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.

Winter visitors

Last weekend but one I saw my first winter thrushes of the season. Anyone in the U.K. or Ireland with a slight interest in birds will know what I'm talking about - the large, noisy, gregarious, nervous Fieldfare and the small, inconspicuous. less nervous or gregarious Redwing. Finns or Norwegians might be puzzled because they have these birds in summer and they nearly all leave in the autumn. Americans have the same kind of migration but different species.

Why's it so special? In spring a birder is looking out for masses of different species coming in and they all have their typical times - Wheatear from late March, Willow Warbler from early April, Cuckoo in the third week of April, Swift in the first third of May and so on. In winter the number of species arriving is smaller unless you count all the shore birds which breed from Northern England to the high Arctic, and they start coming as early as late July when we're still convinced we're in summer. Those two thrushes are the most obvious and numerous of the land passerines (perching birds) that act as a sign of approaching winter.

They arrive in urgent, hyperactive flocks, eager to feed. They spread out to favoured habitats and when winter comes, if there are harsh conditions they move on again or find a special source of food such as a garden with many berries, or they die.

I love the sense of change, of movement in autumn. Nothing represents that better than the winter thrushes.

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.

Back from Hungary

Just a short post to explain a gap in posts. I was in the centre of Europe, in landlocked Hungary, on a Naturetrek holiday. Going on these organised trips is a relatively new thing for me: I used to see them as too expensive and also I valued independence in choosing where to go and what to do; but getting all the cumbersome and difficult arrangements made for you is a big plus and from a nature point of view, it helps a lot if you're going to be in a country for just a week or so to have a guide who knows exactly where the best spots are.

On the whole I was keener to see dragonflies on this trip than birds, as they offered a lot more scope for new species. In the end I saw a huge range of birds including both reasonably likely "lifers" - Great Bustard and Saker Falcon - and many other excellent birds - Roller; Bee-eater; Middle Spotted, Syrian and Black Woodpeckers; Wryneck; Red-footed Falcon; White-tailed Eagle; Cattle Egret; Squacco Heron; Pygmy Cormorant; both storks (17 Black Storks in one flock); Lesser Grey and Red-backed Shrikes; Short-toed Treecreeper and many others. Five dragonfly species were new for me and masses of butterflies.

Hungary is mostly very flat and rather dry and dusty, with a fascinating mix of architecture and a language completely impervious to most other Europeans. It has few cats, many bicycles (old-fashioned ones), many attractive churches (Catholic, protestant and a few Orthodox) and a lot of red wine.

The natives are friendly.

Nonetheless, I was delighted to re-establish relations with the sea, the cat and the British pub.

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.

Walking from A to Z

I'm a long-distance trail walker. I liked nature, especially birds, since my age was in single figures, and started doing long walks as a student, but only attempted my first recognised long-distance trail, the Pennine Way, at the age of 33 - and failed because I tried to do too much too quickly (not realising that what was manageable over two days was not manageable over a week or more) and wasn't ruthless enough about weight on my back. I learnt, went back, completed the Pennine Way and was hooked.

I haven't done any trails outside the U.K. (perhaps because in a foreign country, there so much else I'd want to explore) but within the UK I've done most of the big ones including the South-west coastal Footpath (630 miles)in one go (that isn't in one day - just starting at one end and finishing at the other 35 days later). Last year I completed the West Highland Way for the second time and whereas last time I went on to climb Ben Nevis the next day, this time at Fort William I transferred on to the Great Glen Way and so did both - a very slow way of travelling from Glasgow to Inverness.

So what are the attractions?

There's a sense of achievement. Yes, you can set your own challenges, but there is something special about succeeding in a tough task someone else has set. It's a great way of seeing much spectacular scenery and finding some interesting small towns, villages, pubs, ruins and so on. The sensation of finishing the day's walking thoroughly tired but finally able to relax, to flop down on a bed and sleep for an hour, then to go for a pint and a meal, to reflect on the day's travel and plan the next, is fantastic. Some people cheat and use "sherpa" services. I'm not actually decrying that, but for me it's a too easy way out of one of the key challenges, balancing your real need for certain items (maps, torch, raingear, spare clothes, water bottle, insect repellent and so on) against the imperative of reducing the weight carried in every way possible and never giving way to the "that's just a tiny additional weight" mindset. A Dutch senior business manager I met on the Coast to Coast footpath put it brilliantly: "It is good to know that all you really need in life you can carry on your back."

Beyond that, we can recapture something of the sense of being a nomad - of having no home but a journey.

There are minuses, of course - the periods of several rainy days running, the frustrating realisation you've taken the wrong track, the times (I've come to realise for me they come once on each journey quite early on) when I think, "I don't have to do this. Why AM I doing this?". I don't accept the view of some serious walkers that long-distance trail walking is a kind of distortion. Nearly all the trail walkers I've met are either, like me, people who also do plenty of walks of their own devising and love to explore the hills, sometimes using the experience of doing a trail to inform them of where they could explore - or they're newcomers who may become hooked on serious walking and then joint the first group. The exception, I suppose, is the large organised groups, but they're few. I walk alone, that is without an undertaking to accompany someone, but often find myself walking and talking with other people from many countries and of all ages.

I'll return to this subject in a while and give a few tips. If you're interested, please comment and I'll reply.

Eagle Owls

I'm just back from a week in the South of France, so now I'll be posting again - but right now, even after just one week, struggling to get up to date with e-mails and so on. Thus I'm not really ready to continue the Odanglesex Chronicles with episode 5 of the Agile Stationery Strategy or with anything profound on politics, religion, philosophy, cricket, things like that. Tomorrow I hope I can get on with Odanglesex.

For now, something from my holiday.

The vehicle has driven up a bumpy track into the old quarry, where hills of loose scree are being colonised by pines. We wait. The Mediterranean dusk falls quickly. A few late birds sing. One by one they fall silent. Nothing happens. Tension grows. We look at one another. There are no town sounds, no traffic, no aircraft, no dogs. Then, from somewhere, a deep, soft sound: OOOOOOH. It is repeated. It comes from a different place. One answers the other. Still nothing shows. Then - a vast silhouette on the rim of the quarry. It disappears. Then powerful, silent wings move in. The great owl sits in the crown of the pine, quite close, and looks down at us, calling. There is still enough light to see plumage. It turns when the sound comes from elsewhere. It replies. It stares at us again. It stays. We leave. It is dark.

The Norfolk Broads - in Winter

Fans of the Odanglesex Chronicles: I expect the next post here will be from Odanglesex. In the meantime, I'm describing another favourite place.

For the non-Brits, some explanation is probably needed - even that the term is not sexist.

The Norfolk Broads are a large area of marsh, fen, river, lake and rough grazing in the south and east of Norfolk in eastern England. They start just outside the city of Norwich (or Narj in local pronunciation) and extend almost to the coast. The "Broads" are a series of lakes - for example, Hickling Broad. It used to be widely believed that these were bits of sea that had been cut off and that the area up to Roman times featured sea channels and islands. By the middle ages we had preserved maps good enough to show no such complex of channels and islands. However, archaeological investigation showed the Broads were steep-sided and it became clear that they were the result of human activity - large-scale cutting of peat leading to depressions which flooded. The marshes, though, are ancient.

In summer the Broads and the river Yare are crowded with pleasure-boats and many other aspects of tourism and day-tripping. This doesn't prevent the area having outstanding fauna and flora characteristic of reedbeds and other marshy habitats, though these do rather concentrate in the nature reserves. In winter, the area is largely left to the locals, except for birdwatchers visiting a few well-known reserves.

I visited the day before the snow came. Even so, much of the damp fields was frosted and the normal green vistas were green and white. I came up by train and got off at a large village (or small town) called Cantley, walking along the banks of the River Yare almost to the start of the broad estuary known as Breydon Water before returning as far as the large village of Reedham to get the train again. On the way I found an excellent, friendly, traditional riverside pub, the Reedham Ferry. The land round about is almost entirely flat and the evidence of human activity, other than animals grazing and aged windmills, is very sparse - so in midwinter, it was a scene of vast, bleak, beautiful expanses. Thousands of wintering geese flew over or sounded harsh alarms from the fields. A Woodcock exploded from reeds about three feet from me. For the birders, I saw thousands of Pinkfeet, some Bean Geese, about 25 Bewick's Swans (from a railway bridge with almost the last use of the optics), various shore waders as I approached Breydon Water, several Marsh Harriers, plenty of Bearded Tits and of course that superb Woodcock.

Beyond that, I had a sense of freedom, of space and of humanity in harmony with nature. It's much warmer in summer and the profusion of wildlife is marvellous, but the magic is lost.

North-east Poland

It's a while since I've posted about favourite places. Here's one a bit further afield (for me - not for the Ukrainians reading this blog).

Last year but one I went to Poland for the first time in my life. My main aim was to see new birds, and for that the outstanding area was the north-east corner of the country, but I wanted to spread my wings wider - so I sought to book with a nature tour provider for the first week to visit the Bielowieza Forest and the Biebrza Marshes before heading south to Krakow, with a bit of looking around Warsaw and Krakow, and visiting Auschwitz. Maybe I'll blog on that last thing some other time.

Anyway, my first tour provider let me down at the last minute and I'd already booked flights. Another Polish tour provider (step up Waldemar!) didn't have a tour for those dates but happened to be free and we agreed he'd do a one-to-one tour at still a very reasonable price. He's brilliant and I'll be happy to respond to anyone wanting nature tours in that area and give his contact details.

For the birders, well, I added five birds to my life-list, not easy in Europe nowadays - White-backed Woodpecker, Pygmy Owl, Great Snipe, River Warbler, Aquatic Warbler. I did even better with butterflies and dragonflies. Enough of that.

Warsaw was a busy European city. As we drove east things still looked quite familiar. As far east as the River Bug there are still people wearing Nike gear jogging with I-pods.

The far north-east was something else - another country, almost another continent, and Waldemar said it seemed like that to him too. As we drove into Bielowieza village along a dusty road, little knots of people turned to look at us. There were old women in head-scarves everywhere. The buildings were nearly all wooden, old and full of character. The churches were very, very different from the modern Catholic churches I'd seen on the way: in fact, most of the people in this area are Orthodox. It was clear that the place was poor, but a decent, resilient poverty, not the poverty of glazed eyes. As for my eyes, I think they must often have been wide. The whole place was so strange to me, and I've been in Africa and the Balkans. But it was fascinating strange, not worrying strange.

The forest was magic - a huge expanse of forest that had been forest since the ice-age receded, with a good variety of trees many of them emerging from, or standing by, shallow water, so to an Englishman it was like thick fen. It would be good just to stand in the forest, not in the silence but the birdsong - though the mosquitoes would be a problem!

When we left, it was for the massive expanse of the Biebrza Marshes, wetland far more expansive than anything else until you're in the former Soviet Union. This was less remote and was dotted with farms and villages, but it was still magic because of the extraordinary numbers, vitality and variety of bird and insect life.

It's a marvellous area and I hope to go back.

Blogging in the half-light

A while back I posted "Blogging in the Dark", talking about the information I could get on visits to the blog and the questions it raised but didn't answer. For example, I was intrigued and slightly puzzled by acquiring a Russian and a Latvian readership and encouraged the Russians and Latvians to talk back. They didn't, but I do have a theory about the Latvians: suddenly all at once I had 26 hits from Latvia and thereafter only one repeated, so I wonder if this might have been a computer-savvy English-language class looking through English-language blogs. The Russians, though, gradually increased until they overtook the USA into second place (the UK being unsurprisingly first).

Then, dramatically, the Americans hit back. The Russo-American space race was nothing to the SibatheHat blog race. A sudden surge in American hits coincided with sudden interest in a very early posting I'd thought had vanished without trace, "The dangers of being customer-centred". I was very pleased by this as I felt I'd been saying something important there. Soon hits from the US were running at about 2/3 of the total and after they'd looked at the customer-centred thing and the two posts on happiness as an aim of government policy, all six most viewed posts were episodes of The Odanglesex Chronicles, my lampoon of English local government. The conclusion is unavoidable that this has found interest in the US somewhere - but why? I'd be fascinated to know.

At the same time a level of two or three German hits per week trebled and France came from nowhere(well, France was in France all along, but you know what I mean) to overtake Russia for third place. Interesting and a bit mysterious too.

One reason why this all remains a mystery is that unlike on my poetry blog (http:simonsworlds13.wordpress.com, and please do visit that too) hardly anyone is commenting. Please do (by clicking on "comments"): I'd love to get some discussion going.

Just a birdwatching note while I'm about it: my yearlist is now on 211 without being a twitcher or leaving Britain (Glossy Ibis and Great Grey Shrike at Fingringhoe, TICK); there was a White Wagtail feeding in the next street along four days ago; and while good numbers of many winter visitors in Essex hadn't been matched by winter thrush numbers, especially Redwings, suddenly along the Colne valley on Christmas Eve there were lots. Birder folklore might suggest this was one of those movements ahead of hard weather, but the meteorologists said no and they were right.

Back to the Odanglesex Chronicles soon. I think they'll be struggling with Agile Working soon, but maybe first, an ukase from the Secretary of State...

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.

The Norfolk Coast

Another place to celebrate - the North Norfolk coast. I'm just back from three days there: it's almost a manageable day trip from Harwich. I go there mainly because it's an outstanding area for birdwatching, especially in autumn (not just for the Brits - there were Lithuanians visiting a reserve when I was there), but it appeals to me in other ways too.

The coast is open and bleak. If you stand on this coast and look north, there is no land between you and the Arctic. At a place like Deepdale Marsh, looking out to Scolt Head, the expanse of saltmarsh is so great you might imagine you were seeing halfway to the Arctic. In September to November it's full of the urgency of migrating birds, huge flocks of winter thrushes, starlings, skylarks; skeins of hinking and chattering geese; lone harriers and peregrines.

The villages, though, are full of quirky variety, no two old buildings the same or even very similar, brick and flint mixed in walls. Nowadays a lot of the small shops cater to visitors (delicatessens, mini art galleries, binocular and telescope shops), but they have variety too; and the pubs are superb, real ale havens and each with its own personality.

The coast is marked by many Second World War fortifications. When Britain expected invasion from Germany, both the British and the German high commands identified two likely locations for invasion, one Norfolk to north Suffolk and the other Sussex. The British fortified both strongly but thought Norfolk the most likely because of the open country behind the coast. After the war they discovered that the German plans had been made for Sussex because it offered a shorter sea crossing. The fortlets I knew as a kid as "pill-boxes" are now preserved as archaeological resources.

To change the subject briefly: in the Morrison's supermarket yesterday - 12 November - the staff were wearing "Happy Christmas" sweatshirts! Have I missed something?

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.

Favourite places: Cape Clear Island, County Cork

I love small islands. They often have spectacular scenery, and the ones in the right places get plenty of seabirds and vagrants (mostly birds, but a few dragonflies and humans), but the appeal is deeper than that. The sea is all around. It's easy to walk from one side to the other. You can walk all round the coast and come back to where you started. People are generally friendly and as a stranger, you soon start recognising people. Human-made things often merge into natural things, whether it's a wooden boat slowly sinking into mud or a stone watch-tower becoming yet another weird rock formation.

I still don't feel I've expressed it. Maybe the combination of the very specific and individual (on the island) with the universality, the hint of God and death and rebirth, of the sea?

Cape Clear has all that and more. Most non-Irish people don't know where it is. I ask if they've heard of the Fastnet Rock. They have, even if they didn't realise it was in Ireland. So OK, you're in South-west Ireland. Start at Skibbereen, whose local paper, the Skibbereen Eagle, once sternly warned the Tsar that it had its eye on him over his persecution of minorities. From Skibbereen a narrowing peninsula extends to Baltimore (not that one, the original) a small town or large village with a lot of yachting. From there the line of the sandstone peninsula points straight out to Sherkin Island, then to Cape Clear Island and finally to the Fastnet Rock and its lighthouse. Next stop the Americas.

The boat trip isn't long, but the local people traditionally spoke of going to the mainland as "going to Ireland". Gaelic is spoken, though perhaps not quite as much in reality as for government inspectors. Once in the full main pub I got into a vigorous debate with a fellow-birder from Dublin who objected to his taxes going on supporting the Gaelic language. I argued that the death of a language was a terrible thing. At a pause in the debate we suddenly realised that all other conversation had stopped and everyone was listening to us.

When I first stayed on the island, the population was about 300, but later it increased with prosperous Irish dropouts seeking tranquility and even returners from further: one morning I was heading out to a seabird-watching point by a small track and passed a woman in a long,loose skirt and shawl with a scarf around her head. She was picking blackberries. I wished her good day. She responded in an American accent.

On a small island, the weather becomes immensely important. You check it first thing. Storms on the island are beautiful, and safe enough if you're not at sea since there are no trees to speak of.

The place is changing: Private notices and barbed wire sprang up where there were only drystone walls before: the natives blamed the incomers and others blamed Irish law on landowners' liability for trespassers' injuries. The famous shopkeeper Paddy Burke is dead. Maybe even you can no longer buy cornflakes, petrol and a Guinness in the same place. But the cliffs are the same and O'Driscoll's Tower, perched on a now inaccessible rock, will still be beaten by salt spray.

Plugging Places: the Bawdsey/Ramsholt peninsula, Suffolk, England

I'm going to pick a favourite place or area from time to time and say why I like it. This time - an out-of-the-way corner of coastal Suffolk. The A12 runs like a spine along East Suffolk, from Ipswich towards Norwich and Great Yarmouth, with fairly easy trips off it to Aldeburgh (art), Minsmere (birds) and Lowestoft (traditional seaside stuff) - and the railway follows a similar course -but although the Bawdsey/Ramsholt area is near to Ipswich and even Harwich as the crow flies, we aren't crows and the Deben estuary gets in the way. To arrive from nearly anywhere you need to go round Woodbridge and take quite a long trip seawards.

So the area isn't crowded. The beaches are shingle. But it has the character of an island, quirky, special, running to its own rhythms. The open East coast scenery is beautiful if (and) sometimes bleak. It's a great area for birds (easpecially autumn migrants) and other wildlife such as butterflies, and it has some excellent pubs of which the Sorrel Horse is probably the best, though at the Swan you have good acomodation and Indian meals, and at the Ramsholt Arms an estuary-side location and good beer variety, if not really a proper pub atmosphere weekends. There's history too: Bawdsey was the number one location for the development of radar, without which the history of the Second World War would have been very different. Martello towers from the Napoleaonic Wars and "pillboxes" from the Second World War point out that this has been a possible invasion area since Celtic times.

The villages contain some interesting buildings (Bawdsey especially) but aren't picture postcard pretty. Back towards Woodbridge is more good birding (and UFO-chasing) territory with Hollesley Common and Rendlesham Forest: the latter has signs to a UFO trail, though I doubt if any UFO pilot would understand them, and if (s)he did, might ignore them. Towards Woodbridge also is much older history than 1939, the early Saxon royal burial site and museum at Sutton Hoo (Hoo may well refer to Long-eared Owls, so back to birds again).

It's all worth a day trip, but even more worth staying a couple of nights.

Flying Birds and Dragons

Today, 29 August 2011, at Alton Water, Suffolk, an Osprey flew low over the path just ahead of me! A few minutes after I parked, a Willow Emerald Damselfly landed right in front of me - not such a surprise as Alton Water is probably the best place now for this recent addition to the UK dragonfly breeding population. Then the weather changed.

Not a birder or a dragonflier? Try it.