Here I am sitting at home feeling very sorry for myself. I have a stinking cold which was generously donated by the kids, who don't do things by halfs, they both get a cold simultaneously then give it to me at the same time. Any way, I have such a headache it's like I've been banging my head against the breeze block walls in the hide at Bowling Green Marsh! Result - the Old Codger has not been to work today. That's the problem with M.E. - once you get a cold or suchlike it's ten times worse than for normal folks!
Well, enough of the old self-pity - let's go back to 1980 again! It was in September of that famous birding year. I'd been down to Cornwall for the Semipalmated Sandpiper at Stithians and the Spotted Crake at Marazion which were life ticks for me then, and as I mentioned in one of my earlier ramblings. nearly all the good birds seemed to turn up in Cornwall that year with little suppression to worry about in those days! Well, a week had passed and another good lifer had turned up and guess where? Yes, that's right! In the land of pasties and clotted cream. This time a Baird's Sandpiper had arrived at Davidstowe Airfield, and I managed to cadge a lift with Les and Peter Andrews from Weston-super-Mare, and Nigel Warren and Tony Jackson. The other four had not been down for the Semi-P so the prospect of a two-tick day was a great draw for them. It was decided to visit Davidstowe first, and yours truly breathed a sigh of relief that we were visiting MY lifer first. Mind you I was really glad to be given another chance on the Semi-p, as it was showing down to just a few feet! We arrived at Davidstowe in fairly thick fog and were wandering around hoping to chance on the Baird's. 'Here it is' shouted a voice from the mist. All sorts of strong language eminated from the fog and I realised that although we couldn't see them, there were other birders present in the area. We followed the sounds and found ourselves watching the Baird's! Wow! The fog suddenly lifted and I was surprised to see about twenty others all stood round the bird in a large circle.
The time was moving on, and it was time we were moving on. We all piled into Les's Audi, and carried on down the highway towards Stithians. We were trundling along nicely when it happened.......
Suddenly, as we were taking a gentle curve in the road, some dickhead came towards us all over OUR SIDE of the road. We had just passed through Summercourt which had apparently just celebrated a local fair resulting in plenty of mud on the road. It had just started to rain a little and of course the road was as slippery as the proverbial banana skin! Of course our noble driver touched the brakes and we did our impression of Torville and Dean, sliding nicely off the road and ploughing across the wide grassy verge. 'This is it!' I said to myself and braced myself for the impact as a large metal lamp standard loomed large in front of us. Wham! We hit it nicely on the driver's side and the impact caused the pole to buckle as we started to mount the pole. This in turn caused us to flip over on our side. As it turned out, it did not stop there. Just as we went over, the bank on the side of the road seemed to come towards us and we flipped right over and rolled down the bank. They say that when something like this happens your whole life flashes in front of you. Let me say that this is perfectly true! We ended up on our roof in the field below. I found myself lying in the roof lining, with someone's foot in my mouth! Lots of horrible groaning and much feeling of myself to make sure that my wedding tackle had not been damaged in the crash, and I was trying to get out as I could smell petrol. Every pain of glass in the motor had been cracked and the only window intact was the one next to where I had been sitting. I realised that if I wanted to get out I had to wind the window down (or UP if you sense we were upside-down!). The doors were so buckled it was impossible to open them! I managed this tricky procedure and slithered out in to the muddy field. I got the others out, and we stood shaking by the car which was pouring petrol out in copious amounts. It was thought that we had better move away from the car in case the whole lot went up in flames so we retired battered and bruised to a safe distance. By now we were coming to our senses, and it was realised that the petrol had ceased to flow out so we went back to the car to retrieve our optical equipment. The boot was opened and because the car was turned turtle the whole lot fell out in to the mud. There was much cursing and we gathered our kit and stumbled up the bank to the side of the road. Two very welcome vehicles happened to come along the road within a few minutes, but because of my muddled mind, I can never remember which was first!
Our good friends and fellow birders, Jeff Delve and Ewan Basterfield came along in their car and kindly agreed to take three of us on with them to the Semi-p, whilst an ambulance also stopped and made sure we were all right. Of course, they wanted to take us to Truro hospital for a check-up. 'No chance' we said with a true birder's stiff upper lip. 'We've got birds to see.' Probably totally bloody stupid, now I've had 24 years to think about it, but in those days I was a twitcher first and everything else came a pretty lowly second!
I went with our driver to the local scrapyard with our mangled wreck on the back of a recovery truck, as I had seen the Semi-p the previous week and we thought that we'd soon be able to hire a car. On arrival at the yard, I was able to view the car with a roving eye. I realised how lucky we had been to escape with our lives - the Audi didn't have a single undented body panel and I felt rather sick in the stomach. We were offered an old battered VW Beetle to hire for the week by the scrapyard owner. 'Trouble is, er ain't got any insurance.' With that Les produced a book of cover notes and wrote himself out a certificate. It must be nice to be an insurance manager! Of course, nobody felt like driving after our trauma so the 'Young Codger' volunteered, thinking to myself that if I didn't get back in and drive now, I probably would not want to for the rest of my life. We carried on with our birding day and yes we did connect with the Semi-p, and the Spotted Crake again, but we were all very subdued. Add this to the fact that by now it was pouring with rain and the old VW stank of petrol fumes, and you can understand that we were mighty relieved to get back home later that night!
However, it did not put us off twitching, and I still go on the occasional twitch even now, 24 years down the line! And there were still 12 lifers to connect with that brilliant year, more of which to come later................