Friday May 11

I took the day off today primarily to pay my respects at the cremation of Arthur Jacobs. Arthur was something of a legend in the West Midlands. His initials, AFJ, feature prominently in West Midlands Bird Club reports back to at least 1947. I first met him on 19 August 1979 when I was paying my first visit to Upton Warren. He told me there was a Ruff at the Flashes (a lifer) and pointed out I should get a permit to visit the reserve. Throughout the 1980's and 1990's I was a part of the Wednesday night crowd of birders/boozers along with Arthur and Joyce, his wife. Arthur was an extremely nice man, and I can honestly say that I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. He didn't have many close family members who were still alive, and so the congregation was entirely made up of birders, a lot of them.

 As the service wasn't until 1.15pm I decided to nip out birding first. Arthur would have understood. It was rather chilly with a fresh north-westerly breeze, and Morton Bagot was pretty quiet. A couple of Little Ringed Plovers, a few Swifts, seven Whitethroats, two Lesser Whitethroats, and a Sand Martin were the most notable migrants. The high waterlevels have attracted my first double-figure count of Tufted Ducks, albeit only 10.

Tufted Duck

There was no sign of the two "cracking" Whinchats that John Yardley had texted me about on Tuesday night, and this evening he visited again and reported good views of two Grey Partridges. It's very good news that there is still a pair present, but they are evidently incredibly elusive.

Returning to the crematorium for a moment, another member of the congregation mentioned to me that a Bar-tailed Godwit had been still present last night at a small private fishing pool nearby, and he agreed to take me there on the way to the pub. I understand that the farmer is anti-human (unless they are paying fishermen) so I agreed not to reveal the locality. We duly arrived, found it was still there, and then joined everyone else in the pub. Arthur would have been appalled ....by the delay in reaching the pub.

RIP AFJ.