Pokerbird: Avian Travels » Malta

Heard but Not Seen

Andy — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:22:00 +0000

Situation normal for a species that I’d only listed once, six years ago near Winchester. It hides out in cornfields and issues its wet-my-lips calls and you’d have to yomp through the crops and flush it to get any more. Which wouldn’t please the farmer and wouldn’t please the bird so hearing is as much as one can hope for.

Actually, I lie. I heard plenty either of caged birds or tape lures in the benighted island of Malta, so the call of Coturnix coturnix also reminds me of that dismal lump of shit in the Mediterranean. Nice to have some individuals escaping the bastards’ guns to brighten our summer.

So it was that Cissbury Ring, West Sussex held calling quail last Friday. Yes, I was out east for my half yearly visit to the bro at Steyning.

On the way across Wiltshire I quartered Salisbury Plain for likely stone-curlew sites. The best looked to be Porton Down but stopping for a squint would have branded me enemy of the state to judge by signs littering the roadside. RSPB Normanton Down should have been more accessible but it’s hidden better than the Army could manage. I found one possible path into it, walked a couple of miles, then gave up and went back.

Guess what? I was within 200 yards of the reserve. A map would have been handy.

My New Forest map was handy for yesterday’s return from Sussex. My target here was nightjar so I wanted an overnight stop near pine-fringed heathland. The Beaulieu Road Hotel should have served. Their room rate however didn’t serve my budget.

£145.

The hotel would have double served by being next to a station for my (abortive) Train Tour books. The timetable though also made it unsuitable. It only had three trains a day in the London direction but bizarrely twice that number westbound. What’s the thinking behind that?

Wouldn’t there be a growing enclave of easterners unable to return home? Perhaps it explained the expensive hotel. The location was a passenger black hole.

Actually I did end up paying £45 in Lymington. The days of looking for £25 and settling for £30 are long gone, went last year in fact when I accepted that a median of £35 was more realistic. In Hampshire‘s moneyed belt even that figure is too low.

Anyway, it set up today’s visit to Pennington-Keyhaven, which is a subject by itself.

Dead Bird News

Andy — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 04:57:15 +0000

The latest is again murderous Malta, killing spoonbills this time. Just before that, rare whooping cranes are being shot in the southern USA. That’s what happens when ignorant rednecks get hold of guns.

No, expand that thought: the Department of Agriculture (or is it the Fish and Wildlife Service? How these people love to hide behind their meaningless, anodyne titles) slaughters millions of birds in the USA every year, without bothering to check if the endangered rusty blackbird is among ‘em.

Still, one bird got its revenge when a cockfighting rooster stabbed some cunt from Lamont, CA to death. Ha-ha! And yah-boo-sucks to him. On the subject of cunts and the USA, mega-rich property-owners want to assert their “right” to boot bald eagles off “their” land.

And finally, in our own backyard, one website keeps tabs on the Scottish raptor persecution that’s still rife. What a wonderful world.

Voluntary Jobs

Andy — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 07:47:33 +0000

Here’s my latest post on the ChatterBirds blog: all the way from still sat in front of your computer (or whatever device you use to read this) to confronting the guns of Malta.

Corn Bunting, Dyrham Park

Andy — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:55:38 +0000

It’s been a good few weeks for this species: first, one up in East Yorkshire; then near Martin Mere; now, not quite on the National Trust estate but by the road down to Marshfield, which is their local stronghold. Another bunting, a yellowhammer also showed, for only the third time this year – a far cry from my Angus days when they filled the fields round Auchmithie. In fact, they even came to my feeders there.

I was in South Gloucestershire to check for quail, which I’ve only ever managed once, just outside Winchester. This discounts the poor trapped bastards that the fiendish Maltese use to lure innocent birds within range of their guns. That’ll all be starting up again soon. The most we can hope is that the loathsome, slimy Mediterraneans don’t shoot our birds, especially our marsh harriers.

And all to prove that they’re “men”. I don’t know: why can’t they just toss off to girlie mags, like the rest of the world.

No buntings on Malta either but that’s a whole other horror story of trapping and caging. I still can’t imagine why the non-brain-dead would want to holiday there. Better to go to Gloucestershire, which is civilised.

No Swallows at Tyntesfield

Andy — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:27:46 +0000

Nor anywhere near me so far but some are back: both Bristol and Clevedon message boards have reported them. Some birds have to run the gamut of Malta, of course, but Spain seems generous enough to offer others safe passage.

The Collins Bird Guide and the IOC place hirundines after larks but similarities in the order stop there, largely because the IOC has promoted crows and tits way up before the larks. (Rising before the lark? Hm, is that possible?) And warblers now come directly after swallows and martins. I’m beginning to piece all this together!

Being such a grim swallow-free day, it made sense to shelter in the National Trust house. It was all private last time I was in the Bristol area but now the Trust have taken on its renovation and, boy, does it need it. These rambling old piles, were it not for their historic interest, would be way less effort to pull down. And I think we do need some reminder of just how greedy their creators, the old captains of industry were.

The Trust are big on the philanthropy of these moguls but a house, and its extensive grounds, like Tyntesfield show that the good ole boys took more than their lion’s share before doling out the charitable scraps. (Rather ashamed that this lot bear the Gibbs surname.) For instance, tucked away almost as an afterthought, is a Rembrandt and a Salvator Rosa – probably both minor works but, hey, I wouldn’t pass on them.

The sun’s out now. Shall I go swallow-hunting? Nah, they’ll turn up some time.

Reservoir Cats

Andy — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:48:49 +0000

The Private Eye of birding blogs has come up with a couple of classics lately – one about sheep farmers and a later post sensitively sympathising with my favourite bête noir, the fucking Maltese.

Scotland the…

Andy — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:55:37 +0000

Well, not so brave. It seems to be the only bit of the UK with regular red kite poisoning. And I bet it’s the only country in the world that continues to persecute its (unofficial, I admit) national bird, the golden eagle. I do know it’s probably down to a few hundred landowners up north but unhappily their stingy actions taint the silent majority. Maybe silence isn’t so golden, especially for eagles.

And apart from anything else, this makes it very hard for us to point accusing fingers at Malta.

Robins Fly to Malta

Andy — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:49:46 +0000

Sheer bravado reported in the Times of Malta. Perhaps they just wanted to tweet “Fuck you” to the hunters and trappers. Don’t blame ‘em.

Add Senegal to the Wishlist

Andy — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:17:28 +0000

No idea where it is? Neither have I. But last night’s Autumnwatch, added to the recent Tanzanian revelation, convinces me that Africa is the place to go to support our beleaguered wildlife. The Senegalese actually seemed to be able to tolerate the ospreys taking their share of a swamp’s bounty.

Could it be that they’re showing more generosity than us North Europeans? Certainly more than our compatriots who would happily shoot cormorants merely for being better anglers. And centuries ahead of the dismal Mediterraneans, who would shoot anything that flies.

Bin Malta: Book Tanzania Instead

Andy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:37:00 +0000

Looking for a winter break? Maybe the usual Mediterranean fortnight? Maybe Malta, still a popular choice for Brits? Well, they do speak English, post their mail in red boxes and cross the road by belisha beacons; but, but, but, but, but…

I’ve done their grim gunmen to death, unhappily in a figurative sense not literally. So, let’s be happy. See how or where a tourism model could work some other way. News just in suggests Tanzania, whose enlightened villagers – and, by God, doesn’t that sound patronising especially as we call the thugs of Malta citizens – anyway the residents around Lake Natron have committed themselves to its protection and hence the conservation of a globally important lesser flamingo population.

Bit of a way to go? More CO₂? Perhaps. Perhaps offset by the tourist shillings pouring into the Natron villagers’ worthy coffers.