Your top ten Birding memories...... (1 Viewer)

Great thread!

1) Raptor watching on the Isle of Antikythera, Greece. The first few days were quiet, then a thunderstorm from the north brought them in... 100ds of Marsh Harriers, Honey Buzzards, Steppe Buzzards, Lesser Kestrels, Red-footed Falcons, Hobbys, Short-toed Eagles, Long-legged Buzzard etc... all were joined by 10s of Eleonoras Falcons, the local Raven and Bonnelli's Eagle pair. At the same time the bushes were literally boiling with Orioles, Quail, Turtle Doves, Robins, Whinchats, all five species of European Flycatcher and too many warblers and wheatears to go through!
2) Hand feeding my first Crimson Rosellas, Rainbow Lorikeets and Australian King Parrots at Pebbly Beach, NSW Australia
3) Having two active nests of Blackbirds, 1 nest of Collared Doves, 1 nest of Sardinian and 1 nest of Eastern Olivaceous warbler in the backyard. Waking one morning to find Wood Warbler, Nightingale and Collared Fly in the backyard. The Nightingale sat for a night and in the morning was heard singing above the cacophony of the construction work occurring next door.
4) Getting Spangled Drongo (scarce migrant through my area), Australian Little Bittern (12th record for my area), Little Friarbird (1st Record for my area) in the space of three days in the Eurobodalla Shire, NSW south coast
5) Having a family variagated fairy wrens literally 20 ft form my face... those males are splendid!
6) Observing Scarlet Honeyeaters nest building.
7) Doing a pilot survey of my three study sites for my Ph D and discovering that one hosted Lesser-crested Terns, Jabirus, Brolgas, Australian Bustards, Orange and Red Chats, White-breasted Whistlers, Rainbow Bee-eaters, Collared Kingfishers, Red-backed Kingfishers and a lot of other stuff... Oh several active Osprey nests...
8) chasing the Galahs age 4 in Canberra Australia.
9) This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59TDB2bTuAA&list=UU45UQOQhsPOp2uyMUDKofig&index=1&feature=plcp
10) At my third study site seeing 50,000-60,000 shorebirds, 6,000 cormorants and 3,000 Pelicans. The mangroves were literally exploding with birds as we passed by in the tinny

Larry Wheatland said:

only 3 of us saw the Bee-eater, making the car journey back home a rather silent affair, even though I wanted to burst with excitement. (I'm still sorry Gavin Haig if you're reading this) Luckily they became commoner.

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Blimey, Larry, if it was me & my twitching pals there'd have been non-stop p*ss taking - and it would still be going on today!

Dimitris said:

Great thread!

1) Raptor watching on the Isle of Antikythera, Greece. The first few days were quiet, then a thunderstorm from the north brought them in... 100ds of Marsh Harriers, Honey Buzzards, Steppe Buzzards, Lesser Kestrels, Red-footed Falcons, Hobbys, Short-toed Eagles, Long-legged Buzzard etc... all were joined by 10s of Eleonoras Falcons, the local Raven and Bonnelli's Eagle pair. At the same time the bushes were literally boiling with Orioles, Quail, Turtle Doves, Robins, Whinchats, all five species of European Flycatcher and too many warblers and wheatears to go through!

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Wow !!!!

halftwo said:

Wow !!!!

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Yeah, getting 27 species of raptor on one day was pretty amazing. We had all four harrier species in a single scope view and I had two lesser spots and two short toes 3 meters above my head. I couldn't sleep that night

Edit: and the banding station was so busy that they had to take down two of the nets... At least they brought back a Scops Owl for us to see.

Edit 2: And migrating Little Bitterns sound like frogs!

no order to this but

#4 Walking round the corner on a narrow forest trail to see a Cassowary walking along the trail towards me maybe 20m away. Totally terrifying and euphoric at the same time. I'd been staying at Mission Beach for a couple of weeks and had failed to connect with one until that point.

#5 My first experience of bumping into a big mixed bird wave in the jungle. It was in a forest in Thailand on my first trip outside the western pal in '91. Didn't know where to look! It was just as exciting bumping into my first (bigger) bird wave in the neotropics, at Mindo some years later, with all those crazy tanagers, foliage-gleaners, woodcreepers etc. Total excitement.

#6 If I had to pick a most exciting twitch it would be the crazy day Nicky and I raced across a very confusing Hong Kong for mainland Asia's first Philippine Duck, a bird we'd failed to find in the Philippines over the previous month! Apparently it was only the 4th record outside the Philippines. MKinHK had told us about it over coffee in cafe on what was going to be our last day in HK, and we raced off to Mai Po with his mud-map in cantonese for bus connections etc, and loan of his scope that we were to leave with someone at the reserve as we wouldn't see him again. When we got there no one had seen it for hours, but Nicky managed to relocate what looked like it rather distantly. We had to find a precarious sapling for the podlless scope, and when we were nearly sure, I had to run for help, waving and jumping around when I saw distant birders, and hoping we hadn't got it wrong when they started running! Full story on post #959 on the linked BFpage here http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=100901&highlight=bristol+kagu&page=39

#7 My first Kingfisher, shortly after starting birding, age 12

I'm beginning to think this thread was a lousy idea........starting to fell pretty flippin sick !!!

There's no feeling as bad as dipping when those around you and travelling with you have that smug and contentedness look upon their faces, even when they are exercising restraint by not talking about it or smiling!

This has to be one, so #8

scroll down to post#864 here http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=100901&highlight=bristol+kagu&page=35

and don't cheat by clicking on the photo links until the right time!

Just had a chance to take a more leisurely look at all the other posts on the thread, and how warming! Made me realise that Wallcreeper should be in there for me too, first seen on a desolate outcrop when hitching a ride in a lorry from Ladakh to Kashmir. We got stuck at a road block/one way stretch for hours and hours, so I wandered off, sat under a cliff and along came 2 wonderful Wallcreeper Red Admiral/Hoopoe hybrid things.

but I've only got 2 to go so I should fit in:

#9 surrounded by 10 species of albatross and other seabirds at point blank range over 2 Kaikoura trips in NZ

#10 finally making it at age 19 to the legendary isles of Scilly, and although it was only a 2 day twitch, managing to come away with Green Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Thrush Nightingale, Solitary Sandpiper, Bobolink, Subalpine Warbler, 2 Icterine Warblers, 5 Tawny Pipits, Sooty Shearwater, 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Dotterel and 2 Ortolan Buntings.

The more you remember stuff, the more impossible it becomes to know what to put in. What a great hobby!

Top ten Stafffordshire (alternative) birding memories.

1) River Warbler at Doxey marshes (after a well known Staffs birder(?) wanted to supress it even though it was next to a public path and could be heard half a mile away)

2) Swallow Moss Sept 1992......looked up to watch a QANTAS jumbo jet descending towards Manchester airport at cricked my neck and had to have a week off work.

3) Doxey marshes c1990 being shot at by a kid with a pellet gun because I had a go at him for shooting at the birds.

4) Cannock Chase...May 1999 walking from Strawberry hill to Seven Springs at dusk and coming across a puma-like 'big cat' crossing the path fifty yards in front of me.

5) Blithfield res 1986...I didn't have a car so caught the bus from Walsall to Cannock, then to Rugeley, walked four miles to Blithfield - didn't see what I went for - then walked back to Rugeley and the buses home.

6) Belvide Res 1986...crossing from the north shore into the north wood....and fell into the ditch and got drenched.

7) Chasewater 1987...biking it for the Lesser Scaup and had a puncture on my way back and had to push the bike five miles home.

8) Cannock Chase 2003...parked at the Katyn memorial one night for the Nightjars. Got back to the car and was mistaken by a driver of another car for someone who had parked there for the same reason that other cars had parked on the adjacent car parks for (and nearly had my binoculars wrapped round his head :C)

9) Belvide 1988....walking to the reservoir along Shutt Green Lane from Brewood. A doberman jumped over a garden wall and bit my leg, and I had to go to hospital for a jab.

10) Whitemoor Haye Jan 2009......getting into an argument with a jobsworth security guard coz I'd parked my car in front of the gates to the gravel workings even though it was closed. He said that only he could park there. My excuse that I'd just come to see the the Bewick Swans didn't mean anything because I could be on the rob :-O:-O:-O

Oh the joys of birding

I love the term, 'Bird Wave'. 'Mixed Flock' is often used in N. America - and the time I was in Ecuador. Saw squirrels in one up on Frasier's Hill (Malaysia). Witnessed another on the west slope of the Andes with at least 70 species. Anything written on the subject (and species involved) is quite interesting.

Here's some (10) highlights. No order.

1) I live where 10's of millions of ducks, geese, cranes, shorebirds, waders, etc. winter. Once (in a large refuge south of my town) a buddy and I were sitting on the hood of my car as a school bus filled with rowdy kids pulled up. All their noise and projectiles got everything in the air. This time mostly ducks. The bus passed - the ducks decended in a spinning vortex ----- what looked like a tornado. Thousands. Perhaps 10's of thousands.

2) Working in Alaska (with a group of people on a boat) as a Peregrine Falcon swooped down a grabbed a Marbled Murelet. Bald Eagles also 'swimming' there with too big of prey in their talons. Killer Whales eating moose. Bears munching on humans. Go - if you've never been. Don't wear a pork chop necklace.

3) Finally seeing a Great Hornbill. Nepal - floating down the border of Chitwan Park. Huge crocodiles and gharials. Bought a big chunk of buffalo and had dinner with the local folks the crocodiles and tigers eat.

4) Spending a week running though the Amazon (near Peru) with an Achuar dude who hunted everything (back in his home range) with 2 different blow pipes. No thorns in the forest. We could really run. He called in Eagles, Tucans, Woodpeckers, Ground Cuckoos. We snuck up on Ant Birds, Mannikins, monkeys, other humans. Rippin' fun. Called a Cream Colored Woodpecker 2 minutes after I met him. He had just walked 3 days to get to us.

5) Sword Billed Hummer. Shocking. 57 hummers on that trip. That one though...... I pressed it's flower in my bird book. Holes at the base from Flower Piercers. Black Tailed Train Bearers used those holes... 'cheats'.

6) Sulawesi Dwarf Kingfisher. We love that island and it's people. Close ties there. Close ties with the friend who showed me the bird. He's gone on to bigger and better things. Fortunate for such friends.

7) Chasing after a few species of Birds of Paradise (with the locals) in the Upper Digul river watershead in West Papua. 4 guys we were with had their enemy in their recent B.M. No luck on getting the birds. Fun chase though. Saw some different species later in higher elevations and also worn as finery.

8) Calling my 1st Pitta. Bunya Park, Queenland. Just sat on a slope (in a much more spiny forest) and they came. A fantasy.

9) Seeing my 1st Fairy Wren (Varigated) near Nussa. Also, slamming the door of our rental (a buddy and I had) on Mount Lewis - and having the Blue Faced Parrot Finches fly up next to us. Also, sitting on my ass in Lamington as Albert's Lyrebird came up and did it's thing.

10) Cassowary. Iron Range Park. FNQLD. Buddy and I flew in and hoped someone would drive us to the forest. Ate cans of Auzzie, 'All Day Breakfast In A Can', got bit by every ant and insect possible, pissed ourselves laughing, and one afternoon saw it. Like 'Bigfoot' ------ all I can say. It was only a brief view. Crossed the road and vanished. Same woman picked us up 4 days later. Pallets of beer were being delivered to the pub in Lockhart River. Madness / sadness. We vanished too - back to Cairns................

I never got 100 miles away from my home town in NJ - until after college.

- photo - 'learning local names of avifauna' ....... 1st book ever seen.

let's see...
10) seeing common murres in their nesting colony in northern california. eventhough i had no scope at the time, i was able to observe their slightly odd proportions, and watch them fly to and fro the rock, plus it was a life bird.
9) winter wren and fledglings, same trip. i saw one flutter over the log, followed by five young, each with their little yellow gape. i even saw the parent feed the young.
8) spring birding, jewel lake, 2011. it was a fine day weatherwise and birdwise, with wilson's warblers, black headed grosbeaks, and wild turkey as life birds(it was a month after i started). a very pleasant trip.
7) mount talaac, november 2011. a fine day, but cold feet from the snow. got my first townsend's solitaire and mountain bluebirds on the way up, first northern flicker and lewis's woodpecker on the way down. a great day.
6) first succesful twitch, december 2011. went after the colusa NWR falcated duck, and found it, plus both ross's & snow geese and white-fronted geese, and white-faced ibis as lifers.
5)my first townsend's warbler. it was completely self-identified, and the face pattern blew me away.
4)christmas bird count 2011. a very interesting and fun experience. i had only done a similar "big day" once before, and enjoyed it a lot.
3)seeing white-tailed kite courtship rituals, with spectacular talon-locked dives and such.
2) watching a dipper dive below the water in yosemite and come up with a small crayfish, and eat it. also a life bird.
1)i cant think of something to top all this.B

Giant Pitta eh Larry!! Bugger!

Love Steve Zodiac's alternative ten too, i can associate with those feelings especially, my local patches too. But Jeez youve had some scrapes!

And its fascinating to read people's idea of birding heaven from across the globe. Great stuff!

Larry Wheatland said:

#10 finally making it at age 19 to the legendary isles of Scilly, and although it was only a 2 day twitch, managing to come away with Green Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Thrush Nightingale, Solitary Sandpiper, Bobolink, Subalpine Warbler, 2 Icterine Warblers, 5 Tawny Pipits, Sooty Shearwater, 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Dotterel and 2 Ortolan Buntings.

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Which means we must have met, Larry, as that group of birds almost made it into my 10, and would have had I not dipped the Green warbler!

Larry Wheatland said:

Just had a chance to take a more leisurely look at all the other posts on the thread, and how warming! Made me realise that Wallcreeper should be in there for me too, first seen on a desolate outcrop when hitching a ride in a lorry from Ladakh to Kashmir. We got stuck at a road block/one way stretch for hours and hours, so I wandered off, sat under a cliff and along came 2 wonderful Wallcreeper Red Admiral/Hoopoe hybrid things.

but I've only got 2 to go so I should fit in:

#9 surrounded by 10 species of albatross and other seabirds at point blank range over 2 Kaikoura trips in NZ

#10 finally making it at age 19 to the legendary isles of Scilly, and although it was only a 2 day twitch, managing to come away with Green Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Thrush Nightingale, Solitary Sandpiper, Bobolink, Subalpine Warbler, 2 Icterine Warblers, 5 Tawny Pipits, Sooty Shearwater, 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Dotterel and 2 Ortolan Buntings.

The more you remember stuff, the more impossible it becomes to know what to put in. What a great hobby!

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We must be the same age Larry, Green Warbler was 82 wasn't it. I missed it by a week & managed Scarlet Tanager & Black Throated Thrush along with the Sprosser & Subalpine Warbler. Saw some great stuff on the magic isle's between 81 & 85. Will have to go back some time.

Parker said:

We must be the same age Larry, Green Warbler was 82 wasn't it. I missed it by a week & managed Scarlet Tanager & Black Throated Thrush along with the Sprosser & Subalpine Warbler. Saw some great stuff on the magic isle's between 81 & 85. Will have to go back some time.

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Hi Neil, sounds like you made it there before me. '82 was the tanager (don't think there was one in '83) and the Green Warbler was '83. I mostly get '83 and '85 on Scilly muddled up in my memory meself! Defo worth going back if you haven't been for a long time. I went back in 2004 after a 15+ year gap, to show my girlfriend what it was like. Loved it.:t:

Top 10 birding memories for me usually has to do with seeing a new bird species and birding new birding venues. The new venues I visited usually (maybe always) resulted in some new species of bird though! I will search through my memory banks and see what I come up with. Birding memories for me are by definition about BIRDS. But associated with the birds are also memories of people I have met, architectural sites, geography and history of the place. Also, remember the other animals, besides the birds, which I have encountered on birding outings.

I will get back to this after I have given it some more thought.

Larry Wheatland said:

Hi Neil, sounds like you made it there before me. '82 was the tanager (don't think there was one in '83) and the Green Warbler was '83. I mostly get '83 and '85 on Scilly muddled up in my memory meself! Defo worth going back if you haven't been for a long time. I went back in 2004 after a 15+ year gap, to show my girlfriend what it was like. Loved it.:t:

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Yes mate getting my years mixed up a bit, so many good quality birds in the early 80's. I only managed 5 days in 85 & saw,

Yellow Rumped Warbler.
Yellow Billed Cuckoo. 2.
Northern Parula.
Little Bunting.
Rustic Bunting.
Booted Warbler.
Bee-eater.
Pallas's Warbler.
Radde's Warbler.
Woodchat Shrike.
Night Heron.
Rose Breasted Grosbeak.

Plus the usual, YBW's RBF's ect.

Obviously some of those were a lot rarer then than now but still a good haul.

Great idea for a thread. Its going to take a while to put together. First stand out memory is:

1. Martin Mere around 1985- 13 years old watching Harriers, Peregrine , loads of Ruff, and then thousands of geese, swans and duck coming in at sunset. It was like a Spielberg film, I can hear the volume of the orchestra rising just remembering it! I was already hooked but this was something else entirely, just sat back and enjoyed the spectacle. Doesn't even count as birding.

One night in the Danum Valley we found a sleeping Giant Pitta. Also Little Spiderhunter sleeping with a single leaf curled around it. Had a really good guide that night. Wallace's frog too. Marbled cat. 'Bio Lum.....fungus'. Endless. Been 4 years since we've been on the Sunda Shelf. Damn.

Whilst I remember, I should recall that the River Warbler twitch in Norfolk was actually at Thorpe-next-Haddiscoe, and was extremely well organised by husband AND wife team, of the farm, both who made it an extremely enjoyable and well organised twitch for hundreds of visiting birders. Great credit is due to both, for the immense amount of work they put in.

Can't think of many other twitches where land-owners have been so accommodating. Can you?

wolfbirder said:

Can't think of many other twitches where land-owners have been so accommodating. Can you?

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not a twitch, but that's reminded me of something weird I'd totally forgotten. I ventured off the road into someone's paddyfields on Andaman once in persuit of crakes, and a young bloke came running out of a hut looking stressed and waving hiis arms and shouting in what to me sounded like an agressive manner. I was convinced his shouts were of the "f8ck off" variety, but it turned out that he was actually deaf, and just making loud versions of the only noises he knew how to make. He actually just wanted to take me in and give me a cup of tea, and when he found out I was looking for birds, he lead me round the paddyfields to flush out more of them! I think we're quite paranoid in England about landowners once we step into their fields.