Of Time and Place, and People...

In my head I am 25 years old, sometimes younger. A delusion that I am sure is common to most my age. However, life has a way of bringing reality back into sharp focus...

A few weeks ago I learned that Andrew Moon had died. Andrew was one of a triumvirate of active, inspirational West London birdwatchers who encouraged the younger me to up my game, learn stuff, and get involved. The other two were Pete Naylor and Rupert Hastings. Until December last year, Andrew was the only one left. Rupert was no more than two or three years my senior, but tragically succumbed to motor neurone disease in his 30s. Pete was the older of the three - born in 1950 I think - but died in 2012, too young. And now Andrew. Gone. In my memory though, all of them will forever be linked with a formative chapter in my birding life. A chapter written not just by the people, but also the time and the place...

In 1978 I was a student at Royal Holloway College in Egham, Surrey. That spring I purchased Where to Watch Birds by John Gooders, in which I learned that nearby Staines Reservoirs were a 'London birdwatching Mecca', or some such hyperbole. Clearly I needed to visit immediately. So I cycled over with my colossal, ex-military 7x50s and trod the hallowed causeway. I have absolutely no recollection of species seen, but do remember that the south basin was drained and the birds mostly dots. I was underwhelmed, and didn't return for three years.

In 1981 I was married, living in Northolt, West London, and suffering the early stages of a birdwatching obsession that has periodically afflicted me ever since. Staines Reservoirs could no longer be ignored. In December that year I saw my first ever Jack Snipe there, bobbing at the water's edge on the south basin. A still, snow-blanketed, blue-sky day that is vivid in my memory.

It was around this time that Pete, Andrew and Rupert first appear in the story. All young men still, but as a new boy I was slightly in awe. And with reason. They were widely respected for their knowledge, skills and dedication. The Staines causeway was an obvious focal point for West London birders, so occasionally I would bump into one or more of them there, pick their brains and try to sound like I knew what I was talking about - which I generally didn't.

Most of the rest of this post is about Staines Reservoirs in the early and mid-1980s, but Pete, Andrew and Rupert will be woven wordlessly through all of it...

In October 1982 came a watershed moment when I was fortunate enough to find a long-staying Baird's Sandpiper at Staines Res., and not cock up the ID. The consequences were interesting. It felt like a coming of age, and overnight I became part of the scene rather than an onlooker. I followed that in November with a Ring-billed Gull - London's second - which propelled both my confidence and my passion for these unglamorous concrete bowls into another dimension. I was a Staines addict...

The Staines causeway, probably autumn 1982, my kit in the foreground. The north basin was being drained at this point. 

A few more shots from this era...

The west bank of the north basin.

Looking east. Note lethal spikes on the causeway fencing.

Fellow addict John Herbert. Note Thermos flask in my bag. Causeway vigils could be protracted affairs. Judging by the newly-installed concrete fencing on the right, this photo dates from a year or two later than the others.

My love affair with Staines Reservoirs coincided with the draining of the north basin in 1982 and the south in 1985. It was like having a massive inland estuary, with all the pulling power that goes with it. The 1983 wader list includes four different Kentish Plovers, Red-necked Phalarope, Wilson's Phalarope and Collared Pratincole. Staines Res is still the only place I've seen two Pectoral Sandpipers together.

Collared Pratincole. This one graced the 1983 London Bird Report front cover.

Birdwatching at Staines involved a lot of long-range scoping, but sometimes we would climb in and get closer. A risky business, not so much because of security patrols, but rather the genuine peril of sepsis, gangrene and probable death if impaled on the rusty fencing spikes.

For a couple of years I carried a camera...

September 1984, and a super-tame Pectoral Sandpiper.

Pec Sand again.

Two Temminck's Stints on the south basin - May 1985

The ridiculous Long-tailed Skua of September 1985 filled the frame of my 500mm mirror lens. Even walked over my feet as I sat at the water's edge.

My camera outfit was totally unsuitable for flight photography, so this is a bit miraculous. The same Long-tailed Skua.

And again. In colour.

Checking out my shoes.

The Long-tailed Skua was followed a few weeks later by a juvenile Pom. Chalk and cheese. The LTS daintily picked teeny tit-bits from the surface film; the Pom attacked and drowned Black-headed Gulls for lunch...

Pom Skua and LTS, autumn 1985. Both photos by Rupert Hastings.

Looking back, the early 1980s at Staines Reservoirs were a blend of time and place and people that bewitched more than just this impressionable young birdwatcher. I am sure there are a few of us with similarly precious and indelible memories.

A flavour of that vibe is captured in the chapter I wrote for Best Days with British Birds. Though not published until 1989, my contribution was penned in late 1983. Clearly the words of a thoroughly infatuated 24 year-old...

The lovely illustration is by Andrew Stock

As is my way, enthusiasm for it all waned considerably in the later 1980s. The reservoirs filled, horizons broadened, life happened. Since moving to the South West I have revisited the causeway just twice...

10th December 2008

Welcome indeed!

Apart from the tall, spiky bits by the entrance, most of the fencing was far more benign in 2008.

Staines bird-feeder: gibbeted Cormorant, with attendant Crow deliberating over various juicy bits on offer. Possibly bizarrest thing I've seen at Staines.

The causeway faithful, carefully noting Crow's choices. Purposeful birdwatching.

Site of Cormorant gibbet. Tern raft?

West bank of the south basin. Scene of Ring Ouzel, Woodlark and Ferruginous Duck, for starters.

With hindsight, birds of the day in 2008.

18th April 2017

My most recent visit to Staines Res. Back in the day, I never parked at the eastern end of the causeway, but just for a change...

Self-conscious selfie.

It was an April day of cool north-easterly, and typically there were several Arctic Terns decorating the south basin. At the time I thought, 'Nice. Some things don't change'. I tried to engage a presumably local birder in conversation. However, upon briefly ungluing an eye from his scope and noticing that I was equipped with bins only, he evidently decided I was a noddy and became monosyllabic.

They say you should never go back, don't they? The causeway that day was familiar but unwelcoming. Not even a tiny whiff of how it was. Two Egyptian Geese on the south basin were a Staines tick, an ironic lowlight which probably summed up my feelings nicely.

Staines Reservoirs are still there. I'm still here. And that's about as much as I can say. Almost all the rest is gone. Except...

Except that I can roll back four decades in a heartbeat; I can play it all back in my youthful mind, and relive the ephemeral magic of that time, that place, and those people.