White-tailed Lapwing? Pah! I spit on yeuh...

Pumphouse Pool - SATURDAY 5th June

Well, I'd just watched the Flyers tie the Stanley cup two a piece with Chicago on ESPN America and needed outness. To the patch!!! If I don't have a plan, I usually just head straight for the Eastern Reedbed. And so it is today... Track is very dusty and it's dry and hot. There's a waft of pollen in the air and the water levels are still dropping. As yesterday - no Peregrine on its favourite spot, although it was there again the day before. The reedbed itself is dead and Millbrook Pool barely better - just a few tired looking wildfowl dozing in the sun. There is no shade and the flies are showing far too much interest and so I quickly decide to spend my free hour at Pumphouse.

I like Pumphouse, especially on summer days. At this time of year it seems few people come this far east into the reserve, preferring instead to wander around Birchwood Pool or Lapwing Lake, nearer the car park. Suits me fine, plus today it's nice and cool in the hide. The other draw of Pumphouse is that stuff drops in. And I've suspected for a while, more than maybe gets noticed, so in my book, it's always worth a look.

Pumphouse Pool 14:05 - My usual approach is to do a quick scan with the bins and talley up from the east hide. I've largely given up on the hide in Birch Wood (west hide) as the light's usually better from the east hide and you're closer to the spit than from the other end of the pool and hence more likely to get half-decent views of stuff. Ironic really, as I'd jokingly 'bagseyed' re-naming the Birch Wood hide after me in the new round of name changes for the upcoming Moore leaflet. Paul, Brian, if you're reading this - I no longer want it lol. Not that the view from the east was much better today... 1 Moorhen on the big island, a pair of Coots feeding two half grown chicks on the pool, a pair each of Oystercatcher, Lapwing and Mallard on the stoney spit with a mess of LBB Gulls preening away and another bunch on the water. Behind them on the water were three pairs of Tufties and a pair of Canada Geese - all looking hot and fed up, and then behind the line of fence posts by the spit was a family of Moorhens feeding.

Well, to be honest, that didn't really bother me. I've finally learned patience. Taken me years, but I've done it. I don't twitch any more. I've long since done the Maths. I don't get restless. I don't get stressed about being stuck in traffic and whether it'll still be there when I get there...IF I get there. I don't care about dipping, being gripped off or staying blocked. It's pretty cool tbh. Weird, but cool.Take for example, the recent White-tailed Lapwing at Seaforth. Was a time I'd have been straight down there. Hell, I would probably have tried to blag my way past security or climbed the Crosby Marina fence. But I can honestly say that I felt not the slightest pull when I saw it posted up. Not the tiniest tug. Now had I received a text about a patch Redstart or Wood Sandpiper, I'd have been much more likely to have been looking for excuses to get off work early! Even then though, the mere fact that I'd been texted, would have already taken away some of the heat from under the proverbial collar because they wouldn't be MY birds anyway. Maybe it's just me. That's not to say that I don't occasionally pine for the odd bird on other patches. I'd have loved to have seen the Wilson's at Seaforth for example, but truth be told, I can hardly wait to find my first patch Red-necked or Grey Phalarope! See that's another thing about patches - brings out the optimist in you!

There is of course, however, a darker side to patching. I think my competetive streak has probably been reawakened (!), and I still find it hard to shake that nasty habit of doubting birds I don't see unless the news comes from one of the local lads. Now I really need to work on this coz such cynism cost me the Black Kite in 2005! Ah well... anyway... where was I. Pumphouse Pool. Not much there. Lesson in patience.

Another 'good' thing about being hooked on a patch is that you're kind of forced to work harder birding wise. If you're in the midst of trying to add to the year list that usually means going off piste in the hope of stumbling across something nobody else has seen. OR, thrashing a small part of the patch more throroughly than you would otherwise have done. OR, as today, it can simply mean staying put in one place longer than you might otherwise have done, and waiting for something to happen. Now I have a theory about this (future blog assured!) and given the heat too, had little difficulty in spending the next hour working Pumphouse. I was fairly certain 'new' stuff would drop in (in fact the Theory practically guarantees it) but you have to give it time. So whilst I waited, I had a closer look at what was already here.

First off, I decided to do a little multi-tasking and aged the LBBGs (47-AdS, 4-2S, 4-1S) whilst listening out for songsters (Woodpigeon, Chiffchaff, Robin, Blackbrid, Willow Warbler). Leisurely scope scan revealed ... nothing new. Or should I say, no new birds. There were new things going on. For a start, the male Lapwing had decided to put on a show for the nearby female and stood all upright, all puffed up, with its bill tucked. Looked a bit like some sort of Tragopan showing off. One of the Oiks woke up and started preening and I noticed it had a bit of a gap between it's mandibles - they didn't quite close in the middle... (bit like an Open-billed Stork only not quite so obvious) AND it had more yellow on the tip than the other Oik that had also woken up and was now feeding along the waters edge. Second bird looked more compact too... My guess was the gap-billed bird was the male and the other a female. Of course I don't KNOW this, but it was cool to at least be able to recognise them as different individuals given that they weren't in any kind of discriminatory moult pattern. Unlike the patch Buzzards at the moment I should add, which look quite different from one another on account of their differring wing and tail moults. See, I probably wouldn't even have bothered looking so hard let alone notice this, had I not been patching. One of the resident Ravens is looking a bit gap-winged today as well and looks like its shed an inner primary or two...

14:13 - Ah ha! We have new birds. A pair of Shelduck and a male Pied Wagtail. Female Lapwing is now foot-trembling. They do this paddling, vibraty thing with their feet to bring stuff to the surface. It's supposed to simulate rain or so the theory goes. Other plovers do it a lot too. Tringa sandpipers and gulls as well. This bird it would seem is left-footed. Ever wonder about 'footed-ness' or 'winged-ness' in birds? Have a feeling I read somewhere that most Polar Bears tend to be left-pawed. Mind you I aslo think I read that all pigs sleep on their left sides... so who knows? I do know that House Flies hum in the key of 'F' though...apparently. Not sure what key the various New World Hummingbirds hum in though, but you can sure tell a good few of them apart from the hum. The smaller the bird the higher the pitch I seem to recall...

14:20 - decide to do some sky watching. Give up after the seventh soaring raptor turns out to be the seventh soaring bit of crap from Arpley Tip. Not cool. I'll tell you what is though... the way some days you can pick an 'empty' bit of sky, get your bins on it and find stuff that isn't actually there at all to the naked eye. Four Swifts today. Damn they can fly high up...

14:35 - nice contrast between the feeding gaits of Lapwing and Oystercatcher. Lapwing with it's dainty 'hot-coals' tip-toeing and the Oik with its deliberate, hesistant plod. Virgin train over the viaduct remind me to check again for Peregrine. Nope. He's 'awf somewhere... 

14:47 - gulls washing. Lots of head dipping, mantle shrugging, wing shuffling and finally shaking to fling those cooling water droplet off like a sprinkler on a lawn.

14:59 - Moorhens now scratching around on the bank behind the tern fence like a family of chickens bless em. If only they knew...

15:05 - hour up, so off I go. Stop briefly at car park and pick up Cuckoo and a Nuthatch feeding a fledged youngster. Just about to go when I hear it... a familiar something. I hate it when that happens. You hear something, a song, a call... very distant... and know immediately what it is. You get a bit of a belly flutter as you wait for it again, knowing that you don't need this for confirmation, but if it does it again it will mean you can go track the bird down and get a look at it too... and then... nothing. NOTHING! It's decided to shut up. You wait... come on. Still nothing. To make it worse, everything else is now noisier than it was a moment ago. Song Thrush. Chiffchaff... WREN!!! Why are THEY so loud? HOW are they so loud?! They're waaaay too small to be able to do that. I don't think they can fly either can they... according to the law of physics?? Shhhsssss! Straining of ears. Nope. Nothing but distant silence. So now, the certainty that was there a moment ago, is replaced by an inevitable nagging doubt and so you decide, reluctantly, that the tick that WAS 'in the bag', has now, to be taken back OUT again. Great! Today it was Turtle Dove, tomorrow... who knows. That's patches for ya ;)