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.

Cirls

Well, I actually have some classy bird stuff to blog about for a change. Today was my first back at work for a fortnight, but I only gave myself a few jobs to do and took it very easy. By lunchtime I had finished. Pleasingly I felt pretty okay, so made tentative plans for a gentle walk later on. But where to go...?

An unexpected call from Mike Morse quickly decided that for me. He and Alan had just discovered two Cirl Buntings - a male and female - in exactly the same spot which held two females last winter.

When I first arrived it was quite sunny, and among the small gang of buntings and finches diving in and out of the hedge I quickly spotted a likely candidate for female Cirl. Rather obscured, and preening, but through the scope it was instantly identifiable. A year ago I would never have been able to identify a female Cirl Bunting on face pattern alone, but now they seem a doddle. As I watched the Cirl I could see movement just below it, and deeper in the hedge. To my amazement, a stripy black and yellow face suddenly popped into view. It was the male! Well, that was easy! Getting a decent photo, not so easy...

Male a female Cirl Buntings. The best I managed of both birds together. Trust me! The arrows point to the top of their heads.

They weren't in view for long, and the whole flock was very mobile. I didn't see the female again, and it was quite a while before the male reappeared. Unfortunately it was rather distant, and the light was now rubbish...

Male Cirl Bunting in the late afternoon gloom.

There was also a major bonus in the shape of a spanking male Brambling...

Male Brambling. Very sexy.

Technically we are still in meteorological autumn, so it is early days for the bunting flock. Plenty of time for its numbers to swell beyond the current 20-odd. I spotted 2 Reed Bunts among them, but what else might appear before winter is out? Kudos to Mike and Alan, the West Bex & Cogden stalwarts, for creating such a terrific little hotspot.

Cirl Bunting is still a rare bird in Dorset, but they are definitely creeping this way.

As I walked back to the car at dusk, a falcon hammered past. It was either a Merlin or a male Peregrine, but I couldn't safely call it. I'm not sure that I like falcons much any more...

Bird News - Part 1: The Need to Know

Once upon a time I had absolutely no interest at all in bird news. I simply went birding, saw what I saw, and was quite content with that. This morning it occurred to me that lots of us must have started this way, perfectly happy in our ignorance. I hadn't intended to begin a series of bird news posts in quite this fashion but, because a birder's 'need to know' is exactly what drives the market, I thought it might be worth exploring how and why bird news suddenly becomes valuable to an individual. I'm sure each of us will have a slightly different take on it, but this is mine...

Until I married in 1980, birds had always been a second-string interest. But Sandra really enjoyed our days out birdwatching, and by the autumn of 1981 I was taking it pretty seriously. We lived near Northolt back then and, though we visited a few spots on the western fringes of suburban London, our number one location for a birding trip was the North Norfolk coast at Cley. There was a reason for this...

I have written briefly before about boyhood holidays at my grandparents' place in Weybourne, a few miles east of Cley; about boat trips from Morston out to Blakeney Point, and the long trudge back to Cley Coastguards. I enjoyed pointing my monstrous ex-army bins at the countless birds, and could even identify a few. Most of all, I came to equate that coastline with avian abundance; I just knew it was brilliant for birds. So it seemed the obvious destination for two keen new birders.

'Twin Pines', Temple Drive, Weybourne. My grandparents' old bungalow in Norfolk. The year is 1979. A friend and I were on a motorcycling jolly in East Anglia, and I couldn't resist dropping by for this memento. My grandparents no longer lived here though; by now they had been in Budleigh Salterton for a year or two. Norfolk winters were a bit too much.

A few weeks after our marriage, Sandra and I had a day out in North Norfolk with a couple of friends. The date was 6th September, 1980. We enjoyed point-blank views of our first Little Stint and Curlew Sandpiper on the Eye Pool at Cley, and at some point learned there was a Sardinian Warbler at Weybourne Camp, a place I had explored with my sister when we were kids. I had never heard of Sardinian Warbler, but we nevertheless popped over to see it. Ha! No chance. It was deep in some thicket, surrounded by loads of loafing birders waiting for it to show. Bo-o-o-ring! We didn't stay long. There was no sense of disappointment at our failure to see it. Birding was still a casual interest, and Sardinian Warbler was just a bird.

Almost exactly one year later, on 5th September 1981, we were at Cley again. By this point the birding bug has bitten. We have discovered the Walsey Hills migration watch-point, run by the Norfolk Ornithologists Association, and park just below it. On top of the little hill is a concrete bunker thing. Inside is the friendly warden, Roy Robinson...

Roy features again later in the bird news saga, but for now his role is very straightforward: Roy was the bloke who knew what was about. In 1981 Sandra and I were newbies. We had no idea that Nancy's Café was just down the road. Actually we had never heard of it. But no matter. A quick chat with Roy that day acquainted us with the fact that a Buff-breasted Sandpiper was on Cley beach. So we went to have a look. What a corker! We sat on the pebbles and watched this characterful, super-tame Nearctic wader poking about just feet away. I can see it clearly in my mind's eye. I remember too being aware of its rarity, and therefore - possibly for the first time - its value.

From this bird on, we always made an effort to find out what was around. The following weekend we were back again. On Saturday, 12th September 1981, we watched our first ever Bittern from the Walsey Hills watch-point, showing superbly in the reedbed below. Gen from Roy gave us our first Pectoral Sandpiper that day, and a Black Guillemot offshore, another tick. We failed to see the Spotted Crake that was making regular appearances in front of the viewing screen in Snipe's Marsh, so kipped in our van overnight by the roadside, and enjoyed cracking views first thing in the morning. Tick again.

Yes, seeing new birds had suddenly become important. And, crucially, so had bird news. I blame that Buff-breast.

I'll close with this vintage photo...

Roy Robinson's rusty old Ford Escort was even more of a banger than our little Bedford van.

There are...er...clues in that photo which date it to autumn 1982, by which point this old car and its noticeboard had become a very welcome sight. It guaranteed that Roy would be up there, in or near the bunker, and that we could therefore find out what was about. Because now there was - very much - a need to know.

Next: The Grapevine

Forty Years of Bird Information 1981-2021 - Introduction

This morning a Brünnich's Guillemot drifted past Holkham and round into Wells Harbour, where it beached on a sandbank and eventually died. The whole saga was broadcast live on Twitter and the bird information services, from start to finish. I say 'live', but of course the bird itself went from that happy condition to 'moribund', to 'dead' with each news update. Anyone twitching it could, at the same instant, examine both their chances of getting there in time and their morals.

Such is the speed and efficiency of bird news dissemination in 2021.

To many birders, bird news is important. Especially when it involves rare birds. So important that they are prepared to pay for it. In the forty-odd years I've been birding, a number of individuals have made the most of this fact and turned bird news into a commodity. Eleven years ago I had a stab at documenting the emergence and growth of that market, but the time is ripe for an update. So, over the course of a few posts I shall endeavour to describe the Bird Information Revolution, and chart its course from Grapevine to Smartphone.

Of course, the chances are that someone, somewhere, has already done this, and done it better than I ever could. Certainly, many will know the story better than I do. Even so, the NQS version will be unique. Its errors and inaccuracies will not be mirrored elsewhere. They will be found only here, the product of my unreliable memory, and mine alone.

I shall close with a disclaimer:

What follows will be completely...er...made up, and if any names, places, activities or motives attributed to the genuinely fictitious characters herein bear any resemblance to real life, that is utterly coincidental. And anyway, suing me for libel would be very unbirderly.

Birdfair

A couple of days ago Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust issued a press release announcing that they will no longer be running the Birdfair, held annually at Rutland Water since 1989. Key factors for this decision? Financial risk, business risk, climate crisis, and longer-term impact on the Nature Reserve. The press release sums it up in a sentence thus: 

LRWT has therefore had to conclude that continuing to run Birdfair presents our charity with unsustainable financial, ecological and reputational risks.

I am not an insider, and therefore unable to read between the lines, but I'll bet there's plenty there...

Anyway, will I miss it? Er...

The first time I attended a big show/exhibition connected with my hobby was in about 1974. I would have been 14 or 15 years old, and caught the Underground into London to attend a big angling junket at the Royal Horticultural Society Hall in Vincent Square. Being a kid, I had almost no money to spend, and remember being disappointed at the lack of trivial little freebies. I ended up coming home with some Berkeley fishing line, the British Carp Study Group's first book, and a copy of the ACA (now Fish Legal) magazine with Dick Walker's photo on the cover. Angling legend Dick Walker was at the show, and somehow I overcame my usual shyness and got him to autograph his photo. I no longer have any of those three things. Overall, that day out was okay, but didn't really live up to expectations. And my teenage expectations were pretty low. I've a feeling this experience left a mark...

Birdfair came along roughly at the time my interest in birding was beginning to wane. I would imagine its beginnings were modest, and I honestly do not recall it being a 'thing' at all initially, but by the time it was a big deal I had phased completely. Even so, I did go once. It would have been 2002, a few months before we moved to Devon. I had an appointment to meet a second-hand book dealer...at closing time on the final day. I found him easily enough, swapped my box of books for a wad of notes, and left. The other memorable aspect of that Birdfair was my one and only in-the-flesh sighting of DIM Wallace, resplendent in tam o' shanter and wellies.

2002 was peak phase, and my interest in Birdfair did not extend beyond flogging a few books. But even in the more recent, mostly keen years, Birdfair has never interested me. Yes, I've seen the photos. Happy, smiling Birdfair folk, many chatting and laughing with old buddies they haven't seen since last year (I've heard it was a great place to catch up) or in earnest conversation with someone trying to sell them something. But in the background, mooching from stand to stand, knowing hardly anybody there and looking vaguely out of place, are the everyday punters. That would have been me, the unsociable one on the left with the slim, tightly-closed wallet.

It's funny, I have read quite a few laments at Birdfair's demise. But interestingly, many have been based on the loss of a social calendar highlight as much as anything else. Unlike some birders I do not have a large group of contemporaries who all grew up birding together, and in all my on/off years in the hobby have never had a wide circle of birding mates. So in that respect I have lost absolutely nothing. I do not have the budget for up-to-the-minute optics or regular additions to my artwork collection. I buy very few books and am not interested in jaunts abroad. I guess I would have enjoyed some of the talks though, but that was never enough of a draw.

I could be very wide of the mark, but Birdfair always struck me as a glorified trade show. And I wonder what its carbon footprint was? Great that it raised money for conservation charities of course...

Probably I would miss it more if I was an artist or sold optics.

Grumpy Virus Post

Still in the clutches of some grim virus presently, which means two things.

1. I have no current birdy stuff to share.

2. I am pretty hacked off.

Thing 1 means I am not in a position to write happy posts about recent thrilling birds. Not even gulls. Thing 2 means I can easily find loads of stuff on Twitter to press my buttons. Which is a fine way to warm up for an 'opinion piece'.

There was something on there about Long-eared Owls yesterday...

This tweet has sprouted a fascinating collection of side-shoots. Among them you can find this sad graphic...

In other words, Long-eared Owl sightings in the UK have to be kept away from public access. Why? Dig around a little further and you will find someone asking: 'Is photography the new egg collecting?' Linked to that question is this...

It is all so depressing. And predictable. And therefore even more depressing. Ten years ago I was one of the moderators on the original 'Devon Bird News' blog when a Long-eared Owl decided to roost at Exminster Marshes. Stupidly it chose a really obvious and accessible spot. I have never seen Long-eared Owl in Devon or Dorset (they are like hen's teeth, and usually a jammy passage encounter) and did not travel to see the Exminster bird. But lots of people did, with the inevitable consequences. It's a long story, but in the end I had to write this post on DBN...

Dated 28 December 2011

There were sorry tales of both the LEO and SEOs being disturbed, of photographers (or should I just say people with cameras?) going on to land where they should not. Etc..etc...

I am quite conscious that nowhere above is there any suggestion that mere birders might also be at fault. It's always toggers getting the stick. After all, let's be honest, you don't need to be carrying a camera to be guilty of getting too close...

And it's true, among the big-lens boys clustered right beneath the hedge containing the 2010 Turf Lock American Robin were some without cameras. Either way, the bird did not show for Sandra and me that day. Can't think why not...

In pre-digital days there were few cameras. Birders stood and viewed birds through scopes, at considerable range sometimes. And often I'm sure they still do. It isn't a desire for closer views that has become so problematic in the last couple of decades; it is the desire for closer photos. Sorry. Images.

In the above-mentioned Twitter threads you will find some defensive input from one or two photographers along the lines of 'it's not all photographers', or 'birders/twitchers can be just as bad'. Fine. But I would be very surprised if much less than 90% of these kinds of incidents were caused by people with cameras. Nah, make that 95%. Sue me.

However, at the root of the problem is not so much the idiot behaviour, but rather how amazingly easy it now is to know all you need to know about the presence and location of disturbable birds. Which brings me to the other button that got pressed today - and again it was a tweet what done it guv - the commodification of birds news...

Almost exactly 11 years ago I wrote a series of six NQS posts about the development of the bird news services. From grapevine to pager. Interestingly, 2010 was pre-smartphone ubiquity, pre-WhatsApp and largely pre-Twitter also, so things have moved on a bit since then. I still have the posts on my hard drive, and spent a pleasant time reviewing them earlier. They were a bit more acerbic than I remembered, and I am sorely tempted to resurrect them in perhaps some revamped form. If I don't get better - and a lot less grumpy - soon, it will definitely happen.

A Funny Old Autumn...

It has been a funny old autumn. And for many birders, very underwhelming. Birdy Twitter is largely agreed upon this. Correction. Non-Yorkshire birdy Twitter is largely agreed upon this. Speaking for myself though, I never expect that much anyway. Almost all my birding involves walking and walking, and looking, and hoping something pops up in front of me. And to be honest, this year has been better in some respects than last year. Redstart-wise, for example, definitely it has. By a factor of 20-something to one. But still, it has certainly been a very strange autumn. Here are some reasons why...

1. The rarest bird I found, and a first for the West Bex and Cogden recording area - Melodious Warbler - was in July. Which isn't really autumn at all.

2. The second-rarest bird I found - Caspian Gull - I failed to identify correctly until after it had flown off and I looked at the photos!

3. The biggest adrenaline rush - by far - was produced by a juv Peregrine (see previous post).

4. The second-biggest adrenaline rush was produced by a White-tailed Eagle from the Isle of Wight reintroduction sheme. Plastic. A plastic barn door. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

5. The bird I probably enjoyed the most because it was such a challenging little puzzler - Greenland Redpoll - was not found by me at all!

6. And to cap it all, my most satisfying find - and the rarest of the lot, a Dorset first - was Tree Cricket.

7. Which reminds me that the other two firsts for the West Bex and Cogden recording area that I was fortunate enough to find this autumn were also not birds: Chalk Hill Blue and Lesser Emperor.

Possibly there are lessons I should be drawing from that weird list of autumn highlights...

Mind you, technically I guess autumn isn't over until the end of this month, so there is yet time for some quality. Like a count of Goldcrests greater than two.