Pipit muzak

Now I know I should be transported with delight by a bird singing it's little heart out as it slowly parachutes down to earth across a beautiful blue sky but actually after an hour or so of Meadow Pipit melody I'm ready for a bit of a break. The book says that it is frequently the most abundant species on upland moors and I can believe that because yesterday on the Stiperstones and today on the Mynd they seemed to be bumping in to one another.

Don't get me wrong it's impressive stuff the singing, flying upwards and parachuting down again but a plaintive "seep seep" gradually getting faster and faster is best appreciated under mild intoxication and with the assistance of a frantic beats track. Frustratingly they also seem to have taken to perching on vegetation.

Perching on vegetation is one of the ways that I identify a Stonechat. This lovely little creature should have the common name "bird spotter's friend" given its habit of staying still for long periods at a convenient height while giving a distinctive call and painting itself with bold and unambiguous colours. We spotted one today on a post where it remained long enough for me to wrestle with the binoculars, exclaim confidently

"Ah yes, a stonechat. Quite distinctive. Would you like a go on the bins."

and restrain the dog from whatever foul fixation she was indulging at that moment. Other birds could learn from this. Meadow Pipits are small and brown though the incredibly annoying song and flight is a useful clue. To be honest I would be prepared to believe they were skylarks weren't for the fact that Vaughan-Williams did not pen the "Pipit Ascending". Had he done so it could have provided an excellent alternative theme for psycho.

Maybe this should be the Diary of a Grumpy Naturalist.

Photo shows Rob (follow him twitter.com/plentymuch) and dog (mine, though she would prefer to be his) with Caer Caradoc and The Lawley behind. You cannot see this from the photo but they are deafened by the Pipit song.

It begins

By rights I should be a great field naturalist. Thanks to my father's obsession with boats, my mother's obsession with being outside and the magnitude of the family dogs I spent most of the first 16 years of my life immersed in the environment. The birds of the air and the voles of the field were my friends and companions. Or something.

I studied Biology at University and, slightly I think to everyone's surprise, was awarded a degree in the subject. I spent three years in a field centre in mid Wales studying amphibians. I can still answer every question you've ever had about amphibians and this won't even scrape the surface of what I know about the blighters. Sadly I failed to communicate this information in the form of a Thesis.

By this time I had developed an important secondary interest in beer and fags. This heavily reduced my inclination to spend time with nature, restricted the hours I was available for naturalism and scared many animals off (bats, to name just one group, don't like it if you smell like an ashtray).

My field skills slumped from poor to non-existent. My belly expanded from firm to floppy and I began to view nature as a curious phenomenon from my past (like fluorescent yellow socks and the Scout Law).

And now as I face middle age dubiously I find that not knowing what the things are called turns out to be one of my regrets. Couple that with a healthy booze and nicotine free lifestyle and a dog who never tires and suddenly I find myself trying to work out what that tiny white flower spread across the Long Mynd actually is (I'm guessing it's a bittercress but I'm a bit rusty on terms like glabrous which seem to be crucial to a proper identification of it).

So this is me, playing catch up, gently and on-line.