Amazing! Bird sounds from the lyre bird - David Attenborough - BBC wild...

Whilst on holiday last Easter I was lucky enough to spend a day exploring the Kuringai National Park just to the North of Sydney. My main aim was to find and hear this bird - a truly amazing mimic. For a relatively large bird - leggy chicken proportions - they can be very hard to see, particularly when they are in thick undergrowth. The one I saw was actually imitating noisy miners and whip birds and only emerged after about half an hour of standing completely still on the track. I got some fairly poor video footage of what looks like some bushes singing. This David Attenborough clip is far better.

27th January 2004. The day a little snowdrop appeared that has been blooming ever since. Happy Birthday Sweetcheeks. Let the festivities begin...xx

Are You Right or Left Brain?

This is a video clip I often use when leading sessions for trainee teachers - just to emphasise that although a group of students may all be looking at the same thing, what they actually see may be entirely different. It is amazing how in a group of people you get a broad division between those who see her twirl clockwise and those who see her go anticlockwise. Last time out of a group of fifty just one person saw her twirl both ways. For me she turns clockwise most of the time but she does occasionally flip if I concentrate. Not sure if there is any scientific cause for this but it is very odd.

Now that's what I call music.........

Left the house as usual in the dark this morning to the sound of a blackbird singing, despite the temperature being just below freezing. Quite a few birds sing in the dark - robins particularly - and people assume mistakenly they are nightingales. It would be amazing if they were but they are increasingly rare, reliable at only a few trusted sites in the south east. Actually, I can hear a robin as I write this. Some people hate the dawn chorus as an intrusion (collared doves on chimney pots CAN be annoying) but today's early songsters for me are a hint of warmer and longer days to come..........

MOV004

I grew up with the sound of house sparrows and it is ironic that just about the only place to see them now in central London is at the zoo, where they thrive. They are still about but in nothing like the numbers of my childhood. I saw a single male bird - the first for about a year - in my front garden about a month ago and tried an experiment...placing food in the form of millet sprays and fat balls (sold as 'fat peckers' in our local farm shop....) actually within the hedge. What a success! Day on day, a small feeding flock of about twenty individuals has formed and the feeding method has proved much to their liking. Now I am tempting them closer and closer to the sparrow boxes I've put up on the side of the house and the chimney stack...I'll stuff hay in the entrance holes to stimulate interest and see what happens. The video shows a female and then a male feeding within the hedge.

Sunset at Wilstone.....

Sometimes the birds are incidental.....

Geography Right Here. Right Now.

Well done David Lambert, my old tutor at the Institute of Education for this one, which I show alongside the previous post.

Geography Matters

An excellent video from David Rayner that I show to the year 9 students each year when they are choosing their options. I love watching their expressions - they are usually wrapped in this one. It's a shame that geography has an image of coloured pencils and corduroy because it is such a contemporary and dynamically relevant subject. Just watch the news on a regular basis. I never do a big sell....smacks of desperation - pleeeeeeeeeease do my subject - the subject should sell itself. The role of the teacher is to deliver it with passion. The moment I can't do that, I will do something else

Gulls and Jackdaws at Little Marlow Gravel Pit, Bucks, UK

This is Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire and gives you some idea of what a big roost is like.....

Gullible.....?

I appreciate that visiting a gull roost may not be everybody's idea of an exciting destination on a winter evening but Wilstone Reservoir is indeed a special place. As the sun sets gulls begin to fly in from all directions, landing on the water to bicker, preen, sleep or just generally loaf about. Thousands of them. Occasionally, perhaps spooked by a peregrine, they will all fly up in a flurry of snowy wings and settle again somewhere else. Tonight's roost was spectacular - the air still and the the sky an intense forget-me-not. My aim: to find the one Mediterranean gull amongst the thousands of black-headed and common gulls.A challenge indeed. At distance, and as the sun disappeared and the cold began to seep inwards, I scanned and scrutinised the individuals that made up the whole. The ultimate game of hide and seek. And there it was, it's differences subtle but diagnostic. A great sense of achievement...

Hero At The Zoo

As a policy I always try to resist cynicism because it can become embedded in your outlook in such a way that you end up with a continuously gloomy outlook on life. But in my weaker moments I like to reflect on Dustin Hoffman's fatherly advice at the end of 'Accidental Hero' - a superb film which explores our perceptions of heroism and what we are fed by the media - which I thoroughly recommend. What his character says is remarkably true when you consider the voluminous, continuous and often conflicting media output which bombards us from all directions, the pointless professional paperwork and dubious target driven data that gets shifted around and pedalled as 'fact' or 'truth'. I do wonder sometimes whether I have found my level of bullshit...the level I am comfortable and can deal with. I loved it at the Royal Geographical Society earlier this week when discussing the tension between public and private spaces in urban areas with a PhD student....I surprised myself at how easily I stepped up a gear and engaged with him at his level - his particular brand of bullshit . Worryingly it all made sense and even more worryingly I enjoyed it....

HS2: I am not a BANANA.........

Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the whole HS2 'debate' has been portrayal of any person opposed to the development as a NIMBY or its extreme version, the BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody)...a Tory Toff from the Shires interested only in preserving their lawn. Every geographer knows that change is an integral part of any environment but the problem with the HS2 line is its complete lack of symapthy for the landscape it will traverse - precisely because of the speed issue it has to go in a straight line, ploughing through communities urban and rural, ancient woodlands (habitat fragmentation and island population dynamics are the enemy of biodiversity), valleys (those of the Colne and Misbourne) and productive farmland. The proposals in the consultation were woefully lacking in compensatory habitat creation - landscaping/ tree-planting/excavation of run-off pools or green corridors for wildlife to remain mobile in a dissected environment. A decent survey of the plant and animal communities affected had not even been undertaken in the initial proposal. And precisely how sustainable is the high-speed technology in reality? How much CO2 will be created in its construction? It is wrong to dismiss people who are passionate about where they live, who are prepared to exercise their right to protest and make their views heard, as NIMBYS. You promised the greenest government ever Mr Cameron. Don't make me laugh...

Something's turd in the garden......come on Sherlock...help me solve the mystery!

Something stirred in the garden...at the end of it to be precise. For quite a while now...at least the last couple of months... nights have been disturbed by a raucous, rhythmic scream. Not a fox. Or a muntjac. Or any owl call I know. And then this morning the mystery creature had left its calling card near the shed. Oh my goodness! I would not like to meet the owner of the sphincter that generated a stool of such epic proportions...but it has spurred me on to find out what it is. Tonight, intriguingly, it called its distinctive trisyllabic call just below the conservatory window as I sat only a few feet away but I could not see it despite its proximity and staring intently in to the gloom. At some point (ie when I own one) I will set a camera trap and catch the creature on film but for now the creature's identity remains a mystery...

sometimes it is difficult to convey in words how perfect a moment can be......the wind dropped, the sun came out and the temperature rose, ever so slightly. We stood in the middle of a wooded ampitheatre and listened, our ears straining to hear the faintest 'clips' above the distractions of dogwalkers and mountain bikers Against a vibrantly blue sky first red kites, then buzzards and finally ravens soared. A goldcrest lived up to its name. And then we heard what we had been looking for...crossbills...nomadic, elusive, distant. For a tantalisingly short intake of breath they were swirling high above us and then they were gone.

Eurasian Bittern goes into hiding!

At this time of year the reedbed literally only a couple of hundred metres from my front door plays host to one or two rare wintering bitterns and I will often sit in the hide to try and see one...which itself is the real challenge. They tend to become active at dusk as they prepare to roost but can almost disappear at will, even when only a few metres away.

Looking up at the dazzling red kites

Had to laugh at a story in the paper warning people to keep small pets and children indoors because red kites pose a potential threat. They are incredible opportunists and would have been very common in Medieval Britain, scavenging on scraps. They are increasing markedly in the Chilterns because the habitat suits them and there is plenty of food, particularly road kill. This is awesome footage taken at a feeding station in Wales, their stronghold. They are big birds and do not like landing in confined spaces but are very agile. They whistle to contact eachother and I have found they will come and investigate if you whistle as they soar over.

Ring-necked parakeet

Had a great day in North London - had fish'n'chips at Toffs in Muswell Hill and a short stroll around Coldfall Woods. Three ring necked-parakeets were flying around and calling loudly at dusk. Incredible how these birds have established themselves and spread throughout London. Still rare in Wendover but they are pushing their way out in to Bucks.

Jack snipe are incredible birds - they seem to appear and disappear almost at will in the reedy margins of a reservoir. Saw two this morning at Marsworth. Mud can be so interesting! hmm..... I really don't care if people think I'm mad being out so early on New Year's Day......