Introducing "The Patch" and realising I knew nothing.

I have been a member of the RSPB for years.  I’ve always liked birds, in a vague way.   I put food in the garden and will spend ages in the winter, watching as the sparrows, blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits, wrens, blackbirds, wood pigeons, starlings and collared doves come to eat.  I was happy to be able to identify a black cap last winter, and then two black caps!  Thanks to the RSPB Handbook of British Birds.

I was working in Deptford one winter and would walk through Brookmill Park to work.  I was amazed at how many other birds I saw.  I didn’t know what they were really.  I thought I recognised a chaffinch and maybe that green one was a greenfinch? It was a relaxing walk to work and I realised I wanted to know who these birds were.   I was very excited when I saw a Little Grebe and wouldn’t have known what it was had I not been following a local birder on twitter.  Brookmill Park was his “patch”.   (Lesson 1 in Birding vocabulary).  

Birds I have seen there are: Goldcrest, Redwing, great spotted woodpecker, Song Thrush, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and the lovely Kingfishers.  He was there every morning, listing the birds he had seen.  I started to engage with the tweets and managed to get him to take me out birding.  We went to Foots Cray Meadows.   That was a great day and I learnt a lot. And realised that I knew nothing.  Some of the birds I had never even heard of.  Like Siskins for instance.  We saw about 50 of them on that day.  You can look up this pretty bird here:

https://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/s/siskin/

Maybe Conrad would like to share his list? 

In the Springtime.

In the summer.

In the Winter.

The List - Learning a new vocabulary and it's not the same as "twitching"

I visited RSPB Minsmere years ago, and took two small children.  There was talk of a bittern, but I didn't see it.  There were cries of "It's up!" when a Marsh Harrier appeared and a scuffle as men with binoculars rushed to see the raptor.  I was slightly bemused, although I could see it was impressive.  I did see a Hummingbird hawk moth on that visit, which appeared in many a drawing for a while afterwards.  I also had binocular envy.  There are some seriously good ones out there.  I have since bought myself a pair, that are good enough for me.  I enjoy the mindfulness of birdwatching, but I can't see that I will ever take the "List" seriously.  

The "list", well it's obvious really.  A birder will start a list on January 1st. This is the "year list".  The aim is to see as many birds as you possibly can in a year.  A good way to start is to get up at 6 a.m. on January 1st and go to, for instance, Dungeness.  Here you are likely to see many different varieties and it will start the year off well.  (That's New Year's eve out then.)   Although, you can also have a "day list", which, obviously is just the birds you have seen that day.  Then again you can have a "Lewisham list". I think you get the idea.  

My interest in birds started with the ordinary.  That is, the ones that you see everyday.  Unfortunately, some of these are getting more and more scarce, but that is for another blog entry.  I will leave you with some drawings.  Inspired by my local wildlife.  The humble starling and the much maligned pigeon.