Considering that I started birding way back in 1972, I ought to have racked up a pretty impressive list by now. There are several reasons why I haven't. This is partly because of several gafiating periods when I found other things of interest (and once or twice I tried to give it up completely), partly because I've not travelled half as widely as I should have, and partly because I gave up twitching a long, long time ago. This last had a lot to do with a spectacular run of bad luck, the worst case probably seeing a distant crowd of twitchers watching a Long-billed Dowitcher fly away. If the chain hadn't come off my bike on the way to Sandwich, I might have been there with them. I've only very recently added this species to my list.
Still, here it is. Since lists on their own are boring, I've thrown in a few personal anecdotes in a futile attempt to spice it up a bit.
Red-throated Diver
Black-throated Diver - I'm hopeless at divers,
so I rely on other people to point me out the Black-throats. The
only one I satisfactorily identified all by myself was thickly
coated in oil, and so didn't really count.
Great Northern Diver - Actually managed a sum
plum specimen off the Scillies in 1984.
Great Crested Grebe
Red-necked Grebe - Most recently, the Christmas
1997 bird at Minnis Bay, the one decent bird I saw on Christmas
Day that year.
Black-necked Grebe - Tunisia in January seems to
be a good spot for these.
Slavonian Grebe
Little Grebe
Fulmar - The German name for Fulmar is
Eissturmvogel, and I once told some German bloke that they bred
all along the cliffs of Thanet. Unfortunately I got Eissturmvogel
mixed up with Eisvogel, so I probably left the poor sod thinking
Margate was heaving with Kingfishers.
Manx Shearwater
Mediterranean Shearwater - in Tunisia, on a
rather dudey 1992 trip.
Sooty Shearwater - Once only, off Foreness in
August 1983
Leachs Petrel - Ditto, in September 1989. I
always seem to miss the good petrel/shearwater days.
Gannet
Cormorant
Shag
Heron
Purple Heron - Way back when I was at school,
one of the teachers suckered me and a classmate into joining him
for a Nightingale census in the woods around Ashford. After a
long night stalking Nightingales, we got to Stodmarsh soon after
dawn. A heron flew towards us. 'Nice if it was a purp,' said
Dave. And lo and behold, it actually was.
Little Egret - My first lifer on a trip to Spain
in 87, glimpsed from the car on the drive from Algeciras to
Tarifa.
Cattle Egret - Spain 87. True to form, I once
forsook the company of my fellow birders to go dragonfly-watching
with a Belgian odonatist who, like us, was staying in El Rocio,
and consequently missed the one and only Squacco Heron of the
entire trip.
Great White Egret - Stodmarsh, September 1990.
We watched it for ages in the fading light until we realised it
was actually a carrier bag hanging on a bush. The real bird then
put in a very brief appearance. I saw it again a week or so
later, fishing on the fringes of a gravel pit, and very nice it
was too.
Bittern - Minsmere, on a school trip in 1978. I
have never seen any of the regular winterers at
Stodmarsh.
Little Bittern - Cota Donana, 1987. They
instantly shot to right near the top of my list of All Time
Favourites. If you've ever seen one of these dinky little things
flitting over the reeds you'll know why.
Night Heron - Spain, 87, flying away from me as
fast as they could.
White Stork - Crept onto my British list when
one flew over Margate town centre in April 1996. A unique
shopping experience.
Greater Flamingo - It's somehow hard to
appreciate a flock of flamingos when you hardly have to turn your
head to get an eyeful of the slums of Tunis.
Spoonbill
Glossy Ibis - Everyone else counts the Stour
Valley Two of the '80s so I don't see why I shouldn't. Saw one or
other of them on numerous occasions.
Mute Swan
Whooper Swan - On a school birdwatching trip to
Scotland in August 1980, we pulled up alongside the Ythan estuary
just north of Aberdeen (a very nice place, go there if you can).
The biology teacher who'd wangled his way in despite knowing
bugger all about birds tried to convince us that the two nearby
swans were Whoopers. We refused to believe him. Until we took a
look, of course. Moral: Never dismiss a dude simply for being a
dude.
Bewicks Swan
Greylag Goose - Something I very rarely see,
since I flat out refuse to count the feral ones honking around
the Stour Valley. I insist on proper wild Greylags, so
consequently don't see too many.
White-fronted Goose - I suspect these account
for most of the unidentified grey geese I see. And most of the
grey geese I see go unidentified.
Bean Goose
Brent Goose
Barnacle Goose - Somewhere up in Fife. Barnacles
in Kent tend to be of suspect origin.
Canada Goose
Egyptian Goose - Acquired in Suffolk on the
Snowy Owl twitch of 1991.
Shelduck
Ruddy Duck
White-Headed Duck - Spain, 87. And full marks to
the local wildlife ranger who somehow made sense of the garbled
questions I was putting to him (I failed the O-level at school,
mainly due to walking out of the oral exam).
Mallard
Teal
Garganey - They appear every spring at
Stodmarsh. And every year I fail to see them. Until 1994, when I
finally got one.
Marbled Duck - Cota Donana, 87.
Wigeon
Gadwall
Pintail
Shovelor
Tufted Duck
Pochard
Scaup
Ferruginous Duck - Lac Ichkeul, Tunisia, January
1992. And I actually found it for everyone else to enjoy.
Red-Crested Pochard - Spain 87.
Common Scoter
Velvet Scoter
Eider
King Eider - The Broadstairs female, October 96.
A surprisingly smart bird, though if I ever scrutinised ordinary
Eiders as closely as I did this one, I would probably find they
were rather smart as well.
Long-Tailed Duck
Goldeneye
Goosander
Red-Breasted Merganser
Smew
Osprey - Scotland, on the 1979/80 school trips.
Griffon Vulture - Spain.
Egyptian Vulture - Spain.
White-tailed Eagle - The Brill (Oxfordshire)
bird of January 1984. I mainly remember the horsey women clomping
through perfect Thelwell country, regaling the scruffy hordes of
twitchers. 'I say, have you seen it today? I haven't seen it for
nearly a week.' Being gripped off by other twitchers is bad
enough, but when it's the general public...
Golden Eagle - Glen Clova, on the eastern side
of Scotland. Two visits, two hits within minutes.
Spanish Imperial Eagle - More of a Spanish
Imperial Speck, to be honest.
Booted Eagle - Spain.
Bonnelli's Eagle - Spain and Tunisia.
Short-Toed Eagle - Spain.
Red Kite - One considerately flew over Northdown
Park while I and hordes of others were searching for the elusive
Collared Flycatcher of 1984. (I never saw the Collared, being in
Scotland when it turned up.)
Black Kite - Spain. British litter bins get
raided by crows and gulls, Spanish ones by Black Kites. Unless
the village green is getting torn up by teenage girls on their
mopeds (Lara Croft eat your heart out).
Buzzard - Finally made it to my Foreness list in
April 1998, possibly making me the last local birder to get a
Buzzard at Foreness.
Rough-Legged Buzzard - One only, at Elmley, on
Sheppey, in October 1980.
Long-Legged Buzzard - Tunisia 92.
Honey Buzzard - May 1994, being hassled by a
crow over Northdown Park. One of those right place/right time
moments that keeps you birding. Another bird lurked around
Margate for a few days that autumn, and I managed to see it
twice.
Marsh Harrier
Hen Harrier
Montagu's Harrier
Sparrowhawk - One (probably a tired migrant)
recently decided to rest up in the warehouse of the factory where
I work. The charge hand took me down to take a look at it, after
being assured that it wouldn't go berserk and try to savage us.
The fork-lift driver managed to catch it at the end of the shift
and took it to a local vet. Apparently it recovered nicely.
Kestrel
Lesser Kestrel - Spain. Just the one (but when
the list is The Thing, you only need one).
Hobby
Merlin
Peregrine
Barbary Falcon - Tunisia
Lanner Falcon - Tunisia again.
Gyrfalcon - Foreness, April 29th 1979. A casual
afternoon stroll up the clifftop which I nearly didn't take
because of the weather (squally hail showers and stuff). And
suddenly there it was, this huge white thing looming up ahead. It
flapped lazily over a concrete post and might even have settled
if there hadn't been a horde of gulls mobbing it. So it drifted
on westwards, leaving me mentally adrift. A first for Kent,
though I wasn't the first to see it (two birders had found it at
Folkestone the previous day).
Capercaillie - Rothiemurchus forest, in the
Cairngorms, on the 1979/80 school trips.
Black Grouse - The western end of the Ochil
hills, above Stirling. I spent three years in Stirling, and found
that they liked to roost in the forestry plantations beside the
reservoirs. Never tracked down a lek, though.
Red Grouse
Ptarmigan - Carn Ban Mor, Grampian, 1980.
Pheasant
Partridge
Red-Legged Partridge
Barbary Partridge - Tunisia, 1992.
Quail - I must have heard dozens of these before
one finally showed itself in June 1989. Flying away, naturally,
over a wheat field behind Birchington. Another flew in front of
me at St Nicholas nine days later, and I haven't seen one since.
Crane - January 10th, 1985 - a party of four
flew overhead at Pegwell village, heading for Sandwich. Also
Tunisia.
Little Bustard - One, very briefly, near Cordoba
in 1987.
Moorhen - There was a resident bird at my
primary school for several years. I used to see it at the far end
of the football field on my way home.
Coot
Purple Gallinule - Cota Donana, 1987, at a
nature reserve between El Rocio and Matalascanas.
Water Rail
Baillon's Crake - The Grove Ferry bird, July 1999. I
sidled up to the knot of twitchers on the path, forlornly noting
that their collective interest wasn't exactly focussed on
anything. "I take it it's not showing," I murmured to
the nearest birder. Before he could get so much as a word out,
'it' scuttled out of the reeds twenty yards away for a
hyperactive bout of fly chasing.
Oystercatcher
Avocet
Collared Pratincole - Spain
Cream-Coloured Courser - Tunisia. A very
obliging specimen, offering excellent views from the roadside.
Our tour guide impishly tried to dissuade us from following it by
telling us that the straggly fence a hundred yards away was the
Libyan border.
Lapwing
Sociable Plover - Dartford, March 1985,
desperately trying to dodge lots of radio-controlled model
aeroplanes.
Ringed Plover
Little Ringed Plover
Kentish Plover
Killdeer - Bo'ness, March 1983. The one bird I
properly twitched in all my time at Stirling. Worth it, though.
Grey Plover
Golden Plover
Dotterel - Carn Ban Mor, 1979 and 80. We spent
ages trying to string a lone Golden Plover into an immature
Dotterel, then crested a ridge and found a party of a dozen
adults.
Turnstone
Woodcock
Snipe
Jack Snipe
Curlew
Whimbrel
Bar-Tailed Godwit
Black-tailed Godwit
Long-billed Dowitcher - My first tick of 199.
The Grove Ferry bird first appeared in February, though I didn't
hear about it until late April. And then I clocked off after one
night shift at the end of the week and headed straight for Grove
Ferry. The bird was there, but I would never have seen it if
another birder hadn't turned up with a scope.
Redshank
Spotted Redshank
Greenshank
Green Sandpiper
Wood Sandpiper - A fitting present for my 17th
birthday, at Westbere in the Stour Valley.
Marsh Sandpiper - Tunisia, 1992. A lone specimen
blithely pottering through a limitless wasteland of mud beside an
incredibly busy road. On the other side of said road was what
must have been the biggest car-breakers yard in North Africa.
Birding - you can't beat the romance!
Common Sandpiper
Sanderling
Dunlin
Purple Sandpiper
Curlew Sandpiper
Little Stint
Pectoral Sandpiper - Scillies, 1984. My one and
only day on the Scillies was spent on St Mary's. All the rare
birds were on other islands. (The Solitary Sandpiper left St
Mary's about the moment I arrived, and although I could see a
horde of twitchers watching a Scarlet Rosefinch, it too had gone
by the time I reached them.)
Least Sandpiper - Dungeness, August 1984, slowly
dying in front of one of the hides.
Knot
Ruff - My favourite Ruff sighting is of an
immature that spent a morning chasing flies around a large heap
of rotting seaweed on North Foreland golf course.
Grey Phalarope - Most recently, November 1996. I
staggered out after a day in hospital having a wisdom tooth
removed, and found this sitting on the sea. It hung around for
several days.
Red-Necked Phalarope - Stodmarsh, though I have
no memory of when. I remember composing a LOC to the Blakes 7 fan
club newsletter as I cycled out there, and that I was working as
a lab tech at the time, so it must have been the summer of 91 or
92. But my enthusiasm for birding had hit a major low by then and
my notebook remained empty.
Great Skua
Arctic Skua
Pomarine Skua
Long-Tailed Skua - Foreness, August 11th 1986.
An adult with full tail streamers settled on the end of the rocks
for several minutes.
Greater Black-backed Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull - These nest on the
roof of the factory where I work.
Glaucous Gull - My first one was at Foreness, on
the rather unseasonable date of July 21st.
Iceland Gull - Most recently, the 2nd winter
bird at Foreness towards the end of April 1998. A pleasant find
after a 12-hour night shift.
Herring Gull
Common Gull
Slender-Billed Gull - Spain and Tunisia.
Black-Headed Gull
Little Gull
Mediterranean Gull - For a long time one of my
bogey birds. I was beginning to think I'd never see one. And
then, once I did, they suddenly seemed to be everywhere. The
mystique was finally dispelled when I came across two scrabbling
for breadcrumbs on the promenade. The dudes feeding the birds had
no idea what they'd attracted.
Sabine's Gull -Ramsgate Harbour, December 1984.
A chance for me to prove that no matter how close the bird is,
you can't take decent snaps of it with a 110 instamatic.
Kittiwake
Sandwich Tern
Caspian Tern - Spain.
Common Tern
Arctic Tern
Roseate Tern - I hate terns, or anything else
remotely 'difficult', so I got someone competent to point me out
a couple of Roseates in Pegwell Bay, then ticked them off and
pretended they don't exist.
Little Tern
Black Tern
White-Winged Black Tern - Dungeness, August
1984, on the trip to see the Least Sandpiper. The motor boats
racing round the gravel pit were a bit of a distraction, but the
bird itself was very amenable.
Whiskered Tern - Spain, 1987. Suddenly they were
there, hordes of them, just outside the car window.
Guillemot
Razorbill
Puffin
Little Auk - Another bogey bird. I have seen
precisely four, but one of them was from my balcony.
Wood Pigeon
Stock Dove
Collared Dove
Turtle Dove
Palm Dove - Tunisia.
Pin-Tailed Sandgrouse - Spain. Also Spotted
Sandgrouse in Tunisia, but in a rare fit of conscience I decided
not to tick them since I couldn't identify them for myself (they
were a very long way away).
Cuckoo
Great Spotted Cuckoo - Spain. Couldn't study
them too closely because I was too busy watching my feet, trying
not to trample the natterjack toads crawling around everywhere.
Barn Owl - My first and best Barn Owls were two
flitting along the railway line in broad daylight at Reculver,
January 1975.
Tawny Owl - I once managed to tick this off two
years in succession by the simple method of standing under a tree
for five minutes at midnight on New Year's Eve. But the best was
one in broad daylight, sitting on a television aerial in the
middle of Bridge of Allan, immaculate against the freshly fallen
snow. Then it saw me and flew off.
Short-Eared Owl
Long-Eared Owl
Little Owl
Snowy Owl - Skegness, February 1991. Probably my
last proper twitch. We got there, found the bird sitting on a
concrete pipe half a mile away, and settled down on a muddy bank.
Our general mood was, 'Well, we've come all this way, we might as
well enjoy the thing.' So we sat and tried to enjoy it for forty
minutes, in which time it did precisely nothing.
Swift
Alpine Swift - My first was flying over a
cabbage field behind Margate in July 1980, but I never submitted
it since I only had the briefest of views. Since then I've
confirmed them as a British tick thanks to the two who took a
liking for the Broadstairs cliffs in March 1988, though in the
interim I also managed to see them in Spain.
Pallid Swift - Spain
Ring-Necked Parakeet - People have been known to
visit Thanet just to see these. And others have been known to
leave Thanet just to get away from them. A useful tick if you're
going for a hundred species in a day.
Kingfisher
Bee-Eater - Spain
Roller - Spain. I took a detour from the
mountain path to avoid the very menacing looking bull watching me
approach, and bumped into a couple of Rollers. Couldn't enjoy
them too much, though, as I was too busy watching out for the
bull.
Hoopoe - Spain again, in 1987, though a few
months later one obligingly landed on the road in front of me as
I was cycling home from work. Most recently, Tunisia, on a
drizzly January morning down by the hotel beach. It could almost
have been Essex, what with the weather, the skuas over the sea
and the Golden Plover in the fields behind us. Almost, but not
quite, since the huddled flock of gulls on the shore were all
Mediterraneans, and a Hoopoe had found an exciting pile of
seaweed to rummage through.
Green Woodpecker
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
Wryneck - The disused railway embankment behind
Dreamland amusement park used to be the place for seeing
Wrynecks, but unfortunately this excellent bit of scrubland has
now been turned into a housing estate.
Skylark
Woodlark
Calandra Lark - Spain and Tunisia.
Short-Toed Lark - Spain. In the spring, so just
odd males singing here and there.
Lesser Short-toed Lark - Tunisia. In the winter,
so flocks of several hundred at a time.
Crested Lark - I first caught up with these on a
day trip to Dunkirk. I don't care if I never see one again.
Thekla Lark - I'm taking someone else's word on
this one. He could reel off a whole catalogue of reasons why this
one particular lark halfway down a cliff on the Tunisian coast
was a Thekla and not a Crested. All I could see was that it
looked a bit 'different' in some way or another.
Desert Lark - Tunisia. Definitely a country to
visit if you like lots of drab little larks.
Bar-Tailed Desert Lark - See Desert Lark.
Shore Lark - My first was at Reculver in
December 1978, and my next sighting was in almost exactly the
same spot - only sixteen years later. Something of a bogey bird.
Temminck's Horned Lark - Tunisia. Like Shore
Lark, an unsual species of lark in that it is quite attractive to
look at.
Hoopoe Lark - And this one doesn't deserve to be
a lark at all. A cracking little bird, though my views of it were
a bit marred by uncontrollable shivering. I know the Sahara
Desert can get very hot at times, but at the crack of dawn in
January it is bloody cold.
Swallow
Red-Rumped Swallow - Spain, inevitably, but also
Foreness in November 1990.
House Martin
Sand Martin
Crag Martin - Spain and Tunisia, but hardly the
highlight of either trip.
Meadow Pipit
Tree Pipit
Rock Pipit
Water Pipit
Olive-Backed Pipit - Sandwich Bay, October1988.
Tawny Pipit - Foreness, September 1981. I
managed to find this one all by myself, and promptly displayed my
ornithological acumen by not having a clue what it was.
Richard's Pipit - Foreness, December 1978. I
managed to be away on all the Richard's Pipit days of
the early 1980s. One year I just happened to be playing Dungeons
and Dragons throughout the one weekend they came through.
Pied Wagtail
Grey Wagtail
Yellow Wagtail
Common Bulbul - Tunisia. The good thing about
birding abroad is the way even hotel car parks can be worth a
visit. They're supposed to be especially visible in the
Carthaginian ruins, but those of our party who paid a visit drew
a blank. The rest of us went down to the beach to do some
seawatching instead, and were promptly pounced on by armed
security police telling us not to point our telescopes at the
presidential palace.
Great Grey Shrike - Margate Cemetery, October
1978. The first good bird I found for other people to enjoy. And
since this one hung around for almost a week, quite a few people
got to enjoy it. I've seen others since, but never as good as
this first one. In Tunisia, of course, they're everywhere.
Red-Backed Shrike - I particularly remember
1984, as that was the autumn when I managed to find two of these
in less than a fortnight. Unfortunately I haven't seen once
since.
Woodchat Shrike - An immature at Foreness in
October 1984. True to form, I was away when all the good stuff
came through, and by the time I got back this was the only decent
bird left to see.
Isabelline Shrike - North Foreland, in my
noteless period of the early 1990s. A vital tick, this, since my
parents had managed to grip me off with one down in the west
country some years earlier.
Waxwing - A flock of these flew up at my feet
just outside Manston in November 1988. Not that I was birding at
the time - instead I was planting trees as part of some Jobless
Total Reduction Programme, and only found the birds because I
skived off to buy a packet of crisps.
Golden Oriole - May 1980 - I managed to blunder
into a pair of these in a small copse deep in the heart of
Thanet's endless cauliflower fields. They hung around for four
days, eventually moving to the nearby cemetery.
Starling
Spotless Starling - Another Spain tick, from the
car on the way from Algeciras to Tarifa. The best view of one I
had was also from the car, during the Great Creperie Debate (aka
'There's got to be a cheap restaurant somewhere around
here').
Magpie
Azure-Winged Magpie - Spain, of course, and I
couldn't get enough of these fantastic birds. We first found them
skulking in a wood infested with hordes of picnicking
schoolchildren, but at El Rocio they would just hop about on the
woodland paths in front of us.
Jay
Carrion Crow
Jackdaw
Rook
Raven - Scotland, and more recently Exmoor. I
missed the Foreness bird, but that was no great loss since when
it flew in off the sea it promptly landed at the nearest birder's
feet and said 'Hallo!'. Real proper wild Ravens tend not to do
this.
Brown-Necked Raven - Tunisia, in the same
bone-chilling foot-stamping Sahara morning that gave us Hoope
Lark and Desert Wheatear.
Chough - Spain. Yet to see a British one.
Wren
Dunnock
Dipper - One of my favourite birds. I used to
feel cheated if I walked the river between Bridge of Allan and
Dunblane without seeing one.
Cetti's Warbler
Grasshopper Warbler
Savi's Warbler - Stodmarsh, 1980. I only hung
around long enough for it to show itself so I could tick the damn
thing off.
Sedge Warbler
Aquatic Warbler - Foreness, 8th August 1983. One
flew in off the sea and settled in the wild mustard and sea beet
growing just outside the seawatching hide.
Reed Warbler
Marsh Warbler - I found my first one of these at
Pegwell in 1979. I was doing my O-levels at the time, and since I
had one exam first thing in the morning and another in the late
afternoon, I decided I could either spend the time in between
revising or walk to Pegwell and back. So I went to Pegwell and
had a Marsh Warbler.
Great Reed Warbler - Spain, singing from some
great reeds along the banks of the Guadalcuivir. Living proof
that size isn't everything, since they are if anything even more
boring than ordinary Reed Warblers.
Fan-Tailed Warbler - Twice in France, once in
Spain, and again in Tunisia, and every time they've just been
noisy little specks bounding over the reeds.
Scrub Warbler - A surprise bonus during an
abortive hunt for Houbara Bustard in the Tunisian desert.
Unfortunately the light was fading so we couldn't get a proper
look at them.
Icterine Warbler
Melodious Warbler - Spain only.
Whitethroat
Lesser Whitethroat
Garden Warbler
Blackcap - The best place for wintering
Blackcaps that I know of seems to be Central Scotland. I once saw
three or four flitting through the snowflakes in Bridge of Allan.
Barred Warbler - Foreness, September 1986.
Dartford Warbler - Seemed destined to remain a
Spain-only tick until I nearly stepped on one at Foreness Point
in December 1994. Most recently I found a male singing on Exmoor
in April 1998.
Sardinian Warbler - Spain.
Orphean Warbler - Spain, and while I was busy
chasing it through the olive groves, everyone else saw the one
and only Rufous Bushchat of the trip.
Subalpine Warbler - Tunisia.
Tristram's Warbler - I'd never even heard of
these until they were swarming all around us in the Tunisian
scrub.
Spectacled Warbler - One, somewhere between
Tozeur and Douz in the heart of Tunisia.
Desert Warbler - Tunisia yet again, in the
proper Sahara (if only just). Actually we were looking for Desert
Sparrow. We never got them, but this smart little bird was fair
compensation.
Willow Warbler
Chiffchaff
Wood Warbler
Bonelli's Warbler - Spain.
Greenish Warbler - Another of those birds I
managed to find without knowing exactly what it was (though
Greenish was top of my list of suspects). Fortunately
someone more genned up than me got to confirm it. This one was in
the park I used to walk through every day after my morning stint
as a school cleaner. Normally I was lucky to see a Chiffchaff, so
this particular morning (September 1996) made a welcome change.
Dusky Warbler - Margate seafront, November 1993,
in an overgrown building site on the clifftop. Not exactly a
twitch since it was little more than a 30-minute walk from my
front door.
Yellow-Browed Warbler - I went for years
thinking I was never going to see one of these. Then I went for
years thinking I was never going to see more than brief glimpses
in the canopy. And then, in 1994, I had seven bird-days in the
space of a fortnight, all in the parks I walked through on the
way home from work. One in Tivoli Park was exceptionally
amenable. Mind you, I've only seen one since.
Pallas' Warbler - Another bird I thought I'd
never get. Then I found a possible in Northdown Park on 1993. It
was only a 'possible' because the sky was black with cloud and
the wind hitting gale force, hardly ideal conditions for
identifying little green flittery things. Fortunately the next
day was calm and sunny, and the Pallas' was no longer possible,
but definite.
Goldcrest
Firecrest - Common, maybe, but probably my
all-time favourite bird.
Spotted Flycatcher
Pied Flycatcher
Red-Breasted Flycatcher - St.Mary's, in the
Scillies, October 1984. I just had time to tick it off before
rushing down to the harbour to catch the boat back to the
mainland. And I've only had one since.
Wheatear
Black-Eared Wheatear - Spain.
Mourning Wheatear - Tunisia.
Red-Rumped Wheatear - Tunisia. My ability to
separate the various desert wheatears left me round about the
time I boarded the plane home, which suggests how much they
failed to impress me.
Black Wheatear - Tunisia.
White-Crowned Black Wheatear - Tunisia again. I
also had one of the black wheatears in Spain, but I forget which.
Desert Wheatear - Tunisia, just outside Douz in
the biting chill of dawn.
Stonechat
Whinchat
Redstart
Black Redstart
Moussier's Redstart - A very pretty bird indeed,
much nicer to look at than all the boring larks and other stuff
infesting the Tunisian interior.
Rock Thrush - Spain. I can thank a panic attack
for these - we were at the top of a rather high hill watching
Black Kites on the move, and the ground fell away so steeply on
all sides that it looked almost sheer (it wasn't, but it looked
that way). And the hilltop itself was sloping, so the valley
floor rose up ahead in a rather dizzying way that forced me to go
and sit down on a nice safe rock, which just happened to be near
a bush, which just happened to attract a pair of Rock Thrushes.
Blue Rock Thrush - Spain and Tunisia, and not
half as impressive as the books would have you believe.
Nightingale - Over the years I've managed to
rack up an impressive catalogue of Nightingale sightings: bits of
wing, flashes of tail, the odd foot here and there. Every now and
then one makes a ghastly mistake and lets me see it in its
entirety.
Robin
Blackbird
Ring Ouzel
Song Thrush
Missel Thrush
Redwing
Fieldfare
Fulvous Babbler - Oneof the more remarkably
nondescript members of the Tunisian avifauna. I mainly remember
the horrible noise they made as we blundered through a smelly
rubbish tip in the half-dark.
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Coal Tit
Marsh Tit
Willow Tit
Crested Tit - Scotland, naturally. A shame you
don't get them elsewhere in Britain, since they are rather smart.
Long-Tailed Tit
Nuthatch
Treecreeper
Short-Toed Treecreeper - Calais, in the wood
beside a noxious chemical works. Also Sandwich Bay, October 1988.
The chaps at the Observatory assured me that it was the only
treecreeper in that particular plantation, so the treecreeper I
saw there must have been the Short-Toed.
Bearded Tit
House Sparrow
Spanish Sparrow - One way to panic the security
guards at Tunis airport is to stalk around at night with a pair
of binoculars trying to get a decent floodlit view of the
roosting sparrows, because they look awfully like Spanish
Sparrows. Eventually, though, we decided they were more likely
Spanish/House hybrids and not a Proper Tick. But the ones outside
the hotel at Douz looked Spanish enough for us, so we ticked
them.
Tree Sparrow
Rock Sparrow -Spain and Tunisia.
Chaffinch
Brambling
Bullfinch
Hawfinch - When I first went to Stirling
University I was told that there were plenty of Hawfinches in
Bridge of Allan. It took a year before I was convinced. But then
nobody told me to forget the woods and try the edge of the
housing estate instead.
Greenfinch
Goldfinch
Linnet
Twite
Redpoll
Arctic Redpoll - The second accepted Kent record
was on December 21st 1979. There we were, huddling under the
coastguards in a raging blizzard, when a redpoll called as it
flew over. Since it seemed to have pitched down just round the
corner of the building, I evinced a desire to go and look at it.
This persuaded the others to come with me and realise it wasn't
just any old redpoll but an Arctic. Which makes me wonder about
all the other redpolls I've seen that were just splots in the air
that called once in passing.
Siskin
Serin
Crossbill
Scottish Crossbill - In Scotland, naturally.
Since I've never had Parrot Crossbill I don't need to fret about
the exact taxonomic status of this species. These days I'm past
caring anyway; the bird knows what it is.
Trumpeter Finch - Enter the vast emptiness of
the North African desert. Drive through the infinite wilderness.
And make straight for the nearest village rubbish heap, because
there's nothing like a pile of rusty old tin cans to attract the
birds. The lone Trumpeter Finch tried to sneak through using the
striking White-crowned Black Wheatear as a distraction, but we
didn't fall for it.
Corn Bunting
Reed Bunting
Yellowhammer
Cirl Bunting -Spain.
House Bunting - Tunisia. Something to look at
whilst our tour leader haggled over the price of wine.
Rock Bunting - Spain.
Snow Bunting
Lapland Bunting
That's a not-terribly-grand total of 347 species, hardly impressive for 27 years. 270 of these have been in Britain, and 251 in my home county of Kent.
As with most lists, there are a few dodgy things begging to be added. A free-flying pair of Mandarin Duck in Tivoli Park went as far as nesting in 1975. The Ruddy Shelducks in Pegwell some time in the early 1980s were reckoned by some to be genuinely wild. And the Citrine Wagtail at Sandwich Bay, May 1990, hung on in there until my conscience got the better of me (I was all alone when I saw it, the day after it was reckoned to have left, if indeed I really did see it at all). I could also claim to have seen Yellow-legged Gull, but my only sightings were in the days before they were split from Herring Gull so I didn't really take much notice of them. The thought of adding Feral Pigeon to my list has always filled me with unaccountable nausea, despite the unlikelihood of me ever seeing a real genuine truly wild Rock Dove. And the same fit of uncharacteristic conscientiousness that barred the Spotted Sandgrouse from my list also put paid to the Pallid Harrier I saw (well, glimpsed) earlier on the same day. I didn't even get the chance to see it was a harrier before it was gone. Some of the more rugged souls in our party struggled with the few details they did get to see, and weeks later pronounced it as an immature male Pallid. Once upon a time, I would have cared...