The Standlake Birder

      If you asked me a week ago which of the 633 birds currently on the BOU list would be my 400 th  bird the near mythical new world Magnolia Warbler would have been very close to the bottom of the list.   Fast forward to this Wednesday when an event started to unfold that would go down as one of the most memorable in British birding history. Strong North Easterly winds blowing right across the Atlantic ocean from the eastern seaboard of North America to the British isles coincided with the peak migration time for American songbirds leaving Canada and the northern states for their southern wintering grounds. In the following couple of days some 20 mega rare birds together with a strong supporting cast of very scarce birds were found  dotted along the west coast of Britain and Ireland. Every time I proofread this the number increases! Every silver lining, however, has a cloud so please spare a thought for the many hundreds of birds that did not surviv...

  I’ve been a Brighton and Hove Albion supporter for some 50 years. I’ve stood in the stands at the old Goldstone ground in the bleakest of winter weather Saturday after Saturday watching them play teams in the lower divisions. I watched Peter Ward dance circles around the opposition on the way to his record 36 goals in the old second division in 1976/7. I’ve lived through the pain of the famous “Smith must score”  moment in the 1983 cup final.  I’ve watched on with horror as they were reduced to playing at a Greyhound stadium after property developers sold their ground. I’ve hung onto every word on the radio as my beloved seagulls avoided  relegation from the English football league by one goal. I even dedicated by 1980 PhD thesis to the seagulls in my acknowledgements! But never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d live to see them playing some of the most attractive and exciting football in the premier league while thrashing Man United  4 ...

    Aquatic Warbler I have been suffering from a serious dose of cabin fever which, if truth be told, has left me feeling quite low. Looking after Loki’s recovery from his operation has left me pretty much grounded for a week. We initially thought that the stitched wound would take 2 weeks to heal but the recovery has been put back by the area regularly bleeding, presumably where he has knocked it  at some point, and we are in the process of getting a second opinion to see how we take this forward.   After taking him to the vets yet again yesterday morning, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been in the last 8 weeks, Carolyn very kindly suggested I needed some  mental therapy via birding while she looked after everything at home. My destination was a place called Upper Beeding in Sussex where a rare Aquatic Warbler had been found the previous day. Virtually all records of this attractive warbler are for one day only making them quite hard to twitch...

  Common Snipe I guess it's fair to say that we have had a streek of bad luck recently resulting in no birding whatsoever over the past three weeks. We discovered that my wife’s favourite horse has a major heart issue and is now unrideable and my Weimaraner, Loki, had an accident resulting in a nasty wound on his tail. After five weeks and two courses of antibiotics due to infections the wound has failed to heal and we have very reluctantly agreed with the vet that he should have his tail amputated. We now have 2 weeks of wrapping him up in cotton wool and watching him like a hawk to make sure the resulting stitches stay put and it all heals. He is a very energetic and friendly dog so to try and keep him calm he’s on tranquillisers for the first week! Just to add to the fun both our land rover discoveries have broken down on the road some distance from home and have been recovered by Green Flag. Although my wives comparatively new Disco 5 had very low mileage it has been a rel...