Boobies

Yes, you read that right! Today I spotted my very first Brown Booby! He is a seabird with bright yellow feet who should be found in the Caribbean but thanks to his very poor sense of direction and some very strong hurricane force winds this lone immature booby has ended up in Nimisia reservoir in the middle of Amish Country many many many miles from the sea where he should be! It is really rather nice of him to come to see us, as none of us are travelling anywhere at the moment it is nice to get a little slice of the Caribbean come up to us instead, I just hope he can find his way soon or at least find some tasty fish to eat! Who know what will happen to him... he needs to start heading South soon before it gets cold, I heard someone say they may try to trap him and then take him back to the Caribbean but who knows! 

I had a lot of fun trying to find him! When I arrived at the reservoir it started raining and no other birders could be found. Eventually a dog walker came by and told me that just past the car park I will find a path that leads to the lake, when I reach the lake I turn right and when I come to a dead tree I look up and there he is! Of course I walked straight past the entrance to this path and continued on down the road for a while before a pickup stopped me and asked if I was looking for a Booby, I said yes and they said hop in, we'll take you there! I said I can't hop in because of COVID to which they replied 'no, we meant hop in the back of the pickup!' so up I jumped and they took me right back to the path! I followed the rest of the directions the dog walker gave me and sure enough there he was! Unmissable with his bright yellow webbed feet. Can you spot him in the first picture?!

Can you spot the booby?!

Interestingly my booby was not the only bird blown off course by Hurricaine Laura, Some hikers got a shock last week when a lone pelican flew over their heads right here in Cleveland. He was a good 700 miles away from where he should be on the Atlantic coast.. I have heard he is still here so maybe next week Amanda and I will take a trip to see him! This is not the first time a pelican has been spotted in Cleveland, we had another pelican visitor in 2013 who became quite a celebrity, he arrived in summer and hung around until december when he perished in the cold. He used to fly up to Canada and fish over the lake, he was nicknamed him the Cleveland Brown!

In order to see my booby I had to travel quite a long way, about a hour South down into the beautiful rolling hills of Amish Country! If you are a Clevelander reading this I offer you my apologies as I know you know all about the Amish but if you happen to be from elsewhere the Amish are like taking a step back in time. They are a religious group who still dress in traditional clothing, ride horse and carts and have no electronics in their houses, whole communities and townships chock full of people in bonnets and braces and straw hats! Sadly they don't don't like having their pictures taken but below are two pictures I took in Amish country, the first one I took outside a charity shop with parking for the horse and buggies and the second is a picture I took in a charity shop in Amish Country of a rather lovely carbon fiber Trek bicycle... who would donate that?! It must have been worth at least a couple of grand when it was new.

Who would DONATE this?!

Buggies in Amish Country

While in the charity shop admiring the bicycle I came across a book along the lines of 'Amish for dummies' and it was fascinating, they  live a simple made complicated by  myriad of rules that govern their day to day existence. They have to live without most of the modern day conveniences we take for granted. They are not allowed any electronics inside the house yet it seems the classic saying rules are there to be broken also applies for Amish people as no electronics 'in the home' does not mean 'no electronics' so as a result a telephone is often found located in the outhouse or in a barn instead! Here is a little tip if you ever find yourself having to call up a Amish person is to make sure you give them plenty of time to get to the phone as they are going to have to trek outside to pick it up. This is especially true in the winter as they have to wrap up warm just to answer the phone! I just love that! When I was hunting down the booby I noticed lots of Amish men bird watching but not a single lady, I don't know if they are not allowed to go or if they were to busy at home cleaning up after after their husbands to join them but Amish life seems pretty sexist to me. The ladies hardly ever progress in school past the 8th grade (year 8 in England) and have to wear bonnets all of the time with long dresses that have to be a certain length and all sorts of other challenging rules. Despite this love of rules neither the ladies or gentleman seemed to take the mask wearing rule very seriously, maybe they think god will protect them?

The booby was not the only rarity I have spotted in the last week, I also spotted Bigfoot riding a bicycle while on a ride last week! Did you know that Ohio boasts one of the highest numbers of reported Bigfoot sightings in the States!

Sadly since I started to write this blog a murder most fowl has occurred in Amish Country. Sadly the first Brown Booby to be seen in Ohio is no more. It seems that twitchers were not the only people keeping a watch on the Booby. A Peregrine Falcon was also alerted to his arrival and had been spotted drooling over the poor little booby for a few days before finally striking. Booby has not been seen since Thursday but a Booby shaped wing and some brown feathers were spotted floating underneath his favourite perch on friday morning along with a very plump and happy looking Peregrine Falcon close by... he won't need to eat again for a few days now. The poor booby must have been so scared, he was so young and immature and so far from the Caribbean that maybe it is for the best he has been put out of his misery. At least he made a good meal. I guess that is nature for you.

Aaah... A reminder of my Bell Boy days... This is me wearing a KC Royals World Championship ring! I miss those days...

Well to end on a better note here is a craking little story from the Tour de France... "I cut my hair myself, I think I failed" ... Amanda has been doing a stellar cutting my hair for me post COVID, I'm happy that I'm not married to Egan Bernal :D

I hope you are all staying safe and well.