Skip to main content

A twitch too far

The presence of so many once-rare birds, in Britain, has caused me to think. My engagement with twitching was brief and the whole business of visiting reserves troubles me now, in a way I had not imagined. I think of a future occurrence: a scenario in which I am seated within a hide and recognise an obscure rarity; one that’s tricky to identify and easily overlooked. The urge is there to tell those beside me, but also an understanding of the game. I do, though, announce the presence of let’s say a ‘first for Britain’ and trigger a chain of events that leads to a road fatality. Were that to transpire, what would he, or she, have died for? But not to share such a find with fellow enthusiasts still seems churlish and would strip away much pleasure. Crazy though it may seem and wonderful though birds are, I no longer wish to encounter rare ones and avoid looking at common birds, sometimes, in case I might. This is not a condemnation of twitchers. Most are skilled and responsible motorists. But there is, essentially, a competitive core and desire to get there in time; and twitching is, therefore, an obscure form of motor-sport on Britain’s highways. It was for me and it will be for others; and so I do not regret moving on.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Peregrine and the Hobby – two falcons on the rise

My awareness of peregrines began with a display-stand, at an agricultural show; a panoramic scene, that featured many species. In the foreground were puffins, crows, gulls and assorted waders; and there, in the distance, the falcon: a sky-owning presence, which yielded little detail; not much more than an unusually arresting outline. But it was the bird that fascinated me most; the one I wanted to know much more about. Some months later, we were sat in class, to learn of the peregrine’s possible extinction, in the British Isles and the battle to prevent such an occurrence. DDT pesticides were spoken of and how their passage through the food-chain had caused thinly-shelled eggs; ones that did not hatch. Could the species be preserved? Gloriously, that question is now answered. Peregrines have, I suggest, been undersold, even by conservation-groups, because, when we look at one, we see not only the fastest living bird, or even creature. We do, in fact, have, before us, the fastest life
Post a Comment
Read more

Not quite the picture

At the age of perhaps eight, or nine, my interest in ornithology was embryonic, but thumbing my father’s Collins field guide helped it to thrive. The more unusual species held, for me, an almost mystical quality. Photographic guides were fewer than today and so I knew them from representations, by fine-artists, including Basil Ede and Charles Tunnicliffe. They were celebratory works; intended, surely, to emphasise colour and add an extra layer of drama; and the buzz, for me, was to imagine how they would appear, in the flesh, or more accurately, of course, in the plumage. The thrill, then, of seeing paintings brought to life would become an elusive and longed for prize. Of course, birds don’t look as they do in such paintings. Sometimes they seem better, sometimes worse, but never the same. I recall standing in the grounds of Norfolk’s Castle Acre priory; having been dropped there in order that my father could visit someone in a nearby village. Goldfinches were present; excitingly so,
Post a Comment
Read more