Gannet

Another bird of the open sea, with over half of the world's Gannets nesting around Britain and Ireland. Gannets used to be eaten for food. For 350 years they were taken from Bass Rock until 1885 when the annual cull of about 1,500 individuals finally ceased. Shetland Gannets were sold as 'Highland Goose' to London restaurants during World War II. Thankfully, we now leave them alone.

Gannets are white with black wing tips and yellow on their head and neck. They have a long neck, long pointed bill, long pointed tail, and long narrow wings that are almost 2 metres across. Young Gannets start black and take 5 years to become fully white. Gannets fly with powerful wingbeats and an effortless glide. Usually silent, they make a "brrrr" noise when nesting.

They feed on fish by plunge diving from a height of 9m or more and hit the water at 100km per hour to catch fish at a depth of 25m or more, folding their wings in before they hit the water like a torpedo. To do this, they have a few adaptations. Their nostrils are located on the inside of their mouth and they have air sacs in their face and chest which act like bubble wrap, cushioning the impact with the water. Their eyes are slightly forward to give them binocular vision so they can judge distances accurately and their feathers are waterproof so they can spend long periods in water. Favourite fish include herring, mackerel, sprats, and sand eels. The Gannet's supposed capacity for eating large quantities of fish has led to 'gannet' becoming a description of somebody with a big appetite.

Gannets nest in large, noisy, densely packed colonies on steep cliffs or small islands. Males establish their tiny cliff ledge territory by aggressive displays towards other males. The ladies cruise by and land with their necks stretched out when they find a male they like. Beak fencing between the two seals the deal. The nest is a simple pile of seaweed, or other material found floating on the sea, stuck together with earth and droppings. Dad does most of the construction work and, over the years, the nest can get up to 2m in height! The single chalky-blue egg is incubated by both parents and hatches after 44 days. They feed the youngster until it can fly 90 days later. The youngster leaves the nest by launching itself off the cliff and flying, something it has not been able to practice, and it can get injured against the rocks if leaving in bad weather. The young Gannet learns to fish and fly as it swims off towards West Africa, its flying (well 'landing') skills being too poor to return to the nest. They will stay in Africa for 2-3 years before returning to join the edge of the breeding colony but don't nest themselves until they are 5-6 years old.

Gannets are long-lived, reaching ages of 20 years or more. About 220,000 breed in Britain and numbers are stable. However, Gannets are vulnerable to oil spills and getting caught in fishing nets and, with so many breeding here, they are Amber Listed.

Their Latin name is 'morus bassanus' where 'morus' is derived from the Ancient Greek 'moros' meaning 'foolish', as breeding Gannets could be so easily killed. The 'bassanus' comes from the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth where many Gannets breed. Their English name is from the Old English word 'ganot' meaning 'strong or masculine'. Regional names include 'herring gant' in Norfolk and 'mackerel gant' in Yorkshire, referring to the fish they eat.

Kittiwake

The Kittiwake is a true 'sea gull', spending more time at sea than other gulls. It is a brilliant flyer, even in gales and storms, looking Tern-like on stiff wings. It is unusual to find a Kittiwake inland. In North America, our Kittiwake is known as the Black-legged Kittiwake to differentiate it from the Red-legged Kittiwake, only found there.

The Kittiwake is gentle-looking and Common Gull sized. It has a white body with a blue-grey back and distinctive black triangular wing tips that look like they have been dipped in ink. Their bill is yellow with no red spot or mark and they have black feet. Youngsters have a 'W' pattern on their wings and a dark mark behind their eyes. They say their name, calling a gruff "kitty-wake".

Large numbers of Kittiwakes will gather where food is plentiful, plunge diving to feed on herrings, sprats, and sand eels. If fish are scarce, they will eat shrimps and squid. They will also follow fishing boats and even whales to pick up any discarded fish scraps. Unlike other gulls, they turn their noses up at scavenging on landfill sites. An upper-class bird of the seas.

Kittiwakes nest on the sheerest of sea cliffs, in noisy colonies, from February to August, often with Guillemots and Razorbills. Both mum and dad build the nest by cementing seaweed to a cliff ledge with their droppings to create a cup shape nest that stops the eggs from rolling off. The nest is lined with soft, dry material such as moss or grass. Both parents take turns incubating the 2 eggs, which hatch after 27 days. They feed the youngsters until they can fly and become independent 40 days later. The young Kittiwakes leave in autumn and fly to Greenland where many will spend their first two years before returning to the nesting site, though they won't breed themselves until they are 4 years old.

Kittiwakes can live for 20 years or more and UK numbers have grown to 400,000 with nest sites on bridges and buildings near the sea. Worldwide, it is one of the most numerous seabirds. As they rely so much on the sea, they are vulnerable to falling food stocks from overfishing and global warming.

Their Latin name is 'rissa tridactyla' where 'rissa' is from the Icelandic name 'rita' for a Kittiwake and 'tridactyl' is from the Ancient Greek 'tridaktulos' meaning 'three-toed', ('tri' for 'three' and 'daktulos' for 'toe'). The English name is derived from their call.

Razorbill

The Razorbill is another bird that breeds on our sea cliffs and spends the rest of the year out at sea. Over 20% of Razorbills breed in Britain. The Razorbill's closest relative was the Great Auk, which was driven to extinction by the dastardly Victorians, hunting it for meat, feathers and collecting its eggs. Fortunately, the Razorbill became protected before it suffered the same fate.

The Razorbill is slightly smaller than a Guillemot and looks very similar until you see the strong white line on its thick black bill. Their head and upper parts are black and the underparts are white. They have thick necks and pointed tails. A sea Goth. Mum and dad look identical, but youngsters are smaller and browner. Razorbills, like Puffins, fly fast on narrow whirring wings. They make a growling call when breeding but are otherwise silent.

The Razorbill is in its element underwater and has been recorded at depths of 140m while chasing fish, which they can carry 2-3 at a time. While diving, they rarely stay in groups but rather spread out to feed. They eat mainly small fish like sand eels, herrings and sprats, and a lot of their time is spent hunting for food.

They start breeding in April on hidden and sheltered cliff ledges not too far above the sea, with the largest colonies being in northern Scotland. Razorbills are monogamous, with the female choosing one partner for life after encouraging a bit of competition between rival males for her affection. Courtship displays include touching bills and chasing in elaborate flight patterns. The single oval egg is laid in a rock crevice (so it can't roll off) and hatches after 36 days. The youngster is fed by mum and dad for 18 days then jumps down into the sea when only half grown, where dad continues to care for it until it can fly. The youngster won't breed for 2-3 years. Mum and dad are flightless for a few weeks in September when they do their moult out at sea.

About 160,000 pairs of Razorbills nest in Britain. They are Amber Listed as their survival depends heavily on the sea, making them vulnerable to fishing nets, oil pollution, and falling fish stocks. The oldest Razorbill lived to 41, though the average life span is 13 years.

Their Latin name is 'alca torda' where 'alca' is from the Norwegian 'alke', and 'torda' is from the Swedish 'törd', both words referring to the Razorbill. A local Scottish name is a 'Marrot' and the English name comes from the shape of its bill.

Guillemot

A big fan of Tolkien's Mordor, the Guillemot is our most numerous sea bird and the largest member of the Auk family. A Penguin-like seabird that breeds on sea cliffs between May and July, then spends the rest of the year in loose flocks at sea, similar to Razorbills and Puffins.

Bobbing on the sea, the Guillemot sits long and low looking like a duck. It is larger than a Jackdaw and has a dark brown or black back, white underparts, a long tapering black dagger bill, long looking neck and a short tail. Sometimes there is a spectacle mark around the eye and in winter the neck and lower face turn white. It flies on whirring wings and its legs stick out the back. Their call is a hard growling "aaarr".

Guillemots have a fast direct flight but are not very agile. They become much more manoeuvrable once underwater and feed by chasing fish, often travelling many kilometres to find them. They can dive to depths of 180m, though usually hunt at about 50m. Their favourite fish include cod, herring, sprats, sand eels, as well as shellfish like crabs and molluscs.

Between May and July, they nest in noisy cliff face seabird 'city' colonies, where the cliffs are steepest and most perilous. The courtship display includes lots of bowing, billing, mutual preening, and showing off by standing upright and not falling off. The male points his head vertically and makes croaking and growling noises to attract the females. Pairs, once formed, are largely monogamous. Mum and dad come together each year at the nest site. A single pear-shaped egg is laid on a narrow cliff ledge or flat rock and incubated between mum and dad's feet. The nesting spot may be as near as a bill's length from their neighbours! The egg pattern is unique and helps the parents recognise them. Their odd shape is thought to make the egg less likely to fall off if accidentally knocked. The egg hatches after 20 days and the youngster is fed by both parents for 3 weeks, at which point the 'jumpling' jumps into the sea, as it can't fly properly. Its dense, downy feathers and underdeveloped wings allow it to avoid any serious harm. Dad continues to feed the youngster until it can fly properly 7 weeks later.

There are about 1 million pairs nesting in Britain. Most don't travel far and winter in the North Sea before returning to the same cliff face to breed. With swimming and diving in the sea, they can easily become victims of oil pollution, their main threat.

Their Latin name is 'uria aaige' from the Greek 'ouriaa', a waterbird mentioned by Athenaeus, and the Danish 'aalge' , the Old Norse for 'Auk'. The English name derives from the French 'Guillaume', a form of 'William', not a very frightening name for a Mordor Auk. Another name for a Guillemot is a 'Murre', from the sound of their call, which is much tougher sounding.

Puffin

Like the Kingfisher, the Puffin is much smaller than you expect, smaller than a Woodpigeon. It always gets the full page treatment with its crowd pleasing, clown-like expression. The Puffin is a summer visitor to our sea cliffs. For the rest of the year, they live like duck pirates on the open sea.

The Puffin has a black crown and back, white underparts, an elaborately coloured bill and - bright red feet! When searching for Puffins amongst other seabirds, look for those red feet. The male is marginally bigger than the female, and youngsters are duller, without the colourful bill. Puffins fly with madly whirring broad dark wings, showing an obvious black breast band. Their call is a growling pirate's, "Arr, arr, arr" (without the "Jim lad").

Puffins feed on fish and crabs caught by diving and swimming underwater, using their wings for propulsion and legs to steer. They can catch fish at considerable depths and stay submerged for up to a minute. Favourites are any small fish like sand eels, herring and sprats.

Puffins return to their nesting areas in March, mainly on remote islands, though there are a few British clifftop colonies. They become sociable while nesting, but otherwise are loners, seen only in ones and twos. Their courtship display involves a lot of head bobbing, bill knocking, and standing upright. Unlike many other birds, they nest in burrows on cliffs, often amongst colonies of Razorbills, Gannets and Guillemots. Although they can dig their own, they usually take over rabbit burrows. The cosy nest chamber is one metre from the entrance and lined with grass. Previous pairs will reunite and use the same burrow, giving it a good clear out and redecoration. A single white egg is laid which hatches after 39 days and the chick (puffling) is fed by mum and dad for 40 days. The parents can carry ten or more fish in their bills, which are specially adapted with a series of hooks to hold the fish securely. The main danger to the chick in the nest is rats. The young Puffin leaves the nest at night, to avoid being eaten by other predators like Gulls or Skuas, and heads off for the open sea on its own. It will be 4-5 years before it returns and breeds itself. Mum and dad leave the nesting area in August and they too head out to sea to do their winter moult, during which they are flightless for several weeks.

There are 600,000 pairs nesting in Britain, mainly in the north and west. Sadly, their numbers are falling and they are Red Listed. Threats to Puffins include rats getting onto their rat free islands and overfishing, reducing food availability. Conservation efforts include the removal of the rats from their islands. The oldest ringed Puffin lived to 29 and had a hook.

Their Latin name is 'fratercula arctica' where 'fratercula' is the Latin for 'friar' from the word 'fraterculus' meaning 'little brother', because the Puffin's black and white plumage resembles the robes worn by monks. The 'arctica' refers to their northerly distribution. The English name 'Puffin' -- puffed in the sense of swollen -- comes from the fatty, salted meat of the Manx Shearwater. Puffin is an Anglo-Norman word for the cured carcasses and has no connection with cute Puffins at all. Their brightly coloured bills have given rise to various nicknames, such as the 'clown of the sea' and the 'sea parrot'. Puffins are the official bird of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Our Puffin is the Atlantic Puffin. Two other Puffins, the Horned Puffin and the Tufted Puffin, live in the North Pacific Ocean.

Three Plans

For all my projects, I have always needed three plans.

Why three?

The first is the plan on a page. This one gets used for most reporting and is waved about at project board meetings. The trick with this one is prudence. Only put essential information on it as the more there is, the harder it is to understand. IT consultancies are masters at producing incredible plan pictures that look good, but nobody has a clue what they mean. The things a one page plan should highlight are:

  • The key sequence of events (e.g. sprints or phases to a release)
  • The key milestones (especially the customer's deliveries1)
  • The range of possible release dates (never give a single date2)

The plan needs to be quick and easy to update, so you always have the latest version handy. I find a spreadsheet is good for this. You can use the grid lines to line everything up and then turn them off to look good.

Copy the area needed and paste it as a picture into a slide or document. Always send out your plan as a picture or PDF so people can't fiddle with it.

I have wasted too many hours messing about with boxes and aligning them when doing it directly in a slide software (like PowerPoint). Even worse, if the receiver has their slide size set differently, it royally screws it up.

The second plan is the detailed plan, created in suitable project planning software3. The trick with this one is getting the level of detail right. Too much, and maintaining it becomes a cottage industry. Too little, and important dependencies and schedule risks will be missed. A rule of thumb is to be able to allocate all the resources and have enough detail that it could generate an accurate budget. Also detailed enough to see the impact of adding people's holidays or sudden absences. It doesn't need to go into infinite detail, but enough to feel confident about achieving deadlines. For agile projects, you can roughly pencil in what could go in which sprint and the sequencing of backlog items. A sort of sketched out version of the product backlog. This plan is never shared. The detail would allow people to pick holes, get unrealistic expectations, or have some genius of a manager take the contingency away. It is your private master plan to rule the world. Look after it.

The third plan is the team plan. For a very short horizon, it details what everyone is doing. In Agile, it is the sprint backlog and the burn down chart. In Waterfall, it is a day-by-day team plan.

It is detailed enough to identify within a day, at most, that the plan is drifting. Projects don't overrun because of big delays but from the cumulative effect of lots of little ones4. Slippage must be jumped on immediately and only detail will identify when a tiny slip is happening. This can be as trivial as a delayed meeting or a short network outage slowing work down. Time lost is never recovered unless you work longer hours and you probably do that already. With the amount of change that goes on in a project, a horizon of over two to three weeks is pointless, something Agile projects have recognised for ages.


  1. If they are late, you have the right to change your plan. ↩︎

  2. This communicates that bad stuff can happen (it will). ↩︎

  3. For me, this has been MS project. Do yourself a favour; go on a course and learn how to use it properly. It will save hours of heartache. ↩︎

  4. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month" ↩︎

Can Do not To Do

Reading recently, I came across this and it resonated with me:

"To Do lists are not lists of things to do. They are lists of things you can do." (from "The Blank Screen" by William Gallagher)

Too often I have put things on my 'to do' list that I can't actually do because I am waiting on someone, do not have all the information, don't have the tools to do it, etc. These 'can't dos' clog up my day and carry over, making my list get depressingly longer and longer.

I now get rid of them as I am never going to able to do them. I shunt them to a 'someday' file which I periodically review. They could become a 'can do', but more often than not they simply disappear.

A ‘To Do’ List Journey

For most of my long career, I used my own version of the Bullet Journal Method to plan my day using a pen and notebook. It worked well. Each morning I would copy out my Outlook work calendar onto a page, together with my goal for the day, and not more than 5 'can do' tasks to attempt to get done (a 'can do' task is where you have everything you need to do it and are not waiting on anything). I settled on 5 tasks as it gets depressing if, day after day, you see lots of failed completion. I needed to be realistic about what I could do., which is not much on a normal manic, frequently interrupted, working day. I was a project manager after all. If all else failed, and my day got shot to bits, I focussed on just getting my goal for the day done. This was nothing huge and could be as simple as wanting to talk to a team member. Writing out the day's calendar allowed for quick changes with a stroke of the pen rather than lots of mouse clicks. I could re-plan my day in seconds. I also recorded notes or actions against my paper version which then got pushed into the next day or future list when I reviewed everything at the end of my day.

An end of day review was important to identify meetings I needed to schedule, forward plan new tasks, collate notes into my journal, and contemplate how much of a disaster the day had been. It gave me thinking time on how I might handle people problems, work out what I was going to say to them, and cheer myself up with what small victories I had achieved.

A typical day looked something like this:


(Yes, I know my handwiriting is awful)

  1. Days' schedule
  2. Notes
  3. Actions from a meeting
  4. Day's goal
  5. The 'can dos' I would like to get done
  6. The 'to dos' I could do if by some miracle I got the five main ones done
  7. A 'to do' moved to tomorrow
  8. A 'to do' moved into the future
  9. A done one!

Working in an office or at my home desk, it was easy enough to always have my notebook with me. Then everything changed.

I retired.

Carrying a notebook with me around the house and garden soon fell apart. If I left my notebook in the kitchen, by the time I found it I would forget what I needed to put in it. I needed to move to an electronic list as I nearly always had my phone handy.

I tried Things 3 as it seemed simple and looked elegant. It didn't last long. I don't know why now, but I really wanted to be able to have tasks divided into ones I would do in the morning and and ones in the afternoon. You could do it with tags, but tags were a pain to add. Things wouldn't let me put headings in my 'Today' list. I created a workaround with a task labelled '<---- Afternoon ---->' but it irritated me aesthetically, really jarred for some reason.

Then I discovered Noteplan. It had recently been launched and I loved that I could almost reproduce my bullet journal and have the morning/afternoon the way I wanted. Having my calendar right next to my 'to do' list also won me over. Noteplan has one weak feature which is repeating tasks. There are two ways round this. For repeats with a big time gap or odd pattern, I put them in my calendar as an 'all day' event. There weren't many of these, so they didn't clutter my calendar up. Calendar apps allow for all sorts of crazy repeats and you can copy them off the calendar view within Noteplan. There is an arguement that all repeating tasks should be in a calendar rather than on a to do list. I am not convinced. For repeating tasks that happen, say, every Monday, I created a Monday template that had them in and used that as a base for my Monday list.

I happily used NotePlan for over a year. Like all good apps, it was continually developed. In other words, it got more complicated. Some good stuff like year lists, quarter lists, month lists, and week lists. I found all this additional whizzy stuff started to clutter up the interface. And, as most of my use was on my iPhone or iPad, it got in the way. I also have fat fingers and found tasks were regularly toggling between done and not done if I didn't press in precisely the right place. It started to annoy me.

Time for a rethink.

What did I really need my 'to do' list to do? Was the dividing stuff into morning and afternoon that critical (as morning things frequently spilled into the afternoon)?

It is always worth having a step back and really thinking hard about what you need an app to achieve, rather than what bells and whistles it has. The lure of bells and whistle to a techie can be overwhelming.

I experimented with going back to Things 3 and ran both in parallel for a few weeks to work out which annoyed me least. I found there was much of Noteplan, the note part, I hardly used. Retired, why did I need to have meeting notes? All my useful reference stuff is stored in DevonThink as it handles a wide variety of document types and is not limited to text. I am techie enough to write most of my own notes in markdown, but everyone else sends me their stuff and it isn't (like my car insurance documents).

Things3 won, for now. Recurring tasks are easy, though week/month planning is not so good. I still hanker a little after Noteplan.

Short-eared Owl

Short-eared Owls mainly hunt during the daytime, flying barely above the ground over moorland, grassland and salt marshes searching for voles, which are their favourite food. Their 'ears' are two feather tufts that you can only see when they are feeling grumpy or alarmed. You are more likely to see a Short-eared Owl in the winter as northern European Owls join ours on coastal marshes and numbers swell.

The Short-eared Owl is larger than a Barn Owl with a round face and fierce, staring yellow eyes surrounded by black rings to make them look even fiercer. They have a mottled brown body, a streaked breast, and a pale belly and flanks. Their wings are long and narrow with black tips and a dark mark at the 'elbow'. Their short tail has four strong bars. They hover and glide with a few floppy wing beats, feet above the ground. The Short-eared Owl gives a short bark when alarmed but is otherwise silent except when singing its low hooting "boo boo boo" song. Like many raptors, the female is slightly larger than the male and a lot bossier.

Their main food is small mammals such as rats, mice, squirrels, and small rabbits. Short-eared Owls will also eat birds up to Thrush sized and insects and frogs if pushed, but their favourite snack is voles which make up to 65% of their diet. They catch their prey by swooping down feet-first on top of them. Like all Owls, because of the low acidity of their stomachs, they can't easily digest bones and have to eject them as pellets.

Short-eared Owls are able to breed after one year. In spring, the male attracts a mate by doing an aerial display above his moorland territory, clapping his wings below his body and showing off. The nest is a scraped-out hollow on the ground lined with grass and downy feathers, concealed by low vegetation. Mum lays her 4-8 white eggs in March. They are spaced out over several days so that the youngsters hatch at different times. If food is short, only the oldest and strongest survive. The young owlets are fed by both mum and dad. After 15 days they leave the nest to hide nearby until they can fly 35 days later. Breeding success depends crucially on how many voles there are. On a year with plenty of voles, they may even have two broods.

There are about 2,000 pairs of Short-eared Owls in Britain and the population is stable. Numbers increase in the winter, especially on the coast, as Owls come over from northern Europe to join ours. Some of our Owls may move south to southern Europe. Winter numbers can fluctuate depending on food availability. Because Short-eared Owls are of European conservation concern, they are Amber Listed. The oldest ringed Short-eared Owl lived for 12 years.

Their Latin name is 'asio flammeus' where 'flammeus' means 'flame coloured' and 'asio' is the Latin name for a horned owl. We call them ears rather than horns but the flame colour is spot on. There are eleven subspecies of Short-eared Owls worldwide.

Stonechat

The Stonechat loves having his picture taken. He will happily pose upright on a post while you get a photo of his good side, flicking his wings impatiently. Stonechats need grassy areas for feeding, dense cover for nesting and the all-important posing post for singing. They can be found on heaths in the summer and along the coast in winter.

Stonechats are small and dumpy, a little smaller than a Robin, with a big head and short tail. The male has a black head, white on his neck, an orange breast and a dark brown back. The female has a brown head and a less obvious white neck. She is altogether browner. The youngsters look like mum. They have a white shoulder patch that is visible when flying on their whirring wings, looking a bit like giant bumble bees. Their call is a harsh "tac tac" like two stones being tapped together and hence their Stonechat name. 

Stonechats drop to the ground to feed. They are mainly insectivorous, feeding on caterpillars, moths, ants, spiders and flies, though they will also take worms and snails, and feed on seeds and berries in the autumn and winter. 

They breed on lowland heaths and sites with plenty of gorse bushes, like railway embankments. Stonechats first breed when they are one year old. They are monogamous during the breeding season but do not pair for life. Mum builds an untidy cup of leaves close to the ground under a bush which she lines with hair, wool, and feathers. She incubates the 4-6 greenish-blue speckled eggs with little help from dad, who is too busy posing. The eggs hatch after 13 days. Both parents feed the young, who can fly 13 days later. The quick turnaround gives time for 2-3 broods and often while dad feeds the first brood, mum gets on with a second. They do their moult once all the kids have left home and then move down to the coast for winter.

Stonechats are partial migrants. While many stay here, some migrate to southern Europe. There are 60,000 breeding pairs in Britain though numbers have fallen because of heaths being turned into farmland and pesticides killing the insects they need to feed. Stonechats can also suffer in severe winters.

Their Latin name is 'saxicola rubicola' where 'saxicola' means 'rock dweller' from the Latin 'saxum' for 'rock' and 'incola' for 'dwelling in'. The 'rubicola' is a combination of 'rubus' for 'bramble' and 'incola' again, giving a 'rock and bramble dweller' which is pretty close. Another local name is the 'gorse chat'.