deborah4
Well-known member
BIGBY Birding
BIGBY as in it's a BIG GREEN BIG YEAR for birders who care about the environment (and also a half decent year list!). Initiated by Richard Gregson, a birder from Quebec, and gathering like-minded birders from all over the Globe for a year's GREEN BIRDING. It's fun, it's a challenge but most importantly, it sends out a message - leave the car at home! Well, I don't have a car, so no bad habits to change here, but the real challenge for me, the second UK birder to sign up, is to run up a not so bad year list purely by walking, cycling or public transport when my nearest decent birding patch is nearly a 4hr round trip! Also, any foreign holidays will have to involve trains, buses and hitching - no planes, no ferries - for a year!
So now to p*ss everyone off
- This thread of course is not for the fair weather and light-hearted birders who don't go out in the wind and rain, to come home in the dark soaking wet, or for those who jump into their cars to bomb off to their local patches all over the County at every opportunity ... Nor is it indeed, for those, gas guzzling twitchers, who for the sake of a 'good' list .... yada yada yada
However, it is slightly tongue in cheek - cos everyone knows you need pagers, cars, leica scopes etc etc to be a good birder and if you don't get a year list of over 300 you're rubbish of course. I'm also not a complete muppet, so won't refuse the offer of a lift anywhere if one's forthcoming, I just won't be able to count any birds seen on that occasion on my GREEN LIST. Anyway, the rules and how to sign up are here: http://www.sparroworks.ca/bb/
Monday January 7, 2008
With the days of my week's annual leave dwindling past all too quickly, a late start (having to return to pick up my binos from the kitchen table) got me to Pagham Harbour, just in time for torrential rain about midday. The VC was closed, but after a quick coffee in the ladies loo, I hoofed on down to the Small Ferry Pool with a brief nod and howdy to a few people sitting in their cars in the carpark. Large flock of Brent on the pool, one dead Shelduck and plenty of live ones. Wind's howling but through the water streaked windows of the hide, lots of Wigeon, a few Shoveller, Teal, Curlew, Lapwing in yonder field and a c.Buzzard. Everything else either not there or knuckled down out of sight.
Rain's stopped finally, so braving ridiculously high winds, head on towards Church Norton. zillions of Dunlin of the flats, Grey Plover, some flyover Black Tailed Godwit, Grey Partridge, RL Partridge, a lonesome Greenshank, an even more lonesome Little Egret - passerines now blown halfway to Kent presumably - none around. Lots more Teal, Wigeon taking winter refuge (refuge!?), Redshank and a few Bar Tailed Godwit as I approach C.Norton. Nice rainbow.
Long-tailed Tit, fourth Kestrel of the day and a Little Grebe in the channel with another zillion Dunlin and almost as many Grey Plover. Light's bad. Wind is worse. Just reach the Hide, a Green Woodpecker shoots up from the field behind the Church and a flock of Goldfinch add splash of colour to a leaden sky. Skeins of Brent up every 10 minutes, along with the just as jittery Lapwing. Oyster Catcher, Ringed Plover and an almost piebald juvey Cormorant amongst the black hags lined up on on far sandbank - one Grey Heron with an identity crisis, hunched down in the midst of them. Tide's right out and without a decent scope, picking up anything with confidence that's smaller than an elephant is a no no really.
Head to beach. Met by fantastic gusts of wind, hundreds of BHG with half a dozen Mediterraneans amoungst them. Turnstone turning stones, a solitary Gannet diving out at sea, with a 1w just sort of flying around. One pair of Slav Grebes, with neat black caps being the nearest off-shore visibles. Hard to stand up straight. Hard to hang on to binos - head along the Severals - for about a mile - light's fading fast. A distant gunpowder blast or something or other, sends up hundreds of corvids, woodpigeon, wigeon and a Buzzard - large number of Brent honking in the distance. It's nearly dark - and started to rain again. G*d this is miserable! Head back to C.Norton Hide for shelter. On the way a female Stonechat risks popping it's head out of a small clump of gorse. I'm wearing wellies (because my walking boots have had open heart surgery and leak like a sieve). It's muddy, and very slippery .... the rest is history. A very nasty man standing by a landrover in the middle of a field making his darndest sure to prevent 500+ Brent from pulling up his poor little ole grass by aiming gunpowder powered flares up into the skeins every time they fly over...Words don't describe what I'm feeling right this minute.
Finally get back to bus stop - bus arrives but doesn't stop. I jump out into road waving my arms. Driver pulls up 30 yards ahead - gives me a mouthful for being 'invisible' - I want to tell him I've been birding and that's the story of the day - but don't. Doesn't look the sort who'd understand. Two hours to get home - muddy and wet, over 60 species to start off the GREEN LIST but nothing of much note (except a bl*ody nice rainbow).
BIGBY as in it's a BIG GREEN BIG YEAR for birders who care about the environment (and also a half decent year list!). Initiated by Richard Gregson, a birder from Quebec, and gathering like-minded birders from all over the Globe for a year's GREEN BIRDING. It's fun, it's a challenge but most importantly, it sends out a message - leave the car at home! Well, I don't have a car, so no bad habits to change here, but the real challenge for me, the second UK birder to sign up, is to run up a not so bad year list purely by walking, cycling or public transport when my nearest decent birding patch is nearly a 4hr round trip! Also, any foreign holidays will have to involve trains, buses and hitching - no planes, no ferries - for a year!
So now to p*ss everyone off
- This thread of course is not for the fair weather and light-hearted birders who don't go out in the wind and rain, to come home in the dark soaking wet, or for those who jump into their cars to bomb off to their local patches all over the County at every opportunity ... Nor is it indeed, for those, gas guzzling twitchers, who for the sake of a 'good' list .... yada yada yada However, it is slightly tongue in cheek - cos everyone knows you need pagers, cars, leica scopes etc etc to be a good birder and if you don't get a year list of over 300 you're rubbish of course
. I'm also not a complete muppet, so won't refuse the offer of a lift anywhere if one's forthcoming, I just won't be able to count any birds seen on that occasion on my GREEN LIST. Anyway, the rules and how to sign up are here: http://www.sparroworks.ca/bb/Monday January 7, 2008
With the days of my week's annual leave dwindling past all too quickly, a late start (having to return to pick up my binos from the kitchen table) got me to Pagham Harbour, just in time for torrential rain about midday. The VC was closed, but after a quick coffee in the ladies loo, I hoofed on down to the Small Ferry Pool with a brief nod and howdy to a few people sitting in their cars in the carpark. Large flock of Brent on the pool, one dead Shelduck and plenty of live ones. Wind's howling but through the water streaked windows of the hide, lots of Wigeon, a few Shoveller, Teal, Curlew, Lapwing in yonder field and a c.Buzzard. Everything else either not there or knuckled down out of sight.
Rain's stopped finally, so braving ridiculously high winds, head on towards Church Norton. zillions of Dunlin of the flats, Grey Plover, some flyover Black Tailed Godwit, Grey Partridge, RL Partridge, a lonesome Greenshank, an even more lonesome Little Egret - passerines now blown halfway to Kent presumably - none around. Lots more Teal, Wigeon taking winter refuge (refuge!?), Redshank and a few Bar Tailed Godwit as I approach C.Norton. Nice rainbow.
Long-tailed Tit, fourth Kestrel of the day and a Little Grebe in the channel with another zillion Dunlin and almost as many Grey Plover. Light's bad. Wind is worse. Just reach the Hide, a Green Woodpecker shoots up from the field behind the Church and a flock of Goldfinch add splash of colour to a leaden sky. Skeins of Brent up every 10 minutes, along with the just as jittery Lapwing. Oyster Catcher, Ringed Plover and an almost piebald juvey Cormorant amongst the black hags lined up on on far sandbank - one Grey Heron with an identity crisis, hunched down in the midst of them. Tide's right out and without a decent scope, picking up anything with confidence that's smaller than an elephant is a no no really.
Head to beach. Met by fantastic gusts of wind, hundreds of BHG with half a dozen Mediterraneans amoungst them. Turnstone turning stones, a solitary Gannet diving out at sea, with a 1w just sort of flying around. One pair of Slav Grebes, with neat black caps being the nearest off-shore visibles. Hard to stand up straight. Hard to hang on to binos - head along the Severals - for about a mile - light's fading fast. A distant gunpowder blast or something or other, sends up hundreds of corvids, woodpigeon, wigeon and a Buzzard - large number of Brent honking in the distance. It's nearly dark - and started to rain again. G*d this is miserable! Head back to C.Norton Hide for shelter. On the way a female Stonechat risks popping it's head out of a small clump of gorse. I'm wearing wellies (because my walking boots have had open heart surgery and leak like a sieve). It's muddy, and very slippery .... the rest is history. A very nasty man standing by a landrover in the middle of a field making his darndest sure to prevent 500+ Brent from pulling up his poor little ole grass by aiming gunpowder powered flares up into the skeins every time they fly over...Words don't describe what I'm feeling right this minute.
Finally get back to bus stop - bus arrives but doesn't stop. I jump out into road waving my arms. Driver pulls up 30 yards ahead - gives me a mouthful for being 'invisible' - I want to tell him I've been birding and that's the story of the day - but don't. Doesn't look the sort who'd understand. Two hours to get home - muddy and wet, over 60 species to start off the GREEN LIST but nothing of much note (except a bl*ody nice rainbow).
