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UK early birding scene (1 Viewer)

JTweedie

JTweedie

Well-known member
I'm currently half-way through Mark Cocker's book Birders: Tales of a Tribe, and I was just wondering if there are any here who were familiar with many of the characters in the book, including Nancy's Cafe, Richard Richardson, Ron Johns, Dick Filby, Billy Bishop? Was anyone here part of that scene during the 70s?

I'm too young to have taken part in such a scene (it's actually quite good to still say I'm too young for some stuff!), but the book presents such a romantic picture of people hitching up and down the country, staying in the strangest of places, and everyone taking turns at answering the phone in Nancy's while spending 40p on a pot of tea.
 
Certainly interesting to read these tales - I found 'Birders' an interesting read too and the Bill Oddie books add to that background as well, I know he had quite a bit of experience of being thrown out of Cley by Billy Bishop back when it was a private marsh.
 
Hi JT,

I used to spend alot of time in Nancy's cafe & it was a good time. Inbetween drinking tea & eating bread pudding alot of time was spent answering Nancy's phone & giving out news of rare birds at Cley & all around the country.
I don't know Mark Cocker myself but was friends with many of the peolpe he mentions in the book, including Dick Philby. Alan Adams, aka Grizz, was also a good friend. It was a tragic loss to birding when he went missing, a great character.
I wasn't around in the 70's on the twitching scene as I started going for rare birds in 1980. It was, IMO, much better then with the old grapevine & fewer twitchers, most peolpe new each other even if just by sight. There were a few idiots then but nothing compared to today. A good read that book, nice one Mark.

Cheers, Neil.
 
Stephen Moss', A Bird in the Bush: a Social History of Birdwatching is also a pretty good read. It gives more comprehensive coverage of birding as a hobby right from its very beginnings.
 
My old man was very much a part of the 70's 'old skool' days, when things sound like they were much better (though in reality at the time they obviously had the drawbacks...). I can't imagine some of the best stories are in any published material though, as I'm sure you can imagine.

As an aside, the art of hitching for rarities (and birding) certainly isn't lost. Though I feel I may be the only one left who gives it a go these days, and that's only when I've got enough "buffer time" to make sure I don't miss a deadline etc. Sad times indeed.
 
Must agree with Parker re: Nancy's bread pudding, marvellous stuff! I think the best thing about the early Eighties was not knowing what was about until you got there, therefore anything even half-decent was a bonus. We used to arrive at Cley, straight to Nancy's, see what was about, then a toss up, cup of tea or go for the rares?
Half the fun of twitches was also finding out what you'd missed, as the grapevine didn't quite reach everywhere. You'd be at the site of a rarity, bump into familiar birders from t'other end of the country (Northerners, you know the sort) and spend a pleasant few minutes gripping each other off (not as much fun as it sounds; thanks Bill) about birds you hadn't heard about.
Birdline ruined it for me.
Phil
 
remember phoning Nancies and then 'Birdline North west' for updates and rarities....

Hides seem to be a sea of Barbour jackets, pre - pager and pre - internet.
 
Parker said:
Hi JT,

I used to spend alot of time in Nancy's cafe & it was a good time. Inbetween drinking tea & eating bread pudding alot of time was spent answering Nancy's phone & giving out news of rare birds at Cley & all around the country.
I don't know Mark Cocker myself but was friends with many of the peolpe he mentions in the book, including Dick Philby. Alan Adams, aka Grizz, was also a good friend. It was a tragic loss to birding when he went missing, a great character.
I wasn't around in the 70's on the twitching scene as I started going for rare birds in 1980. It was, IMO, much better then with the old grapevine & fewer twitchers, most peolpe new each other even if just by sight. There were a few idiots then but nothing compared to today. A good read that book, nice one Mark.

Cheers, Neil.
Click to expand...

I could'nt agree more, they were great day's and sadly will never be quite as good again, back then there were some great personalities David Hunt & Peter Grant RIP are also worth a mention as well as those already, sadly today too many people start birding by going twitching, and time and again I see things on here like, Yellow Wagtail 'new tick' and Black-throated Thrush 'year tick' (example only, but you get the picture), now there is nothing wrong with Yellow Wagtail as a new tick, but back then you started by seeing the commoner stuff first and then progressed into rarities, anyway I'm sorry i've gone off thread, bring back pen & paper, CB radios and good old word of mouth!!
 
chris23565 said:
sadly today too many people start birding by going twitching, and time and again I see things on here like, Yellow Wagtail 'new tick' and Black-throated Thrush 'year tick' (example only, but you get the picture), now there is nothing wrong with Yellow Wagtail as a new tick, but back then you started by seeing the commoner stuff first and then progressed into raritiesQUOTE]

Confession to make! Back in '82, my first year on Scilly, new birds included such unlikely bedfellows as Northern Waterthrush and Scarlet Tanager, along with Merlin and Ring Ouzel!

Phil
Click to expand...
 
JTweedie said:
I'm currently half-way through Mark Cocker's book Birders: Tales of a Tribe, and I was just wondering if there are any here who were familiar with many of the characters in the book, including Nancy's Cafe, Richard Richardson, Ron Johns, Dick Filby, Billy Bishop? Was anyone here part of that scene during the 70s?

I'm too young to have taken part in such a scene (it's actually quite good to still say I'm too young for some stuff!), but the book presents such a romantic picture of people hitching up and down the country, staying in the strangest of places, and everyone taking turns at answering the phone in Nancy's while spending 40p on a pot of tea.
Click to expand...

If you want to see Ron Johns and Dick Filby then they are always on Scilly in October. The other two you mention are sadly no longer alive. Roger
 
Confession to make! Back in '82, my first year on Scilly, new birds included such unlikely bedfellows as Northern Waterthrush and Scarlet Tanager, along with Merlin and Ring Ouzel!

Phil[/QUOTE]

Another place gone to pot, I went from 79 - 90, fantastic times I remember the Scarlet Tanager well, was only talking about that today, don't think there has been another twitchable one since apart from Ireland i'm told.
But each to there own Phil and it's just how I feel about things these day's compared to then, it would be a boring place if we were all the same hey:-O
 
chris23565 said:
Confession to make! Back in '82, my first year on Scilly, new birds included such unlikely bedfellows as Northern Waterthrush and Scarlet Tanager, along with Merlin and Ring Ouzel!

Phil
Click to expand...

Another place gone to pot, I went from 79 - 90, fantastic times I remember the Scarlet Tanager well, was only talking about that today, don't think there has been another twitchable one since apart from Ireland i'm told.
But each to there own Phil and it's just how I feel about things these day's compared to then, it would be a boring place if we were all the same hey:-O[/QUOTE]

Do you remember Cuddy using a black bin liner as a coat at the Tanager? We almost died laughing.

Neil.

ps, The bit that starts "Another place gone to pot" is also a quote,'though I agree, somethings gone wrong!
 
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I used to visit Nancy's cafe quite a bit, and regularly phoned the place, and Walsey Hill for news. It was a completely different world then, to think that it was only 30 years ago or so, yet communications were primative compared to what they are now. We were closer to Victorian times then than we were to the present day! We used to go twitching birds which had been communicated via a network of telephone calls, only to find that when we reached the other end of the country, in some cases the bird hadn't been seen for about 3 days!

Obviously there are many advantages to the great coms we have now, but also disadvantages. The excitement has gone, it's handed to you on a plate these days. When I went to see the Eastern Crowned Warbler last October, I didn't leave in the early hours as I would have done in the past, I waited to see if it was seen first, then left at 9am and had a mate text me all the way there with news. If at any stage he'd have text me negative news I'd have turned back!

The problem these days is that you know what's at a place even before you get there, even quite common species. It seemed much more adventurous back then. With a very little effort, I could find out within the next half an hour, 99% of the birds I would likely see at Cley tomorrow. 30 years ago it would have been 50% at best, and much of that would have been educated guess work. But which would you prefer? To go there in expectation or in hope? I vote for the latter!
 
One of the 'advantages' of living in Aus is that it is very under-watched and not that difficult to have very good sites all to yourself.

I remember birding in the UK in the early 80s. Don't think I could stand the crowds now...
 
It's interesting to read this - thinking aloud I guess that if you wanted you could shun the message boards, sightings pages and pager updates and go old-school to recapture that feeling of the unknown. The thing with the modern technology is that although it can be used to make things far easier than it used to be no-one is actually forcing anyone to use it - it's all voluntary. Anyone that wants to return to the old days needs do no more than switch off their phone, pager and computer (or whatever) and just go out themselves and see what's about, or ring a friend and ask them instead - you don't 'have' to buy into the birdline, internet update, pager, text thing if you don't want to.

I imagine these bird alert services have some kind of website of sightings (I know the RSPB South Essex group has a sightings page updated pretty much daily) so could you check that once, see something interesting that was seen yesterday and just head off with hope? I know it's not the same as ringing Nancy's but would remove the constant updates that take away the thrill of the unknown... but would a modern twitcher be able to stand the not-knowing? Could you resist, knowing the information was there for the asking? ;)

Probably back in the old days there were some bemoaning the fact that people get the information on a plate by ringing up Nancy's... "wasn't it better when you had to have a network of friends and passed information amongst yourselves by letter." |:D|
 
Fozzybear said:
. Anyone that wants to return to the old days needs do no more than switch off their phone, pager and computer (or whatever) and just go out themselves and see what's about, |:D|
Click to expand...

Although I broadly agree with you on this one, it's a bit like saying to a smoker who doesn't really enjoy his habit anymore to "Just stop smoking!" ie. easier said than done.
Also, while this may be the answer on a personal level, it cannot bring back the "scene" itself as it was, which is what I really miss.

Cheers

Phil
 
I remember an uncle of mine who introduced me to Billy Bishop back in May 1977 while on a birding trip to Cley. I was 16 at the time and was in awe of the man. There was this Churchillian figure smoking a Cuban cigar in a hide [imagine someone doing that now]. He spoke to me in a gruff Norfolk accent and I found him friendly and informative. I told him I had just spotted a superb male red spot bluethroat outside one of the hides. He was most intrigued. He then pointed me in the direction of my first Savi's warbler. A decent bloke I thought, though I later heard he could be grumpy and awkward. Typical birder I suppose.

Si.
 
Phil Carter said:
Although I broadly agree with you on this one, it's a bit like saying to a smoker who doesn't really enjoy his habit anymore to "Just stop smoking!" ie. easier said than done.
Also, while this may be the answer on a personal level, it cannot bring back the "scene" itself as it was, which is what I really miss.

Cheers

Phil
Click to expand...

Which is why I said it's not something that would be easy for a twitcher to do, giving up that information to go back to the old ways would be very hard - like me giving up using the internet. :eek!:
 
Phil Carter said:
Although I broadly agree with you on this one, it's a bit like saying to a smoker who doesn't really enjoy his habit anymore to "Just stop smoking!" ie. easier said than done.
Also, while this may be the answer on a personal level, it cannot bring back the "scene" itself as it was, which is what I really miss.

Cheers

Phil
Click to expand...

Hi Phil,

I share your views on the "scene" I'm afraid it's lost & will never return. Back then we all knew each other, as I said in my first post, because of the number of birders regularly twitching rare birds & the scene was very friendly both at the bird & afterwards in the pub, whether it be in The White Horse in Blakeney or The Bishop & Wolf on St Marys. One of the problems that damaged the scene was the increase in numbers of birders & so the increase in d*ckheads & basically ignorant unfriendly people.
We used to spend so much time at Cley it was a second home & some of the parties we used to have at the Beach hotel, after several pints of Merrydown cider in the Horse, were fantastic.

Fozzy,

On a local patch level I agree with your idea of leaving the phone & pager at home, luckily I own niether, but if your somewhere popular you can't aviod other peoples pagers bleedin' beeping & mobiles ringing.
Going back to the scene then & now I s'pose it's a swings & roundabouts situation. Although it can be good to know whats about & when a mega turns up, unfortunately there is some bogus gen that comes on the pagers, as we have beginers who havn't seen several common species claiming to have seen something that is clearly beyond their id skills. Personaly I prefer the old scene but that's just my point of view.

Cheers, Neil.:t:
 
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