This Birding Life (14 page)

The year's ‘purple patch' came in late April and early May, when despite the chilly weather I added no fewer than ten species to my Lonsdale Road list, including an acrobatic Hobby. During the course of the spring I also recorded seven different species of warbler, each
filling the morning air with song, as if to celebrate a safe return from their African winter-quarters.

In the end, the real joy in patch-watching is the knowledge that I am helping to create a permanent record of the birdlife of one tiny corner of the British Isles. It may not be a famous place for birds, like Minsmere or Cley, nor a remote or majestic one, like Fair Isle or the Cairngorms. But it is still a place where birds come and go, act out the dramas of their daily lives, and continually enthral at least one person passionate about birdwatching.

The other day, as I was cycling along the riverfront at Barnes, I caught sight of a blue plaque on the front of a terraced house – ‘Gustav Holst, Composer, lived here: 1908-1913'. I have no idea how many birds Holst would have seen from his front window, during a quick break from composing. Nowadays there are usually a few gulls, a Mallard or two and perhaps a Cormorant drying its wings at the water's edge.

But this winter has been different. As ponds, lakes and reservoirs froze right across the south-east, the tidal Thames has been a welcome refuge for hungry birds. Although harsh winter weather is usually bad news for birds, it's often good news for birdwatchers, and the recent cold spell was no exception.

My car broke down on Christmas Eve, and for the whole of the holiday period I was reliant on bus and bicycle, and confined to local birding. So I took advantage of both to visit the riverfront regularly.

One bright, cold day, on a visit with six-year-old James and his classmate Sam, we counted a thousand gulls feeding on the exposed mud at low tide. Most were winter-plumage Black-headed, sporting a small black dot behind the eye instead of the dark hood of their
breeding dress. There were also good numbers of plump Common Gulls (once described to me as ‘looking like they'd be better to eat than the Black-headed') and a handful of predatory Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls. The other contender for most numerous bird was the ubiquitous Canada Goose. As a flock of several hundred flew honking over my head at dusk one evening, I could almost imagine myself on a windswept, lonely estuary. Well, almost.

Among the usual flock of Mallards were a score of Teal: Britain's smallest duck, and with its rich chestnut and green head markings, one of our most attractive. Along the riverbank itself there were some unexpected visitors: a splendid male Goosander, and a small flock of Redshank and Dunlin, refugees from the coast.

On New Year's Day, Neil McKillop and I continued our long tradition of rising before dawn to race round the London suburbs – in search of birds, of course. We didn't quite break our all-time record of 71 species, but still managed a very respectable 69, including Smew, Black-necked Grebe, and two introduced aliens, Mandarin Duck and Ring-necked Parakeet.

The best bird of the day came at an unlikely spot: the railway station at Wraysbury. We'd just got back to the car and were enjoying a warming drink, when I noticed a fellow birder watching intently from a tiny bridge over the frozen stream. I wandered over, and he pointed just below the bridge. About ten yards away, a Bittern stood motionless, with its bill pointing in the air. This was probably a bird from the Continent, forced to flee westwards in search of milder weather. Sadly for the Bittern, it had so far failed in its quest.

We watched for a minute or two, when suddenly the bird took a couple of steps forward and disappeared swiftly into a tiny clump of reeds. At that moment, another birder appeared, and we had the unpleasant duty of breaking the news of what he'd just missed.

You always feel better after seeing a bird like a Bittern, and for the rest of the day we walked around like the Ready Brek kids, cocooned in an aura of warmth and well-being.

Almost five years ago, I wrote my very first ‘Birdwatch' column on the subject of gulls. Not, perhaps, the most glamorous or exciting group of birds – until, that is, you take a closer look. In fact, gulls are among the most fascinating, intelligent and adaptable of all wild birds.

They are often labelled with the convenient but inaccurate term, ‘seagulls'. A century or so ago, when gulls were mainly marine birds, that would have been perfectly acceptable. But since then, things have changed dramatically. Nowadays gulls spend much of their lives inland, finding rich pickings among the discarded refuse from our own wasteful lifestyles. During the spring and summer most head north to their breeding colonies. But by early autumn, they begin to return and are a familiar sight in most towns and cities throughout the winter months.

One Sunday morning last month I took my son James and his friend Sam to have a look at the gulls on my local patch. I was showing them how to tell a Black-headed apart from a Common Gull, when another bird flew down to land on the mud. Even at a glance, something wasn't quite right – it was noticeably darker than either of the other two species and had a black mask and a heavy, drooping black bill. I raised my binoculars and to my surprise realised it was a first-winter plumage Mediterranean Gull.

South-west London is a long way from the delights of the Med – so what was this bird doing here? In fact, despite its name, the Mediterranean Gull breeds in scattered locations throughout Europe – including France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In the last 20 years it has even managed to establish a small breeding population here in Britain, mainly among colonies of Black-headed Gulls.

So this bird could, I suppose, have come from almost any direction – north, west, east or south! If I could have got close enough
to read the small metal ring around its left leg I might have discovered a clue to its origins. Unfortunately, I didn't have my telescope with me, and when I came back later the bird had disappeared. With luck, however, it will return. Gulls are creatures of habit, and at this time of year they gather together in flocks, usually in the area where they plan to spend the rest of the winter.

By Christmas there could be as many as a thousand gulls down on the riverfront, but at the moment, there are only a hundred or so. Yet the day I found the Mediterranean Gull there were no fewer than seven different species to be seen. The vast majority were Black-headed, along with a few Common and Lesser Black-backed. But as I walked along the towpath towards Hammersmith Bridge, I noticed a couple of Herring Gulls, and an adult Great Black-backed – a massive, marine gull fairly scarce this far inland.

There were also two birds which until recently might have gone unnoticed. These were Yellow-legged Gulls: distinguished from the superficially similar Herring Gull by their smaller size, darker grey back and wings, and bright yellow legs. Despite their obvious differences, until recently the Yellow-legged Gull was considered to be merely a race of the Herring Gull. Today, however, most birders consider the Yellow-legged to be a separate species.

Like the Mediterranean Gull, it also breeds south of here, on the Atlantic coast of France, and disperses widely after nesting. In recent years it has become an increasingly regular autumn and winter visitor to southern England – and earlier this year I even saw a pair breeding at a secret site on the south coast. So over the next few months I shall keep a close eye on the gulls along the riverfront. Who knows, something even rarer might turn up.

1998–2005

B
y the late 1990s I had come through my mid-life crisis, and it was time to do some serious birding again. I'd also met (and in 2001 married) Suzanne, who came on a ‘Spring Birding' course I was leading for the Field Studies Council. The cryptic reference at the end of the first piece in this chapter was her first appearance in a ‘Birdwatch' column. Many of the accounts that follow reflect the new way in which I had begun to look at birds, with the aid of her fresh imagination, insight and enthusiasm.

Other things changed during this period, too. The annual British Birdwatching Fair became an ever more important event in our lives: a time of recreation and renewal, at which a global community of people come together for a three-day celebration of our shared passion for birds. A truly remarkable event: if you haven't ever been, then make sure you do!

As well as recreational birding, I continued to travel around Britain while making programmes with Bill Oddie: at first for three series of
Birding;
then three more of
Bill Oddie Goes Wild;
and finally for
How to Watch Wildlife
and
Springwatch
. Making television programmes about birds isn't always as exciting as it sounds: you spend more time with the camera crew than you do with the wildlife, and there's an awful lot of what a colleague of mine calls ‘endless, pointless, hanging around for something to happen – God knows what!'