What is it with me and dipping out? (1 Viewer)

devilbirder · Mar 25, 2005

An unsucessful day

As usual i saw a rare bird on the birdmap in a reserve that i go to regulary, London wetland centre,to twitch a siberian stonechat, iceland gull and garganey plus little ringed plover.Once again i dip them all (i missed the little ringed plovers by 5 mins!).I come home thinking at least i saw two snipe as usual I look at the birdmap on birdguides, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!"Ring ouzel,caspian gull, black tailed godwit, oystercatcher, redstart AND water pipit.
Last week i twitched wrynecks in kingston, again only one day later, guess what, no wrynecks.A few weeks ago i twitch waxwings a few times and, NO WAXWINGS!As of when i went to warnham local nature reserve last week to again twitch my nemisis the waxwing, again only one day later,NO WAXWINGS!
I am coming to terms that i am not a natural twitcher.
Has anyone else had this much stress and such little luck?I will be interested to find out. :eek!:

streatham · Mar 25, 2005

Hi Crazy,

I shall share my story if it makes you feel better I don't usually do much twitching but this week on my birthday I thought I'd take a run out and try and sweep up some birds that I so far haven't tracked down this year. Anyway a whole days driving round later and I'd managed to miss out on GWF Goose, N.Shoveler ( a bizarrely difficult bird to find in CT when you consider that you can go to NY which is only 60 miles away and see hundreds of wild Shovelers sitting on the lake in Central Park) and Black-headed Gull. To rub salt into the wounds GWF Goose was reported at a different location the same day and a Shoveler appeared at what is ostensibly my coastal patch - bugger!

Luke

Nutcracker · Mar 25, 2005

Don't worry, dipping happens to all of us. But you do seem to have had a bad time of it there

Just DON'T mention Bridled Tern :storm:

Or Desert Warbler |!|

Or Ross's Gull |=@|

PS Luke - how rare/common is Greenland Whitefront Goose in the US?

Edward woodwood · Mar 25, 2005

oooo sorry Pete - they're easy!

i do have some painful memories from my early twitching days and i've travelled a long way overseas and missed a few birds i was desperate to see...

Crazy Birder: relax and just enjoy your birding - you'll catch up with rarer species in good time - too much all at once will spoil the fun in the future

Tim

LSB · Mar 25, 2005

Nutcracker said:
Don't worry, dipping happens to all of us. But you do seem to have had a bad time of it there

Just DON'T mention Bridled Tern :storm:

Or Desert Warbler |!|

Or Ross's Gull |=@|

PS Luke - how rare/common is Greenland Whitefront Goose in the US?

Or Baird's Sandpiper in Northumberland...
Sorry couldn't resit it.. :bounce:

Nutcracker · Mar 25, 2005

littlestintboy said:
Or Baird's Sandpiper in Northumberland...
Sorry couldn't resit it.. :bounce:

Watchit, or I might start mentioning Slender-billed Curlew . . .

LSB · Mar 25, 2005

Nutcracker said:
Watchit, or I might start mentioning Slender-billed Curlew . . .

Ok you win..but was a lovely looking sandpiper...(admits defeat as about 100+behind )

devilbirder · Mar 25, 2005

thanks

Stevie babe · Mar 26, 2005

Usually I go bird watching because i'm a bird watcherr but ................
i dipped out on the pallid Harrier at Elmley a couple years back

Steve

James Blake · Mar 26, 2005

Hi Crazy Birder

As others have said, relaxing and enjoying what birds are around is probaby the best advice.

And trying to remember that we appreciate birds because they're wild, and wild means unpredictable.

It's sometimes possible to make a halfway educated guess as to whether a particular rarity is going to stick around for another day. Maybe someone more knowledgeable would like to add some comments on this...

best wishes to you
James

Edward · Mar 26, 2005

Nutcracker said:
Watchit, or I might start mentioning Slender-billed Curlew . . .

Enjoy mentioning that while you still can, Peter. It'll be removed from the British list soon, surely?

Anyway CrazyBirder take Tim's advice and don't worry about it, especially not species such as Little Ringed Plover which you're bound to see soon anyway. It's always good to have some birds saved up as well.

E

rezMole · Mar 26, 2005

I agree, my life list is up to the magnificent total of 90!!!

Only been birding since late December though (got a bittern on my first day!). Anyway, i just go where i want - never really to try to find something specific. If i find something i've never seen before, i get a bit of a buzz. If i get 4 or 5, it's great. I rather suspect that many birders would love to be able to start from scratch again.

Looking forward to all the new "summer" birds that i'm going to see for the first time! Not sure i want to take it all too seriously though - i rather suspect that would take away some of the fun.

FeistyRdHd · Mar 27, 2005

What are "twitching" and""dipping"?

From the context of what you said, I have a vague idea of what twitching and dipping are. Can someone define them for me, please?

Thanks!

Lydia

Tim Allwood said:
oooo sorry Pete - they're easy!

i do have some painful memories from my early twitching days and i've travelled a long way overseas and missed a few birds i was desperate to see...

Crazy Birder: relax and just enjoy your birding - you'll catch up with rarer species in good time - too much all at once will spoil the fun in the future

Tim

mountain man · Mar 27, 2005

Crazy Birder said:
garganey ... little ringed plover ... Ring ouzel, black tailed godwit, oystercatcher, redstart AND water pipit

Sorry Crazy, but what the hell would you want to twitch any of those birds for? I can understand you're a bit frustrated at missing the Sibe Stonechat, but none of those above are birds that you would actually twitch are they?

Surely these birds shouldn't even be put out on news services anyway? 5 minutes in the correct habitat at the correct time of year will get you all of them with little effort.

kmonty1950 · Mar 27, 2005

Lydia,

These are both mainly British terms. Twitching is shooting off at sometimes a moment's notice to see a rare bird, dipping is not seeing it when you get there!

Best regards

Ken.

Nutcracker · Mar 27, 2005

tom mckinney said:
Sorry Crazy, but what the hell would you want to twitch any of those birds for? I can understand you're a bit frustrated at missing the Sibe Stonechat, but none of those above are birds that you would actually twitch are they?

Surely these birds shouldn't even be put out on news services anyway? 5 minutes in the correct habitat at the correct time of year will get you all of them with little effort.

Depends on where you are and what you want to do - some of them may be very difficult birds to get on a Surrey county list

mountain man · Mar 27, 2005

Nutcracker said:
Depends on where you are and what you want to do - some of them may be very difficult birds to get on a Surrey county list

Point taken and probably valid, but I still don't think birds like that have a place in bird information. It's just getting stupid now. Last year there was a message about a Puffin at South Stack.

I'm just getting sick of reading crap pager message after crap pager message, or having to trawl through 55 billion gigabytes of shite on a website that takes 4 years to download, just to read message after message of Wheatears, Sand Martins, Tree Pipits, LRPs, Swallows etc... I mean the first arrival dates and big falls are interesting, but I fail to see how a message concerning a Wheatear on a moor in Derbyshire is of any interest to anyone (last week). "Wow, a Wheatear on a moor in Derbyshire? That's a first!"

And as for Waxwings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nutcracker · Mar 27, 2005

Hi Tom,

If by the website you're thinking of Birdguides, you know you can set up filters to keep all that out - my settings are get all reports for Northumbs, rarities for adjacent counties, and national megas. Very easy to do.

devilbirder · Apr 1, 2005

tom mckinney said:
Sorry Crazy, but what the hell would you want to twitch any of those birds for? I can understand you're a bit frustrated at missing the Sibe Stonechat, but none of those above are birds that you would actually twitch are they?

Surely these birds shouldn't even be put out on news services anyway? 5 minutes in the correct habitat at the correct time of year will get you all of them with little effort.

Not oystercatcher but the others i aint seen yet abit pethetic isnt it but black tailed godwit is harder.

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