Birding Braunie

Electricity is a marvellous thing. It can give you power, heat, light and if you’re stupid, it can kill you. And I’ve always got on with the sparky stuff even on the odd occasion I’ve been stupid. And then there’s my car. My Peugeot is an electrical engineering feat of ineptitude. The lightbulbs can’t be reached, the electric pump for the screen washer reservoir can’t be got at easily; you basically have to dismantle the car to be left with it. The car had actually been in a 'good' garage the day before to have a new pump fitted which is why I know how hard it is to sort. And when the battery goes flat, the lights still work. In my case and just as my brother had carted all of his stuff from his car to mine it waited until we were ready for weekend of blistering birding to say fuck you. My brother is a hero. He wasn’t expecting to have to drive all over North Norfolk with me pointing at all the pubs we could go to when the weather turns but he did and he was awesome (rarely d...

So where did the summer go? Come to that, where did I go? My blogging seems to be flagging which is possibly due to a couple of reasons. 1. I’m a lazy so-and-so and writing a blog can only be fun when I have been somewhere great and seen lots of brilliant birds and stuff, or, 2.  I’m too busy doing other stuff and birding isn’t that important really. Okay, it is important but so many things in life take priority and that’s life unfortunately. I tell myself if I won the lottery (difficult at the best of times but sort of impossible when, like me, you don’t do it) I could/would go birding everyday. But then surely it would stop being fun? I love it when I do get the chance and try to make the most of it as it might be a while before I do it again. This weekend looked promising and even the weather appeared to be on my side (for once). I just had a million and one things to do first. Lots of gardening and DIY needed to be rapidly done on Saturday and even a late meal ...

About a month ago, I saw a friend put an image, an excellent image I might add of a Little Owl on his Facebook timeline. I was intrigued. I hadn’t seen a little owl for some time – probably over 2 years in fact so I was keen to find out where he took the pictures. As it turned out, there were a pair of owls and they were close to my previous home in Buckhurst Hill, Essex. The only slight issue was that the birds liked to hang around a few oaks that surrounded a children’s’ playground. Not a good look if you are over 50 and carry binoculars and a telescope to take pictures! It was clearly an early morning visit that was called for. So at 6.30am I set off the couple of miles it would take to get to the park that was also part of the Roding Valley NR.  Not many people around at 6.40am on a Saturday morning with the exception of a couple of joggers and a cyclist. The play area was empty with only a few magpies loitering about. A ring-necked parakeet squawked overhead warni...

This little sortie into Suffolk...or is it Norfolk...or is it both? I get dizzy travelling that road from the M11 to Brandon, just  a stone-curlew’s throw from Thetford Forest. The signs say welcome to Suffolk, then Cambridgeshire then Suffolk again or Norfolk or somewhere then the screeching of tyres and your passengers fly across the car interior as you nearly miss the entrance to Weeting Heath. Attention! Myself and my accomplice on this particular mission, Brenda, are greeted by a gentleman who reminds me of the bull elephant in the Jungle Book. The khaki shorts, handlebar moustache and general air of a time not out of place in the time of the Raj. I’m being unfair as the 'major' is a calm and caring man who has always been stationed at Weeting since I can ever remember. He talks about a time when he lived in central Africa and I can see it. I could listen to his banter all day but we had come to see the Stone-curlews and hopefully the regular Spotted Flycatcher that fr...