The Day After The Day After Tomorrow Vole

A few more of my favourite shots from wandering about in the snow this weekend. The whole set is here, and a few more of the best ones are here. Click to enlarge.

Too dark for a high shutter speed, so this is the best I could do - lots of tits' arses. But you can see it holding a nut in its beak

Squirrel with robin in the background

Quite pleased with the beating wing of this coal tit

One stuffs its face, the other keeps watch

This time I focused on the robin rather than the squirrel

Decent abstract effect from this sculpture 

Same sculpture, different focus

Another bird's bum

Tree outside my office

The view from the top floor. I was pleased with the colour

Tree outside the office again

Another view from the office. 

Trains and boats and buses (2)

A few more pictures of my Grand Day Out. Rest here, or click these to enlarge.

Last of the big spenders, me.

Angry Birds is very popular round here

Old MacDonald had a farm

Perhaps you think of farmers as rosy-cheeked, benign guardians of our natural glories. All the animals have names and are dispatched with a pat and a tear. Birds sing in the hedgerows and muscly young men and women gather in the harvest with a song.

Not me - I grew up in the country. Bar the hill-farmers clinging on in poverty, farming is one of the nastiest businesses out there. Massive swathes of the country are devoted to monoculture (reducing biodiversity). Most farmhouses are empty or rented out to commuters: there aren't many farmers left because huge corporations own the land, while the actual work is sub-contracted out to mobile businesses paying immigrants shamefully low wages to move around the country. The animals are stuffed full of drugs to keep them docile and germ-resistant (not the same as being healthy) and the fields are green deserts. The real crops being farmed are taxpayers' subsidy cheques. They're not going to the remaining small farmer to maintain an ancient culture and eco-friendly rural idyll: they're going to massive global corporations like Tate and Lyle, Cargill and even to some of our government ministers.

As to the birds - forget it. Farmers shoot, trap and poison anything that moves unless there's a subsidy cheque attached to it.

Don't just believe me - let's hear what the outgoing conservation head of the RSPB has to say:

A leading green campaigner has sparked a row over the cause of declining wildlife in the UK by accusing farmers of being "fundamentally anti-environment."

Mark Avery, who last week left his post as director of conservation at the RSPB, also says environment ministers have brought little knowledge or enthusiasm to their jobs, attacks successive governments of "muzzling" state agencies meant to protect wildlife, criticises global "over-consumption" in a Guardian article on Wednesday that looks back on 25 years at the charity. Avery attacks "conservative" farmers for what he sees as their failure to reverse the massive population declines in farmland birds – numbers are now at their lowest levels in England since formal attempts to record them began in 1966 – before criticising the body that represents them in England.

"at almost every opportunity, the [National Farmers Union (NFU) ] chooses the option which will harm the environment – it is weak on greenhouse gas reduction measures, in favour of biofuels, argues against improving the effectiveness of farming grants, is against clamping down on pesticide use and wants its members to carry out what will be an ineffective cull of badgers.

"The NFU lacks a coherent view of what the future of farming should look like except that the cheques must keep coming from the taxpayer."

What does the NFU (which really only speaks for the mega-farmers) blame for the massive decline in bird numbers?

domestic cats and dog-walking

I'm now stroking my chin in the internationally recognised sign of disbelief. Millions of tons of pesticides, hedges ripped out and monocultures, versus some dog-walkers.

Snow joke

A few more pictures of the Shropshire countryside in winter and its birdlife- see the rest here.

Nuthatch?

Take-off

Feeling Twitchy?

Some of my friends are enthusiastic, lifelong birdwatchers. They go to places to see interesting birds, and keep a note of what they've seen. They also know a lot about bird identification and behaviour.

They don't like being called Twitchers, which I've never really understood. As far as I knew, Twitchers were just über-enthusiastic birders, the ones prepared to travel long distances and buy bigger monoscopes.

That's what I thought until I watched Twitchers: A Very British Obsession on BBC4 last night. This (no doubt highly-edited) documentary spent a year following some birders around the country as they spent massive amounts of money, abandoned their families (and sometimes work) to add birds to their 'year' and 'life' lists. An air of fragile mental health enveloped many of these (mostly male) people, living in their cars while they pursued ticks in boxes. Very few of them seemed at all interested in the birds: they were just a tick, and hopefully one their rivals didn't have. Jealous and distrusting, they circled each other warily, never making friends but carefully not making enemies.

Central to the show was one particular twitcher who described himself as the 'policeman' of birders. He maintained the competitive lists for each year, and usually comes top too. He often appeared on camera explaining that he didn't trust even his friends when it came to spotting, and would publicly rule on who'd cheated - he wouldn't accept that others had seen a particular gull, for instance, until he'd verified it.

My favourite bit from him was his disdainful dismissal of a birding family: 'I don't really see the under-10s as competition', or something similar, while making the fair point that very young kids being dragged round the country by competitive parents isn't the way to instil a lifelong love.

Love was what was completely absent from this world: they're just men collecting ticks, and it was striking how many had previously sourced their ticks elsewhere: plane-spotting, trains-spotting, Rolls-Royce number-plates. Clearly they were in some way mentally or emotionally damaged. They seemed incapable of appreciating anything about these birds other than rarity, which was saddest of all. No country walk seemed adequate without a tick.

Now I've got my own collecting habits, though I've improved recently. I buy a lot of books and music, but I no longer chase every release on certain labels, or hunt down the side-projects of the temporary drummer in a long-vanished band. Completeness has been replaced with a sense that my possession of certain books or records reflects a period of my life and tastes - an appreciation of fluidity has replaced the need for totality. I'm still a bit of a nerdy collector though, but even I found these people unsettling, worrying and pitiable.

I like birds. Even small brown ones. I just don't feel the need to tick them off on a list. I'd rather watch them flying around, and perhaps know what they're called and perhaps what they taste like. It's fine if Ben and Dan have seen more or rarer ones - and they feel exactly the same way. I can't help feeling that the twitchers have entirely missed the point.

We shivered at the coast / When the end was close

So sang The Field Mice in 'An Earlier Autumn', and it's certainly true of the swallows I saw this afternoon - they're preparing for the long flight to Africa already. Click the pictures for larger versions, see the rest (not many) here.

Chough all mate

My birding friends will (hopefully) like these. Choughs are pretty scarce in these parts apparently. It's worth clicking on them for larger images, and going here for all the day's photos.

Not a chough

I'm really pleased with this one.

Lift Off

They don't know much about art…

…but they're partial to a bit of Mogwai and Slint.

This is an 'installation' (how I hate that word) by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at the Barbican, London. I'd love to see it.

 

They're circling…

Management aren't the only things preying on us: kestrels are breeding on the art department building. I'll take some photos sometime this week. Three chicks are completely visible. Not quite the 'Urban Ospreys' of which The Nightingales sang, but still pretty good.

Meanwhile, once I can get my head around iMovie, I'll treat you to footage of Dan shaking his booty most undecorously. I must confess that strong drink had been taken at this point.

Mistle-thrush for dinner

Admit it, that's a tasty little dish that Rosetta remembers from her childhood.

Morning Glory

The dawn chorus started at 5.46 this morning. Thousands of avian voices all singing - yes, I'm afraid so - 'are you looking at my bird?'.

Bookings for weddings and children's parties are coming in unexpectedly slowly.

Must control murderous urges

My friends Ben and Dan are twitchers - birdwatchers. I like birds, and generally admire whatever they've spotted when we're out walking as the Map Twats. Yet I had a most satisfying dream the other night. Every time they pointed out something rare, I produced a gun and blasted it out of the sky, each time gaining an enormous sense of well-being. I don't hunt, or even like hunting (though I can see the justification for shooting your dinner), so why was it so enjoyable? Perhaps it's the transgression. I'm a quiet and well-behaved cove most of the time, and rarely do anything outrageous, so mayhap the old subconscious is hinting that there's a pressure-cooker of rage that needs release before I go on some sort of festive killing spree.

Still, seeing Tindersticks tomorrow so that should help.