Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? 200 birds, 12 months, 1 lapsed birdwatcher
Page 24
If you were driving to London from Cromer, you might go via Docking, but only if you’d never read a map before. It’s not completely in the opposite direction, but completely in the opposite direction is the sea, and even I’m not mad enough to go that way.
In a field about half a mile outside Docking is, apparently, a red-breasted goose. It’s been there for several days, showing no signs of moving. They breed on the Arctic tundra, migrating to the Black Sea in autumn. This one is as off-course as I am.
There’s no doubt about it. This is a twitch.
The snag isn’t that the bird’s in a large field all by itself. The snag is that it’s in a large field with 6,000 pink-footed geese. That’s a lot of geese. But the red-breasted, its striking plumage reminiscent of an anatomical diagram, is bound to stand out.
Such misguided certainty.
The field isn’t hard to find. It’s the one with all the geese in it. We park in the nearest convenient spot, about 200 yards down the road, and I leave Tessa and Oliver in the car with their good wishes ringing in my ears. No time limit has been set, but I know the rules of engagement.
Here’s the world famous birder, hunting down his 200th bird of the year.
Arriving at the field, I feel my heart sink. Until you’re face to face with 6,000 geese, it’s difficult to imagine the space they occupy. Quite a number are on the edge of my binoculars’ range, mere silhouettes on the brow of the hill. There might be some on the other side. Fearing the worst, I start scanning. The wind whips up so strongly I can’t hold the binoculars still. The hood of my coat and my wild flyaway hair combine for a perfect storm of annoyance.
I find wind unsettling, even at the best of times. Now it acts as a tap into my inner seam of sweariness. I hurl a tirade of championship-quality invective at a pile of sugar beet. My mother would be proud.
Trying to bring both binoculars and temper under control, and failing, I do a quick scan of the field, hoping the red-breasted goose will leap out at me. It doesn’t. Then I do a slower scan, taking in clumps of geese but not examining each one, just looking for the standout bird. Again no luck. The geese stretch as far as I can see, and beyond, the hedge getting in the way. On the other side of the hedge, the long pile of sugar beet offers another obstruction. How long will it take me to work my way along the field?
Stupid bloody birds. What am I doing here? I should just leave. No shame in 199.
Tell that to K. L. Rahul.
I stay, doggedly scanning, examining, hoping.
It’s about setting goals, achieving them, seeing the job through. It’s about cashing in, at long last, the investment your parents made with their unobtrusive interest in nature. It’s about acquiring new skills, learning and caring about yourself, other people and the world around you. Without this urge in its many and varied forms, from the trivial to the important, where would we be?
Falling at the last hurdle is not an option.
A cheerful younger man strides up, scope over his shoulder. I see that he’s parked his car on the verge, almost in the ditch, a hundred yards up the road. I try to bring my inner toddler under control, reassemble toys in pram, and plaster an unconvincing smile onto my face.
‘Any sign?’
‘Afraid not. I’m not best equipped, though.’ I nod towards his scope.
‘It’s definitely there,’ he replies, assembling the tripod. ‘Saw it from the other side of the field, took a bearing from the end of this pile of beet, thought I’d come round to see if it’s visible. But it’s down in this dip here. Just got to wait for it to wander out, I suppose.’
I’m relieved it’s not just through incompetence that I couldn’t find the darned thing. But I’m also frustrated. It’s within touching distance. Now I know how Tantalus must have felt.
Hungry-looking men with telescopes, full of intent, are beginning to assemble. My frustration is shared by another, younger man standing shivering next to me.
‘My family’s in the car,’ he says. ‘I’ve only got fifteen minutes.’
‘Me too. But I don’t have a time limit. In theory, anyway.’
He grimaces. ‘I’m still being punished for last Christmas Day.’
‘What happened last Christmas Day?’ I ask, half wanting to know, half already knowing.
‘I took a slight diversion to see a pallid harrier on the way to the in-laws.’
‘Slight diversion?’
‘About an hour. Didn’t even see the bloody thing.’
I don’t say so, but my sympathy is entirely with his wife, who is probably even now sitting in a car quarter of a mile away trying to stave off family meltdown.
I, of course, have left my wife and son in a car quarter of a mile away, but that’s entirely different.
I’ve asked myself to what lengths I’d go to get my 200 birds, and now I have my answer. I’m no paragon of virtue, and there have been times when I’ve felt my obsession impinging on family harmony, but Christmas Day? Really?
I grunt a non-committal, non-judgemental answer. Conversation trickles. Time, as it tends to, passes.
I’ve been away from the car half an hour, maybe more. I really can’t stay much longer. There are limits. But these geese aren’t for shifting. The twitchers, about a dozen of them now, are ranged along the verge, showing no sign of impatience. They’re used to much longer vigils. For them this is a mere blip.
Five minutes. Then I have to go.
The five minutes pass. Loads of geese, but no goose. I briefly consider storming the field, clambering over the sugar beet and flushing the damn thing.
Maybe not.
Two more minutes, then I really have to go.
I wonder how I’d feel if I’d been left in the car for forty-five minutes before a long journey home.
I think of my exchange with pallid harrier guy, and all that revealed. It was mild, but there was still about it a jokey, blokey chumminess that makes me cringe – family a thing to be escaped and then moaned about over just one more pint. She’s only doing the ironing, maybe she’ll have finished and started on the hoovering. Eh? Eh? The little lady. ’Er indoors. The ball and chain.
No.
The red-breasted goose is a fine bird, but it’s just a bird. There will be others. Some things are more important.
With leaden legs I trudge along the verge. I reach the end of the twitching line, where the cheerful man who first joined me on the scene is looking through his scope. It’s pointing away from the supposed location of the alleged red-breasted goose. I wonder what he’s looking at. I stop beside him. He notices me, flicks his head.
‘I’ve got a couple of tundra bean goose in the scope if you want.’
He says it casually, as if they’re not the most important fourteen words he’s said all year. The bean goose are nothing to him, everything to me. I amble across to the scope, nonchalance personified.
Parikian?
Sir?
Have you done your homework?
Yes sir.
What are the distinguishing features of the tundra bean goose, Parikian?
Tundra bean goose, sir. Anser fabalis rossicus. Similar to the pink-footed goose Anser brachyrhynchus, but with orange legs rather than pink, heavier head, and a small orange patch on the bill.
Very good, Parikian. You may go.
Sirthankyousir.
As I drink them in, in all their bean-goosey magnificence, I’m flooded with inner calm. I nudge the ball off my hips down to fine leg, and stroll through for an easy single.
200.
I thank him, make my excuses, and return to the car, humming Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 under my breath.
December ticks (11)
WWT Slimbridge, RSPB Ham Wall, RSPB Dungeness, Strood (Kent), Marshside (Kent), Oare Marshes, Shellness NNR, RSPB Titchwell, Holkham Gap (Norfolk), Docking (Norfolk)
Bewick’s Swan Cygnus columbianus, Glossy Ibis Plegadis falcinellus, Smew Mergellus albellus, Waxwing Bombycilla garrulus, Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis
, Great Northern Diver Gavia immer, Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus, Long-tailed Duck Clangula hyemalis, Black-throated Diver Gavia arctica, Shore Lark Eremophila alpestris, Bean Goose Anser fabalis
Year total: 200
JANUARY 2017
I wake early, memories of Jools Holland’s Hootenanny ringing in my head. It was Roy Wood who did for me in the end. I survived the mountains of food and the flagons of wine. Several rounds of board games couldn’t finish me off. But the sight and sound of the hirsute 1970s pop idol sent me scurrying off to bed like a squirrel being chased off the bird feeder.
I feel surprisingly fresh.
New Year. New hope. New plans.
I spring out of bed and hobble across to the window.
A blue tit hops up from the wall to the branches of the sycamore on the other side, flits around for a few seconds, and bounces off on a secret blue tit mission.
One.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, all praise and huzzahs to the supporters of this book – people who stumped up their hard-earned (I assume) cash to support an idea without really knowing if or when it would appear. It simply wouldn’t exist without your generosity.
The process of writing and producing the book has been pure pleasure from beginning to end. I send a beribboned thank you to everyone at Unbound for making it such a delight, and especially to Scott Pack – without his unceasing support, from commission to delivery, it would never have got off the ground. And without DeAndra Lupu’s calm and seamless guidance, the production phase would have been far more stressful.
In the birding arena I have magpied information from many people. They all deserve my gratitude, but particular thanks go to: Andrew McCafferty, who guided me from robin song to short-eared owl, and kindly checked the manuscript for ornithological idiocies – if any remain, they are mine, not his; Chris and the boys for letting me in; Richard Montagu, who was blameless in the matter of the empty mudflats; David Darrell-Lambert, Peter Alfrey, Alastair Whitelaw and Howard Vaughan, who shared their expertise unstintingly; and the tribe of anonymous birders who provided me with entertainment, enlightenment and arcane snippets of knowledge throughout 2016.
Any writer relies on the support of a network of like-minded individuals, so to my fellow authors, who have given me inspiration and support over the years, I say thank you. There are loads of you, and any attempt at a list would be both long and incomplete. But specifically, I must say thank you to Laura Pritchard. She read this book more than once and guided me gently towards the righteous path – without her patience, generosity and eye for detail it would be much longer and much worse.
Thanks, as always, to Tessa, for her love and support and for letting me do it in the first place; and to Oliver, for all of the above and the pochard to boot.
And finally, to my parents, who, possibly without realising it, got me interested in the first place.
If you would like to support Britain’s wildlife you can find out more from these organisations.
The Wildlife Trusts: wildlifetrusts.org
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds: rspb.org.uk
The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust: wwt.org.uk
The British Trust for Ornithology: bto.org
A NOTE ABOUT THE TYPEFACES
Berling
The Berling font family was designed in Sweden in 1951 by Karl-Erik Forsberg, a Swedish calligrapher, typographer, type designer and artist. It was designed for the Berling Type Foundry in Lund, Sweden, which cast foundry type from 1837 to 1980. Berling is an example of modern typeface art in Sweden in the 1950s, greatly influenced by the Neorenaissance. It is an old-style roman with classic features, such as ascenders that exceed the height of the capital letters.
Waters Titling
Waters Titling, used here for the chapter titles, is an all-caps typeface that looks best at larger sizes. With a high weight contrast between the thick and thin character elements, this typeface is an elegant way to add personality and flair to all-caps text. It was designed in 1997 by Hampshire-born calligrapher and type designer Julian Waters, an artist known for his classical calligraphic roman capitals.
SUPPORTERS
Unbound is a new kind of publishing house. Our books are funded directly by readers. This was a very popular idea during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Now we have revived it for the internet age. It allows authors to write the books they really want to write and readers to support the books they would most like to see published.
The names listed below are of readers who have pledged their support and made this book happen. If you’d like to join them, visit www.unbound.com.
Philip & Man-Lan Adams
Dominic Alldis
Jane Allen
Mark Allen
Enrico Alvares
Lidia Amorelli
Jane Angell
Liz Annal
Jen Ansari
Anastasia Arnold
Keith Ashby
Nigel (for Chris) Atkinson
Philip Austin
John Backwell
Sheena Balmain
Paul Barrow
Keith Bartlett
Nigel Bates
Stephen Baxter
Anne Beitel Thomas
Josephine Bell
Tony Belshaw
Jack Bennett
Jennifer Benwell
John Best
John Bevan
Ned Bigham
Steve Bingham
Katharine Bird
Sam Blade
John-Paul Bogers
Susie Bokor
Martha Bonwitt
Mary Borders
Jeannie Borsch
Alexandra Bowers
Alison Bowyer
Chris Brannick
Rhodri Britton
John Bryant
Lynne Bulmer
Kate Bulpitt
Guy Burkill QC
Geoff Burton
Jonathan Burton and Diana Bickley
Stephanie Butland
David Butler
Janina Byrne
Rachel Calderon
Simon Callaghan
Giles Cambray
Jo Cannon
Car722
George Carbutt
Mallory Carroll
Meriel Cartwright
Barry Caruth
Helen Castley
Rosanna & Estella Charlesworth
Robert Chatley
Levon Chilingirian
Lady Ciara
Adrian Clark
Therese Clark
Wing-Commander Clark
Paul Coleman
Mike Collins
Laurence Collyer
Lesley Cookman
Jeff Cox
Julia Croyden
Charlotte Cunningham
Harriet Cunningham
Nigel Dant
Amanda Davidson
Steve Dawes
Simon de Souza
Alison Deane
Philly Desai
Miranda Dickinson
Angela Dickson
David Divitt
George Dobell
Hans Dols
Maureen Dominey
Marc Dooley
Edgar Dorman
Robert Philip Douglas
Richard Dryer
Jessica Duchen
Steve Dyson
T & R Eaton
Joanna Eberhardt
Hilary Edgcombe
Marti Eller
Ric Elsworth
Tom Elwin
June Emerson
Paul Emmett
Gareth Fairweather
Virginia Fassnidge
Gordon Faultless
Peter Fender
Paul Ferguson
Barry Douglas Fisher
Marion Fleming
Margaret Ford and John Stewart
Lucy Foss
Chris Foster
Tom Frederikse
Katie Fuller
&nbs
p; Mark Galtrey
Andy Gardiner
Viviane and Roger Garland
Lewis Gaston
Gavin Geary
Josie George
Martha Gifford
Matthew Gilbert
Christopher Gillett
Marian Givens
David Goddard
Marcus Goddard
Alan Grant
Lulu Guinness
Francesca Hall
Lauren Hamer
Nathan Hamer
Dan Hamm
Stuart Hancock
Matthew Harries
Meirion and Susie Harries
Milo Harries
Mike Harrison
Lisa Hart
James Harvey
Sheila Hayman
James Heal
Alison Henry
Josh Hillman
John Holland
Samantha Holland
Steph Hovey
Philip Howard
Jacob Howe
Justin Hulford
Alastair Hume
Nick Hely Hutchinson
John & Sally Isaacs
Karen Izod
Sebastian James
Mike Jarman
Nicholas Jenkinson
Paul Jeorrett
Rita Jepsen
Rosie Johnson
Outi Jokiharju
Shirley Judd
Andres Kabel
Christina Kennedy
Dan Kieran
Matt Kingston
Andrew Kirby
Stephanie Kirschke
Amanda Knight
Francesca Knowles
Susan Knowles
Lord & Lady Knucketts
Richard Kuper
Adele Lapwood
Catherine Lee
Chris Lewis
Gwenllian Lewis
Jeremy Limb
Iain Lindsay
Matthew Longhurst
Ellie Loveknickers
Kathryn Lowe
David Lydon
Hugh Lydon
Kiera Lyness
Jane MacArthur
Harriet Mackenzie
Roxanna Macklow-Smith
Stephen Macklow-Smith
Nick Maingot
Robert Maniura
Richard and Helen Mansfield
Fenella Mappin
Quentin Maxwell-Jackson