About Birds, Birding and Twitchers

Reproduced here is my Article from the Winter 2019 edition of Shoreline Magazine (with minor edit):

I think it was my father’s interest in the birds on the bird table in our suburban garden that got me started - that and this wonderful little book “The Observer’s book of Birds”. How many of you remember it, I wonder?

I re-found my well-thumbed copy a few months ago and was somewhat intrigued to see that my boyhood-self had been sufficiently organised and interested to neatly underline some of the species in that wonderful introductory guide. So maybe the need to list and record has always been there or maybe it’s a boy thing if we are still allowed to utter such words in today’s pc world. Fast forward to the year 2019 and because of family and city work commitments it is only latterly that I have been in the fortunate position to be able to pick up on my boyhood interest. And so, since retirement I’ve replaced a desk and stuffy office in central London with the fantastic coastal scenery and bracing, changeable weather of our local neighbourhood. And I go out and find those birds I remember first seeing in that Observers guidebook.

When out Birding I travel fairly light. A pair of decent boots, Binoculars (of course), a Bridge camera, fleece or waterproof as needed, hat - maybe a bottle of water if I’m going to be out for a few hours. I meet a lot of people, dog walkers, hikers, villagers and visitors alike. Most on the footpaths and cliffs are walking their dogs. And most I would have to say are in a hurry. My pace is much slower. On one such outing in a village, not far away, I had found a Spotted Flycatcher in a farm orchard and was concentrating so hard on trying to get a photograph that I was oblivious to the horse and rider who had come around the corner of the field. So intent was I looking through the camera viewfinder, that they had both seen me long before I was aware. And the horse was not happy at the sight of this motionless figure. The rider was struggling to control the spooked creature. And so the friendly farmer called out to me “Can you move a bit or do something! He needs to know you’re a human being!” I did and the horse settled. The farmer chatted for a few minutes about the birds she’d been seeing on her farm and then they moved on.

A couple of days later, in the same village, I drove up a lane to the vineyard, realised my mistake and was turning the car when a different villager stopped to chat through my open window. Usual pleasantries, “Are you lost? Can I help you? Etc.” “Eh, no, I’m just out, exploring, doing a bit of Birding, looking for autumn migrant birds”. “Oh!” she said “you must be the Twitcher. Pleased to meet you. My friend said there was a Twitcher about.” Word gets around quickly in a village!

Spotted Flycatcher - photo taken August 19 at Lambert's Castle, Dorset

So what am I? It got me thinking. Am I a Birder or a Twitcher? I’ve always thought of myself as a Birder but this exchange got me wondering. As I say I usually go out locally and find my own birds. Readers of this blog will probably have built up a fairly accurate picture of my birding pastime. But for those who have not (and are unfamiliar with the terms), perhaps I should try to explain the difference between the two, if you’ll bear with me. So what is the difference? Well Twitching is the pursuit of a previously located rare bird. The term Twitcher, sometimes misapplied as a synonym for Birder describes those who travel long distances to see a rare bird that would then be ticked, or counted on a list. Birdwatching or Birding is a form of wildlife observation in which the observation of birds is a recreational activity or citizen science. It can be done with the naked eye, through binoculars/telescope (I have both), by listening for bird sounds or by watching public webcams. It’s different to ornithology which uses formal scientific methods but there’s probably a bit of an overlap here.

So we’ve already established that I recorded the things I saw back in my youth. But do I still? And do I keep a list? To be truthful, those lines in my bird book don’t really paint a picture of the “how many” or the “what time of the year” or even the “where was it seen”. So as a snapshot of how our wildlife was doing at that time, it’s not much use as a historical record.

Well I do now have a birding diary notebook. To be honest until recently I’ve been a bit of a casual lister. But spurred on by a good friend of mine (who is somewhat more organised than I) who sent me the complete list of the birds likely to be sighted in the UK, I have paid a bit more attention to the what, the where and the when. And so for what it’s worth here’s what I found out.
In the UK the total number of bird species is in the region of 650. Not that many really!  How's the 2019 Year list going? Well, of those 650, I’ve seen less than a third this year; 205 to be exact, mainly in Dorset but also with a few trips out of county to Devon, Somerset, Cornwall and Sussex. And I’ve had to work pretty hard to ‘achieve’ that ‘score’ this year.

Since I've been birding our immediate local area or “patch” I’ve managed to record 155 different species of birds – my patch list.

Incidentally, the corresponding totals for dragonflies in UK are even fewer at 56 and for butterflies 60. But I don’t systematically record my sightings so I don’t have my personal numbers for 2019 and the patch. Which perhaps should be a challenge for me in the future?

So am I a Twitcher then as the lady asked? Well No and Yes! She seemed pretty reassured that I was ONLY a Twitcher mooching about the local highways, byways and footpaths pursuing their hobby. And from her viewpoint I gathered that she seemed to have a fairly tolerant and positive attitude to the hobby. But in the strict sense, as I don’t drop everything to zoom off to the other end of the country to see some stranded rare feathered waif, I can’t really claim to be a Twitcher in the true sense of the word. So I think it’s a no. But just to confuse the reader even more, I have been known (on occasions) to jump in the car and drive 3hrs down the A30 road towards Land’s End to twitch an American vagrant bird or 2 (Grey Catbird and White rumped Sandpiper). So it’s a definite No …. and Yes!

Autumn Local Patch Sightings

What birds have I found on the local patch and what should the reader be looking out for in the coming winter months. Well I can report that October 2019 has been a fantastic month bird-wise with some terrific sightings in the village as follows:

21^st October - Scandinavian Rock Pipit (Ring Number A94), feeding well on Charmouth Beach, 21/10/19, ringed in Norway

Cropped Image of  A94, White on Green

A really quick response from the Sunnmore Ringing Group in Norway. A94 is a female Rock Pipit, ringed on 18.07.2016 at Maletangen, Norway and found at Charmouth 1484km SSW, 3 yrs 2mths old. A great patch record of the sub species!

25^th October - 2 Turnstones, sheltering from an Autumn storm, Charmouth Beach, 25/10/2019

26^th October - Grey Phalarope, River Char at Footbridge. Brilliant views and a fantastic record for Charmouth!

 

31^st October - 1 of a record 6 Black Redstarts fly-catching around Beach Huts Green above West Beach, Charmouth. Brilliant to watch.

 And to round off an interesting couple of weeks on patch:

2nd Nov 2019 - always expect the unexpected? A female Common Scoter in a puddle in Charmouth Beach Car park; exhausted by the violent storm she was taken into care for a few hours and released later that day

 Common Birds to look out for on patch over winter months

Garden and woods: Siskins, Redpolls, Goldcrests, overwintering Blackcaps,  Bramblings, Chaffinches and also winter Thrushes, Redwings and Fieldfares will come into the garden to feed on any left-over windfall apples or berries they can find. Foreshore and Beach Huts Green: Rock Pipits, Black Redstarts. On the sea and beaches, look out for rare Gulls, Turnstones, Purple Sandpipers, Ringed Plover, Oyster Catchers, Dunlin, Brent Geese, Gannets, Auks, Ducks (Mallard, Eider, Scoter) and Divers. Overhead: Buzzards, Kestrel, Ravens, possible Marsh or Hen Harrier. Fields and Cliffs: Cattle Egrets, Stonechat, Meadow Pipits, Linnets

POST SCRIPT

But what struck me recently is that although I’m switched on to birding there’s so much more out there in the natural realm. I see such a diversity of nature; land and sea birds, mammals, reptiles, butterflies, moths, insects, bees, dragonflies, sea creatures, and fish. It’s all still there. On our doorstep. You just have to go out and look. Sad to say not in the numbers I remember as that boy growing up in the 50’s and 60’s but it IS still out there. When was the last time you saw a flock of Yellowhammers, or had a good view of a Hare or a Blue butterfly? We need to cherish what we have. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have an area set aside for wildlife, flowers, trees and fungi? A small wildlife sanctuary area would build on what we have already in our beautiful village of Charmouth.