Nearly time ...

Just 5 hours and 50 minutes before the new list can start ... but in reality I suppose it will be nearer to mid-day tomorrow before I get out to any birding. 

We have a new puppy, Rusty-pup ...

That him with my domestic supervisor, Jan.  This shot was taken on the day we choose him at the breeders place in Winsford.  He's turned in to a little cracker of dog, a toy poodle if you are wondering what breed.  Now, when you think of it that's a daft name for dog breed.  Yes, I know it refers to their size but they hardly 'toys' are they?  They're alive and run around all by themselves and having fun ... and crapping and peeing all over the place if you don't keep an eye on them and take them out regular.  Rusty has done 2 dumps this afternoon while we were not looking.  It's all part of the fun of having a puppy though and we really can't complain about it can we. 

What I am looking forward to though (and note! 'looking forward to'), is taking him out for walks when he's had his second jab and his micron-chip done.  There is an ulterior reason for this though, where we will be going is a 'rec' just off Mount Street in Dorktown and there's birds there ... birds that count on the UK birding list.

'ey up there ... why do owls make that hoohoohoo sounds?  Easy, it's when the pick up a really hot mouse.  Oh dear, maybe I should have left that one with Alex Horne where I found it ;-)))     

Introduction

Introduction

So what can I say about myself then by way of and introduction then?  Well, I’m 62 years old, married with one son and one step-daughter (although I usually refer to Lynda as my daughter), one grandson, one step-grandson and one adopted granddaughter.  My wife is disabled and I’m her carer even though I have my own disability and mobility issues.  We live in the one horse dork (nicked from John Buchan’s 39 Steps), town of Nuneaton in Warwickshire. 

As for being birdwatchers (as opposed to twitchers), we are not new to the hobby.  We first joined the RSPB in early1990’s and have been members on and off ever since then.  We’re also members of WWT, BTO and Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Warwickshire Wildlife Trust.  We have lost count of the number of different birding sites we’ve been to in all these and I don’t suppose we could remember them all if I tried to list them – so I won’t try. 

Even so we don’t actually go out birding all that often, our last trip was early November 2010 when we found out about what is a new site at least for us, Fingringhoe in Essex.  It took us a quite a while to drive there in very nice weather but as we arrived in Colchester it started to rain and didn’t even ease up enough to even think about stopping.  As we both need to use a mobility scooter if we need to do any distance away from the car, we didn’t even bother getting them out, let alone going around the site.  “Why?” I hear you ask.  Well, if you have ever had to sit in a scooter and ride around on one in the pouring rain, you’d know why!  You get even wetter than when walking and even colder too and it makes the whole process totally unappealing. 
      

So the, after 20 years of birding and visiting an unknown number of different sites, our life list is less than 200 species.  With that in mind I have decided that that 2011 we be a different year bird wise.  I at least will make an effort to get out far more often than ever before and to go along with that I thought, “Why not a diary about the years birding?”  I can’t even claim any originality in that either.  I’m currently reading (late December 2010), Alex Horne’s Bird Watching Watching.  So with that I now move on to the diary ... and hope I can keep it up ;-)))

Well, it’s changed already; it will be a blog instead and this will be the first posting to it.  Not only that but I will also use the blog to have a general moan and groan of things that really bug me ... and there’s a lot of them too.  What I don’t want to do is to write and post a dry list of birds I’ve seen on a daily basis and where I’ve seen them.  No, it needs more than that to make it worthwhile so I hope that if you’ve read this far you’ll all stick with it as I go on.  To start with then ...

I’m a nosey old sod and sitting in a pub I tend to listen in (not too obviously of course) in the hope that I may get a few ideas for a new story I might want to write.  And then someone who is talking about something (details don’t matter here), and says the silliest words ever strung together in the English language, “I can’t wait for ...” followed by whatever it is they are on about.  How stupid can anyone get with only one head!  If they ‘can’t wait’, what are they going to do then?  Hibernate?  Hide in a cupboard?