Karma, stilletos and the optimistic Skylark...

 Well, today was not as I intended. In fact, the whole weekend, truth be told has been turned on its head and the patch today was simply escape. Karma decided to play the bitch, strap on her stilletos and kick me where it hurts. Such is life. The patch though, didn't care a fig / give a fuck (delete as appropriate) and so my 83 minutes worth were time well spent. Not that I saw much! But it got me thinking. Well actually it got me NOT thinking, which was what I needed most.

My new phone has been buzzing this week (I have limited ring-tone choice) with news of patch birds; Pintail, Goosander, Med Gull, Iceland Gull and I've not been able to go for any. It's been weeks! The chance to stroll in the rain was, therefore, just too good an opportunity to pass up. First stop was the eastern river... where there had been a pair of Goosander in the week... emphasis being on the word HAD. There was nothing today save 2 'domestic' Mallards, a Skylark optimistically singing overhead in the drizzle and the shouts and cheers from an unseen football match upriver somewhere.

Soggy, yet surprisingly unphased by my damp lack of birdage of trudged back to the old Volvo and headed for the Eastern Reedbed. As I walked up the short path to the 'hide' I could scarcely contain my excitement. Coots. I could hear Coots!! Three of them as it turned out and 2 Tufted Duck too!!! Is that yesterday's pork stuck between my teeth? No. A piece of apple I'd eaten in the car just now. My coat is blue. My boots are muddy. There's a carrier bag in a nearby tree. This was going to be hard work! Focus dammit!!!

Millbrook Pool; 2 Mute Swan, 5 Tufted Duck, 11 Wigeon, 8 Coot, 2 Gadwall, 7 Teal, 3 Shoveler, 4 Grey Heron, 14 Mallard, 4 Pochard, 1 Canada Goose. See? It's possible if you just focus! Rain. Coffee beckons. Shelter beckons. Pumphouse Pool east hide beckons.

Pumphouse Pool (east hide). Lots of stuff here / Not much stuff here. Now THIS was actually a useful observation. Why? Because it reminded me that things are as they are. If I want there to be lots of stuff here, there will be 'lots'of stuff'. If I want there to be not much stuff here, there will be 'not much stuff'. It's all just a matter of perspective after all... there's just 'the stuff here' whatever I think, but it's good to be reminded of the fact and I can now enjoy the Teal, the Shoveler, the Gadwall, the Mallard, the Tufties and the Mute Swans...

...AND ... subsequently at the Feeding Station the Blue Tits, the Great Tits, the Coal Tit, the GSWoodpecker, the Chaffinches, the Reed Buntings and the Moorhen.

Yes. Today was not at all as I intended... but that's the patch for you. It's honest. It has no agenda.

The fox, the geese and me...

I asked myself a question. What do you seek? I’ve asked it of myself many times before and until recently would have answered something like ‘Inner Peace’ or ‘peace of mind’ or ‘to be happy’ or ‘to feel alive!’ and it struck me yesterday that what this translates into is Freedom. Freedom from all those irritating self-imposed habits, foibles, prejudices etc. Or at least the freedom to choose to be free from them or not. It’s like we’re in a kind of sleep, behind glass. I’m not the first to notice this! Persig talks about the difference between riding a motorbike and driving a car in terms of your experience of the world. Riding is like being PART of the landscape. You’re there, in the moment, experiencing it, not merely observing it as you do behind the window of a car. It’s the same with gigs... and once in a while the patch.

Many years ago I vowed, never willingly to go to a gig and SIT ever again. It always felt afterwards like I’d just watched it on the big screen... probably because, at least in part these days, you can end up literally watching it on the big screen if you’re not in the thick of it. OK, so you might catch a whiff of the atmosphere, but you’re not IN the picture... not unless you’re wedged like sardines with thousands of other bodies. Not unless you feel the push and shove, duck the crowd surfers, get swept into the circle pit, smell and taste the sweat of countless strangers, see into the eyes of the band, feel the bass pounding in your chest, the cool breeze from the on stage fans, reach for half a cup of water among the swirling sea of arms and horns and pumping fists, scream at the top of your lungs every word you can manage, even though you never hear the sound that comes out above the throng of everything else. It’s like you’re IN the sound, part of it. You’re not you anymore. You’re part of some big ‘thing’. You are, if I can get a lil Zen for a moment, at one with the band, the crowd, the whole thing. You are alive! In the moment. There.

And afterwards, it stays with you... for a while... this affirmation of being... and yet when somebody asks you about it, you’re lost for words. You can’t explain WHY it felt as it did, just that it was... ‘something special’. After one recent gig, a friend of mine who was with me up at the front said “It’s weird, I can’t remember a single song from beginning to end. I can remember bits of various ones, but not one from start to finish”. It’s true. It’s like you get swept up in the moment. You live it there and then. I had other friends at the gig who were seated. Their perspective was different; they KNEW what songs were played and in what order. They knew what the band did for the encore. They could rewind and replay it in their minds. We couldn’t, because we WERE it and I came to the conclusion that THAT is how life SHOULD be! Being IN the moment. Today I was reminded of this again... for just a little while.

I am watching a Fox sneaking up on a small flock of Canada Geese on the other side of the lake from where I’m sitting. I can see his fur blowing gently in the wind... the same wind I’m feeling on my face, warm from the west carrying with it the smell of woodsmoke... The same smell the Fox detects as it lifts its head and sniffs the air. The geese spot him and start to cackle, moving towards the water and safety. We all hear them together, me, the Fox, the gull overhead and the Jackdaws in the nearby tree. A Heron rises on lazy wingbeats as the geese approach. The gull jinks and we all take note. A cloud covers the sun momentarily and suddenly it cools. I feel it on my neck, the Fox’s fur pricks up and the geese ruffle their feathers as they enter the water. We’re all part of the same picture, all reacting to the same sensations. For a moment... a fleeting moment, there’s just ‘it’... that ‘something’ that isn’t the lake, the wind, the Fox, the cool, the noise, the geese or me.

Ah well...

Soggy Trousers...

I can highly recommend singing along :)

Naughty gulls on nasty pools

And Herons breaking all the rules

Having fun and playing fools

Smashing up the woodcock's tools

All the Grebes is in the pub

Passing 'round the Roach and Chub
Trying not to think of when

The Canadas will come again.

Oh what fun I had

Yomping through the Snipe Fields lad

How I learnt to pull

The thorns and shit from in my leg

Oh what fun we had

But at the time it seemed so bad

Just a flock of geese

To make a difference to... the...

Birding's kinda tough today
All the birds have gone away
Gone to fight on next-door's pool
Every winter, that's the rule
Sits alone and waits for Roy
Robin needs his daily joy
Biscuits, mealworms, bread and stuff
Blackbird's gone off in a huff

Oh what fun I had
Counting Teal and Shoveler lad
How I learnt to check
Each silhouette and tiny speck
Oh what fun we had
But at the time it seemed so bad
Jack Snipe's gone away
That makes a difference to the day.

Ain't no girls, but lots of boys

Lots of smells and lots of noise

Listening for an early Lark

Checking owl fields after dark

Soggy trousers, dirty shirt

There's a Snipe it's eating dirt

Owl is in its ivy tree

add to the year list, 1 2 3

Oh what fun we had

But, did it really turn out bad

Sparrowhawk makes four

It's time to hit the road some more

Oh what fun we had

But at the time it seemed so bad

Trying different ways

To make a difference to the days.

Soggy trousers, Soggy trousers, Soggy trousers

Soggy trousers, Soggy trousers, Soggy trousers

Patch Year List 78...