We were up early the next morning and the Booted Warbler showed well. We were able to get good views of the bird before the St Mary's crowd shattered our peace. Now that the bird had been confirmed (remember that this was a RARE bird in those days), we relaxed a little, but not enough to prevent us from hijacking one of the boats which had delivered one of the St Mary's contingent and travelling over for another useless attempt to see the Red-eyed Vireo. I missed the bird by seconds and by the middle of the afternoon I was a bit wee-wee'd off! Another Lesser Yellowlegs for the autumn on Porthellick Pool was scant compensation for a possible lifer. Back to 'Aggie' for another look at the Booted. The next day dawned sunny and warm. We went down to the quay and commandeered a speedboat which had brought over four souls from St Mary's. Well, I've travelled by some novel methods in my quest for birds over the years, but this must go down as one of the most bizarre ways of getting to a new bird! We climbed into individual tiny 'cockpits' and pulled spray covers round our necks, thus protecting our our bodies and more importantly our optics from the spray. We were over to St Mary's before you could say 'Red-eyed Vireo' and I guess we only touched the water about eight times between the islands! Wow!
We were soon at Lower Moors and I hovered between two likely spots for two hours, before someone actually spotted the vireo in a large sallow bush, feeding in the same scope view as a Yellow-browed Warbler. Mission accomplished! We had another look at the yellowlegs and the airfield supplied me with my second ever Richard's Pipit. Things felt much better now.
The next three days the weather produced cool north-easterlies and a fair amount of rain and not much in the way of new birds for the islands, but come our last day, it was back down to the quay for another nice rough boat ride! Seeing my companions were looking a bit GREEN again, I decided to polish off a nice large piece of sticky chocolate cake mid way across. I don't think I was too popular as they all suddenly looked away and went rather a delicate shade of YELLOW in the face! Still, we soon arrived on St Mary's and I struck out for the airport, where I stowed my baggage and then went off like a madman. I was on a mission, and I reckoned if I could pull it off, I would have three more lifers under my belt before my flight back to the mainland. O.K. so they were tarts' ticks but as I said in a previous rambling everyone has to start somewhere and 1980 was my year. Firstly I bombed up to Peninnis, where an Ortolan Bunting found its way on to my lifelist. This one was easy - I just walked up to the bird which was showing down to a few feet. Having grilled the bird for about half an hour, I then jogged over to Holy Vale, where after a few minutes wait, an Icterine Warbler gave itself up easily in the top of a large tree. Acting on the latest info, I then charged up to the airfield again, where I had about an hour to go before my flight. Typically the last bird was a little bugger! Although it was 'only' a Snow Bunting it was not easy to find and kept itself hidden in the heather by the clifftop. I eventually found the bird after half an hour's search, and even managed to put my companions on to it before catching our flight. Yes, even Snow Buntings were a tick in those days, but you have to remember that at the time I lived in Wiltshire, hardly a county you could say had many Snow Buntings turning up! Anyway, I was as pleased as punch with my efforts and it was a happy bunny that left on his flight back over to Penzance that afternoon.
On a different note and bringing us up to today, it's good to see that a bird I had long ago predicted back then in 1980 as a probable future addition to the British list, turn up at last - Masked Shrike! Let's hope that it's still there for those who are travelling for it tonight. What an autumn for good birds so far. Masked Shrike, Rufous-tailed Robin and Chestnut-eared Bunting all new for Britain. An Ovenbird that was twitchable (lucky I saw one in Florida!), a C.C.C. again after twenty years (yep, I saw that bird in Essex back in 84), Purple Martin and goodness knows what else has ensured that most serious twitchers are in chronic debt! How the devil do you guys PAY for all that travelling, I couldn't have managed it, EVEN WHEN I WAS YOUNG, FREE AND SINGLE!
After my rush to Worcestershire, two days later saw me on my way for my second Scilly holiday, albeit only one week. We went to stay on St Agnes, and if my memory serves me well, we had a nice rough crossing which had us soaked to the skin. We had arrived on St Mary's by chopper. Getting over to St Agnes was a little bit more difficult! No inter-island boats were running due to the bad weather. However, the (very) old supply boat, the Gugh, was making a trip and we gladly boarded this vessel in order to complete our journey. As they say in nautical terms, it was a bit rough, especially after leaving the comparative shelter of the Garrison hill. Luckily I am a good sailor, and I laughed myself silly, trying to hang on to my seat, with the waves swamping us, but my three companions were looking a bit GREEN by the time we clambered on to the jetty!
We dumped our belongings at Molly Peacock's guesthouse and acclimatised ourselves to the relaxed pace of life on this quiet island.
Up the next morning, then over to Gugh across the sand bar to view my first lifer of the trip. This was an Isabelline Shrike which I seem to remember showed very well in the 'gardens' of the houses. I went on to see this long-staying bird every single day of the holiday. However, Scilly being Scilly, we had yet another lifer to go haring after that day, and luckily, it was on 'our' island again. That afternoon, we were led a right merry dance by a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, which took great delight in popping in and out of the Parsonage at odd intervals, showing for a lucky couple of birders, but disappearing just as quickly when anything like a 'crowd' gathered. Eventually, this obviously tired migrant pitched down on a wall, and showed brilliantly to everyone present! Despite missing a couple of tail feathers, this MEGA was the best bird of the autumn for me. Again, I have seen this species since (again in Florida), but this first one was a real mind-blower. So, day one and I had already seen two lifers!
Next day the weather was kinder and we took a boat over to St Mary's to hopefully connect with a Red-eyed Vireo. Unfortunately the vireo decided it would not oblige, and kept popping up on Lower Moors AND Porthellick House. The result was that we would no sooner run to one spot, when we'd hear it was showing at the other! Although by now it was presumed that there were in fact TWO birds, they never did actually show at the same time, and the time lapses between the sightings at either site meant that no more than one bird could be claimed! We dipped out on this bird, but I did manage another lifer in fields bordering Salakee Lane, when a Common Rosefinch was found with some Linnets! We heard about a strange warbler back on St Agnes, so although it was now late aftrenoon, we headed back to the quay, sad that we had missed the vireo, but happy with the rosefinch. We trudged across St Agnes, making our way to the old observatory garden, where this odd small milky-tea coloured warbler was occasionally showing. I glimpsed the bird a few times before it got dark, and opinion was beginning to mount up for a Booted Warbler. I did not count it there and then, and vowed I would get better views the next day, if the bird was still present. If it did stick, then we were handily placed on St Agnes before the crowds descended to really grill it. Did we see it again? Fiind out in my next installment..................
NO! I haven't been on the Good Shepherd from Shetland to see the C. E. Bunting on Fair Isle. (Although I have actually been there). My all shook up came from how I felt for about 3 weeks after we had rolled the car down in darkest Cornwall in 1980! As I said in my last ditty, it did not put us off twitching or travelling or anything else for that matter, but yes, we were badly shaken up, cut and bruised for some considerable time afterwards, but good birds ensured that we carried on birding! Only two days after our gyrations (NO this is not a reference to those great white raptors!), we were off again. This time I drove myself. I suppose I was not ready yet to trust anyone else behind the wheel.
I was at work when I received a call to say there was a Killdeer in Hampshire. I left late afternoon and drove sedately and very carefully (like hell I did!) down to Keyhaven. We scrambled and fell out of the car, and jogged out along the seawall to where the distant crowd of Killdeer-admirers could be seen in the distance. Suddenly they all started to trudge back towards us. Doom and gloom. We supposed that the bird bird had just flown off. We ran faster and soon met the first vanguard of birders trudging back. 'The ******* thing's flown back this way' greeted us as we stopped dead in our tracks. At the same instant we heard what could only be the unmistakable call of a Killdeer right overhead. Sure enough, I spotted the bird as it flew in and conveniently landed in a nice muddy patch right next to where we were standing. Talk about jammy! We didn't even have to walk all the way out to that distant spot where the original sightings had taken place. This was a really EARLY record of this fantastic plover, most records fall in the late autumn or winter. I've since seen another in England (on Scilly) and hundreds of the little blighters in Florida, but they still knock me out as one of the smartest shorebirds there is! Roll on one in Devon!
My next excursion occurred nearly a fortnight later, when instead of heading south-west, I headed up to the Midlands of all places. However, it was to tick off another American vagrant. I have a great affinity with Worcestershire. My father was born there and I know the county well. I even keep a Worcestershire list, based on my holidays and trips there over the years. I won't tell you what it stands at because it's embarrassing, but I added another little corker to that list on this occasion. I was originally going to work, but as I approached the place, I thought 'Fiddlesticks' and drove right past the place and kept going - all the way to Upton Warren! Ninety minutes later I was in the hide watching my first-ever two Blue-winged Teal! I know they're not that rare nowadays, but everyone has to start listing somewhere and 1980 was MY year. They were still quite a draw in those days and I was happy to see them, where-ever they turned up. Yes, I really enjoyed sitting there on my own, in peace and quiet, watching them moving to and fro. I even had Tree Sparrow chucked in for good measure! I have visited Upton Warren on several occasions since that eventful day, and it has never disappointed. (The Tree Sparrows are still there as well!). Two days later I was on the Scillies, but more on this next time!
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................
Yes, I know I haven't updated my update lately, if you see what I mean, but the Old Codger has been really busy, not only at work, but also at home. However, I have been very fortunate in the last fortnight, in that I have connected with a World Lifer and a much-belated Devon tick.
First up, a trip to sunny Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset. I had never seen Western Sandpiper anywhere before as I missed this species when I visited Florida and Scotland is too far for me to twitch nowadays, but all that changed when I journeyed over the county boundary into Dorset. I had heard that the bird was still present that morning, so I drove up, arriving at Poole Quay at 1110 hrs. I had to wait 'til 1130 for the next boat to depart for the island, and much gnashing of teeth from the Old Codger passed before I eventually got onto the island. I was a little bit concerned that there were no other birders on the boat - surely the bird couldn't have buggered off before I got there? I need not have worried, having forked out for the boat and the landing fee, I was really lucky not to have to find the extra cash to enter the nature reserve. I ambled up to the public hide to find that the bird was showing there NOW! The hide was heaving with birders, but I was put on the bird immediately, whilst standing in the entrance, and some folks were just leaving thereby creating a space for me and others to sit down and drink in this tiny wader. Wow! My first world lifer since the American Robin down at Godrevy Towans, Cornwall last December. I was well pleased with myself. The bird flew off round behind some tamarisk bushes and the masses poured out of the hide along to the nature reserve to get more views.
Being of much previous experience of these situations, I decided to stay put and eat my sandwiches in peace! Sure enough, only about fifteen minutes later the bird flew back along and conveniently put down in front of the hide, giving brilliant views to yours truly whilst he finished his tucker! I had about five minutes of bliss before the hordes reappeared and with that the bird moved out of sight behind the reeds to the right of the hide. Well everything turned out fine and we all had more views of the bird. I even had time to take a celebratory pot of tea (really dude-ish I know!) in the cafe and had good views of a Red Squirrel before catching the boat back. Blimey, they even threw in a trip round Poole Harbour before dropping us back at the quay, what a day.
I had not really had much chance to go too far since the Western Sand, but news of a Devon tick had me scurrying up to Hartland Point in north-west Devon first thing this morning. I arrived in an easterly gale at the point which is very exposed at the best of times! Acting on the information I had, I was soon watching three Tree Sparrows in the hedgerow, a field over from the radio mast. I had never been able to go for this species in the county before either due to illness or family commitments, so I was overjoyed to finally 'catch up' with this bird in Devon, which is a very rare species in the county. For example, none were seen in the county at all in 2002! While I was there, hiding from the wind under a hedge, I also saw a female Merlin spooking some pipits, but as the wind was so strong I couldn't find anything else as everything was keeping low and in cover.
With the rest of October still to come, will anything else really good turn up? I'll try not to leave it so long before my next lot of waffle. White's Thrush in Yorkshire eh, shame its so far away!