Twitching Again

The last time I went on an organised bird-watch I was around ten years old and an avid member of the RSPB's youth programme. It must have been around about 1974, certainly before the word twitching was in common parlance. I remember my father dropping me off at Sandy - the RSPB's headquarters, not far from our home in St Albans - where the day was to begin. I was clutching my RSPB membership magazine but didn't have a pair of binoculars. I can't recall much about the bird-watch itself but do remember that, shortly afterwards, enthused by some sightings of ducks at Sandy, I persuaded a relative to adopt a Shoveler for me for my eleventh birthday - a duck that was ringed and whose adoption papers came with the promise that I would be told of its migratory progress through the ensuing years. Unfortunately, I never heard another word about that Shoveler and its photograph soon languished in the bottom of a drawer alongside those rather pathetic adoption papers.

Here I am, it's over forty years later, and I've decided to book myself into a day's bird-watching, led by experts, at Lackford Lakes, a mere twenty minute drive away from the Pink Pig Farm. I book months in advance and as the day, a Sunday, looms nearer, the enthusiasm that made me book has completely disappeared. The idea of watching birds for six hours on a cold Winter's day now isn't appealing at all. I start to worry about the size of my binoculars and whether my shoes fit the brief we've been sent (sensible and warm? I don't own anything that's sensible and warm). There's also the issue of making a packed lunch. I haven't made such a thing for decades and having to make one is making me very anxious. I remember the marmite and cheese sandwiches, Kit Kats and boxes of raisins from my youth but decide to make some feta and red pepper cornbread and be damned as a ponce...

Winter Birdwatch day dawns and the only good thing is that Daniel has to take Sniff for the day whilst I'm twitching. So although I'm up early I'm not up with a dog who hates going out in the cold and resents every step you make him take. After a frantic search for the right sort of tupperware I pack up my lunch (aforementioned cornbread, some pitta bread stuffed with cheese, salad and coleslaw, and an over-large packet of crisps which I intend to share with the 'experts' in order to ingratiate myself and get special twitching tips) and zip off in my filthy car, wearing shoes but probably the wrong shoes, down the A-something-or-other to Lackford Lakes.

The reserve is owned by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, an organisation that seems to be buying up much of Suffolk in a magnificent bid to help nature thrive in these desperate times. And these are desperate times for birds. Only a few weeks ago newspapers were announcing that another four British birds are in danger of extinction - the puffin, the turtledove, the Slavonian grebe and the pochard. Apart from that grebe, these are all everyday-sounding, previously common-as-muck creatures. So the twenty five pounds I have paid to twitch with the experts will hopefully go to help buy another quarter of an inch of fenland or heath or woodland upon which puffins and grebes and turtledoves and pochards can live and breed without fear.

As soon as I arrive at the Education Centre at Lackford Lakes, ten minutes early, I know that I am booked in with a group of real enthusiasts, all of whom seem to know each other already. I can tell immediately because I have the smallest binoculars by far and, despite the fact that I am ten minutes early, I am the last to arrive - these people are itching to twitch. The start time of ten o clock, early by my standards for a Sunday, is late for any proper twitcher and as soon as the big hand on the schoolroom clock reaches the twelve we're straight out the door, half drunk cups of tea willfully abandoned on the altar of ornithology.

The two elderly experts running the day are carrying the most enormous telescopes with which to espy our prey. These gigantic bits of kit and their attendant stands look far too hefty to lug around all day, but our experts are seasoned twitchers and the 'scopes' (as they're referred to constantly) are as essential to them as an arm or a leg. Whatever discomfort they endure will be endured with pride.

Our first destination - some bushes. We are on the hunt for small songbirds as it's the right time of day and we should get the hardest twitching done first, apparently. As I walk beside Expert One, I notice that his 'scope' (I'm catching up with the lingo) has the mark Swarovski on it. Conversationally I say something along the lines of "Oh, I thought Swarovski made crystals not telescopes" and that's it, I'm immediately fingered as a complete novice and a total twat, a role in which I am cast for the rest of the day. If I now point to a blackbird and say what's that, no-one, but no-one, will be remotely surprised.

There are about ten of us signed up to the Winter Birdwatch and I am definitely the youngest. Surprisingly, there are almost as many women as men - which doesn't stop Experts One and Two making many jokes throughout the course of the day about males having all the good plumage etc. etc. This seems to be a twitching thing because none of the women take offence - indeed, they cackle away along with the others. Everyone is very, very sensibly and quite drably dressed and some have elaborate clothing with straps and extra pockets and in-built water bottle carriers all of which helps them carry their heavy equipment and, more importantly, makes them look like experts too. Fortunately, I'd dug out a coat that used to belong to my father - a Karrimor, I think it's called - and I notice with satisfaction that at least three other people are wearing Karrimor too. So I got that right. My own paltry equipment, a small pair of binoculars, is slung round my neck but I keep getting the cord caught up in my scarf and often miss the sightings of x or y "over there, at eleven o clock" whilst struggling to disentangle myself. The shoes I'm wearing are definitely wrong. They were frowned upon in the Education Centre by Expert Two and deemed unsuitable but I explained it was all I had and that they would have to do...

Bird watching often seems to be about lists. So here's mine: Goldcrest, Redwing, Redpoll, Siskin, Bullfinch, Sparrowhawk, Buzzard, Barn Owl, Widgeon, Teal, Pochard, Shoveler (do you think it was my adoptee?), Gooseander, Gadwall, Kingfisher, Cormorant, Little Egret, Heron, Lesser Black Backed Gull, Greater Black Backed Gull, Herring Gull, Common Gull, Long Tailed Duck, Reed Bunting, Long Tailed Tit, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Snipe, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye, Marsh Tit.

I saw them all, folks. In one Winter Birdwatch day.

Some of these birds - the Goldcrest, Redwing, Redpoll - are fairly common but nevertheless are birds I haven't knowingly seen before. My inner twitcher trilled and thrilled to watch them properly. I was also amazed by everyone's dedication to the most ordinary of birds. Remembering that Expert One and Expert Two have been doing this twitching lark for almost fifty years; week in, week out - they travel the country chasing after rare visitors; together they visit the same local reserves time after time after time; they ring and count and watch and wait and they've led countless different expeditions and walks, in the UK and abroad, and yet when, half-way through the day, they find a solitary male bullfinch half-hidden in a bush, managing to train both their 'scopes' on it for a perfect view, they act like proud parents showing off their first child. It was most touching. Bullfinches, after all, are a common as muck garden bird. They must have seen thousands. Yet, this one still excited them and, enthusiasm being catching, us.

Their greatest enthusiasm of the day was not mine. Any expert, One, Two or otherwise, scanning the list above will know immediately that it includes one bird that is unusual for the UK, especially for Lackford Lakes and Suffolk. In fact, there is one bird in that list which hasn't been seen at Lackford Lakes for over twenty years...

It is the Long-Tailed Duck.

It was post-lunch (I'd managed to eat my cornbread without anyone making any adverse comments, chiefly because the other Winter Birdwatch participants were busy watching a kingfisher dive in and out of the pond visible through the Education Centre's windows; there's no time to eat when nature's displaying) and we were ambling alongside one of the lakes. On the other side of the path, beyond the confines of the reserve, was a golf course. Three women were lugging their clubs across the well-kept grass to resume play at the next hole. I wondered whether, if one were to draw a Venn diagram, there would ever be a cross-section between those who play golf (and therefore, in effect, help to destroy the countryside) and those who watch birds. The outfits the golfers wore looked similarly sensible to those the birders were wearing, for instance. Unfortunately, I wondered this all out loud in conversation with a fellow Winter Birdwatcher who simply couldn't disguise his face registering the fact that he thought I was mad and who pointedly got away from me as soon as possible.

My own opinion is that not many people who play golf twitch although I'm happy to be disproved.

I digress.

We stopped by the side of the afore-mentioned lake. Expert One and Two obviously had something special up their sleeves, they were almost hopping from side to side with excitement whilst setting up their scopes. After a few minutes of levering and training and focusing they stepped back from their magnificent equipment. "There it is", they said simultaneously, a few seconds later. We all, all ten of us, looked across the lake. Nothing. "Oh, it's gone," they said. Forty seconds later. "There it is. Further to the right." "Where, where?" we chorused. "No, it's gone," they said.

It was like a Christmas pantomime.

We had to virtually plead with them to tell us what we were supposed to be looking at, they seemed too excited to explain properly. But eventually, after we'd all had a quick glimpse at whatever it was, Expert One explained that what we were looking at was a Long-Tailed Duck. And Long-Tailed Ducks have not graced Lackford Lakes for over twenty years. This, in twitching terms, was an EVENT. And we, lucky amateurs, could witness it.

And sure enough, every forty seconds or so, at a place quite distant from its last appearance (making the training of scopes quite tricky), up would pop said Long Tailed Duck again. It would look about for five seconds or less and then disappear once more leaving us guessing as to its next destination. This was all happening quite a distance away, towards the furthest shore of the lake - really you would never have noticed a thing but for the guidance of Experts One and Two. To complicate matters further for anyone but Experts One and Two, this particular Long Tailed Duck was a female and therefore didn't have a long tail. In fact, as males have all the fun and the plumage and ha ha ha, cue joke, it was quite a dowdy-looking thing.

A little later, as we all trudged passed a solitary serious-looking bird-watcher (twitchers tend to move at a glacial pace when not actually twitching) - a man with the biggest binoculars yet - he kindly pointed out to us (I think this is required twitching etiquette) that the Long Tailed Duck was now preening and cleaning itself and therefore not disappearing every five seconds. Experts One and Two swung their scopes into action and, this time, we all got a good long look at rare duck event extraordinaire. In fact, if we didn't look through the scope for a sufficiently long period of time (step forward Mr Cooper) you were soundly told off for not taking full advantage of said rare duck event.

It was after Expert One told me off that I realised that I would never ever, truly, be a proper twitcher. A rare visitor from abroad (as the Long Tailed Duck is) just wasn't sending shivers down my spine in the way that a common but uncommon to me bird like the Goldcrest did earlier. I could never go chasing up and down the country simply because a Hoopoe has been blown off course and has landed in a puddle in Powys. The idea of getting up in the middle of the night in response to an alarm on my phone telling me that something unusual has been spotted two hundred miles away...well, it's simply not going to happen.

I remain defiantly dilettantish on the edges of the bird world. And I really don't care if I have to ask what anything is. I can now, after all, thanks to asking Experts One and Two, distinguish between five different gulls. Although, come next Winter, I will no doubt have forgotten exactly how to do this. I will remember that male Gadwalls have black behinds. For some reason, I think that fact is going to remain with me for ever.

Our day at Lackford Lakes was to end with a sighting of Gooseanders flying in to settle on one of the smaller lakes for the night. Promising anything in birding terms is rather foolish and, sure enough, the Gooseanders didn't appear as they were supposed to, at four o clock. Dusk was falling rapidly and visibility was decreasing minute by minute and still the Gooseanders didn't appear. Instead, we watched fifteen thousands gulls coming in to roost on another adjacent lake, something they do nightly throughout the Winter now that pig farms and rubbish tips all over Suffolk are providing enough sustenance for them to stay in the UK throughout the colder months. Occasionally something - a buzzard or sparrowhawk perhaps - would disturb the settling gulls and they would rise en masse into the air and circle each other: thousands and thousands of undulating birds over a single expanse of water, looking like a swarm of giant gnats. Slowly the gulls would all descend again and begin to settle on the water for a safe and secure good night's sleep courtesy of those excellent guardians, the  Wildlife Trust.

A call came from the bird hide overlooking the smaller lake. It was Expert Two. The Gooseanders, forty minutes behind schedule, had arrived. My cheap binoculars couldn't cope very well with the deepening gloom, but I'm fairly certain that I just managed to distinguish the dark head of a Gooseander amongst the few remaining Black Headed Gulls (stragglers all) along the far shore of the lake. At least, I assured Experts One and Two that I had and that the day, all in all, had been marvellous. Taking one last look at the thousands of snoozing gulls, I headed off down the track and off home to the Pink Pig Farm once more.