the more offensive abbreviations. Landguard Bird Observatory ought to be ashamed of itself - they have an “Icky Ridge”.
Melody (Melodious Warbler) - also very offensive. Deserves a punch in the face if used.
Spot Fly (Spotted Flycatcher) - Spot Fly is what these birds do, it is not what they are called. However, Spotted Fly is OK.
Flicker (Flycatcher) - a flicker is a North American woodpecker. It is not a flycatcher and never will be.
Issy (Izzy?) Shrike (Isabelline Shrike) - just don’t do it.
Pink Stink (Rose-coloured Starling) - the kind of thing a 5 year old would say.
Arctic Roll (Arctic Redpoll) - piss off.
To combat this growing tide of banality, please sign my petition. I tried to set up a petition on the 10 Downing Street website but it was rejected as it had “no point about government policy”.
* Current membership of S.H.I.T. stands at four: me (Life President), Sparky (Chairman), Grey Cat (Secretary) and Ginger Cat (Special Advisor). Full details available on receipt of a plain brown envelope stapled to the back of a Thrush Nightingale.
The title of this post may be a bit misleading, as I didn’t actually go to Foula today. However, those nice Punkbirders have returned from their expedition and the trip report is available here. It’s good to see that they tramped around for 16 hours and walked 15 miles a day and found virtually the same selection of species (mainly Icterine Warblers, Marsh Warblers, Red-backed Shrikes and Common Rosefinches) as I did: my method of wandering around smoking fags, eating chocolate and generally not concentrating on the job in hand seems to be just as effective.
Anyway, well done on trying (did that sound patronising enough?), however, I’d like to pick you up on a trio of points gentlemen:
1. “Until that time (October 2003) no-one really thought of the island as a top-class vagrant trap”. Au contraire: the island had been pioneered by the ‘Found on Foula’ team for a few years, and prior to that by Michael McKee and friends in the 1990s. They had already started turning up Pechora Pipits and other things long before 2003, so much so that two-thirds of the Leicester Llamas spent ten days there in late September 2002. Predictably the wind came from the west every day, but between us we managed to find Long-billed Dowitcher, Pec (an acceptable abbreviation), Corn Crake, Bluethroat, Barred Warblers, Common Rosefinches, Dotterel etc etc. I wrote a trip report at the time for the website of “Britain’s Top Twitcher”, although I don’t know whether it’s still on there as I was banned from his website long ago. No idea why. Perhaps because of this.
2. Phone reception: Vodafone users can get decent reception from a few more places than just Ham: the airstrip and to the little kirk up the road, and a small area at the north end near Ristie.
3. “The rest of Shetland barely got a look in”. I beg to differ. During the first few days of June, the southern tip of mainland Shetland produced Rustic Bunting, Red-breasted Flycatcher, at least 5 Marsh Warblers, 4 Icterine Warblers, 3 Red-backed Shrikes and a Common Rosefinch, whilst elsewhere on Shetland (excluding Fair Isle) there was Black Stork, Surf Scoter, Red-footed Falcon, Greenish Warbler, Rose-coloured Starling, Black-headed Bunting and Red-rumped Swallow. I rest my case.
Here ends today’s sermon.
Having said all that, Foula is great. To celebrate its greatness, here are some photos from the September 2002 trip (please bear in mind that these are all taken using a camcorder attached to a telescope, when this method was the height of technology, and as such are even worse than the photos I come up with now):
Long-billed Dowitcher, Hametoun Burn, 21st September 2002.
Left: Dotterel, Swaa Head, 27th September 2002. Right: Pectoral Sandpiper, Hametoun Burn, 24th September 2002.
Barred Warblers: left: Burns, 21st September 2002; right, Ham, 23rd September 2002.
Left: Yellow-browed Warbler, Broadfoot, 26th September 2002. Right: a very wet Bluethroat at Gossameadow ,25th September 2002. One of only two migrants seen that day, the other being a Whinchat.
Left: Common Crossbill, Punds, 21st September 2002. Right: Lapland Bunting, Punds, 23rd September 2002.
And some from last year:
Left: Common Redpoll (rostrata-type), Ham. Right: Lapland Bunting on the airstrip, both on 19th September 2007.
Drake Siberian Thrush at Hametoun, 28th September 2007. Suits you sir.
The long run of south-easterlies and fog has come to an end, to be replaced by a westerly gale. The bushes have all been blowing around in the wind far too much over the last couple of days to look for anything, and it would appear that spring is now officially over. The only bird of note was a Common Crossbill at Sumburgh Head yesterday (9th June) - it looks like we could be in for an influx of them, so I shall make it my business to find a Two-barred Crossbill some time over the summer.
A proper post will appear in the next day or so, but in the meantime here are a couple of photos of a pretty little finch I saw today on Fair Isle:
The day started very early (or maybe yesterday finished late, I don’t know). Whilst wandering back home from a rare night out at the hotel at 2am I heard a Quail singing somewhere near the Toab Memorial Hall, a jolly good bird to get on the house list. Proof, as if it was needed, that alcohol is good for you (and your list). It was still singing at midday, which was handy as I was bit more sober by then.
The late afternoon disintegrated into farce. A Citril Finch was found on Fair Isle. A boat was needed. Unfortunately, the usual chap was unavailable, and a few other phone calls to potential charter-providers turned out to be fruitless. Just as we thought it wasn’t going to be possible to do anything, I got a phone call from a man with a boat saying he could take us within the next hour or two, so I ended up being in charge of arranging a charter for the first time. Complete chaos (from my point of view) ensued, with all and sundry ringing me to try and get on the boat - by the time I’d finally put the phone down after about an hour and it had stopped ringing, I had 19 voicemail messages! Anyway, to cut a long story short, 12 of us left Grutness in thick fog at about 6.45pm and arrived on Fair Isle at 8.15, to be given the cheery news that the Citril Finch had just flown off into the fog with a couple of Twite and nobody had the first idea as to where it had gone. We plodded aimlessly around for an hour and a half, hoping that it may have gone to roost with the Twite in the cliffs: it probably had, but as we could only see about 10 yards in front of us there wasn’t really much chance of finding it. So we all went home again.
More fog, more south-easterlies: something very important and probably extremely unlikely is surely about to appear… however, whatever it is didn’t appear today. Migrants I found on my rounds consisted of a Chiffchaff and a Kestrel at Toab, a Willow Warbler and a Blackcap at Sumburgh Head, a Chiffchaff, a Spotted Flycatcher, a Garden Warbler and a Lesser Whitethroat at Sumburgh Hotel and three House Martins at Quendale. In the end I resorted to photographing three Siskins that arrived in the garden today, two of which looked a bit like this:
Siskins in the garden. Aren’t they pretty?
A Spotted Flycatcher in the garden this morning was an overdue house tick, but the day descended into a foggy mess again and it wasn’t possible to see anything else. However, a drive up the road for a few miles brought an unexpected bonus. I’d pulled up at the side of the road to use the phone and decided to have a fag at the same time (who says men can’t multi-task?). Being the caring sort I opened the window so that Sparky didn’t have to breathe in my smoke, and was somewhat surprised to hear a veritable cacophony of Corn Crakes outside. It transpired that there were three of them calling away at each other, one of which decided to show itself on a number of occasions. Corn Crakes don’t breed regularly in Shetland, although they really ought to: maybe these three will find some friends, get the horn and spawn some more.
Corn Crake somewhere in Shetland. But I’m not telling you where.
Oh, and my wireless router box turned up today, remarkably only two hours later than the 48 hours promised by BT. They’re still a bunch of tossers though.
Thick fog, combined with some heavy rain, meant it was all a bit hard going today, and all I could see through the gloom this morning was a female Pied Flycatcher in the garden and a Blackcap at Sumburgh Head. So another bout of twitching seemed in order and again this proved worthwhile. Not only was west mainland free of fog, it also stopped raining for a while. And I managed to find what I went to see too, which was a bonus.
Red-footed Falcon at Bixter. My favourite bird of the spring so far, and easy to photograph too.
On arriving home I had another check of the willows, where the Marsh Warbler had burst into full song and a Sedge Warbler was also giving it large (do people still say that?).
A massive lightning strike early this morning blew my wireless router box thingy to pieces, so I spent half the day on the phone to BT trying to order a new one. As anybody who has had the misfortune to deal with this bunch of bastards will know, getting to speak to a human being is virtually impossible. Press 1 if you want to buy a pink telephone, press 2 if you want to hear the result from Britain’s Got Talent, press 3 if you want to hear all these bloody messages again. A suggestion: have somebody pick the phone up and say “hello, this is BT, how can I help?”. Of course, when I finally got to speak to somebody, they claimed they couldn’t hear me very well and then mysteriously the line went dead. Which as everybody knows is the usual “customer service” trick of either not wanting to help or not knowing how to help, putting the phone down and pretending you’ve been cut off. After several hours of swearing at inanimate objects I finally got hold of someone who seemed to understand my simple request of “can I have a new router please” and I was promised a new box within 48 hours. If it turns up within the specified time I shall eat all of my hats, along with every other hat in the Sumburgh area.
Anyway, a big overnight thunderstorm, easterly winds and a day of low cloud and mist, at a peak time in late spring in Shetland. Sounds like a recipe for a rare bird frenzy. Of course it wasn’t - a Blackcap and a Garden Warbler was all I could muster.
I notice that the Punkbirders are staying on Foula. We shall see if finding rare birds in Shetland is really “as easy as putting on a hat”… and by the way, ouzel is spelt with an ‘e’ (ouzel) rather than an ‘a’ (ouzal). Get a grip!
keep looking »