THE FABULOUS PODA BIRD RESERVE IN BULGARIA

The PODA bird reserve in Bulgaria is very very special.

Special as in an area the size of the UK there are limited opportunities to experience nature undisturbed with only two bird reserves in the country.

Special as it provides fantastic nature engagement opportunities for the local community with many schools and children relying on it to access the wonderful nature it provides.

Special for international birders to experience the passage of migration on the famous Via Pontica route where Pelicans, Eagles and Storks can readily be seen.

Located on the most westerly edge of the Black Sea, 5 kilometres south of Bulgaria`s main port, Burgas, the PODA reserve is almost totally surrounded by water, proximate to the Vaya, Mandra, Burgas and Atanasovsko lakes. The reserve has an area of just over 300 hectares, formed of mainly, marshland, brackish pools and scrub.

The site was declared a protected area in 1989 and achieved Ramsar conservation status in 2002. It is administered by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) with funding raised by the small entrance fee, shop sales and donations. BSPB, part of Birdlife International, has a second site in the Rhodopes mountains where there has been a successful conservation programme for Gryphon Vultures.

In the UK we would designate PODA a brownfield site with remnants of it`s oil industry heritage still existing with pipes and pylons dotted around the site. The first time I volunteered one of the pylons was home to over 80 Cormorant nests the next time I went this pylon had fallen, Cormorant excrement had eaten through an already pretty rotten structure; thankfully post breeding season.

PODA and the lakes are ideally situated on the Eastern migration flyway or Via Pontica where birds move from East and Central Africa through the Middle East and Turkey, on their way to breed. Funnelling in around Southern Bulgaria and then on to Romania the Via Pontica opens out to stretch from East Germany right across to the Crimea. The Black Sea, lakes and marshes at PODA provide ideal food and habitat for migrating water birds and passerines.  On spring and autumn migration the reserve is a great place to experience huge numbers of Storks, both white and black, Pelicans, White and Dalmatian along with regularly sightings of Lesser Spotted, Short-toed and Booted Eagles, Honey Buzzard, Red-footed Falcon, Levant Sparrowhawk and various other raptors with the potential for seeing Greater Spotted and Imperial Eagle, Goshawk, Long-legged Buzzard and Saker Falcon.  The species list seen is verging on 300 with the reserve home to breeding Common Tern, Marsh Harrier, Great and Pygmy Cormorant, Black-winged Stilt, Spoonbill, Purple, Grey, Squacco and Night Herons various warblers including Great Reed, Nightingale, and Penduline Tit. A local breeding White-tailed Eagle regularly visits with Osprey often seen in the bay hunting on migration. In late season, alongside the usual European wintering ducks the whole area is important for Red Breasted Goose, White-headed and Ferruginous Duck.

Herpetologists regularly visit PODA with the Dice snake, European Pond Turtle and Balkan Green Lizard regularly seen whilst there maybe a chance to experience Eastern Spadefoot Toad, European Legless Lizard and Four-lined Snake.

The site is also important habitat for the Otter.

PODA along with the BSPB regularly undertake ornithological research, bird monitoring and education programmes and is close to ringing sites and a Trektellen viewing platform. However its most important day to day function is to provide an opportunity to engage with wildlife. Whilst volunteering it was most notable that many visitors were new to birdwatching and 30% of the visitors, excluding school groups were children. In the last month that I volunteered in spring 2022 the centre received over 500 visitors + 16 school groups, the majority being Bulgarian with around a third made up of seasoned birders visiting from various parts of the world.

PODA like other bird reserves has experienced its own conservation issues. Numbers of Common Terns seem to be decreasing as micro-plastics devastate the small fish populations. The Ukraine-Russia war has seen dead Dolphins appear on the Black Sea shores of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey including at the reserve where their sonar navigation has been interfered with by constant bombing. Covid brought its own set of problems where a small picnic site 200 metres from the reserve was overrun by people desperate for a bit of greenspace, the ensuing litter problem attracted Jackals which then entered the then closed reserve to devastate ground nesting species.

Recently PODA has been through some important conservation improvements to enhance existing habitat and restore pools on the previously inaccessible northern part of the reserve. These improvements have obviously come at a cost and for a reserve that depends on footfall and donations it has meant that funds at the moment are seriously low.

The old telescopes are no longer serviceable and a new set of optics is needed for the centre to fulfil its engagement function.

I have volunteered at this reserve several times helping with visitor engagement and have seen at first-hand how important it is for young people and children as an access to nature. I have experienced the joy and delight that this access has given and despite the language differences the birds and wildlife do the talking.

If you can get the chance please visit this special birding place and if you can, please help by donating here for some new telescopes to enable PODA to maintain it`s special nature status.

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/david-clark-970

Thank you.

Dave Clark (October 2023)

The silver Honda had seen better days. Battered and forlorn, trundling its way along the park`s entry road, the dents and rust allowing not a second glance, but for the hundred plus gawking, squawking pursuing crows. A Hitchcockian retinue full of sparkling energy; a cascading ball of anticipation, aggression and anger. The car parks up, the doors squeak open and disgorge an equally arthritic aging couple and variously logoed supermarket bags. The cascade proceeds into hyperdrive, a mass of inky black wings and bodies vying for first dibs. I`m absolutely mesmerised by this sensory compellment. At once physically drawn into the high volume visuals whilst mentally pondering the relationship strands tying together this wild engagement.

These highly intelligent birds had learnt that the colour and sound of this car equated to an uber open air delivery of food. Their enthralment had become so habituated that any newcomers to the party learnt their cues from more experienced members, their motivation and reward being a straightforward feeding frenzy, pumped up on an adrenalin based corvidian intoxicant. The motivations for the couple, however, were more opaque; a hotchpotch of anthropocentric and aviancentric ingredients; altruism, control, companionship, nurture, and that multi-layered component, pleasure, seasoned with a soupçon  of spirituality. Such complexity within such a simple act. Furthermore this public practice of bird feeding was so very private, a play performed for the couple in which the birds are willing participants, yet ignorant to their star status, whilst the couple occupied their own covert bubble. In this rather extreme example of wild bird feeding, the performance is accidental to the participants, it is only when the observer is observed that this public feeding becomes a show.

For Henri Pol, Le Charmeur d`Oiseaux, the beginnings of his outdoor relationship with birds was a similarly insular practice, a very private activity within a public space, albeit on a more humble scale. The simple act of sitting on a park bench dispensing crumbs of bread broke up the walk to work and provided a welcome distraction from the days travails….a chance of being proximate to nature and a brief respite from the mundane and onerous workings of everyday life. Little did he know that this was the beginnings of a nigh on forty year relationship that developed into performance art.

Henri was a senior clerk at the central bureau de télégraphe in Paris and as a young man in the 1880`s his walk to work from his home on the right bank of the Seine, took him through the Tuileries Garden at around 8 in the morning where his custom was to sit and read his newspaper, relaxing before another kilometre took him fifteen minutes, over the river on the Pont de Solferino to work at the postal telegraph complex at 103 Rue de Grenelle in the 7th arrondisement. The telegraph building still stands, recent renovations have retained the wonderfully imposing 19<sup>th</sup> century industrial façade whilst the Tuileries are now reached by the footbridge Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor which replaced, in the 1960`s, the boat damaged Solferino.

Similar scenes would have been experienced in Victorian London, with increased leisure time and the parallel growth in the number of urban parks through the 1870`s, an acceleration in wild bird feeding was experienced, particularly during the very cold winters of the 1890`s. Where once the squalling urban gulls and pigeons would have faced the barrel of a gun they now were receiving titbits from workers sharing their lunch. It became such a common pastime in London that there would be rows of people providing pre-prepared food from the central London bridges.

However the prime recipient of this largesse was the House Sparrow, a bird that has been historically associated with human settlement since the bronze age. Its scientific name, Passer Domesticus, was first coined by Conrad Gessner, a Swiss naturalist, in 1555, demonstrating the link that this species has to humans and its sedentary lifestyle, rarely moving outside a radius of a hundred metres during its entire life cycle. Predominantly granivorous, food was everywhere in rural France and England, barns, kitchens and fields all providing the necessary seeds and nutrition for survival. Their ubiquity, opportunism and perceived boldness often landed them in trouble yet equally gave rise to charming nicknames such as spadger, spuggy and chummy.

This ubiquity prevailed as urbanisation advanced. Horse drawn transport dominated in both London and Paris until 1912 providing plenty of feeding opportunities for these granivores, from horses feed and faeces, whilst the numerous inner city parks and gardens supported the necessary insect life for the chicks during breeding season. It is this continuum of pervasiveness that allowed the Sparrow to have an exalted emotional status, and although potentially a nuisance it provided an important link, across both cultures, to the rural past, a nostalgic reminder of a simpler, less hectic time, creating a bucolic romantic vision,  triggering deep-seated memories of an era when our relationship with nature was much closer.

The cheeky cockerney sparrer became an endearing colloquial urban London name for this captivating, bright, sparky, likeable chap an anthro-avian nick which continues to this day. Similarly in Paris the charming soubriquet, Le Pierrot, is a nod to a famous 17^th century Italian pantomime troupe, Comedie-Italienne. In both cultures these names intimated performance and showmanship, music hall in London and the stage in Paris where the touring Pierrots were famed and feted. This anthropomorphic behaviour and naming projected our desires and aspirations, Sparrows were perceived as little people, they had two legs, an upright stance with bright staring eyes; small bundles of sparkly mannerisms and nervous energy with the added bonus of being able to provide aeriel acrobatic tricks.

In Paris Henri soon realised that by displaying patience and gentleness he could coax the birds closer, to the point that he would regularly have them eating from his hand and alighting on his arms, hands and head. It was at this juncture that Henri traversed the divide from private to public…..he was now perceived as a one man circus, an open air ringmaster,  labelled `Le charmeur`, not only a performer but a magician encompassing elements of mysticism, exoticism, a la snake charmer, and magic, a thaumartage working with nature to create wonder and awe amongst the growing crowds.

Henri was certainly not the first `charmeur`, in 1868 Charles Yriate wrote Les celebrités de la rue  where he spoke of over ten charmeurs performing around the Tuileries area. He noted that most were `retired gentlemen` yet Mademoiselle Henriette (in his words) `surpassed all her predecessors with her special influence on the Wood Pigeons.` At this time the Tuileries Garden had the formidable backdrop of the ill fated Tuileries Palace which stood until 1871 when destroyed during the uprising of the Paris Commune.  The gardens however still act as a tourist attraction in their own right and provide a pedestrian connection to La Louvre.

A `charmeur` from the Celebrities de la Rue

Henri, twenty years later, however, became the stand out `charmeur` benefiting from his persistence and the rapid social changes of the late Victorian / Edwardian period. He developed more sophisticated catering, preparing small dough balls by soaking bread in the gardens pools, supplying millet seed and even, it was noted, gooseberries. Henri would name the Pierrots and female Pierrettes often after famous people or topical events; Le Petit Boer, Rougel de l`Isle  (A French soldier and writer of the La Marseillaise, Garibaldi, Nicolas (after the Russian Tsar) or used colloquial phrases; La Belle Etoile (beautiful star), Quat’sous (five centimes, equivalent to our thruppenny bit), Poil aux pattes (Hair on the legs),  Tape-à-l’oeil (Flashy) and Coeur de fer (heart of fire) to name but a few. With the increase in European tourism his fame transcended mere local renown, stories of his avian delights were recorded in Parisien papers and magazines, French provincial papers as well as articles in the broadsheets of England, Ireland and Germany.

Aiding the spread of his reputation was the rapid growth in the use of postcards. They became the hip communication channel of the period with cheaper translation of photos to print, allied to increased social mobility and leisure time fuelling their success. They were a comparatively rapid form of pictoral communication, the Instagram of their day; with up to six postal collection and deliveries a day a card could reach London from Paris within twenty four hours. Henri developed his own cottage industry, of producing cards with various images of feeding birds in the Tuileries, often with a backdrop of an audience. In 1897 the Lumiere Brothers feature Henri in one of their classic social history movie shorts whilst Henri is mentioned in the famed semi-autobiographical novel of Rainer Maria Rilkes `The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge` published in 1910, Rilkes expressionistic style lending itself to influence Sartre`s existential writings. Henri received an award from the French institute for aviculture for his services to birds before passing away in his 80`s, on June 17^th 1918 at a retirement home in Chardon-Lagache in central Paris.

During Henri`s time animals were increasingly being used within the circus and street theatre and birds did not escape this captive exploitation. Victorian London had many such acts including one wag who dressed small birds as soldiers, the show culminating in one bird lighting a toy cannon whilst the rest of the troupe pretended to play dead, completely unedifying and verging on the grotesque. Latterly in the 2000`s Don Crown, the Budgieregar man, was a regular feature amongst the South Bank buskers plying their trade between Waterloo and Westminster bridges in London, whilst the most famous Budgieregar exponent was Norman Barrett who was actually awarded an MBE for his ringmaster and budgieregar skills in 2010……….only twelve years ago. It was not until January 2020 in England that the use of wild animals in circuses was banned under the Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019. And before I get off my high prancing horse we must remember that in watching circus animals we were all party to that exploitation, willing participants reinforcing the prejudice, against, and the spiritual distance, from, nature.

So for Henri receiving an award from the equivalent of our caged bird society is somewhat telling of our historical perception of birds and animals. Henri would have been viewed in some quarters as no different to the more overt examples of showmanship described, suggesting a fine line between altruism and exploitation.

Can we ever be truly altruistic? After all there`s always some gain even if the advantage is purely spiritual with the most benefactory philanthropists seeking a profit. Did Henri cross the rubicon into abuse?  The definition of wild vs domesticated provides the answer. After the lights go down, the curtains are closed and the greasepaint wiped, performing animals were caged and utterly dependent on their captors for food and drink. For our urban birds they are wild and utterly dependent on their own instincts, for better or worse. No doggie beds, cages in warm parlours, or vets for them but completely reliant on their own capacity to survive, whether the night be cold, wet or both, the benefit is freedom, free to fly and able to act on their own volition. Indeed Henri was never fully in control of their perceived performances, the movements being natural and random. We now know that supplementary feeding has the potential to effect the natural processes and compromise the lifestages of birds but Henri was innocent to this modern day science any negative outcomes were more than made up for him providing a channel to access to the wonder and mysticism of nature to thousands of Parisians and tourists.

Our current epoch has been described as the 6^th extinction a time when our domination and destruction of natural processes and life leads ultimately to human downfall. E. O. Wilson the eminent US biologist recognised our continued distancing from nature and had his own description for this current period, the Eremocine – the age of loneliness, where we have lost our primal instinct (driver) to link with nature. Our Honda couple, and our charmeurs may indeed be lonely, eccentric or perceived as just plain mad but they have recognised the need to bridge this divide. To be close to nature is special, to touch nature is very special; a recognition that we all should have to inscend nature and not to control, damage or extinguish. We all need to stare more into the fountain and flames of nature for this inscendence to be fixed.

In Henri`s self penned pamphlet describing his relationship with birds, he stated:

`They love me because they trust. To please is to be supported. The art of charming birds is to be happy with them. They are good little servants of agriculture, and without them the most beautiful landscape would be of great sadness`

He showed us that exhibitionism does not have to lead to exploitation indeed he provided a tool for us to retain a link with nature, an enabler, a catalyser using awe and wonder to inspire. He might have made a few centimes along the way but there was no swishing of tops n tails for Henri more squashy fedoras, trenchcoats and cardies, all fusty bonhomie and battered old Honda.

As I watched the couple and the crows in the local park I was that lucky lad in the postcard, all arms akimbo, flat cap and short trousers, all big round eyes, full of awe. Guess what I saw today.

f

HOPE A LYRE AND THE GLOSSY BLACK COCKATOO

It`s all about the numbers. Death, destruction, wasteland, heat, fireballs, environmental catastrophes, it`s all about the numbers. The bushfires in Australia 2019/20 caused the estimated demise of a billion animals, affected 10 million hectares of land, created 300 + million tonnes of carbon dioxide spew, destroyed over 2000 homes and well, you know, it`s all a bit so what…….these numbers become peculiarly numbing soundbites, they tumble and echo around your skull. I can`t cope. I can`t cope with it, I can`t cope with numbers like that.  Kangaroo Island Australia`s equivalent to the Galápagos, a haven for rare and specialized species, lost half of its habitat to this `natural` scorched earth event, 200,000 hectares, the size of the Lake District …….even when you compare the numbers with something closer to home they still numb and boggle. Numbers they can be counter productive, inure you from the true emotional loss of nature and habitat destruction, they are  too deep to fathom, too much to mind bend, it`s too hard to skew your synapses…… Imagine half the Cairngorms was erased…….do you know what..I can`t.

So as usual when I see some environmental catastrophe, and particularly when I see the numbers, I batten down the emotional hatches, there is a need to deaden my senses as there is an overwhelming sense of desperation and exasperation, here we go again, the next ecological nail in the earth`s coffin. In the bushfire case the cruise ships still cruise the Australian coastline , the Australian coal industry still digs and smokes, the sheep are still getting farmed and the earth burns and the hotter we all get. I need to hunker down deeper in my emotional duvet, hibernate and incarcerate myself in a selfish soundless sightless cocoon, it seems the only way…bye world…bye bye indeed.  It`s difficult not to drown in thoughts of petrogeddon, suffocate in the hysterical reality of covidity, rot in my own putrid corrupted thoughts…. yet out of this existential cesspit, this gooey fowl mudbath of polluted environmental malaise I perceive a glimmer, a thin shaft of light, a beacon in the charred remains in the form of a rather wonderful bird the Glossy Black Cockatoo. The story of this bird oxygenates me with hope, releases me from my hypoxic state, dissociating me from the unemotive numbers. The Glossy Black cockatoo story displays a symbiotic balance between human heroes and nature, a win win where humans are infused with hope, a peculiar and particular human foible and nature, life and existence.

But there is hope and hope and hope has its caveats. George Frederic Watts, the artist, knew a thing or two about hope, Watts was a dreamer with a belief in humanity and a belief in emotional aspiration, his refusal of a baronetcy twice shows the mark of a man who understood that hope is not about material gain and adulation. But he also knew there needed to be a solid basis to hope from which dreams and desires could productively emerge and that hope is not expectant, it disowns expectancy. Watts symbolized Hope in his 1886 painting, a blindfolded woman sits on a globe playing a single string lyre. Contemporary critics dissed the painting for its negative connotations of despair but Watts realized that Hope should not be sentimental and that hope can come from the music played from just a solitary string. The symbol of hope the anchor is another manifestation of the reality within hope, along with a vision hope needs a firm basis. Hoping for the best, a form of boundless hope, is actually hopeless and irresponsible, hope only has energy and purpose if it is bound and a plan emerges.

Ah the cockatoo, a vision and a plan. The Glossy Black Cockatoo in the 1990`s was in serious danger of extinction, the Kangaroo Island sub-species was down to 150 birds existing in a few flocks, it`s predominant habitat was under continuous threat and it`s life history was not conducive to a a quick fix anytime soon. I know the numbers again, but one can get your head around 150. Through a thoughtfully conceived rescue programme, funded by the Island community and WWF Australia, the population by 2016 had grown to a much healthier 400 in seven flocks. So the loss amongst the latest fires of 35% of known cockatoo nests and over 50% of nesting and feeding habitat was felt particularly hard, any conservation gains had been lost in a week, this amongst a background of embered homesteads, loss of community income and the sights of the grizzly remains of marsupials in various forms of deaths grotesque skeletal agonies. This was not a good rescue plan outcome especially in a community which had been battered emotionally from pillar to burning post and just like our scorched planet, locally there was a need for a vision for hope to potentially cut through all the statistics. So during a week of emotional trauma upon trauma and no Glossy Black Cockatoos to be seen, when eventually two were spotted flying freely understandably human spirits accepted the lift. There maybe only one string on that lyre but we can still make a tune.

Nature does not hope, Glossy black cockatoos don`t hope, Koalas don`t hope but Koalas and cockatoos feel pain, they run and fly from the fire and hide from the rain and they hurt especially when their arms, legs and wings burn. This sentience is the basis of our hope and rather than hiding under the duvet we should fulfil our part of the bargain and aid their life and existence.

Big heads up to the wonderful people at:

https://www.naturefoundation.org.au/support-us/glossy-black-cockatoo-recovery-program

DAVE CLARK OCTOBER 2020

A DENTALOGUE                                        

This is a dentalogue.

The thoughts and feelings on the experience of dental treatment in a foreign country.

Note I have refrained from the now common appellation `dental tourism` as this phrase suggests having a holiday and despite my glowing references for my dentists treatment, and more of their wonderfulness later, let me tell you when you are having major works on your teeth performed, it is not a holiday. A holiday should never encompass unedifying moments of exposure, vulnerability and embarrassment, discomfort, pain, lack of sleep; throw in a covid backdrop and add on askewed travel plans, re-arranged work schedules and all that on the foundations of fear of a lifetime of negative experiences with dentists; it`s Room 101 the stuff of dystopian nightmares. We all have our dental story, and more of that later too.

But indulge me for a moment whilst I reminisce back to a 14 year old hormonal small town Midlands lad, its lunch break sorting through the vinyl records in Smiths with the usual peer group on a wet autumnal day, there`s no footie in the playground and you`ve got maths next led by a nose picking Mr. Beasley and double `chem` to round off this, let`s face it, never ending gloom. It maybe the late `60`s but the only swinging thing is in the local park and it`s not with the opposite sex, Queens Road Nuneaton is no Carnaby Street. Flicking through the usuals, Colosseum, The Nice, The Tull, Spooky Tooth, Pink Floyd you come across Quicksilver Messenger Service, blimey lets have a decko at that one. Wow, now there`s a name to conjure with who the flippin eck are they. Dino Valenti, and John Cipollina, wowsa, double blimey…… stratospheric off the richter scale coolness..Just the names exude an exoticism and sensuality which might as well emanate from another planet. Although the coolest dudes in our class were already indulging in furtive back seat shenanigans during school trips evidently trying to bridge this cultural divide between West Coast America and the centre of England, it was just too much for me, this gap was too darn big, it was an unattainable dream and genuinely beyond my comprehension. Yes I could get a pair of Wrangler`s from the market slap on some patches cobbled together with some elder brothers hand me downs and at least make an attempt at Brit rock cool but West coast, Cipollina, Valenti, Quicksilver Messenger Service come on that’s just too much to handle.

Ah yes the dentalogue. Move on 7 years I`m now at college in a dental chair with a dentists knee in my chest. The knee is doubling up as a lever to extract an unhelpful molar whilst simultaneously keeping me pinned down as I scream in pain, this is not dentistry this is Victorian butchery the villain of the piece gets off on reruns of Marathon Man. Oh and why was the molar so difficult to come out…because it was an unnecessary extraction that’s why. A year later I`m four molars down; I`m 22.

Swiping the years by rapidly to 2020, I am now ambling along the car free cycle trails of Rovinj Croatia, luxuriating in the toujours azure Adriatic a warm breeze soothing my now Istrian soul, the pebbles dashing the mountain bikes tyres causing pleasing vibrations and Quicksilver comes to mind and the title of their second album Happy Trails. Happy Trails indeed, freedom, release, rejuvenation and recuperation. A literal and metaphorical Happy Trail the counterpoint to drab Midland days and a lifelong fear of dentisty and coming off the back of a more recent, shall we say, interesting two and a half hours in the dreaded Chair of dental room 2. Funny that long term memory thing.

And there`s the nub and moral of this dentalogue. Yes do your, homework, yes find out as much as you can about your dental choice, take advice and your time, send loads of e.mails, they want your business and they know there`s plenty of 60 year old plus Brits with awful teeth and loose jaws because of past dental malpractice and extortionate GB dental cost but don`t forget to find your Happy Trail to spoil yourself with.

If you are having implants be prepared to eat only soft foods there will be two stages of treatment with six months between and at the first stage of treatment drugs will be involved. Yep for a coupla days you`ll look like a chipmunk `eating` liquids sucking on your breakfast fruit whilst trying to work out what your name is; personally I administered two different anti-biotics mixed in with a liberal dose of painkillers and a smattering of sedatives, let me tell you not drugs of choice but drugs of necessity. In the final treatment there were so many injections that I was wandering about thinking my lips had either botoxed my whole face or had flown away. Remember though that would be the same wherever you are, once you`ve made the dental leap that`s part of the deal.

The choice for me was H. Dent a family run dentistry based in Rovinj, Istria, Croatia. Going foreign means you will save money so at this point weighing up the options and price no longer was in the equation, what swung it for me was their quick and reassuring responses, their professionalism, state of the art equipment, highly qualified doctors and experience in performing difficult and involved procedures. Subsequently I was put at ease by a balance between the equivalent of the warmth of the dental bedside manner, (cosiness would be pushing it…..not really in the dental lexicon) authority, professionalism and a busy waiting room. Importantly they were not judgemental, such a relief from the chronic disdain I always encountered from UK dentists – `Ah Mr. Clark we haven`t seen you for a while` given with that patronising withering tone and look designed to make you feel seven years old with your hand in the teeth rotting biscuit tin. Ivan the chief doctor provided a necessary assertiveness; I didn`t require tender hand holding I needed to be grasped and dragged into dental reality something he consummately performed when I had the wobbles on the first trip, when I could not sleep or think straight and was already eyeing up return flights at 4.00 a.m. in the morning of the first night…this is before any treatments, it was a severe case of the yips which Ivan coached me out of.

And the Happy Trail. H Dent are based in Rovinj a well known tourist centre on the Istrian coast with a 14,000 population swelling to 80,000 during non-covid peak times and deservedly, it`s difficult to deny Rovinj (a silent j please)……it`s place in the sun, it is strikingly beautiful on the eye and on the spirit.

It`s picturesque pulchritude undeniably attracts a certain amount of bling particularly around the modern sterile harbour, a cornea burning white stone expanse that exhibits the equivalent of water bound Rolexes.  Yes there are harbour bars sporting West End prices, yes there are teenagers with attitude, all mardiness and mascara (when do the smile muscles develop?) and beach bars blaring out bland MOR Euro hip pop. But its not too hard to expose the true beauty and culture of the town and region, stick to the local bars you`ll get a pint for a coupla quid and a sublime morning expresso for half that and a shout out to Punta Cabana the beach bar with a difference and my coke refuge (fizzy, fully sugared up dears) where Mr. Hendrix blasted out amongst an impressive vinyl collection – Happy Trails indeed.   

Then wander those few extra few yards past the decadent harbour nonsense and the hotel loungers and experience the core beauty of Rovinj the maritime rurality of the wonderful car free old town and its splendid cacophony of primary colours and faded textures, narcoleptic cats, blooming bougainvillea, flaking shutters, bizarre random sculptures ……it is a special place, where even the bus station roof has a swallow colony and the local supermarket has sparrows flitting in the aisles, and always toujours with that azure backdrop.

Walk the other way through dappled sunshine splashing through a forest of Holm Oaks and the close by Istrian landscape is full of textures displaying distant and modern echoes of the cultural past, palimpsests of successive invaders rulers and populations Illyrians / Slavs / Hapsburgs / Italians written across a subtropical landscape butting up against the always azure Adriatic. And the sounds, sounds that have spanned these generations those inveterate invertebrates cicada,  laughing Caspian Gulls, chattering Jackdaws and always the lap of the Adriatic, the sea of stones and placidity, twenty metres out and your still waist deep it is so tranquil and calming that even the monkeys on my back decide to uproot and have a paddle. Oh and the spikey arid olive groves with the chance of a Shrike seeking a slinky lizard, indulgent wild pigs,  Sand Martins dancing over harvested fields, and the seemingly random goat herds, luscious luminescent green cockchafers and Swallowtails on the trails with always that azure not too far away to comfort, subdue and cool down.

Wow it`s almost worth having rubbish teeth….almost.

Thank you H Dent, thank you Rovinj.

Happy Trails…Toujours Azure….Ciao.

DAVE CLARK Aug. 2020

THE SPANGLED DRONGO – A lesson in truth

Myth, white lies, folk tales, cultural blindness and downright deception, one thing that seems certain in uncertain times is that the truth lies somewhere below the surface. The Spangled Drongo is a case in point.
The Australian ornithologist and author Tim Low expresses wonderfully In Where Song Began how there has been a historical and cultural tendency to be ethnocentric indeed anglocentric about birds. Tim points out eloquently that the true epicentre of avian life and song is really the eastern bit of what was Gondwana, i.e.: Northern Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia. Similarly bird migration, lest we forget, is a global phenomenon which gives a visible, audible signature to the world that nature is working, even if at the moment we are caught up in some kind of cosmic navel gaze. One world in lockdown, one world in migration, a common global bond in an elemental cycle of life. So while here in blighty we lust over Iberian and sub-Saharan warblers and aerobatic Hirundines our Northern Australian friends are turning down their humidity and basking in a more comfortable vernal climate where Rufous Fantails and Spangled Drongos have moved into the suburbs regaling them with their exotic looks and sounds.
The Spangled Drongo, its common nomenclature displaying an awkward tension between beauty and stupidity has been much maligned through modern folklore. When the migration circus comes to town the Drongo features as a floor clown, all ill-fitting shiny pantaloons and big floppy boots, certainly endearing but ultimately sad. A figure of fun, an idiot, court jester, the magician who always gets it wrong, and often unfortunately linked with a further denigrating descriptor – filthy.
End of story. Well no, enter stage right a racehorse.
There was, truthfully, in the 1930s a racehorse named Drongo. Legend has it that this horse was, well, rubbish, and thus it has continued as an antipodean idiom to express foolishness, someone who doesnt know how to do / get things right, a dad dancer, just plain goofy. If the horse was on stage it would be in a pantomime. It didnt help that they named a race the Drongo Handicap in the 1970s for horses who had never won; well by the end they couldnt all have been Drongos…….. However, Drongo the racehorse was actually not the blindfolded flea-bitten rag n bone dray we are led to believe, despite popular legend Drongo actually came in a plucky 2nd on more than one occasion and inbig` races too. Originally the term Drongo, for racegoers, denoted an unlucky horse but unfortunately it soon morphed degeneratively into colloquial parlance for a no hoper.
Stage left enter the Spangled Drongo. Post rationalisation has reinforced its comic haplessness….it has a tail that looks like a fish whilst amongst its vocal repertoire is the sound of a piano being tuned by a ten thumbed tone deaf oaf whilst the comedy is supplied by its high wire antics diving acrobatically for insects or human thrown pieces of meat which are caught mid-air.
But before the lights come up and the curtain comes down, like all good stories there is a final twist. Which came first the bird or the racehorse? There is no doubt that the bird was named first and the racehorse was chronologically named subsequently. So why was the horse named after it? Could it be that being fast, full of character, and displaying super quick reactions are attributes that would be useful for a successful racehorse?
The reality is that the Spangled Drongo is a winner. A true performer mischievous, endearing, skilful and very very smart. A mimic, comic and acrobat, with an electric personality, more a Harlequin than an Auguste. Its scientific name Dicrurus bracteatus suggesting forked tail and gilt, shining like gold. Indeed the superb iridescence of its glossy black coat with twinkly blue green spots is reminiscent of the European Starling. Sturnus vulgaris. I have a vision of these two rapscallions on a night out strolling downtown with a Dickensian street urchin super urban chic swagger in their charity shop hand me downs. None of this warbling in thickets the Spangled Drongo is a red-eyed centre stage street artist swapping life between mangroves and suburban Brisbane depending on the season. So cool that its nest is reminiscent of a hammock.
So there we have it, in a world of mendacity the Spangled Drongo is a lesson in truth. Now more than ever we need to fingernail the scratchcard of deception to find out what truly lies beneath.
Any star spangled pedlars of fake news please take note.

Dave Clark April 2020 in lockdown