Black mop of feathers on top were very comical!

AT a recent meeting of The Burbage Bird Club, which incidentally take place in Sapcote, I was involved in conversation with Ken Reeves who, like me, has seen over 500 species of bird in Britain.

Both of us were disappointed not to have seen a new bird during the spring migration period; first time ever for me over a period of 40 years. There had been, however, a female redwinged blackbird on North Ronaldsay which the more competitive listers managed to “tick,” albeit by way of chartered small planes; most from York at a cost of £500 per person.

Both Ken and I felt that if you were outlaying that sort of money it would be best to spend several days on the island: making something of a holiday of the experience. Others birders of similar vein forsook the twitch arguing you could have a birding holiday abroad in Greece or Spain for that amount of expenditure.

Fortunately things have improved significantly more recently. Indeed, having monitored for a couple of days the movements an elegant tern that was showing around Church Norton, not so far from Chichester though more specifically immediate to Selsey, I decided to make a move - a venture that proved to be totally successful. Indeed true to form the bird was going out to sea for a few hours then coming back to the sandwich tern colony.

Its stonking great, what appeared pinkish, curved bill was immediately apparent as was the triangular, somewhat amusingly parted, black mop of feathers on top of the head; very comical. Anyway it should’ve been operating down the west coast of America between California and Mexico!

One final amusing, if somewhat poignant philosophical note, belongs to one of Staffordshire’s own distinguished and extremely passionate twitchers, Anthony Bridges.

Indeed it concerns my meeting with him some years ago on Scilly in late October when he was day twitching an ovenbird. I had been there for at least the week having already been treated to a cream-coloured courser up on St Mary’s golf course; a cream-coloured golf courser?

I sort of grilled him on how he’d managed to arrive so promptly.

The explanation being that they had chartered a small plane; two of them boarding initially nearer home and landing in Kent to pick up another two. “Blimey”, I remarked, “how much did that cost per person?”

To which the reply came, “about £500 but, you know Dave, you spend a long time dead.” That shut me up! Unfortunately his enthusiastic birding father, affectionately known as Bill, died more recently; a sad loss to the birding fraternity nationally. David Abbott Stoke Golding