Vectis Birder
Itchy feet
Last week I reread Mark Cocker's Birders: Tales of a Tribe (for the umpteenth time, I love that book) and one of the things that I was wondering about was who are, or were, '...the Kent lot, the Cornish suppressors, the Leicester lowlisters, the Sandbach Flashers, the Wath Ings bootboys, the Upstarts...' etc as mentioned in the chapter The Loop, I?
Were these just informal names for people who birded in a specific area? Although I am wondering about 'Flashers' and 'Bootboys'! Any Flashers and Bootboys here? Are these groups still going?
While I am too young (born in 1970) to have experienced most of the scene as described in the book, it's very evocative, especially the chapters The Place That Launched A Thousand Trips and Satyr Tragopan, II - The End, and is one of the reasons I wanted to do some world birding.
Were these just informal names for people who birded in a specific area? Although I am wondering about 'Flashers' and 'Bootboys'! Any Flashers and Bootboys here? Are these groups still going?
While I am too young (born in 1970) to have experienced most of the scene as described in the book, it's very evocative, especially the chapters The Place That Launched A Thousand Trips and Satyr Tragopan, II - The End, and is one of the reasons I wanted to do some world birding.
