Wisdom must reckon on the unforseen

The above paradox is quoted by G.K. Chesterton in the very first of the Father Brown detective stories and attributed to (Edgar Allen) Poe. There was another American who talked about known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns and unknown unknowns. I actually think his formulation was quite neat, unlike his legacy.

Poe was right.

Occasionally in this blog I depart from questions of political philosophy and suchlike to talk about something serious - birdwatching. A few days ago I went on a longish walk along our local river, the Stour, which for much of its course forms the Essex/Suffolk border. I was in the attractive area known as Dedham Vale, crossing damp meadows by a path close to the river, and was due a stop for coffee and sandwich. I found a suitable just-about-fallen willow and sat down. There were large black-and-white (Frisian?) cows nearby. As I ate and drank, one cow approached close. I guarded my food. I did not think there was any point in guarding the other things I'd put down. Putting the sandwich box away, I looked up to see the cow making off with my binoculars dangling from its mouth by the strap. As the river was close, a disaster was possible.

Fortunately my yell caused the cow to drop the binoculars, and on grass, not in the water.

Never underestimate cows.

Autumn birds

Here in England autumn is in the air. The air is a little colder, each day is slightly shorter than the one before and in the countryside if you pause, you can sense that slight sweet rotting smell.

For birds it's a time of change. It reminds me how different our perceptions of time and change can be depending on the latitude we live at. For temperate parts south of the equator, of course, you just reverse the times so Christmas will be in summer and May Day will come towards the end of autumn's slide into winter. The experience of the seasons is the same. But further north, winter is longer and harsher, as I experienced for two years in Finland. Most birds leave in autumn and hardly any arrive, making spring far more dramatic. In the two years I was in Finland, I saw my first Woodpigeon of the year each time on the 30th April. Near the equator, as in Kenya where I've also lived, none of the resident birds leave but you know Europe and Northern Asia are descending into winter because new birds arrive, many of species not present in the European summer.

Last week a visit to our local North Essex migration hotspot, The Naze, an unstable peninsula between the open sea and an estuary, turned up several migrants, birds not present in summer locally but passing through on the way to Africa - Pied Flycatcher, Common Redstart, Garden Warbler, Yellow Wagtail, Sand Martin and others. Yesterday i was covering an area not far away and also coastal but much more sheltered, so less likely to attract local rarities - the complicated estuarine areas of Hamford Water and The Wade. This fits in neatly with a pint in the Red Lion, Kirby-le-soken, before I head back. Birds sitting on an old upturned rowing-boat in the channel were revealed as three different tern species, Sandwich, Common and Little. A Whinchat flew to the top of a bramble bush. Those are all birds heading for Africa. But soon after a small, sharp-winged, intense, fast shape cut across the sky and put up clouds of waders. The first Merlin of the winter had arrived.

Butter and Dragon

I'm a birdwatcher, but now seriously into dragonflies and a bit into butterflies, though it is frustrating how many of the former (damselflies) are very small and striped blue and black and how many of the latter in Britain are basically brown and orange.

Birds are residents or migrants. Migrants can be passing through or coming to stay. Their arrival and leaving dates are affected by the weather, but for example, by the late April the first clear night with winds from the south should bring some Whitethroats and although the odd bird may arrive very early, in Southern England you listen for the first Cuckoo around 20th April. However, typically you get a few of any species, then some more, with the main arrival two or three weeks after the first pathfinders.

Butterflies and dragonflies also work to a timetable, but it can be much stricter. A few are migrants or vagrants, but for most, when they appear, they've just emerged from chrysalis (butterfly) or straight from the larva (dragonflies). I'm describing the situation in temperate climes, of course: near the equator dragonfly slecies can be around all year.

Two weeks ago as I walked Essex and Suffolk footpaths, suddenly there were lots of Gatekeeper butterflies, small, quite brightly-patterned red-orange and brown butterflies often found in numbers around bramble bushes. Yesterday, suddenly around marshes, there were lots of restless, red, small dragonflies called Common Darters. If I'd picked the right two days, I'd have drawn a blank on the first and seen numbers the next. The Common Darters will be around in declining numbers into late October or even November.

I love the seasons.

A chance encounter

When I lived closer to it, I used to walk along the Stort Navigation on the Hertfordshire/Essex border fairly frequently, roughly between Harlow and Bishop's Stortford. Note for non-Brits especially: a "navigation" in this sense is a river converted to make it suitable for barges, straightened in places and given at least partly artificial banks. The Stort is the original river. The area is surprisingly rural, with woods, fielda and marshes.

Since moving further away, I've become seriously interested in dragonflies and took the opportunity of recent sunny weather to revisit the Stort, reckoning it would be classic dragonfly habitat - and so it was. I was looking out for birds and butterflies too and had my binoculars round my neck.

A tractor was harvesting hay close to the navigation. It stopped. A powerfully-built white-haired man, naked above the waist, got out and came jogging across the field and through a rough gap in the nettles and other vegetation to join me on the bank. He'd seen my binoculars. He was the farmer. Had I seen the buzzard, he asked. Note to Americans: this is not the small vulture you call a buzzard, but a kind of large hawk, which was exterminated in Eastern England in the 19th century but has returned over the last twenty years. I hadn't. He said it often came down when he was working in the fields to take any prey disturbed by machinery. We chatted about birds. I explained my number one interest that day was dragonflies. He asked about that.

On my way back I did see his buzzard.

So why is that worth a post? Some farmers are still hostile to birds of prey, but he was seriously interested. More than that, he was working, stopped his machine and went out of his way to reach me and talk to me. I was impressed - humbled, really.

Oh, and the Three Horseshoes at Spellbrook had good real ale...

A Time of Change

Spring, like autumn, is a time of change, of transition, of movement. For birdwatchers in temperate or arctic lands, it's a time of looking out for new summer visitors and passage migrants. By contrast the last of some wintering species goes hardly noticed - after all, you never know for sure it's the last, whereas that Swallow is definitely your first for six months. In Finland, the arrival of the Cranes is eagerly awaited by people with only the most casual interest in wildlife. They are spectacular birds, of course, and can be seen flying over urban areas. In Britain the nearest equivalents are the Swallow and the Cuckoo. The former is nearly always seen long before it's heard and the latter is heard easily but seen rarely. The Swallow, a small bird feeding by catching flying insects, is a brilliant flier. It's in a group called Hirundines, the other British members of which are House Martin and Sand Martin. The fluttering and swooping of a Hirundine, fast and manoeuvrable, is distinctive. The moment when a birdwatcher sees the first of the year, distant in the sky, the WHAT'S THAT? IS IT? YES! is a great pleasure. The Cuckoo is much declined (no-one quite knows why and young birds are now being tagged with radio-transmitters to try to find out)and its song is hardly beautiful (Cuck-coo early in the season changing to Bock-coo later) but perhaps the very facts that it's so distinctive and the bird is so often heard but not seen explain its big role in myth and the marking of spring. This Sunday I set out for a long walk along my local estuary, the Stour (forming the Essex/Suffolk border). Usually I do this sort of thing on a Saturday, but I'd been out with the local CAMRA (pro-real-ale) group accompanying Morris dancers round several pubs on the Saturday, so Sunday it was. I had two birds in mind. I'd missed Cuckoo earlier in the week when I expected it. Would I hear one on Sunday? And the Stour is particularly attractive for some reason to the Whimbrel, a wading bird with a beautiful call. They breed near the arctic, in Britain only in the far north of Scotland, but turn up on migration elsewhere. Would I get my first Whimbrel of the year? For most of the trip it poured with rain and the wind was quite high. This didn't stop many impatient summer visitors and resident birds singing, but there was no sound of Cuckoo. I did, though, hear and see two Whimbrels. I reached the Red Lion pub in Manningtree, had a pint and set off back. After a while the rain stopped and I could actually see blue sky! What's more, I heard two Cuckoos. Birding isn't usually that simple.

A Terrible Accident

Today I was going out birdwatching on coastal marshes in Essex (Old Hall Marshes in fact). It was a cold and windy winter day, so I decided to take not only a thermos of coffee but also one of hot chicken soup. I put the coffee powder in one thermos and had both flasks ready while the water boiled and the soup heated up. The soup won the race. I poured it into the thermos containing the coffee powder.

Now I know that some of the followers of this blog are of an adventurous character in matters culinary. They may be moved to try this new combination. To them I have one word of advice - DON'T. OK, that's probably two words.

Oh well, it was an enjoyable day's birding. I chose to keep a day list in my head and so the first bird I saw (Jackdaw) was 1 and so on. Amazingly, Black-headed Gull came in at 38. Hardly less surprising, Meadow Pipit was 41 and Starling 42.

So really the day balances out - White-fronted and Barnacle Geese on one hand, coffee-flavoured chicken soup on the other.

Hamford Water

Doing more birdwatching, mainly in Essex where I live, since I suddenly had more time. Today from Beaumont Quay (an old smuggling quay) along the sea-wall alongside the mudflats of Hamford Water and The Wade to Thorpe-Le-Soken and a pint in a pub before returning mainly the way I came.

On the outward journey the tide was very high and waders clung to almost swamped small islands. On the way back the tide was receding and muddy areas expanding. I'd seen nothing spectacular, though a late Wheatear and Sandwich Tern, summer visitors hanging on, were welcome. Then a Short-eared Owl exploded from rank grass a couple of feet from me. It didn't seem much worried as it circled inland and back close past me to settle on low saltmarsh vegetation, staring at me with its yellow-fringed eyes. This is always an exciting bird. A good view like this allows you to see the beautiful chequering of the back and wings - buff, darker reddish-brown, amber almost orange, white. Large brown bird is a very, very rough description.