You never know what you’re going to get — and quite often you don’t know what you’re getting while you’re getting it. I was paddling my kayak on the local river in the Broads when two waders flew across just ahead of me, dipped towards the water and flew off. I had them in sight for a second, perhaps half a second longer. No binoculars, of course.
They seemed black against the sky and the water, but showed jaunty white bums as they rose. Just as I was saying to myself “lapwings” they called out, not with an oboe as lapwing should, but with a penny whistle. Birders will already be saying the words “green sandpiper”.
And so was I. They’re not fabulous rarities, but they’re not your everyday birds either, and it was very damn pleasant to meet them. Naturally I looked them up when I got back, and once I had played the call on my phone app there was little room for doubt. Just for reassurance I got in touch with Carl, my personal rarities committee (Carl Chapman of Wildlife Tours and Education), and he gave me a thumbs-up.
There’s a twin pleasure at work here. First the pleasure of observation and ID, a hint of crossword-puzzle solving mixed with the gratification of the hunter. But then something deeper cuts in: delight in the newly-revealed diversity of a place I know well. It’s worth savouring, not least because it’s a reminder that’s that there’s still plenty of stuff out there worth saving.
Well, Simon, you are a very lucky fellah, but at the same time the work you put in creates that luck, please keep putting in the effort!
Luck is the stuff you can’t control. You canlt, then, make your own luck — but you can make the most of it…
Great to have you back Simon. A bit like the delight in the return of our migrants!
AND out there for free too !
Birding has always brought out the detective in me.
Terrific! Simon, have you any idea what the poet Edward Thomas might have heard in “The Unknown Bird” ? According to him, it went La-la-la …
I heard a soft, urgent , repeated double monotone in my Herefordshire garden the other evening. Took me ages to discover that it was a stock dove . Not rare, but I’ve never noticed it before.
20h July 2022
La-la-la!
after Edward Thomas’s “The Unknown Bird”
Alone and cool at last, I sat down on the lawn
and watched the swallows, swifts and martins hunt,
galloping, whirling high above my head.
It was a precious moment, one that better
poets than myself have taken on.
But still, it isn’t rapture that I want to catch;
rather that Edward Thomas came to me
just as an unknown bird began to call.
Out of a beech wood once, he heard a bird
go La-la-la! It sang all May and June,
yet only he could hear, and naturalists
to whom he turned for help could give him none.
I’ve often wondered what it might have been.
What I heard was an urgent two-note plea,
a prisoner’s voice, repeated quietly.
per-lease, per-lease, per-lease, per-lease, per-lease…
I asked my wife if she could hear it, too.
She said she could. If Thomas’s had been
some inner voice, at least mine had a witness
and I had Google as my naturalist.
A common bird, apparently, the stock dove.
I’d simply never noticed it before.
I’m sorry now it isn’t still a mystery.
Terrific poem… and they are, indeed, the most overlooked bird in Britain
Many thanks,Simon
I was there with you Simon. A beautiful rendition of your experience
Lovely post, Simon. I’ve just installed the app Birdnet, which no doubt you are familiar with already? It’s basically an audio recorder – if you hear birdsong, whip it out quick, record it, crop the recording, and press “analyze” – and the audio is sent to Chemnitz for analysis. It comes back very quickly with a result.
Haven’t tried that one — no doubt out of mistaken pride. Plant ID I take all the help I can get
Beautiful