June doldrums

For some reason I just cannot get my natural history engines firing on all cylinders. Whatever I look at doesn't really excite me (including those two Spoonbills that flew over the garden!). Everything is a chore, from writing notes to checking pugs, from hanging up pheromone lures to examining grasses. It's not a case of not wanting to, more a case of 'can't be arsed'...

This pan-listing has a lot to do with it. I just cannot retain enough information in my crumbling brain to be out in the field and pretend to be informed on a lot of stuff. This has watered down my abilities in groups that I used to have a good hold on - my birding prowess was pants in May, I've forgotten most of the pugs so I tend to (ahem!) ignore them at the MV, and sometimes I stare at a plant and cannot remember its name, even though I know it.

What's the answer?

I've toyed with a break from it all. But I don't want to do that. Stop blogging? No, I still enjoy posting. My note taking has now reverted to just a field notebook without the need for a write-up at the end of the day. My lists are maintained but don't mean much at all - it's just a number, meaningless to everybody else, so if I cannot be bothered with it, then why have 'a number' at all?

The Football World Cup may well come to the rescue. A month's worth of that will entertain me, take my mind off of my poor hoverfly skills, my low spider list and my alarming lurch from decent birder to sham pretender.

If you do things by rote then the joy will fall away, the novelty wear off and everything becomes a chore. Time to shake things up...

Comments

Factor said…
This malaise seems to be catching. I've been feeling like that, young David has gone off radar and seems to have lost interest in social media. Jono needs to travel thousands of miles to take photos of skyscrapers to get a fix. Only the Tice's Meadow gang seem to be enthusiastic at present. What's going on? 2014 has definitely been low-key compared to the amazing 2013. Maybe that's just it. Last year was so good, nothing – to quote Sinead O'Connor – compares...
11 June 2014 at 22:15
Steve Gale said…
I've been here before Neil and it works its way out of my system eventually. I think it's all down to having to keep things fresh.
12 June 2014 at 08:46
Ali said…
For me PSL enlightens me to how many million things I don't know, When you are working in one group you are always going forwards. With PSLyou expand your awareness of ignorance so it can feel you are actually going backwards. Or maybe it feels too much like a job. Nothing cools my interest in something more than the feeling that I "have to" do it
12 June 2014 at 12:05
Steve Gale said…
You've hit the nail on the head there Ali - might quote you in my next post if that's OK!
12 June 2014 at 15:44
Unknown said…
Enjoy the lows Steve, they make the highs so much better. Without them, a lifetime of happiness and bliss would just be bloody boring.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling a bit fed up with it all as it seemed everyone was wanting a piece of me and I was getting nil time to myself. A short break in North Devon for a few days, cider and the footy has lifted me a bit. Just wish it was a little cooler.
14 June 2014 at 18:29
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more