Going early on this thread with over a fortnight to go on a grey day when I have struggled to get myself going so a pick me up down the memories of 2021....
1. Sulphur-bellied Warbler, Lundy, Devon - 8th June - my first immediate reaction twitch having been lying low since March 2020. No hesitation. I had twitched Lundy the same day for Veery in spring 1997 and that had proven to be a one day bird. The fear was always going to be that this would follow suit. A few boats made it over on the day that Britain's first and the Western Palearctic's second Sulphur-bellied Warbler was found. A real feelgood twitch for me legging it up the hill into Millcombe Valley with a few in my wake having worked on my fitness during my hibernation. A day when I saw at least thirty friends that I had not seen for far far too long. As another boat strained to overtake us across a glassy Bristol channel amongst the auks and Manxies, life felt absolutely bloody fantastic for the first time in a very very long time. Still smiling....
2. Varied Thrush, Papa Westray, Orkney - 28th October - the autumn had passed uneventfully for me since early excitement with simply a couple of trips for birds that I had seen before in company with friends but mainly, I had been walking the patch. However, driving between the Penzance Sainsbury's and our holiday cottage near Land's End on 27th October during a week away with friends, time stood still briefly around 6.30pm when the pager read Varied Thrush on Papa Westray. Only one thing to do and that was to start heading north. The detail did not matter. It simply had to be done. Hopefully, things would work out. A drive, a flight and a taxi later, I was boarding a boat at Kirkwall shortly after 8.00am the following morning. News that the bird was still present had come through as we were landing at Kirkwall Airport. That flight simply contained ten of us heading for the same boat, a bemused stewardess and a couple of perplexed bystanders. We were at the forefront of the start of many a journey already underway or being planned. A sweaty hour and a half boat ride and a couple of miles walking were soon forgotten when the bird showed almost instantly on my arrival. The stuff of dreams being Britain's second and only the Western Palearctic's third. A tangerine dream to eclipse the odd monochrome historic record that was still receiving a raised eyebrow thirty years later. I had always thought that it could happen again and I had always been pretty sure that wherever it was, I was going to try to see it. But it is one thing to know that and another for it to happen and then to connect. This has renewed my optimism that at some point, I will fill my remaining holes on that list of historic rares.
3. Rufous Bushchat, The Lizard, Cornwall - 23rd August - I had sat on my hands throughout autumn 2020 with kick after kick to the solar plexus as rarity after rarity fell. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Tennessee Warbler, Rufous Bushchat and Philadelphia Vireo would all have been ticks. The Bushchat was perhaps my most cautious decision being a British mainland bird. Over the months since deciding not to travel for that Norfolk bird, I had been convinced that it would fall again. All those low country records... In a piece of appalling positioning, I was standing outside The Emirates with no prospect of connecting before dark on 22nd August when news broke. A quick call to a friend based on The Lizard established that it was the eastern subspecies and he had seen it well so a clear "gripback" on the Norfolk bird rather than a future taxonomic complication. By 3.00am the next morning, I was getting some fitful sleep in the car with the brightest moon in the sky shining above. My only hope was that the bird would simply be embarrassed at migrating in such easy conditions. A few hours later, in the half light, the first clinching views were followed by a celebratory fist pump that should have triggered some embarrassment in a middle-aged man if I had any shame at all... Stunning views followed. This was the tenth British record so one of the commonest species I had not seen before. Massive emotions that day.
4. Northern Mockingbird, Exmouth, Devon - 29th March - early sightings of the Mockingbird and indeed any birding in the entirety of the previous year had been embroiled by recriminations, bitterness and division. This day was the day when for better or worse, most people felt more freedom to stand tall and enjoy being birding with less prospect of being attacked or cross-examined over their exact distance from home... My day had started at the American Herring Gull at Newlyn feeding it tuna whilst it perched on my foot in gloomy light and the Mockingbird was an ambitious diversion before returning home to Somerset for the weekly groceries delivery that afternoon. That had been my only shopping experience for the last year. The Mockingbird had been lost shortly before my arrival late morning but a bit of guesswork and positioning resulted in some lovely views in early spring sunshine on a front lawn in the short window available. This was a proper sighting that I really enjoyed. It was the third British record. My home county is Essex and I was twitching in spring 1988 so I knew pretty much everyone that had seen the suppressed bird of that year and some good friends turned it down. It seems that for various reasons, this is a species that will always have a place in the infamy of the British twitching scene. As one of the great philosophers once said, infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me... 🤣
5. Black-browed Albatross, Bempton, Yorkshire - 10th September - I had been wrestling with a desire to twitch the Black-browed Albatross but I rarely go for birds that I have seen before. A Green Warbler trapped the previous day at the same site provided the opportunity for three English ticks in a day - Green Warbler, Black-browed Albatross and White-tailed Lapwing - with a good friend who needed the Green Warbler. The Green Warbler was frustrating particularly as I had had good views of a bird that I had twitched on Unst in spring 2016 but I stuck it out long enough to get decent but brief views before being distracted away by the Albatross. The Albatross in contrast behaved brilliantly and it went well beyond my expectations with cracking flight views. I had recently got a new camera with which I struggled but nevertheless, being my first since the Hermaness bird in 1991 (dipped the previous year), it made it comfortably into my Top Five bird experiences of 2021 (heading off four patch ticks - Long-tailed Duck, Nightjar, Rose-coloured Starling and Glossy Ibis...). I will go back next year if it comes back.
In fact, well over 90% of my time this year was spent locally with birds, moths and other wildlife so I'll turn my mind to the 5 mile thread for 2021 now. I wouldn't want people thinking that I am "just" a crazy arse twitcher. 😂
All the best
Paul
