An Afternoon With A 'Master' .....

  OK. This is a post about Bird Ringing / Nest Finding. If ye've just blown in here from Google, looking for some 'W/we' shit? Boy, are you in the wrong fucking place!

  So; Chris' is the nearest qualified Instructor to me. He agreed to entertain me as a prospective Trainee. Then he drove for Two Fucking Hours, just to get here!

 I'd also been told that he's one of the Best damn nest finders in Eire. He'd shown another Ringer some shit that had blown his balls off. 

 I simply couldn't accept that this guy was even gonna come near me. Shit of this calibre doesn't happen to me. It'd fuck up. Chickens counted before eggs hatched. I knew it.

 And then, after a week or two of false starts, there's this fucking motor coming down my track. Just ten minutes past the ETA! This guy had even found me! :o

  Turns out we're, roughly, 'Of An Age'. We shook hands and started the sort of secretly tentative conversations one starts with a complete stranger who ye looking at getting to know for some time. Trying to guage what's acceptable.

 Within what seemed like a few sentences, Chris is telling me how he was doing some work for some bloke.

" Guy's got a fucking Kalashnikov leaning in the corner! I've asked him; 'Is that thing For Real, or just some repro'? "

" And he's told me; ' No. It's real alright. God help any cunt who comes fucking with me! '.

 Now; What the fuck Is that yellow Dog ye have there ....? "

 And off we went! :D Yakkety yak. Mist Net up. Cup of tea and House Sparrow, male. 

 * A 'Mist Net', in case ye don't know ~ and why should ye? Is a very fine net. As in light. Made of like threads of sewing cotton. Stand ten feet from one and squint? Ye can't really be sure it's there. Birds fly into it and get tangled.

 Chris removed it from the net ~ a job Not for the novice, or ham fisted. It took even him some countable seconds. The head, feet and wings seem to each get stuck in a separate 'hole'. Got to be calm as fuck and gentle as a lovers breath.

  He showed me how the bird is held. How its little leg is presented. Ring placed into the special pliers. Slipped into the tiny, delicate little leg. Crimped closed.

  Then, because he's a Fully Qualified / Licensed, The Complete Shit, Ringer; He measured the wing. Pointed out some all but invisible, to me, differences in some tiny feathers, on the wing. Told me how this esoteric shit said this bird was born last year.

 Then, he popped and wrapped the little fucker in a plastic cone. Weighed him. Wrote all this shit down in a full sized, A4 Ledger. Then let him go.

 Faaaarkk!!! I'd just stood there and watched a real, live Ringer do his shit! Fuck! Unbelievable! And this was right there in my compound! Not some Bill Oddie shit on TV! I Was There!

 Bit of chat. Cup of tea. Great Tit in the net. Chris hands it to me! Now, thankfully, I've 'had to do with' handling wild birds, in a dim and distant, misty part of my past. I wasn't flapping. Nor was the bird.

   I put the ring on. Chris did the scientific stuff. Then we went hunting nests .....

  First stop was the Blackbirds nest I had. Four chicks. Fat as moles. Right on the limit of being young enough to still ring. 

  And the nest was empty. Some fucking cat, or crow had helped themselves at the optimum age / size! I wanted to grab a gun and go blow something ....!

  Chris gently pointed out to me how he'd once done a survey of Blackbirds. Found forty odd nests in a given area. End of the season? Every single fucking one of them had been taken by predators!

 Yet, next season? Another forty odd Blackbirds nests appeared in the same area. Dunno. Maybe we should just accept Blackbirds chicks are a major 'Fast Food' in the food chain, out there?

Maybe cat owners, who let their ' Free Spirits ' and ' Natural Hunters ' go wandering about, off their properties and out of their control? They'd better realise there's 'Natural Hunters', of Cats, out here too.

There's a hierarchy, out there amongst  the fields and ditches. Cats aren't the top of that chain. No matter what they think. 

  Not while I'm around.


 

I'm Gonna Be A Ringer ....!

  No! Din'! They're called " Campanologists ". Fucking rope hangers. See me yanking a rope to make some fucking great bell go 'Clang!'. Deaf enough as it is!

 No.  Ringing Birds. And I don't mean, " Hullo? Do ye offer a 'Full Service', home visit? " either. FFS!

 For anyone who's lived in a cave all their lives; This is about putting little rings on the legs of wild birds. Basically, we ring them in the nest or we catch them and ring them as adults.

  Ring has a # and that leads back to a load of information about that particular, individual bird. So, if I ring my Starlings, in my nest box right now? Their rings will be their little ID Cards.

  If one of them is then found dead, or caught by a Ringer, in Russia, three years down the line? He'll be able to trace that bird back to my cow shed wall. Hatched, May, 2011. I'll also be able to find out that one of my birds turned up in Russia.

 The scientists at the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) will be number crunching Thousands of such records, of course. And that's how we come to have books and Papers, explaining how birds migrate and shit. 

 That sort of information isn't just snatched out of the ether. It's scientifically proven by quiet people, around the world, steadily finding nests and catching birds. Putting little rings on their legs. Recording it all. And adding that shit to the Big Data Base.

  This is something I've pipe dreamed of being involved with All My Life! But, I'd simply assumed the only way in was to be from a Grammar School ~ at least ~ education. Lick the arse of the local Nature Reserve Warden, day in, day out,  for years.

As well as being a non smoker. Not swearing, having a sense of humour, or ever taking ye head out of ye own arse. Except to lick the arse of that local Nature Reserve Warden ....!

 I dunno. Maybe, forty years ago, that was about right? Today? Forget it!

 Take the BTO. I'm involved with their Nest Record Scheme. I ~ like thousands of others across Britain and Eire ~ search for birds nests and record their progress. 

  It's headed by a Doctor. Obviously. Right there; Bet he went to Grammar  School. Doesn't drink. 'Retirement' age. Wears 'nice' jumpers, like Giles Brandreth, the whole shebang. Eh?

What? " Dave " ?! Ye fucking kidding me?! Listen; Dave and Carl are the two main men at the NRS. I'll never forget ~ and wish I could find! ~ a photo they published.

It was one of them posing a demonstration of how to search, with a stick, for warblers nests.
Caption read: " And here, Carl demonstrates poking around aimlessly, with a stick, amongst some bushes. "

 I laughed till I cried, when I saw that! Made all the better by the fact that this 'crusty, austere old wet blanket' was, in fact, patently young enough to be my son.

  And was having the piss taken out of him, by his colleague, who, himself looks like a Mad Hippy, in an official publication! :D Mad as a box of frogs, the pair of them! But, completely human and approachable for it.

Chris? The guy who's agreed to train me as a Ringer ~ an 'apprenticeship' which can take a couple of years! They don't just make ye do a days course and set ye lose to fuck about with wild birds, ye know?!

Chris' is also one of the best Nest Finders in Eire. He was here on Friday. Spent the afternoon with me. Muvva Fukka!!!

  I'll tell ye all about that, in a new Post. Otherwise, ye eyes would be bleeding, trying to read so much shit. But, there it is. I've been accepted as a Trainee Ringer.

  Shit. I've probably wasted most of my fucking life now. Because I always thought he had to smoke a pipe and wear a Fair Isle jumper to even be looked at.

Wrong!!!

The Cat That Gave Me The Cream ....!

 Un fucking believable bit of luck! As some of ye may have gathered by now; I'm a bit totally obsessed with birds nests, in just about any shape or form. 

  I also happen to despise cats with the sort of passion only a Dog loving, Pest Controlling, Birds Nest Recording border line pathological case could.

 Well, isn't it just funny how, once in a while, the whole fucking matrix farts, and everything comes together? It just did!

 I'd been out staring at a corner of ditch where a pair of Wheatear's have their nest. This is becoming an annual ritual. Bloody things! I spend hours doing this.

 Gave them best, as I inevitably do. Came 'home', meeting Noel on the way. Had a great chat with him and gained the go ahead to put House Sparrow boxes in His barn ~ which Has active sparrow nests right now. Sadly, inaccessible behind steel girders.

 I was just strolling back down the track, approaching The River, when the birds told me to get my shit together. 

  Fuck me! Friday week back, Steve was bringing me home and the headlights picked out eyes in Noels first field. I asked if Steve had caught the glimpse. He had.

  He reckoned fox. I disagreed. They lacked the opalescence of fox. That almost 'dull' yellow? These were like lime green little light bulbs. I called cat. Unfortunately, I'd been drinking that night so wouldn't take a gun out.

 This evening? I was sober as a beak! It was a fluffy, tabby and white. Frankly, I couldn't give a shit what it was. I hurried home. Fed the Dogs and horses in record time. Headed straight back out with the rifle.

 Sadly, the bastard was long gone and far away ~ for now ~ by the time I got back there. But, obviously, I staked the place out anyway. Just sat on the bank side and observed the wild life around me.

 And that's when two little birds caught my attention. They were messing in the hedge, across the field on the opposite side of the track. 

  I paid them some attention. Watched other things. Saw one of 'my' birds fuck off to a tree, evidently feeding ~ these were clearly Warblers. Couldn't tell what, at that distance with my eyes.

  But, the other one was staying around the hedge. In fact, now I paid attention? It was tending to return to a small area. Somewhere just out of sight, below the dip where grass met the level of the hedge sinking into the ditch.

  About four such return trips did it for me. I trained the rifle 'scope, off a fence post, and proceeded to stare.

 Bingo! Even though I honestly couldn't make out the species, or even the particular colours of this tiny bird, through my ~ made for a completely different purpose and range ~ rifle scope. There was no mistaking the big bunch at its beak! Nesting Material! 

 I'll get back there with my bin's. Get a make on what bird this is. Then, I'll probably be able to find out how long they build for, before laying. I'll study the information, so's not to risk a desert.

  Then, when I judge the time is right? I'll walk right actoss that small field and peer into that hedge. I'll be starting my first ever, self found Warbler Nest Record! 

 Absolutely pumped about this! I'm reading everything I can get my eyes on. I'm spending hours just sitting and watching, trying to catch up with more birds and so trace their nests.

 Now it's started to pay back! :D