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What's been your "Best ever find" under "challenging" conditions? (1 Viewer)

A special one for me was as I was also mainly sheltering from the rain in October 2008 ( although this was not really challenging ) in a little wooden hide at Marloes Mere, Pembrokeshire and a strange looking warbler popped into view, I had a feeling Of a North American warbler but was not too sure...so legged it back to the B & B to get my scope and camera, as initially I was on my way to go sea fishing off the rocks, having photographed the bird and sent my picture into the local bird recorder he came back to me via E- Mail saying this was a female / Immature Blackpoll Warbler !! and if accepted by the Rarities committee would be the first record for Pembrokeshire and Mainland Wales, it was accepted too ! Unfortunately the bird was not found the following day by the locals

This was just one day in October and a very lucky unexpected find

http://pembsbirds.squarespace.com/s....jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1391856956123



Mark
 
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Self depreciation is a good quality.

Agreed Nick, it's a quality that some on here....also find "too much" of a challenge. :t:


A special one for me was as I was also mainly sheltering from the rain in October 2008 ( although this was not really challenging ) in a little wooden hide at Marloes Mere, Pembrokeshire and a strange looking warbler popped into view, I had a feeling Of a North American warbler but was not too sure...so legged it back to the B & B to get my scope and camera, as initially I was on my way to go sea fishing off the rocks, having photographed the bird and sent my picture into the local bird recorder he came back to me via E- Mail saying this was a female / Immature Blackpoll Warbler !! and if accepted by the Rarities committee would be the first record for Pembrokeshire and Mainland Wales, it was accepted too ! Unfortunately the bird was not found the following day by the locals

This was just one day in October and a very lucky unexpected find

http://pembsbirds.squarespace.com/s....jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1391856956123

Mark

Sounds "challengingly stressful" to me Mark!...the concept of finding BW...then legging it back to the B&B to get scope and camera...like will it still be there when I return? :eek!:....for me that would certainly qualify. :t:
 
in a little wooden hide at Marloes Mere, Pembrokeshire

I've been in that hide.... it was an escape from a thunderous downpour on the way back from seeing Chough at Marloes Sands. Sciatica meant I couldn't run, especially with heavy scope, tripod and bins. I was sodden!

..... does that count?
 
I've been in that hide.... it was an escape from a thunderous downpour on the way back from seeing Chough at Marloes Sands. Sciatica meant I couldn't run, especially with heavy scope, tripod and bins. I was sodden!
..... does that count?

Effort employed in a downpour with heavy optics and "sciatica"....gets my vote Delia. :t:
 
I've been in that hide.... it was an escape from a thunderous downpour on the way back from seeing Chough at Marloes Sands. Sciatica meant I couldn't run, especially with heavy scope, tripod and bins. I was sodden!

..... does that count?

Thank God for that Hide Delia ! ( Mark Britton Hide )...little else there in the way of shelter

mark
 
Hee hee nice one Ken.

I'm mocking my own lack of worth, birding wise. Self depreciation is a good quality.

Some of the stuff on here makes me pretty jealous:)-

A few more may have self deprecation though..........

I imagine self depreciation is probably just another expression for ageing. :king:

All the best
 
Another Challenge springs to mind... when I lost the Hire car keys in a Florida car park, with the other half giving me an ear full, me dripping with sweat due to the humidity, and one eye on a Lifer singing its little heart out from a lamp post with its beautiful fluty song...Northern Mockingbird !
Luckily the keys had been handed in to a receptionist...phew

Mark
 
A few more may have self deprecation though..........

I imagine self depreciation is probably just another expression for ageing. :king:

All the best

Hiking 2 days up the muddy track to Mt Hamut in the Philippines for Whiskered Pitta and a few days in a pig hunters camp there, eating dried fish and rice for 2-3 days, that's a highlight!

Mt Aural in the Cardomom mountains of Cambodia was tough too, hacking through bamboo on a steep slope in 37-39c. I got the most painful sting from the tiniest bee that I've ever seen and it hurt like hell for a week!

Hobbling to Bansang quarry in Gambia with a suspected broken leg after a car crash was another highlight, it wasn't broken in the end though and we got some nice birds too.

All worth it in the end and it makes you feel at though you've earned those occasional, cushy days on a plush verandah, watching hummers somewhere.

A
 
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A few more may have self deprecation though..........

I imagine self depreciation is probably just another expression for ageing. :king:

All the best

Probably true Paul..............though I did spend 2 nights in a cold Fiat Punto before seeing the Stepper Point Gyrfalcon, on the 3rd morning it showed quite magnificently 50 metres away up on the quarry cliff. Stunning views before in the soft morning sunlight before it flew off at 6.20am.
 
Probably true Paul..............though I did spend 2 nights in a cold Fiat Punto before seeing the Stepper Point Gyrfalcon, on the 3rd morning it showed quite magnificently 50 metres away up on the quarry cliff. Stunning views before in the soft morning sunlight before it flew off at 6.20am.

We spent a bloody cold night in our hire car in -15c when we went for the Hawk Owl in Sweden.


A
 
I've got a couple,
A friend who works for the Costa Rican dept of Parks called to tell us he could see a small group of Turquoise Cotingas in the tree outside his office window. We rushed over there to find the elevators out of order. We had to use the stairs.
This counts...right? I mean five floors, come on!

Also,
finding a Red-fronted Parrotlet while on a five hour 3000 foot very steep climb through the bush up the Mountain of Silence in Costa Rica. The scary bit happened at the top when the heavens opened up in a biblical way. The trail (if you could call it that) turned into a raging torrent of water. There was no other way back down so we had to use it as a kind of evil muddy water slide. Got back down in under two hours. Won't forget that Parrotlet in a hurry though.
Bryan
 
Sun Parakeet in Guyana: We were supposed to take a 4-hour ride in the back of a Bedford truck to a staked out parakeet nest. After 6 hours on dirt roads sitting on benches (fortunately padded) in 30-35 degree heat in that truck, we got within 30 minutes of our quarry when we were met by the local tribal leaders who said the road was unpassable. The tribe offered a motorboat ride upriver with no guarantees of finding the bird. What else could we do? It was why we came to that part of Guyana.

We got in the boats, crossed over to the Brazilian side for a small bottle of fuel for the outboards, and headed upriver hoping to find the parakeet. One and a half hours of midday tropical sunshine later, with no parakeets seen nor heard, our tour leader suggested that we pull over and ask the locals if they'd seen any. One of the local guides climbed out and up a 6m high mud bank. As he got to the top of the bank, he said, "I hear them." Eight eager birders scrambled up the mud into a local family's small farm plot. Soon several of them flew overhead. We hung around for an hour for better looks and even had a distant perched bird. All in all we saw 10 or 12 Sun Parakeets. Success!

Unfortunately, then we had to go back the way we came. So it was back in the boats for an hour, after which we wolfed down a lukewarm box lunch, followed by another 6 hour truck ride back to the ranch where we were staying. A long day, but we came home satisfied.
 
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I've got a couple,
A friend who works for the Costa Rican dept of Parks called to tell us he could see a small group of Turquoise Cotingas in the tree outside his office window. We rushed over there to find the elevators out of order. We had to use the stairs.
This counts...right? I mean five floors, come on!

Also,
finding a Red-fronted Parrotlet while on a five hour 3000 foot very steep climb through the bush up the Mountain of Silence in Costa Rica. The scary bit happened at the top when the heavens opened up in a biblical way. The trail (if you could call it that) turned into a raging torrent of water. There was no other way back down so we had to use it as a kind of evil muddy water slide. Got back down in under two hours. Won't forget that Parrotlet in a hurry though.
Bryan

Was with you every inch of the way there Bryan...5 floors in "the heat" at full stretch, with optics, and as for a "no option" mud slide....:eek!: An Olympian challenge by anybody's standards.
 
My effort: a lovely Azure Tit beside a Chinese Army base not far from the border with Afghanistan. Didn't involve any physical effort at all. It was more about explaining myself.
 
My effort: a lovely Azure Tit beside a Chinese Army base not far from the border with Afghanistan. Didn't involve any physical effort at all. It was more about explaining myself.

Yes John....I can remember viewing Little Green Bee-Eaters that were on a wire adjacent to an Israeli "armed" lookout post at Eilat many years ago. I felt somewhat uncomfortable "binocular-ing" both the birds and the military, with the latter doing the same to me. :eek!:
 
Was with you every inch of the way there Bryan...5 floors in "the heat" at full stretch, with optics, and as for a "no option" mud slide....:eek!: An Olympian challenge by anybody's standards.

Hi KenM,
I sure didn't feel very Olympian on the slide down. Just silly for being in that mess over a bird, granted a nice bird but still. I haven't learned my lesson though since I know I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

As to the "five floor climb" the Cotingas were there but not very photogenic (too far away) so no photos as proof of our arduous climb. We concluded later our friend was bored and thought winding us up would be a nice diversion to his work day.
 
I didn't see a first winter Glaucous Gull one January that was stationary and centred in two scopes. I was shivering and my teeth chattering too much. It was in the late 70's and my saturated "waterproofs" were a pair of jeans and a nylon parka. It would have been a lifer. I was so envious of the Barbours being worn by others.
 
I didn't see a first winter Glaucous Gull one January that was stationary and centred in two scopes. I was shivering and my teeth chattering too much. It was in the late 70's and my saturated "waterproofs" were a pair of jeans and a nylon parka. It would have been a lifer. I was so envious of the Barbours being worn by others.

Yes John, It's the "stoic moments" as you've described, that seperate the "birding men"......from the boys! ;)
 
The mention of border fences reminded me of my first Hoopoe Larks in Israel many years ago. Nine Hull birders were doing a clean-up tour of Israel in two Ford Sierras and we knew that Hoopoe Larks could be seen east of the road between Eilat and Yotvata, not sure exactly where. So we parked up early one morning and headed out into the desert. A couple of increasingly hot hours later we had managed our fill of the splendid larks and headed back towards the cars. Two of us ended up with their shirts tied round their heads, and we all had scopes and tripods.

As we got back in view of the cars we realised there were two military vehicles either side of them, and mounted guns pointed at us. Turned out the Israeli soldiers thought we looked a bit suspicious, nine blokes walking in from the direction of the Jordan border, and they were not overly convinced by our explanation but at least they could see we had tripods not guns. I think they might have been kidding us but they told us that the area we had been criss-crossing was an uncleared minefield.

A few days later we were all arrested while watching Houbara (now McQueen's) Bustards. Fortunately we were only held for an hour or so, thanks to an American officer attached to the Israeli army.

Fortunately I don't do that sort of trip anymore.

Steve
 
The mention of border fences reminded me of my first Hoopoe Larks in Israel many years ago.

Fortunately I don't do that sort of trip anymore.

Steve

Nor do I Steve, sadly.....Did you get the HL's singing and displaying? I thought the song was reminiscent of Nightingale in pitch and quality. :t:
 
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