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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richard Prior" data-source="post: 3387817" data-attributes="member: 66621">Nice idea for a thread, a bit like ‘On the Psychiatrist’s Couch’ where we can feel safe letting it all out without feeling embarrassed, and it hasn’t yet become one of those irritating threads where people seem to be boasting of all those wonderful world rarities they’ve been off to see<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> Although the theme is species that have avoided you at every attempt, mine aren’t birds I’ve been to twitch and failed, but rather those that I’ve managed not to see despite being in the right sort of places at the right sort of time!1.Long-tailed Skua is my ultimate bogey bird. Despite 17 years’ living and birding at Selsey Bill, various Scilly and Bridlington birding boat trips, Yorkshire September weeks, Ouessant in early October, and North Uist in May, I still haven’t found one that I was 100% happy to count. I even managed not to see the lingering adult around Pagham/Selsey a couple of years back when on a two day visit to the area, my wife and I walked from Church Norton to Selsey while the bird was apparently flying (well offshore, otherwise I’d have seen it wouldn’t I?) from Selsey to Pagham at the same time.2.Olive-backed Pipit. All those Scilly and Yorkshire autumn weeks…………………3.Blyth’s Reed Warbler. Ditto……………………………………After 10 years' living here in the French Alps there are two species that are beginning to take on that ‘why haven’t I found one yet, do they really exist?’ status, both are not easy, and I refuse to be taken or guided to one, which makes my task more of a challenge:4.Rock Partridge5.Three-toed WoodpeckerSo as you can see, for me, there’s no greater thrill than self-found birds, and the disappointment is much easier to bear when I fail to find than it ever was on  a failed twitch!</blockquote>

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