The Rarity Tree

Slaty-backed Gull is a large, dark-mantled species of the north-eastern Palearctic coast. It breeds or is resident in an area covering some 5.08 million square kilometres and has a Red List status of 'Least Concern'. Globally speaking, Slaty-backed Gull is a common bird. In Britain though, it is a colossal rarity. There has been just the one.

I was keen to illustrate this post with a real-life example of a stonking rarity, and the 2011 Slaty-Backed Gull which Dominic Mitchell discovered at Rainham fits the bill nicely. I would be the first to admit to entertaining fantasies of outrageous rarity finds, and imagine I have that in common with a good percentage of birders. Rarities - their discovery, identification and worship - consume a phenomenal amount of our collective attention. This, I would argue, is probably to the detriment of far more deserving recipients. I shall now try to explain why...

An essential reference for this post has been Dominic's BB paper...

Published in British Birds 110 - July 2017, pp 205-213

Thursday, 13th January 2011
I can only imagine how Dominic must have felt when first setting eyes on this bird. Having previously encountered the species abroad, he knew instantly what it was. Or should I say, what it probably was. The inevitable adrenalin rush must have been tempered somewhat by the pressing need to clinch the identification, and Dominic managed a few photos. That evening, a couple of expert contacts provided positive feedback, but reinforced the need to get photos of the spread wing-tip.

Friday, 14th January
More sightings, including by other observers, and definitive wing-tip photos captured.

Saturday, 15th January
Massive twitch. Upwards of 1200 line the entire perimeter fence of the Rainham landfill site. Several claims, but no mass sightings.

Aftermath
Much online discussion about the bird's identification. I remember all this. Were the upperparts actually too pale for a pure Slaty-backed? Was it in fact a hybrid? And so on. Correspondence with observers familiar with the species provides positive feedback. Eventually the BBRC sits to evaluate the record submission and deems the bird correctly identified. As a potentially new bird for Britain, the BOURC now has its say. Eventually it gives the thumbs-up, and six years and five months after its first appearance at Rainham, Dominic's Slaty-backed Gull has its moment in the BB limelight, all eight-and-a-half pages of it.

If you follow the manufacturing process from raw ingredient to finished product, that first-for-Britain Slaty-backed Gull was a mighty labour-intensive affair. I'm sure a great deal of work went into ruling out the hybrid possibility and compiling a watertight description. Next, ten eminently qualified BBRC members then had the responsibility of confirming that the identification was sound. Next, the BOURC. As keepers of the British List, BOURC members have the unenviable task of making sure that a taxon not previously recorded in Britain has a valid claim to that hallowed ground, particularly if it's looking for a spot in category A.

And what about all those birders who went to try and see it? I can genuinely claim to be a gull fan, but I wonder how many of the 1200+ on the first Saturday were gleefully pressed against the fence of a stinking landfill site because of their love of gulls? I wonder how many had to go twice? Or more?

I shudder to think how many man-hours were expended on that Slaty-backed Gull. A single, wandering, out-of-range, globally common bird.

At this point I want to be clear. I am not aiming to knock any of this. I am merely trying to highlight the extent to which our British birding culture venerates rarity. In effect this frequently results in the relatively trivial being elevated to a status akin to iconic. When you stop and think about it, there is something almost Python-esque going on here. And the whole infrastructure of British birding is involved, in fact is geared towards it. Witness the monetising of rare bird information; the many pages of birding publications devoted to rarities, including a whole issue of British Birds each year; the very existence of the BBRC and BOURC. And collectively we lap it up, encourage it, perpetuate it.

One might legitimately ask, 'So what?'

Well, the upshot of this amazingly skewed focus upon rarity worship is an almost instinctive resistance to any suggestion that it might be a little unhealthy. So when a few birders - in the context of a world in which climate change appears to be causing us a few issues - quite reasonably question pursuit of the high-carbon birding which rarities often encourage, they don't get much in the way of mainstream backing. I'm thinking of stuff like this, and this, for example. Laudable stuff, if you ask me.

There is a whole wood requiring attention, but the rarity tree is kind of getting in the way of seeing it, perhaps...?

Not Cleaning Windows

Our windows were well overdue for a proper clean, so that was one of this afternoon's little jobs. Naturally the bins and camera weren't far away...

I didn't spot the first Red Kite until it was too far away to bother with a pic. Then at 14:40 two went over together, heading NW in very leisurely fashion...

Red Kites are always striking, even in moult.

I didn't get any more Red Kites, but at 15:08 the quality went up a notch. My first garden Hobby of the year. Clearly identifiable with the naked eye, I didn't even reach for the bins until I'd taken a few snaps...

Like the Red Kites, this Hobby passed slowly, circling a few times, but followed a more westerly track.

Gulls are a regular sight over our garden. I would guess that 99% or more are Herring Gulls. There are several local residents, as well as birds passing to and from the farmland north of us. Lesser Black-backed Gulls occur very infrequently; I tallied probably less than ten records last year, in an awful lot of garden watching. The nature of our location means that most views of passing gulls are from below, and getting a decent look at a gull's upperparts is often tricky or impossible. I've got pretty used to how an adult Herring Gull appears from underneath, and frequently don't need to raise my bins. Immature birds generally get a proper look though, so the young gull which sailed over the garden at 16:10 got a grilling. It was quite distant but low, and it paused to circle a couple of times, banking sufficiently to show off the upperparts. Ooh! It looked a little dark, and something else about it rang alarm bells, so I grabbed a quick burst of shots before it vanished. I'll be honest, at range through bins my suspicion had been immature LBBG, but one look at the back of my camera and I realised it was ten times better than that...

2nd-summer (3cy) Yellow-legged Gull

Notwithstanding the little flush of juvenile birds we get from July on, Yellow-legged Gull is a rare enough sight along the coast here, so to get one from the garden was totally unexpected. Especially in June.

I have never taken so long to get the windows cleaned...

June Diversions

I'll be honest. It's been difficult to maintain my birding zeal this past week or so. My last morning jaunt was to Cogden on 7th, from 06:55 - 08:25. Lively it was not. I noted one singing Lesser Whitethroat and a single Swallow through. And the last bird I photographed - which actually is debatable - was this one last Friday...

Spot the Hobby. A few seconds earlier it performed a lovely fly-past of course. My first of 2021.

I do realise that right now is the time to find a Rosy Starling, and that an excellent way to reduce your chances of doing so is to look at plants, but I can't help myself. Stuck in slow-moving traffic on the A35 while at work today, I found myself perusing the lush verge as we crawled past Symondsbury. And suddenly I spied a bunch of orchid spikes. Excellent. There used to be at least a couple of spots on the A35 between here and Lyme Regis which boasted a nice population of roadside orchids (though I can't recall what species... Southern Marsh? Common Spotted?) but they were demolished by injudicious mowing/strimming. Hopefully this lot will be left alone. And coming home later I was delighted to glimpse at least one spike very close to where I used to see them a few years ago, but at 60mph a glimpse is all I got. Made me smile though.

Some recent Cogden orchids...

Bee Orchid is definitely my favourite so far. Though my orchid list is admittedly tiny.

This one is going to put on a nice show.

Just gorgeous aren't they?

This newly-opened Pyramidal Orchid on 4th is both my first and only one of 2021 so far.

A lovely spike of Southern Marsh Orchid.

On one or two other blogs I've noticed references to Bithynian Vetch, and how smart it is. So I kept an eye out for little pea-like flowers. 'Ah', I said to myself, 'I'll bet this is it.' Out came the camera...

But no. This is Grass Vetchling. I learned this by searching through my 40-year old(!!!) wild flower field guide, and felt a modest sense of accomplishment. What is happening to me? It's just a plant.

In other news...

Common Blue on grass sp. I rather like this shot.

Mother Shipton at Cogden. Only the second time I've knowingly seen one of these.

On Monday afternoon I was overcome with an urge which hasn't featured for a very long time, and soon beside a local lake, chucking out little floating dog biscuits in the hope of tempting a small carp or two. I hooked and lost one, missed a couple of chances, and then found myself attached to this thing...

My first ever Grass Carp. It weighed 12lb 12oz.

As the caption says, I had never caught a Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), a species native to eastern Asia, and quite different to the well-known Cyprinus carpio lumps beloved of carp anglers everywhere. In fact I'd never even seen one before. I really hadn't expected to catch a fish I would want to photograph, but had taken my P900 in case of Honey Buzzards and suchlike. And now here I was desiring a memento of this unlikely-to-be-repeated event, and having no idea how to do a self-take with the Nikon. I propped it on my bait bucket, set the timer for 10 seconds, pressed the shutter-release, hurried into position and stared gormlessly at the camera, looking for signs that it had done something. Hopefully that explains the amusingly vacant look...

Last, but by no means least, some splendid June birds...

It can only get better.

Twitching Lundy

Back in 1990, one of my then work colleagues presented me with a copy of The Independent newspaper. He thought I might be interested...

Dated June 2nd, an entire page of the broadsheet publication was devoted to a first-for-Britain and its admirers. A reporter and photographer had evidently been dispatched to cover the remarkable events unfolding on Lundy, a small island in the Bristol Channel off the north coast of Devon.

I have it still...

The main photo depicts the scene at Jenny's Cove, Lundy. From the front: Martin Coath, Geoff Burton, me, the late Pete Naylor, Richard Drew and Andrew Moon.

Back in those days I used to write stuff in a notebook and make little sketches with a biro...

I've only just noticed that my packed lunch features strongly.

Finally, the first few sentences of the report itself...

'Twitchers, enthusiasts who tremble when they see or hear of a rare bird...' basically sums it up, doesn't it? The trembling might not be literal, physical, but the mental and emotional response to news of a rarity can be pretty much the same thing. But when news of the Ancient Murrelet broke, there was no buzz of excitement in my brain, just bafflement. What on earth was an Ancient Murrelet? In 1990 there was no googling, only books. I found it on pages 176 and 177 of the National Geographic Society's Field Guide to the Birds of North America. And then there was a bit of trembling.

All this reminiscing has been prompted by recent events of course...

The tweet that probably started it all. Sulphur-bellied Warbler. Lundy's latest first-for-Britain.

Present for just one day, in 1990 this bird would have been seen only by those on the island, and its true identity perhaps never realised. In 2021 it was nailed within minutes of that initial tweet, and by late afternoon the first twitchers were watching it.

In 1990 I travelled over on a small charter boat, as did Tuesday's twitchers. It was all a bit of an adventure. A beautiful day, bonus Golden Oriole in Millcombe Valley and, best of all, an absolutely spectacular location. The whole day resides vividly in a happy place in my memory.

But 31 years ago nobody knew about climate change. There might have been a bit of mirth and mockery at our antics from a minority of non-twitchy birders, and of course from non-birders, but finger-pointy stuff? Not for a second. Fast-forward to 2021 and the Sulphur-bellied Warbler. It has been very interesting to read the online reaction to this and other recent twitcher activity, with particular reference to its being very much NOT low-carbon birding. Amidst accusations of 'twitcher bashing', low-carbon birding advocates who have publicly voiced concerns about such behaviour have been given, I think, a tellingly rough ride. I struggle to articulate my thoughts on all this, so will close with a couple of random points...

In the top photo of the twitching crowd at Jenny's Cove, of the six members of our party I would guess that four or five were still in their 30s. At 31, I was the youngest. And I expect the entire crowd's average age was 30-something. In other words, quite young. I wonder what the average age of a large twitching crowd in 2021 might be? Fifty? Older? I am optimistically hopeful that today's birding culture will gradually swing away from the immensely skewed focus on rarities and listing, but if that is to happen it will surely need to be driven by the younger generation, because I think only a tiny minority of my generation are going to be swayed by even the best-presented argument.

Finally. Ancient Murrelet apparently breeds or is resident in a range covering 15,300,000 square km, and Sulphur-bellied Warbler, 5,130,000 square km. Both have a Red List category of 'Least Concern'. In other words, both are globally common birds. Which makes the reaction of a few thousand birders to the arrival of a lone waif on our shores a bit OTT and irrational doesn't it? Of course, but you try suppressing it! No pun intended.

May Nights

A short post to look at nocmig returns for May. I missed four nights. Two due to horrendous weather, and two because I failed to switch the recorder from 'standby' to 'record'. You can probably imagine how annoying it is to pop out eagerly for your night's catch, only to find the standby light blinking away. And again a few nights later. Strewth!

Anyway, here is a spreadsheet summary of the month:

May totals in the yellow column, March to May in the blue column

A total of probably 14 species for the month, of which Barn Owl and Mallard will be local birds, and no doubt most or all of the Moorhens too. Which leaves Little Grebe, Coot and Water Rail, 6 waders and 2 passerines. No nocmig mega this month, but plenty of interest all the same.

I am still intrigued by the idea that rallids like Moorhen, Coot and Water Rail spend time wafting about the night sky, and as the latter two do not breed (or even occur) anywhere close to my home (as far as I know), what on earth are they up to? Little Grebe ditto. Bizarre!

May was definitely the month for wader passage. No Curlews though. Predictably they seem to be early movers, and I didn't get any in April either. On the basis of an amazing 40 occurences on the night of 8th/9th, Dunlin was easily the numerical winner with 51 over 7 nights. A consistently strong showing by Whimbrel (15 over 10 nights) put them second. Then Ringed Plover (7 over 6 nights), Oystercatcher (4 over 3 nights), Turnstone (2 over 2 nights) and a single Common Sandpiper. Several times the wader recordings would indicate multiple birds passing, but I find it impossible to judge how many.

I've logged 6 Spotted Flycatchers over 4 nights, but I'm 99% certain the 2 flycatcher sp. on 11th/12th were Spot Flys too. So, 8 birds during the month. I find this fascinating. First of all, presumably only a percentage of overflying Spot Flys will actually call while passing over my nocmig kit. Secondly, only a percentage will even be in range of it. Thirdly, loads of nocturnally migrating passerines are apparently silent. What I'm trying to say is: just imagine the myriad feathered specks which must pepper the night sky during migration season! I do get it that nocmig fails to ignite the imagination of some birders. What's the point of recording stuff you can't see, that you can't tick in some way? Speaking for myself, I don't care. Nocmig has opened a door to an unexpected world of wonder and delight. There, I've said it. I've gone soft.

Finally, as in April, Blackcap features in the nocmig haul. A single song-phrase at 03:50 0n 28th. What was that all about? A migrant? Local bird? Who knows?! I haven't noticed any Blackcap song in the early dawn chorus. Strange.

To conclude, a nice Spotted Flycatcher sonogram, and a spectrovid of a different individual...

The downward inflection is possibly not typical, but I think the spikes are diagnostic for Spot Fly.

Here we are in June now, and I expect slim pickings from the nocmig efforts. However, you just never know. Even last night there were multiple Ringed Plovers. What next?

Not a Magazine

I first subscribed to British Birds in 1980 or '81, and doing so felt like a rite of passage. Now I was a proper birder, a serious one. Forty years ago the written word was king, and being a BB subscriber was the only way to tap in to the latest developments in the UK birding scene. But aside from the practical benefits, there was another reason to be a subscriber, alluded to by Bill Oddie in his Little Black Bird Book (published 1980). He wrote:

'The bird magazine. Don't borrow or pinch one. It's not expensive, considering the terrific value. In the same way that everyone should be a member of the RSPB, any birder should be chastised and punished who does not take British Birds.'

And that attitude - that it is somehow a duty to take BB - is one that very much prevailed back then I think. So much so that it has stayed with me to this day, and is the reason why I feel vaguely traitorous being a non-subscriber currently, and why it feels heretical to level any criticism at such an august publication. However, before I go further I need to point out an error in Bill Oddie's three-word description. He called it...

'The bird magazine.'

Not so. British Birds is not a magazine. And to prove it, here is its description of itself...

Not a magazine. British Birds is a journal. And if you think I'm being pedantic, just google 'difference between magazine and journal'. When it comes to BB, while it may not be a full-blown scientific journal as such, you will quickly see that 'journal' fits better than 'magazine'. The meat of BB is its long papers. Their content and style are essentially academic, and they might well be peppered with technical, specialised terminology. It was partially that latter aspect which prompted my fellow blogger Stewart Sexton to post the following on Twitter this afternoon...

For me, the most telling point is Stewart's comment, 'I've tried to persevere but...', because it resonates with my own experience. I also tried to persevere. But...

My first subscription lapsed in the early 1990s. By that time I was phasing anyway, but for some time - years even - I had been mostly just skimming my copies. Some remained unopened for weeks. Relinquishing my subscription went hand-in-hand with my loss of interest in birding, but I had long since stopped enjoying the journal anyway.

A few years after my birding renaissance I resubscribed. From 2007 to 2013 I hung in there. Sadly I found myself struggling with the same old issues. I felt I ought to subscribe to BB, yet enjoyed so little of its content. Eventually I bowed to the inevitable, and haven't subscribed since.

A small section of my birding bookshelves a few years ago. All gone now.

Stewart's tweet above includes a photo of a figure from the latest issue, a statistical graphic depicting daily prey contributions (n=90) of three Common Buzzards to a single nest. The purpose of a 'figure legend' (caption) is to explain the figure clearly and thoroughly, providing readers with all the information necessary to understand the figure without having to refer to the main text. Like Stewart, I was not familiar with a boxplot, nor whiskers, nor interquartile ranges. I know what a median is, and what n=90 means, but that's largely because I did maths to A-level and one year of a degree course in pure chemistry. Boxplots are a relatively recent statistical graphic and were not even in the textbooks of my era.

It is noteworthy that a couple of responses to Stewart's tweet suggest that despite the technical terminology, the meaning of the graphic is not that tricky to understand, surely? Both comments come from individuals whose Twitter profiles include postgraduate educational qualifications.

My point is this. The birder demographic is a mixed bunch. Some are university professors, researchers, professional scientists; some are builders, carpet-fitters, window-cleaners. Some will have spent their entire adult life in academia, many will have left school as soon as they could. But they all love birding. All of them. Like Stewart, I would like to subscribe to 'THE bird journal of record in Great Britain' but struggle to relate to it. Or should I say, it struggles to relate to me? Like Stewart, I tried to persevere, but...

And I am willing to bet there are loads of us in that camp.

What's the answer? You tell me...

Sprung

Summer will be here in a few hours. As forecast, the final day of meteorological spring has been sunny, warm and dry. In fact the whole bank-holiday weekend has been good, attracting visitors from far and wide. As I went past Freshwater Beach Holiday Park at about 05:20 this morning the campsite looked about as full as it can get. By 08:30 I was home again. Such anti-social hours are certainly one way to beat the coastal crush.

It was worth the early start. A nice bunch of waders on the beach - 30 Sanderlings and a Turnstone - and a west-bound Red Kite which was hassled out to sea for a while by two Crows. I didn't venture inland very far, but I reckon any Golden Orioles would have been perfectly audible. A few pics...

Grey Seal heading away east with purpose

Turnstone on the left; Sanderlings on the right, ignoring it

Turnstone. Not a common wader locally...

...but a very attractive one.

West Bay in the distance. It's 07:05, but already a few non-fisherman bodies on the beach at Burton Bradstock, just before the cliffs.

07:07, and my third backpacker of the morning checks out some of the waders.

Red Kite makes its way back to land, yelling crossly...

...and up towards the coastal ridge.

Another way to avoid the coastal crush is to sit indoors and review the night's nocmig recording. This is a terrific idea if you fancy having your eardrums perforated by a Little Grebe bellowing down the microphone...

And finally, a third way to avoid the coastal crush is to not go there at all. After lunch Sandra and I headed inland a bit for a stroll around a local nature reserve. In a couple of hours we encountered just two other couples. Perfect. Even perfecter, we got an unexpected butterfly tick. Grizzled Skipper. Because I've never really bothered with butterflies there are many gaps like that one.

And it wasn't just butterfles...

Green Tiger Beetle, the first I've seen for years.

Female Broad-bodied Chaser.

There were a few Dingy Skippers, all a bit camera-shy

Grizzled Skipper. What a smart little butterfly.

And again, set off nicely by a few speedwell and forget-me-not flowers. At least, I think that's what they are.

And that's about it for spring. June will soon be here, with its flimsy promise of rare stuff and little else. Last year was too good to be true, so I suspect the next few weeks will go like this:

Non-birdy distractions.

Thinking about autumn.

DIY.

It could be a long summer...