March 1981 was a month of mainly dipping out, whilst travelling hundreds of miles in the process. On the 7th, I was up at 1.30a.m. and with a car-full, drove up to Alton Water in Suffolk. We arrived at 6a.m. and staggered out of the car into the pouring rain. And all this just to see a poxy hybrid! What a trip. Soaked through to the skin. Wiping our optics so we could watch a moorhen/coot hybrid which some observers seemed to think was an American Coot! Dejected and drowned, we slid through the mud back to the car. We then arrived at Lowestoft to look for Iceland and Glaucous Gulls which were meant to be in that area. No luck here either I'm afraid. So we took ourselves off to look for Golden Pheasants at Hockham Belt. One member of our crew scored, while I floundered around in the mud and undergrowth only a few feet away! It was one of those days when I wished I'd stayed in bed and had a good night's sleep. We journeyed back towards the south-west, calling in at Combe in Berkshire, where a Rough-legged Buzzard had been reported. As I mentioned in my earlier rambling, this species gave me the biggest headache ever, as I constantly dipped out, and today was to be no exception. The sole reasonable bird of that day was a ringtail Hen Harrier which had flown over the road in front of us at Blythburgh! I climbed in to bed that night, wondering whether I should give up twitching all together!
Of course, I didn't and a week later, after assisting with the wildfowl count at Chew Valley Lake, I raced back up to Combe in Berkshire, to try and see the Rough-leg again, which had been reported again mid-week. Of course I saw nothing again, and being a glutton for punishment, went back the next day and spent every daylight hour touring round the area to no avail. Yes, March 81 was turning out to be one of THOSE months.
Continuing in this mode of utter dejection and despair, a visit was made to west Cornwall to hopefully see a Bonaparte's Gull. Guess what? We dipped again. Did see a Ring-billed though. Who the hell wants to see any rare birds anyway? Surely the pleasure is all in the visiting of birdless places miles away from home! Feeling as though I hadn't done enough to further the cause of dipping, I reckoned that a another weekend at Combe would get me in the record books, so 21/22 March was spent milling around seeing a blank landscape again. By now, I was under the impression I would NEVER see another lifer. The only thing to positively come out of this depressing period was the amount of beer drunk to drown our sorrows at the end of every dip-day. Wadworths brewery had to alledgedly open a new Wiltshire factory to cope with the massive demand for 6X from the county's disillusioned twitchers! I was in danger of being too drunk to drive anywhere for another bird should one be reported, and did I really want to go twitching again? Thankfully I did not give up, and our next trip was completed successfully, even though I was breathalysed!!
March 28 saw myself and Ewan Basterfield setting out at 3a.m. and driving down to west Cornwall. We had crossed into Somerset, and I was negotiating a rather damp muddy stretch of road junction, when the car decided to leave the road completely. No, I wasn't drunk (for about the first time for weeks!) and no, I wasn't going particularly fast either. It was just the combination of mud and rain on a nastily-cambered corner that sent us off the road. Despite being in the back of beyond, a police car appeared out of nowhere, and depite my protestations, the nice Mr Plod saw I was soon sitting in HIS Car blowing into a little bag! I tried to tell him I was going OUT, rather than returning home, but the somewhat early hour of the morning meant that he could only believe I had been out on the town all night. No, he didn't know what a Bonaparte's Gull was, and no, he didn't realise he was wasting valuable birding time by holding me up! He examined the little bag of crystals, shining a torch at them to see if they'd changed colour. 'Hmm, they seem to have gone a deeper yellow!' 'Perhaps its the Corn Flakes I ate before I left home' I retorted. Of course Mr Plod was singularly unimpressed with this comment and proceeded to delay me further and give me a fatherly lecture on how to drive with a bit more care. I again retorted with the suggestion that he would like to try and drive over the same spot in my car and see if he could keep the car on the road! This nearly made him throw the book at me anyway, and a further suggestion from me that he might be a bit tired and tetchy due to sitting in a cold car and having to wait for hours for the next sucker to come driving past on his carefully 'prepared' muddy road nearly had me arrested. In the end he let me go, but would not help to push the car out of the ditch I had put a wheel into. Poor Ewan had to push on his own, whilst I revved the car gently, whilst the nice Mr Policeman shone his torch to watch over the hilarious proceedings! Eventually we got going again and duly arrived at the Hayle estuary without further incident. This time I struck lucky and the Bonaparte's Gull put on a stunning performance in front of the hide next to the Old Quayhouse Inn. Policemen and breath tests were soon forgotten, and the added bonus of a Glaucous Gull and a prolonged chat with the late Bernard King at Newlyn further enhanced the day. However, we did dip on Little Egret at St Just-in-Roseland, but forgave it due to it having chosen such a beautiful-named place to visit. We chanced upon a roadside Goshawk sat on a fencepost at St Breock Downs as we continued on our way eastwards, this bird ending our birding day very nicely! We continued driving and nightfall found us at Portland Bill, where we spent a cold, uncomfortable night in the car, after a visit to a local hostelry. The next day saw us zombies staggering around the Portland area looking for early spring migrants, but we only connected with Puffin and Sand Martin, although Bearded Tit and Cetti's Warblers also put in appearances.
So March 1981 produced only ONE lifer for me, despite all that travelling. But the year was going to get better as it wore on. Just how good you can see in my next thrilling instalment!
We now move on to February 1981. The fun started in the old county of Zummerzet, where on the 8th, five of us squeezed into a Ford Capri (told you it was cheap!) and arrived at the back of beyond, or rather, Stolford in west Somerset just as light was beginning to make itself present. One has to have a backside that is delicately formed and like two apples in a basket to fit 3 people on the back seat of a Ford Capri! There's masses of headroom too!! I emerged from the car like the proverbial 'Hunchback of Notre Dam' and continued in permanent stoop along the coastline with my 4 'not small' companions. We were gratified to see that our target birds (and lifers) were still there. Three Shore Larks (Horned to the rest of you non-Brits!) performed superbly for us on the beach, or what was locally regarded as a beach! We watched these birds very closely and were lucky to grill these beauties, which are very rare in the south-west of England. (I've only seen one in Devon in fifteen years of living here!). Still completely hunched up from our drive down, we crept back towards the car and had the bonus of a Barnacle and 2 White-fronted Geese further back towards the car!
Feb 21 saw a minibus full of us hardened birders travelling up to the north-east of England which was a fair old way for us wurzels! We arrived at Hartlepool Docks at 6.30 in complete darkness and slid across the quay on a nice layer of ice, the edge of the pier coming up in front of us exceptionally fast!!! I had visions of us going over the edge and landing in the icy waters below, but somehow, the van found some grip at the last moment and we stopped with the front of the van hanging over the edge. Luckily the wheels were still on terra firma. We piled out into the cold air in the dark of a very cold morning and there in the half light was a blob, which turned out to be the bird we had travelled to see, a White-billed Diver! (Yellow-billed Loon to our friends from across the pond!). Some considerable time later dawn came upon us, and we were able to marvel at the COLOURS of the bird. A damned good tick and there was more good birding to come.
Acting on reliable information, we zoomed over to the town of Guisborough, picking up Glaucous Gull and Snow Bunting on the way at Seaton Carew. We were soon strolling along a disused railway embankment looking down at surrounding allotments and gardens for our quarry, but without success. Luckily for us, we met a local birder who informed us we were on the WRONG part of the railway line, and should move back more towards the town centre. We piled into the minibus and burnt rubber (honestly, even in a Transit!) to the Right location. Soon, Phil Delve spotted the bird, a Waxwing in a small tree on the embankment in front of us. This was a lifer for us all as we did not tend to get many Waxwings in the south-west, and even this single bird was a jewel in our eyes! We literally danced with joy and I was ecstatic - my 300th bird in Britain. With the various splits we've had since, 300 was actually quite some time before this, but it counted at the time, when we hadn't really had a good influx of this dapper bird for some years! I've since seen hundreds of them in the UK and even now I will put myself out to see these berry-gobbling gems! The rest of the day was spent looking unsuccessfully for Rough-legged Buzzards in Bransdale in north Yorkshire, but we were unlucky with this species, which was to become one of my all-time bogey birds, and a considerable thorn in my side! However, before we embarked back on the long journey south, we did chance upon Hen Harrier, Crossbill and about 50 Red Grouse which made for a brilliant full day's birding.
More next time.............................
First of all, thanks for your encouraging comments Steven. I do tend to live a little in the past but petrol was cheap, there were nowhere near as many cars on the roads then and a car-full of birders kept the costs right down. However, I haven't yet been elevated to 'heavenly' status! Read you comment CAREFULLY!
Back to 1981, and January 10 saw four of us up early and down at Dawlish Warren in Devon. It was a perishing cold day, and we clambered up on to the top of Langstone Rock to try and see the bird we'd travelled for. Regrettably the bird could not be seen (a Surf Scoter) due to the distance of the scoter flock offshore. This, coupled with the fact that we nearly froze to death on our exposed perch, resulted in a dip. It was so cold in the wind, that we had to make frequent trips back to the car to consume massive quantities of hot drinks from our flasks. Once back out in the cold wind, the drinks had the opposite effect, and it became obvious that frequent trips to the TOILET (or some hidden bush somewhere) were a necessity! Up and down. Up and down. On and off the rock we went - more drinks to warm up, more visits to the wee-wee shop! In the end we gave up and retreated up the Exe estuary, where we had good views (and year-ticks!) of 2 Whooper Swans at the Swan's Nest inn (where else?) and Avocets. Earlier we had good views of some Cirl Buntings between the warren and Dawlish Town.
After completing our monthly wildfowl count at Chew Valley Lake on the 17th, 3 of us visited a place in Wiltshire called Bustard Hotel. But we did not get to grips with those beautiful creatures of the open grasslands, but did connect with a Great Grey Shrike, whose temporary abode on some MOD firing ranges, nearly ensured we were arrested TWICE - first by the MOD Plod, then by the extremely diligent Wiltshire Constabulary, who were most unimpressed with our reason for being there! However, we survived to bird another day, and on the night of 22/23 a minibus full of us travelled overnight to south-west Scotland where a veritable goose-fest awaited us.
Caerlaverock provided us with Greylag, Pink-feet and Barnacle Geese in massive numbers, and Purple Sandpipers were found at Southerness Point. However, it was on 24th that we had a truly memorable day. We were up early and were soon at Stranraer, where we covered Loch Ryan. Whilst partaking of some victuals at Cairn Ryan, we were lucky enough to see a drake King Eider which of course was another lifer for us. A little later we were at West Freugh airfield area which produced more huge numbers of geese, including Barnacle, Greylag and Greenland White-fronts, and best of all, a lovely white Snow Goose, which was our second tick of the day. We were also lucky enough to see 3 Hen Harriers coming in to roost that day, as well as Black Grouse and Black Guillemot for year-ticks. It was a cheerful party of birders that found itself in the local pub that night! The next day saw us leaving Kippford early and we were soon down as far as Leighton Moss in Lancashire, where we spent an excellent 5 hours, notching up Bittern and Goshawk for the year!
January ended up with another, this time successful trip to Dawlish Warren on the 31st, where we clawed back the drake Surf Scoter, despite nature's best efforts to prevent us from doing so, due to a blanket of fairly thick fog, which eventually lifted mid-morning to reveal the bird in with the large scoter flock.
Back up to date again, and I was lucky enough to discover a White-fronted Goose of the albifrons race at Bowling Green Marsh on Thursday. I checked out the marsh again the next day, but there was no sign of it. This isn't very surprising as this species is quite rare in this neck of the woods, so you can imagine my surprise, when just as I was leaving, a flock of 21 flew in and landed on the main pool! Well, that's it for now............