Lucky if you spy rare goldeneye
Christmas is not the same without a large serving of James Bond on the television washed down with a competitive family quiz.
And anyone seeking a licence to thrill around the dinner table need look no further than 007’s connections with the world of birds for some eyebrow-raising trivia.
Bond creator Ian Fleming was a lifelong birdwatcher and regularly paid homage to the pastime in his hero’s battles against dastardly criminal masterminds and evil Soviet spymasters.
Indeed, James Bond’s name derives from a real-life American ornithologist who wrote Birds of the West Indies.
Fleming “stole” the name for its masculine qualities and presented a first edition of You Only Live Twice to the fictional MI6 agent’s namesake when they met at Fleming’s Jamaican retreat in the 1960s.
Fleming signed his novel: “To the real James Bond, from the thief of his identity.” Decades later, the book sold for £56,000 at auction.
While Fleming marvelled at hummingbirds such as the vervain, Jamaican mango and the red-billed streamertail – a species depicted on the cover of For Your Eyes Only – one British bird had a special place in his heart.
Fleming’s Jamaican home was called Goldeneye, a duck he most likely encountered near his father’s Scottish house overlooking Loch Hourn.
Goldeneyes are one of the UK’S rarest birds with fewer than 200 nesting pairs. Males have a black-and-white checkerboard plumage, females are subtle shades of grey and brown. Both sexes have glistening yellow eyes.
The duck certainly left an impression as Fleming, a commander in naval intelligence, named his top secret plan to thwart Nazi activities in Spain Operation Goldeneye. One of the many spin-off James Bond films is also called Goldeneye.
One can imagine Fleming being overjoyed by the success of a strategy to conserve goldeneyes at Nature Scot’s Muir of Dinnet Nature Reserve in the Highlands.
By keeping canoes, kayaks and paddleboards off the lake this summer, the undisturbed goldeneyes fledged more than 25 ducklings – the best breeding success for a decade.
Undisturbed ducks fledged more than 25 ducklings this year