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…………

First of all, thanks for your comment on my last entry, Steve. It’s nice to think that someone reads my BLOG anyway! I have to correct you though, the first Oriental Pratincole arrived in 1981, not 82 as suggested by your good self, so I’ll be dealing with that little gem earlier than what you thought. Let’s not run before we can walk – I will cover 1981 first (and there’s plenty to be mentioned!) before hitting 1982.
The year started well with Ferruginous Duck and Great Skua in the Weymouth area on the 1st, followed two days later by two drake Ring-necked Ducks at Orchardleigh Lake, Somerset. However, it was on the 4th that I got to grips with my first lifer of the year. I was up at 3a.m. and together with Nigel Warren, Tony Jackson and Phil Delve, journeyed down to Pembrokeshire. The omens were good for the day, we had two foxes in urban Bristol and a Barn Owl on the M32 interchange on the way down, and when we arrived at sleepy Stackpole, we were bombarded with calling Tawny Owls and saw several Woodcock flying around in the semi-darkness. Daylight came and we bumped into Bryan Bland who had come all the way down from Norfolk with a car-load. He generously informed us that the farmer, on whose land the bird was on, was not prepared to let anyone in his fields that day, because he was short-staffed. Undeterred, we decided to try and view the land from a distant hill with scopes, from the other side of the village, so started to walk back down the track. We had only gone about 50 metres, when a sharp call from Bryan drew our attention to the bird flying in and settling down nicely in a field right in front of us. Our first CATTLE EGRET had obviously decided not to disappoint us long-distance travellers! They of course were a lot rarer in those days, (and little did I know I would be seeing hundreds of them in Florida some 18 years later!). The day continued apace, and useful year-ticks were obtained in the form of two Choughs at St Govan’s Head, Red Kite, Hen Harrier and Whooper Swan at Tregaron Bog, and of course, we could not help but call in again at Peterstone for another look at the over-wintering Spotted Sandpiper on the way back!
Despite this cracking start to the year, the next big trip produced a DIP, but a bird we did eventually ‘claw back’. However, more on that next time.
Bang up to date again, and this week has produced some of the mildest, warmest weather I have ever encountered at this time of year. Just a few days ago I saw a large ‘hawker-type’ dragonfly – not bad for Nov 24, a couple of late dozy wasps and a bumble bee, hardly the sign of a hard winter to come! There are plenty of flowers out in my garden which should have died off weeks ago and there has hardly been a surge of winter birds entering the area, apart from the usual Brent Geese and Avocets, which seem to arrive no matter what the weather is doing. Most of the time I have been looking ahead to 2005, and planning what local birds to go for, but to be quite honest, there isn’t much to follow up yet! Cheers!

I will now round off my birding tales from 1980. Returning from Scillies to Wiltshire it was time to get back to normal – crippling views of House Sparrows and Starlings in my back garden and one of my all-time favourites – the Dipper! Although Wilts was not renowned for its stunning birdlife, we were very fortunate in having Dippers on our local rivers – not what you’d expect in this particular neck of the woods! I can remember finding my first one when I was about 8 years old. I was totally gobsmacked by my find. I read in my birdbooks that they were ‘only found in Wales, Scotland and the mountains and moorlands of western England’. So what the heck were they doing on my local river, which was only fast-flowing in parts and were at the dizzy heights of about 200 feet above sea-level? Still, they’re still there now, but seem to be far more elusive these days.
Now back to 1980, we had time to fit in the odd Dudes’ RSPB coach trip now and then. What? Going on an organised RSPB coach trip to see pretty ‘dicky birds’ I hear you say? Well, we did and we found it a pretty good way of seeing some damned good birds for a paltry sum of money. This particular trip had 10 of us hardened twitchers occupying the back seats and a trip to South Wales produced a good day out, ending up with a diversion on the way back to see a Spotted Sandpiper at Peterstone near Newport! Two days later and I was on my way to Prawle Point (in my now home county of Devon) to try for what would have been yet another lifer if I had connected with it. Pallas’s Warbler was still a considerable rarity in those days and I dipped out on the blooming thing! However, all was not lost and we located a Yellow-browed Warbler in the area, the resident Cirl Buntings and being jammy as usual, a life-tick in the form of a Ferruginous Duck seen later in the day at Slapton Ley!
November 9 and we were on our way to Radipole Lake in Weymouth, Dorset for another and final life tick of the year. We drove right up to the bird. We need not have even bothered getting out of the car. The first-winter Ring-billed Gull (again a great rarity in those days!) was stood in the carpark. However being fit and keen we did exit the vehicle, and even set up our scopes. We were so damned close that we couldn’t focus our scopes, but we would not have looked the part if we had only looked dudishly (crikey, does that word exist?) through our bins at it. I must admit that it was a pretty grotty bird and won no prizes for elegance! However it WAS a lifer and as I said, a rare bird then. No more lifers came my way in 1980, but if you think I saw some cracking birds in 1979 and 1980, wait ’til you find out what I connected with in 1981! I will move on to that year next time and if you don’t like to hear about blockers, then you’d better look away!!
Bringing us up to date, I had a wizard call on my mobile from Martin Wolinski. He’d just found a Yellow-browed Warbler at Bowling Green Marsh (a new species for the reserve!) and generously put the news out straight away. My sincere thanks, Martin, it’s about time I bought you a drink! I had a couple of chores to do that couldn’t wait, but I tore over in the spare twenty minutes I had and was watching the bird within ten seconds of leaving the car. The bird was performing well in trees and bushes in the hide compound, being visible from the lane or from the hide itself. My second one this year, after having seen the one at Branscombe back in January. We had only been remarking a few days earlier, that this excellent little reserve was overdue a Yellow-browed or a Pallas’s! Some incredible waders have turned up here over the years, and a reasonable selection of wildfowl as well, but rare passerines are not that well represented on the Bowling Green List, but hopefully we can change all that! Pacific Golden Plover, Terek, Baird’s, White-rumped and Pectoral Sandpipers, Cattle and Great White Egrets, Glossy Ibis, Lesser Scaup, Blue-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck and Wryneck (to name a few of the better ones) have all occurred here in past twelve years or so, which must mean great potential for finding your own rarity here in the not too distant future. Time to stop rambling on and get this old codger up the wooden way to Bedfordshire. Bye.

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…………….