Comedy Birder behaviour (1 Viewer)

Jane Turner

Well-known member

• Nov 26, 2003

• #1

I was reading the thread about birding in your car and the one about dealing with questions from members of the public. Tim made mention of strange/annoying behaviour from other birders too. It reminded me on an incident a few years back.


I was stood in the car park of the Sumburgh Hotel, Shetland, watching a particularly showy and bright male Rustic Bunting which was feeding in the garden with a small group of Twite. It was dropping down to the ground out of view, then perching up on some 2ft high plant.

Suddenly this car came screeching into the car park, did a handbrake turn and 4 birders poured out of it. With the engine running, the doors open and a pall of smoke from the tyres, the ran across, lifted their bins shouted YES and got back in to the car.

The really strange thing is that all the time they were there, the bunting was out of siight, but there was a very nice Twite showing. Perhaps they had a thing for Twite!

 

pduxon

Quacked up Member

• Nov 26, 2003

• #2

says it all really

Jane surely they don't deserve to be called birders

 

Jasonbirder

Jason-occasional-twitcher

• Nov 26, 2003

• #3

Prepare for a rare occurance....Jasonbirder criticising Twitchers!
Shockingly bad behaviour really - but hey whatever lights their candle I suppose!
Can`t understand why anyone would travel all the way to Shetland and then behave in such a cavalier fashion - Rustics are a beautiful bird and can often be very elusive so a showy individual is a real treat!
And come on....how can anyone mistake one for a Twite for Godsake!!!
Perhaps they weren`t birders at all - just Hotel Spotters happy to have got good views of the Sumbargh House Hotel?

 

Jane Turner

Well-known member

• Nov 26, 2003

• #4

There was a female as well... still not very Twite-like

 

Jane Turner

Well-known member

• Nov 26, 2003

• #5

I guess they were in a hurry - maybe they day-tripped for the Pallas's Sandgrouse and were in a hurry to get back...who knows?

 

B

Bubbs

Well-known member

• Nov 26, 2003

• #6

Jane, lots of stories involving peculiar behaviour including a good one involving a Red-footed Falcon. But the one that sticks is this;

On the 12th August 1992 I found an immaculate summer plumaged adult Great Northern Diver at Gouthwaite Reservoir, nr Pateley Bridge, Nidderdale. The record was unusual for several reasons. Summer inland Great Northerns are unheard of around these parts. The bird was showing very well. After about 30 minutes a car drew up. It's teenage occupant asked if 'there was anything about'... I proudly pointed to my best inland find ever (well one of them) Just offshore there's a summer plumaged Great Northern, I proudly proclaimed. He took one look at it, lowered his binoculars, and said 'yeah, but is there anything decent about'..the innocence of youth.

John Barclay.

 

pauco

Старлин&

• Nov 26, 2003

• #7

Hi Jane twitchers, don`t yer just luv em!!!

 

Pie Face

Well-known member

• Nov 26, 2003

• #8

bert said:

Hi Jane twitchers, don`t yer just luv em!!!

Click to expand...

Given that it would have been May, perhaps they were doing a bird race. This does'nt make their mis-id that forgivable but perhaps they were just as pleased to ad Twite to their day list?

Mark

 

Andrew

wibble wibble

• Nov 26, 2003

• #9

Was it Starsky, Hutch, Huggy Bear and the Chief in a red car with the stripe down the side?

 

CJW

Hit-and-run WUM

• Nov 26, 2003

• #10

Jane Turner said:

Suddenly this car came screeching into the car park, did a handbrake turn and 4 birders poured out of it. With the engine running, the doors open and a pall of smoke from the tyres, the ran across, lifted their bins shouted YES and got back in to the car.

The really strange thing is that all the time they were there, the bunting was out of siight, but there was a very nice Twite showing. Perhaps they had a thing for Twite!

Click to expand...

You mean I gotta take the bunting off me list now? Still it was worth it for the Sandgrouse!

 

Jane Turner

Well-known member

• Nov 27, 2003

• #11

I thought you looked familiar!

 

E

Edward woodwood

Member

• Nov 27, 2003

• #12

Ok while we're on the subject, how's this for comedy birders:

How about this one

I decided to go to Holkham after hearing a rumour of two Serins (prob. breeding) :eek!:
at least 50! 'birders' with optical gear running into well over £60,000 watching a close-by tree thru scopes at Holkham in anticipation of seeing a Serin. After 30 secs I could clearly hear a Serin singing about 20 yards away.....and I mean CLEARLY. No one batted an eye lid and I was so amused/amazed/incredulous that no-one with all this gear recognised it :h?: , that I sidled of round the back of the bushes and quickly located not one but two Serins, chasing each other and carrying nesting material. I watched them for about 15 mins along with one other guy who'd heard the song and had the same idea as me. we had a little chuckle and enjoyed wonderful close views thru our bins. :-O

To regain some kharma points :hippy: I pointed out the bird to the hordes afterwards, Only to be told by one 'expert' ....and I use the term very loosely, that the second bird must be a Siskin. I should have given him both barrels but I was so amazed I just shrugged and pottered off home :flyaway:

Some people.....

 

Jasonbirder

Jason-occasional-twitcher

• Nov 27, 2003

• #13

Aaagh bless them....

But seriously, just because they`ve got the kit is it OK to laugh at them for not knowing a Serin`s song - there`ll be plenty of birders in Britain that haven`t necessarily heard a singing individual.

Laughing at people because they don`t know a Ruff from a Redshank wouldn`t be thought of as good "sport" would it.

But i guess they asked for it for telling you one was a Siskin!

 

E

Edward woodwood

Member

• Nov 27, 2003

• #14

not laughing at them really - just a little bit surprised

with all that gear they must know their common birds surely, especially before going twitching Serins.....and a singing Serin should surely make you wonder.....

no-one took any notes in the end anyway so i hope
they remember well......

people who don't know ruff from redshank don't often stand there pontificating and looking/acting like they do .......and as you say Jase they asked for it!!!

 

Jane Turner

Well-known member

• Nov 27, 2003

• #15

I remember a similar incident...at Frodsham, when the limping Stilt Sand was there. I overheard someone saying they hadn't recorded LRP so far that year. I had trouble hearing exactly what he said over the Pee-ooo calls of an agitated pair!

 

Jane Turner

Well-known member

• Nov 27, 2003

• #16

I arrived late to see the 1st point of Ayr Forster's Tern. There was a substantial crowd gathered, but the bird had vanished. Just before I got to the gaggle, the bird was relocated out on the end of the sand spit, about 500 yards as the crow flies from the birders, but with gutter-filled gloopy saltmarsh in the way. I took a gentle stroll back the way I had come, chatting to a friend of mine.... many chose the more direct route and were still arriving long after I had settled down to watch the bird. The scenes were like something out of the Grand National....on ice!

One particluar gutter was beyond jumping, though many tried and failed. Those who settled for a slither down, wade accross and scramble up, got off lightly. It was most amusing

 

Michael Frankis

conehead

• Nov 27, 2003

• #17

Watching an American Golden Plover at St Mary's Island September a few years ago, to the near-constant din of half-a-dozen Roseate Terns calling & flying around. Happened to mention casually when one of the Roseates flew low over the plover . . .

Loud yells of 'what Roseate, where, where, where!!!'

 

C

cjay

Well-known member

• Nov 27, 2003

• #18

The Ortolan Bunting Twitch at Minsmere c1989? I lost count of the amount of birders who ticked the Yellowhammer nearby & one or two EVEN photographed it!

Pity we don't see Orto's anymore.

 

B

Bluetail

Senior Moment

• Nov 27, 2003

• #19

Tim Allwood said:

not laughing at them really - just a little bit surprised

with all that gear they must know their common birds surely, especially before going twitching Serins.....and a singing Serin should surely make you wonder.....

Click to expand...

I can sort of understand this. I spent last Saturday in the somewhat loose company of a Dusky Warbler which was doing what Dusky Warblers do best. We heard it call a bit and had occasional brief views. One chap - who I know for certain knows Dusky Warbler's call (and we'd just been listening to it for Pete's sake!) - was staring intently into the bush it last disappeared into. I could distinctly hear it "taccing" in the bushes behind him. He was quite surprised when I told him to turn round. I think it was just that he had been so intent on what was in front of him, he had shut out everything else.

Still a bit strange that 50 birders should do this, though.

Jason

 

Stephen Dunstan

Registered User

• Nov 27, 2003

• #20

Jason,

Similar happened at the White-throated Sparrow in Cheshire this year. The bird was favouring one particular area and disappearing regularly into cover, barely anyone batted an eyelid when it called behind us and it isn't as though the call is like anything else you'd hear in a Cheshire garden.

Stephen.