Bird News - Part 2: The Grapevine

In a cathartic act of heresy I ditched all my old notebooks several years ago, so can no longer view the list of names and telephone numbers at the beginning of each. They were my bird news contacts. My precious links to the grapevine.

Though I don't consciously recall it, there must have been a time when I had zero contacts, a blank page. But gradually, mainly through regular visits to the Staines area in West London, I began to meet other birders and acquire a few contacts. I guess this began to happen from autumn 1981 on. At this stage I wasn't much of a twitcher, but nevertheless keen to know what was about. 

As the months and years passed, and my interest in twitching grew, the grapevine became ever more vital. Like anyone else with a 'need to know' about the latest rarities, I was always on the lookout for those extra-special contacts, those birders with access to branches of the grapevine otherwise closed to me. In those pre-digital times it was all very well learning that there was a Stilt Sandpiper at some place called Frodsham, but where on earth was that? And even if you found it on a map, you still needed to know where to park, and where exactly the bird was. Enter Bob Eckersley of Leeds, my prized 'northern contact'. I don't recall us ever meeting, but there were plenty of telephone conversations. Ditto Paul, my excellent Lea Valley and East London contact. Back then there was an unhappy disconnect between West and East London for some reason, but our telephone link bridged it quite well.

It all sounds rather clunky and primitive doesn't it? And it was. But it worked.

So, here is a real-life example of the grapevine in action...

Staines Res in the early 1980s. North basin on the left.

It is 14th October 1982, a Thursday. The north basin of Staines Res has been slowly emptying over the past two or three months, and looks amazing, like a massive inland estuary. I notice that the Dunlin flock is unusually close to the causeway this afternoon, so have a go at counting them...

Thirty-five, thirty-six... Hello, what's this?

Long story short: it's a Baird's Sandpiper!

Present on the causeway were myself, Sandra, Jon Herbert and Gordon Richards. We took a while to settle confidently on the identification, but it helped that Sandra and I had seen our first Baird's as recently as August - an adult at Salthouse in Norfolk - so the diagnostic features were pretty fresh in our minds. But obviously we were still very cautious. This was a serious London rarity!

In 2021 it is easy to predict what would happen next. There would be photos taken and uploaded straight from camera to smartphone, then punted out via WhatsApp, Twitter, etc. The first twitchers would be there within the hour.

In 1982, this is what happened... 

That evening I phoned Pete Naylor. Pete is sadly no longer with us, but back then he was one of the London area recorders and, along with Andrew Moon, pretty much a Staines Res fixture. He seemed the obvious person to call. Apart from my description of the bird, I had nothing to offer in the way of evidence. From our few meetings in the field thus far, Pete would probably have known me as a keen young birder, but also a bit of a newbie. Could he trust me enough to widely broadcast news of a Baird's Sandpiper at Staines Res? Er...no.

Unbeknown to me, Pete passed the news to someone who could check it out the next day, which was a Friday. I have a feeling that that someone was Jeff Hazell. But whoever it was, the identity was confirmed, and on Saturday the causeway was rather busy.

In fact the causeway was busy all weekend. And how did all these Baird's twitchers become aware of its presence? The grapevine. That intricate web of telephone contacts.

However, one aspect of the grapevine that I've not really mentioned yet, and which no doubt had a role in disseminating news of that Baird's Sandpiper at Staines Res, was a tiny café in Cley, Norfolk.

Coming next: Nancy's.