Mundane update from Ireland

Well I've been monitoring the local Brent at Dundrum at the tail-end of the season, in part to try to avoid the embarassment of coming near the bottom of the list of data contributors for the season. The award ceremony is a glamorous affair, typically a slagging match over a bottle of Jameson in Iceland in which Gerry or Graham play Sir Alan Sugar and the shamed observer gets fired. In our world it's funny. A mixture of 'gold' observations (quality not quantity) with some volume from Dundrum Bay in Co. Down will have slightly redeemed my status this year.

Part of this is due to having recruited a scribe. Attached is my 6.5 year old daughter Anna's solid attempt at writing down ring combinations, colours and API scores. You've just got to love writing something as it sounds. On the top line the time - 'haf 11'; on the next line the 16th became the 61th. Maybe I said that wrong. I always get that wrong..

The latest from Dundrum is that there are still about 600 birds and API scores have increased from 3s to some 4s over the last week-fortnight.