Whenever I tell a layman that I'm a birdwatcher the usual reply they give is 'oh, you're a twitcher', something I don't bother much with correcting. But to be honest I'm not that into twitching. I have my opinions on it, opinions I wont go to deep into here, but its often seen as the silly side of birding, the kind of things the media reports to laugh at people who indulge in this hobby. But on occasions twitching can be quite fun. Its pretty much the only time solitary birders come together. Today, I attended two twitches, for two fairly rare birds, birds I have never seen before, which is the whole point of a twitch.
RUFOUS BUSH CHAT
It was the cars parked along the main road, by Stiffkey, that informed me that a twitch was on. After parking up, I headed down the lane that led to the bird. That were a lot more cars parked along here, with people coming and going. Shouted questions of 'is it showing' and followed by people affirming, was exciting, almost like going to a football match in many ways. The lane led down to an overflowing car park, before a path took me onto the saltmarsh and to the crowd of birdwatchers beyond.
The first RUFOUS BUSH CHAT for the country in forty years, a space of time longer than I have been alive, was what the twitch was about. An exhausted little bird from the Mediterranean, hung around in a small tuft amongst the saltmarsh, where maybe ten metres away two groups of seventy people looked at it. It wasn't the most beautiful of birds, it was many shades of brown, with a rufous rump which it showed when it flew. It showed well for the time I was there providing good views through a telescope.
It was hard going watching through the scrum. Shouts of 'please move your elbow' when someone in front moved in the way of your scope was often uttered. There were even seven police officers present, maybe an overreaction you'd think. I don't know how many police officers they have in North Norfolk, but needing a guard for a group of well behaved bird watchers might be a little bit over the top.
Other birds seen at the time was a KINGFISHER, which whizzed down a channel, and flocks of GOLDEN PLOVER and BRENT GEESE passed over. The saltmarsh stretched to the horizon under large, Norfolk skies.
I stayed for an hour and being invigorated decided to head off to another twitch...
RED FLANKED BLUETAIL
At the Bush Chat twitch, there were a lot of exclamations of 'there are four red-flanked bluetails at Holme!', so with my appetite wetted I headed off to there. There is a very good nature reserve at Holme, but the birds had decided to hang out in the car park just before the reserve. It was pretty much pandemonium as you can imagine, lots of cars, lots of people with telescopes slung over their shoulder wandering around, unsure of where they were supposed to be.
A group of birdwatchers forty strong had invaded a golf course to have a look for one for those birds. Two BLUETAILS were supposed to be there, but they weren't showing in a pine belt.
Then in the distance some guy started waving at us, and all of a sudden forty people charged over to where he was. And there it was in an area of scrub, perched on a fence post, shaped like maybe a pied flycatcher, it was light brown with orange markings around the wing edge. Then a ROBIN took at dislike to the bird and kept chasing it off and when the bird flew it showed off its blue tail. It wasn't too long before the bird disappeared and I couldn't find it again and with daylight fading and suffering hunger pains, due to it being near dinner time, I decided to leave.
Only one out of the four birds present did I see, but one was enough of that pretty little bird. It was quite a remarkable influx of this species, turning up as a new bird for many sites along the East Coast. Not much more I could ask for really.
So, there you go, the joys of twitching. If you're new to birdwatching, what do you think? Is it something you would enjoy doing? Or maybe, like me, something to occasionally dabble in, a bit of fun, in a fairly sober hobby. Maybe its an occasional need to meet up with my fellow man, to indulge in the only way I can relate to with other people - the love of birds. Enjoy.
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