Scorchio

A couple of the lads

I'm not designed for this weather: I'm more for pretending it's not cold than pretending it's not hot. Which is why, aside from essential shopping forays, I've been hiding inside and drinking industrial units of tea. 

Despite the Summer's heat the signs of Autumn are all around. The swifts disappeared on the turn of the month: a handful were feeding high on the 31st July and there were none on 1st August. I doubt they had a good year, there was at least one youngster but I don't think there were many more. The rowan tree is chock full of berries this year. The blackbirds gave it an early hammering but have left it alone the past couple of weeks, leaving it to the woodpigeons and carrion crows to come in for a quick appetiser before heading off for their main meals. The young magpies have sort of taken ownership of the tree but don't appear to have any idea what to do with it. The black-headed gull flocks on the school playing fields are slowly building up on all but the warmest evenings, usually accompanied by a couple of lesser black-backs or herring gulls. The first common gull arrived the other day, definitely a sign that the season's turning.

The spadgers are giving the feeders a hammering, aided and abetted by blue tits, coal tits, great tits and a juvenile robin. The coal tits are coming in one at a time and very quietly, it's a matter of luck getting to see one in the garden. One was calling a few streets away the other day when I was doing an errand for my dad. Adult robins, dunnocks, and now even the wrens are in stealth mode.

The woodpigeons and collared doves have finished their moults and are paired up and singing ready for what I think will be their second broods. I suspect a couple of pairs of jackdaws down the road are similarly inclined though how they'd stop either eggs or chicks baking in a brick chimney top I don't know.

---

There was a post in one of the Facebook groups the other day asking for advice for how to get from Manchester to Bempton Cliffs. All the responses were variations of "Can't be done," so I explained how I did it last month. I didn't get any reply but it got me thinking: all the people who'd responded lived in Yorkshire and so had never needed to try and all seemed to think that any journey more than two hours by car (which seemed to be the standard unit of measure) was impossible on public transport by default.

One thing I have learned when planning an unfamiliar journey is that just going by the result when you enter the start point and destination on Google Maps or one of the train sites doesn't always give you the best answer (and the latter definitely doesn't always give you the best price!) There are lots of times where going via an alternative route is easier and/or cheaper. For instance I've learnt to always check if there's a way to a Yorkshire location via Sheffield rather than Leeds because often it's cheaper to do a split ticket via Sheffield, there's generally less than ten minutes' difference in the travelling time and Leeds Station is a nightmare. If you're using Google Maps as a planning tool and it tells you the location's impossible by public transport, find the nearest station or bus stop and find how far it would take to walk and it's a reasonable distance find out then how to get to that station/bus stop by public transport. For some reason Google Maps thinks that if it's more than a mile or so to walk the last bit then the whole journey's impossible. It's also inconsistent about it: check once and you'll be given directions including the walk, check later to confirm it and the same journey with the same start time and place will be deemed impossible. It helps to be a bit bloody-minded about making your plans.

Of course, some journeys really are impossible. I wargamed the journey to Cambridgeshire to see if it was possible to go for the Cape gull that was there last week. Google Maps told me a few times that it was impossible but after fiddling round with start times and places I got quite a few options, none of which were feasible unless I fancied dossing down in St Neot's Station for the night. Which I didn't.

All in all, I'm a very idle sort of birdwatcher quite happy to just potter about and leave the twitches to the more energetic people.