An Unpredictable Week

Monday 16th October 2017
Borlotti harvest abandoned... again

Borlotti beans waiting

to be harvested

Autumn seems to be calming down a little as we enter the last week of school before the October half term break. The fire has been lit in the evenings, the light is drawing in and we are making the most of the warm, dry weather before winter gets a hold. 
Monday morning saw me harvesting the last of the beans for drying. I was just starting on picking the Borlotti beans a week ago when the Siberian Blue Robin news came through from North Ronaldsay and the task was abandoned.

Well it seems there is something about the Borlotti beans this year. Half way through my second attempt to get them picked, I checked my phone and saw this message - Ofsted. Come in now.
For those who don't know, a school's Ofsted inspection is just about as stressful as it gets. It comes round once every three years, but ours was two years late so the school had been on tenterhooks for an awful long time.
I won't say what I think about Ofsted, just that I wouldn't do the job as I have too much respect for my fellow professionals.
I can't tell you how the inspection went either. In fact I don't know. Sue does because she is the headteacher, but she can't tell anybody, even me, for about six weeks.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur.

Tuesday 17th October 2017
The Unmentionable
Ofsted  - I can't tell you how it went.
I didn't even take my phone into work with me in case it made some unexpected noise. So when I got in the car after a very stressful day, the last thing I needed was to see a flurry of messages and a MEGA which had gone off at lunchtime.
First thought in my head was ... actually I can't repeat it here. But it went something like... I bet everybody's booked their planes and boats, how am I going to get sorted for this one? Then it went... Oh. It's in Dorset. I could have got there today. Relax. No need for complicated arrangements. Just leave at 2 in the morning and be there at first light. Bet it's not there.
The bird in question was a Two-barred Greenish Warbler, a bird which I missed when I spent a painful autumn in hospital back in 2006.

Wednesday 18th October 2017
Two-Barred Greenish Warbler (my 6th new bird of 2017)
I met Dan near the M4 at five in the morning and we headed down to the south coast. We pulled up into the car park in the dark. Others were there already and were rather prematurely heading down the path to the small quarry where the bird had been found the previous day. We waited until it was light enough to see before heading out.
The bird had actually been first seen back on Sunday but not identified and Monday had been stormy. Everything about this felt ominous. It was just too easy. No way was it going to be there.

The Two-barred Greensih Warbler was in that copse to the right of the quarry

The morning was gloomy as we sussed out the sight. The early birds were lined up along a small track, peering over a stone wall down into a small quarry. They reported that the bird had already been seen, though we remained sceptical until we had clapped eyes on it ourselves. The clump of trees it was frequenting were a little distant in the poor light, but birds were already flitting around, mostly firecrests, Britain's smallest bird and always great to see.

Piccie nabbed from twitter - if you're reading this and you recognise

the photo as yours, sorry but I hope you don't mind 😊

Then I clapped eyes on the quarry (not the rock one, the bird one). It appeared briefly right on the outside of  one of the sycamores, sat right out. It had two wing bars and it was green(ish). Yep. Definitely a Two-barred Greenish Warbler! Then it melted back into the tree. Over the next couple of hours I saw it about half a dozen more times, but it never stayed still for very long and proved impossible to track through the vegetation. I did succeed in getting it in the telescope for a few seconds which is more than most other people managed.

As others had not had such prolonged views, we gave it another couple of hours on site. And how they dragged! During that time I saw the bird for about two seconds in total! I was keen to get back to Lincolnshire, to beat the traffic and to be home to greet Sue from work. It had been a tough couple of days for her and I wanted to be there.

Fortunately, just before the deadline I had set to leave, the bird appeared in the tree right in front of us and showed brilliantly for a couple of minutes. Most of the other birders were around the corner where it had been giving intermittent brief views for those at the front of the pack.

After ticks in Orkney, Cornwall, The Outer Hebrides, Shetland and The Scilly Isles this year, Dorset had been a breeze!

Thursday 19th October 2017
What a Car Crash
Back to work today, but I was a little late in as another two cars had gone off at the bend. That's nine in the past year and it's only a matter of time before somebody dies.
I wasn't needed at work so headed home again. I was owed time anyway and could do with some downtime to get over a hectic couple of days. The road was still closed and I walked along for a nose at the car in the ditch - it was pretty badly smashed up. I tried to make polite conversation with the police officer they had left to look after things but he proved to be a complete twonk. All he could do was to ask me to walk on the other side of the road as it was a crime scene. Beyond that he seemed to completely lack the ability to take any initiative for himself.

The Highways agency - the ones who failed to put the bend sign back up after it was ploughed into a couple of month ago - had put a badly placed Road Closed sign way down the road. But everybody was ignoring it, resulting in a procession of vehicles turning round in our drive, which was worrying the sheep in the paddock and upsetting the dogs. So I duly parked my car across the drive  - not as harsh as it sounds for there is a farm track they can turn round in too, but this muppet decided to try it elsewhere and managed to get stuck across the road!


I pointed out that he had driven past a Road Closed sign and he replied that he had not seen it as there was a car stopped in front of it. When I asked him how he knew this if he had not seen the sign, he went a little sheepish!





Friday 20th October 2017
Breaking up... for half term
Work - for a change! The last day of a half term which is always both exciting and stressful in equal measure for me, for I never quite know when I'm going to abandon all plans and head off to some distant outcrop of the British Isles.
But this last week has been even more unpredictable than usual.
Tomorrow's job? The Borlotti beans!