Bird numbers tracked by working the patch
James Chubb, EDDC Education Ranger, introduces us to the joys of bird watching.
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| • GOLDFINCHES may be common, but keeping note of numbers can show fluctuations in population. Picture: Steve Waite |
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| • AS well as common birds, working a patch thoroughly will uncover the odd gem, like this snow bunting found and pictured by Steve Waite. |
BIRDS are funny things. On the face of it they are small, warm-blooded animals covered in feathers. But there must be something sinister going on, as they appear to have an unbreakable hold over some people.
Bird watching, birding, filling up time; call it what you will, birds are a national obsession and take over many people’s lives but, more than that, they give many people’s lives meaning.
There are many misquoted phrases in birdwatching circles, and I’ll attempt to translate a few of them here, as well as introduce some peculiar habits of some of the more obsessive followers of this quasi-religion.
Twitcher must be the most widely misused word in the English language. It’s used to describe someone who has anything from a passing interest in birds to a dyed-in-the-wool maniac, but it should only be used in specific circumstances.
Back in November a rather special bird turned up on the other side of the estuary. A long-billed murrelet (pronounced mure-let) was seen off the beach at Dawlish, and caused quite a stir.
“So what,” many of you may cry, “it’s a bird that looks like a dreary, drab puffin - our birds are much better!” So why did a few thousand people travel from as far away as Sweden to see this bird? It was all about twitching. The British Ornithological Union (BOU) keeps a list of all the birds to have ever been seen within our shores. The reason why the long-billed murrelet caused such a stir was that it was the first time it had been seen alive in the entire Western Palearctic - a geographical area covering Europe, North Africa and western Russia! A dead one was found in a Swiss reservoir many years ago, but this was the first living one to be seen. Twitchers came from far and wide to see the bird, and ‘tick’ it. It illustrates what a twitcher is - someone who makes an effort to see a specific bird, because they need it for their list.
Now lists are something that I will come on to in due course, as they form the foundation of so much bird fanaticism, but for now I want to make sure we are clear on the twitching thing - a twitcher is someone who travels to see a specific bird. It needn’t be rare, just something they haven’t seen that year/day/life.
The name is shrouded in mystery as to its origins, but I like the story that it was coined after one of the founding fathers of modern birding, who travelled to see birds on the back of his friend’s motorbike. When he got to the destination, a combination of the cold (most good birds turn up in the coldest weather) and abject fear would mean he physically shook upon arrival and he was deemed to be ‘twitching’ and so the name stuck.
Every twitcher is working on their list. It may be a year list, a life list, a British list or perhaps a day list. But listing is not only the domain of the twitching zealot, it is a lot of fun anyone can enjoy.
I may have my tongue firmly in my cheek for most of this article because some of the antics of birders in this country goes way beyond the which a rational human being should do in the pursuit of a hobby. But essentially I am trying to sell this idea to you, and hopefully convert a few of you to a really rewarding (and increasingly environmentally important) way to spend your time. The list underpins twitching, but not everyone races across the country to see their birds. Some people compile lists in a deliberately restricted area, and these are called ‘patch workers’. They are the people who, day-in, day-out, stomp around their local patch, taking note of every single feathered thing they happen upon. Their ultimate goal is often misunderstood to be finding a bird of the calibre of a long-billed murrelet. But this behaviour is often a compulsion to really know, first-hand, the countryside and explore a fascination with the natural world that is uncontrollable. It’s something to admire; a passion that can drag someone out of a warm bed at 5am on the wildest day of the year, to stand on the seafront for hours, staring at a ghastly storm-whipped sea, in the vague hope they will be able to discern the characteristic white rump of a Leach’s storm petrel, from a common-or-garden ‘stormy’.
It’s an insatiable interest that can take someone away from the TV umpteen times in a morning, just to ‘make sure’ a bird call from the rooftop was a chaffinch and not a cirl bunting.
These patch workers may find birds others will travel through the night to twitch, but they also possess an amazing knowledge of their local spot. This year I have been lucky enough to have been working with a number of birders in the Axe valley, producing a report of all the birds known to have been seen last year in the Seaton area. I was able to get involved as the area covered in the report focuses on two of the most popular Local Nature Reserves, Seaton Marshes and Colyford Common, details of which are on the East Devon District Council website. The report will be a really good document to encourage more people to visit these fabulous sites.
The patch covered may only be small, extending 5 kilometres from the Axe Harbour bridge, but it has hosted an incredible variety of birds these last 12 months. White storks, night herons, cattle egrets and purple herons are just a few of the birds. All the wonderful images illustrating this article were taken by Steve Waite, who, as well as working 50 hours a week, manages to track down many of the most exciting birds seen on the patch.
If any of you are interested in keeping abreast of what’s been seen, the best place to look is on a website called Bird Forums under a forum strand called Backwater Birding.
The limited space here means I have only been able to scratch the surface of this wonderful world. But I hope I have whetted the appetite of a few of you.
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