When I started writing this article, I thought at the time—I see my first draft was dated 10th January 2020—that my idea would seem trivial—or even lazy—to any hardened birders who heard of it. Even for a car-weary naturalist it might feel too tame. But after watching our grim Boris yesterday, flanked by two long-faced medics as he almost literally pulled down the hard overnight shutters on our fast old lives, I think I shall continue to plug green birding . . . .
It was New Year. So how, I wondered, could I ensure that more of my birding would be planet friendly in 2020? Share a car when birding? Already ticked off. Spend some of my birding time on needful BTO or other local recording work? Yep—a long established good habit. Don’t attempt a big British year total in 2020? Already decided not to. That decision, by the way, was soon reinforced by some vain 2020 attempts to see that infuriating Siberian stonechat at Ashton’s Flash. Where is it, after the little critter had been so obliging in December? If you can’t see the bird you thought was in the hand, what price the bush? In that case, should I instead abandon ‘ticking off’ species altogether? Not a bad idea—some would say a great one; but I am so lazy that I stir myself only when trying to meet a target.
Or, could I focus on more birding closer to home, without using any fossil fuels at all? A fine challenge; but would it be satisfying all year? Would the novelty wear off? I could call it my Green Birding List (no, I don’t mean greenfinches and parakeets). Anyway, let’s see…
What should my Green Birding List rules be? (You read them here first.) To start with, let me count how many bird species I can see in or over my garden, or walk to, or cycle to, or hang-glide off my house roof to (not really). But will that keep my interest for long enough? And how far can I carry all my optics? Not very far—even though I have a cycle pannier-friendly Mighty Midget v2 scope with full height Slik tripod and strap that together weigh a mere 1.7kg (they’re great for birding in any wind-speed below 2 mph).
So I will allow myself three more categories. First, let’s allow buses and trains. Next, in reasonably good environmental conscience I think I can also count birds seen without using any fossil fuel for pleasure birding. Thus, I will include any species that I record while doing genuine survey work—such as my regular monthly WeBS waterfowl counts or my heronry survey. Finally, I’ll also include any birds that I happen on when I am on a genuine journey of duty for, say, family or work or charity purposes.
The latter has been a profitable category for me in the past. There was the youth group trip to the ice-cream shop that conveniently had a laughing gull coming to bread in its car park; and there was the time I took my mother-in-law shopping—and glanced through my car window en route, to see a line of Leach’s petrels flying by.
And, of course, one can choose the route and perhaps the destination for a genuine journey! I deliberately took the youth-group to that ice-cream shop and not the other one with no gull. The Military Orchid was famously rediscovered in England by means of a carefully located family picnic.
But I won’t count birds that I see on pleasure birding events, not even educational tours. It takes almost no green commitment to walk from the bird observatory round to the ringing nets.
I must confess to having a small advantage when birding from home. I live adjacent to Sandbach, a simple bike ride from the famous Flashes. Thus on New Year’s Day I took an early walk around my village, then cycled (in nice weather, thankfully) to Elton Hall Flash. Would it be a good first day? Some surprises in both places. The first surprise was that my garden and the village gave me more ticks than the Flashes. My list built up rapidly with expected local birds. Then a brisk stroll along the canal was halted when two song thrushes started to sing against each other—a species I sometimes struggle with at New Year, and a glorious sound to thrill the early season.
There were only mallard on the canal itself; plus what looks like a white mallard flying over. Is it even worth raising my bins to view a farmyard duck? What—that’s no duck, it’s a stunning male goosander! Who needs a bird reserve when there is a goosander over the chippie? Garden and village total? 29, even after I missed the thirty goldfinches that roost in my neighbour’s holly tree.
Down at the Flashes, the entire flock was in view—of local birders, that was. They all eyed me sideways, when I arrived on two wheels in a fluorescent yellow jacket—even though I took it off before approaching them. I did a rapid survey of the salt pan and added a total of 16 more species. I explained to the crowd the point of my ethical mission, whereupon they became somewhat interested and began to point out things I might have missed. Had I noticed the female blackcap on the bird feeders? Wow! No—number 47 for the day. Dare I dream of 50 in my Green Birding List straight away? Sadly no; yet I set off happy through the twilight, before realising that (unlike everyone else) I now had to flog home in cold near-darkness.
I was half-way home when a car slowed and a grinning face peered out of a window. He gestured backward. ‘Little egret has just dropped in!’ Then he drove away; but when he was out of sight I looked at the darkening sky and turned for home regardless. I was home in just enough light to see the goldfinches dropping into next door’s holly.
January 2nd—and still nice cycling weather. We walked up to Sandbach via the nature trail. A bit disappointing, until a magnificent male sparrowhawk shot close overhead. My wife was thrilled by a showy great spotted woodpecker. Next day it was back on the bike to the Flashes, hoping for the egret or the godwits I’d missed. Ah, there are the ‘wits’; oops, no—those are curlew.
By next day I was tallying the bad misses so far. I compiled a list of what I hadn’t yet seen and set off on a country cycle, along the lanes through Bradwall. Something sitting on a wire looked rather less than thrush size. Another chaffinch? Wow! No—a gorgeous male yellowhammer, one of three. It’s always fun when the bird you find is a surprise replacement for the one you expected; and when it’s nearly on your doorstep, the pleasure is doubled. I rode on. Massive flocks of starlings; I must ride through here again. A couple of expected local ticks: fieldfare and rook; a distant greenfinch; jay. I arrived at the Flashes to find absolutely nothing new in return for my long ride—until, just as I was leaving, the Mediterranean gull was spotted in the roost on Elton Hall. Glee on all sides. 59.
Could I make sixty on my Green Birding List in the first week? Just one more was needed. Still no coal tit, despite the fact there had been one on my neighbour’s bird feeder (why not mine?) over Christmas. Where are all the mistle thrushes in the district? A long walk with Christine along the canal found no linnets or grey wagtail—but she did point out a solitary bird in a bush. Gotcha—a fine reed bunting for sixty. Across the canal was a big flock of chaffinches. And amongst them—what was that? Could it have been, by any chance? But never a good view and now it’s flown. It might have been a brambling; but honesty has to break through occasionally. (Three days later, in the Flashes log, Andy Goodwin recorded one brambling in the same flock. Aaah! Well, that undermined any scruples I had—I added it gratefully.)
A weather break, then back to the Flashes; but the water was high. Even cycling through the flood down the lane did not find me the rumoured chiffchaff. A long ride around Watch and several other Lanes added nothing new, except—ah, that was surely a bullfinch call. Repeated; and again, and again. Where on earth is the bird? But just a moment . . . ouch—I had never realised my bike’s sticking disc brakes could sound so like a bullfinch. Gloom.
But wait! I heartily disapprove of pishing a bird by using a recording of it on a mobile phone; but could there be any moral objection to pishing with a bicycle? So I rode on, squeaking hopefully. No bullfinches anywhere. Well, it was a good idea while it lasted.
Sixty-one by the fourth of January, with not a drop of fuel used. Can I sustain interest in Green Birding all year? There are limits: I have no plan to leap on my bike and pedal madly, every time something turns up at the Flashes—‘Oh, we drove straight here and it left two minutes ago, why didn’t you drive?’—so I’ll have to see if my regular WeBS January duck count next week can add more to the list. Watch this space for Episode Two.
This is Episode Two of my planet-friendly campaign to build a decent Green Birding List in 2020, using no fossil fuel that I would not have needed to use anyway. I allow myself to count any bird seen using green transport (particularly bicycle) or public transport; plus any bird seen on needful recording trips like WeBS waterfowl or heronry counts; plus any bird seen on a journey of duty for family, work, charity, etc. Pleasure birding and guided tours in someone else’s vehicle don’t count.
You may recall that I had reached sixty-one by the fourth of January, with the aid of some excellent cycling weather. But then the jet-stream moved closer so that cycling became horrible; so my list started growing very slowly. A walk with my wife Christine produced a nuthatch; and a bike ride in a brief weather lull in the next week added a mistle thrush. But a boost was at hand, because the first WeBS count of January was due.
I knew, of course, what species to expect from the Cheshire mere where I have been counting ducks for (with the odd break) 43 years. On reaching the mere it took a mere glance to add mandarin to my Green Birding List and—but wow! This is adding mandarin in style. How many of those beautiful ducks are out there today? Mandarin are the worst duck of all to count, because an entire flock can vanish into a few trees to rest. It took half an hour’s hard work to determine that there were 73 mandarin out there. A single pochard was the only other newbie.
But since I was here on true ornithological business, a walk through the woods was allowed under my rules—until yes, eventually one woodcock flew up noisily.
After that, it was back to riding round by Sandbach Flashes on a bike from home—and now the nightmare started. That dratted Kumlien’s gull! At least, that was what they said it was, despite the Iceland that was also reported. I never saw either (partly for reasons about to be explained), so I can’t comment and am too disgusted to in any case. The weather was, of course, filthy around that time and often not fit for a gull, let alone a cyclist. Eventually, a day came when after heavy rain it was humanly reasonable to cycle along the Haslington bypass and down Clay Lane.
Another hundred yards, and I’ll be able to see across Pump House Flash; and—oh, no!—the flood is across the road. Looks deep, too; far too deep to cycle through. And I can’t quite get a decent view up Pump House without wading; in any case, through tiny gaps in the hedge all I can see is a few large pale gulls. I decide that it probably doesn’t matter that I can neither get a scope on them, nor cycle any further along the lane.
I ride back home, put my bike away, get a drink and check my phone. You cannot be serious! Kumlien’s gull on Pump House Flash? Reported just ten minutes after I had turned back from the flood?? Was it one of those that I had glimpsed through the hedge? I gave a heavy sigh, got my bike out again and cycled off into the wind again. It took me another half hour to flog round to Pump House Flash, this time the other way round, against the wind through Ettiley Heath—to find no big gulls. That became the story of the fortnight. Huh! I hope this Green Birding List gets some appreciation from someone.
Most of February added only one species to my Green list, at Crabmill Flash where three oystercatchers were hiding among the mallard. A big disappointment came on a trip to Snowdonia for a work-party building new facilities at our youth house-party centre. It was a fine morning as we drove toward Betws-y-Coed; and as we were approaching Llanrwst, I suddenly realised that we would drive within a hundred yards of the tree which I was told last month had held two fine hawfinch. Yes! A legitimate Green Birding List twitch . . . or not, as I and some damp, disconsolate ‘real’ birders all found. No haw. Not funny.
The last day of the month was our church weekend, for which I took my wife to Llandudno. In the afternoon it was my job to entertain less mobile folk with a drive round the Great Orme. Storm Dennis was just coming in, so the cliffs were empty of auks; and I was not chuffed to find the chough had just flown (or even been blown) away. But fulmar, shag and rock pipit were new. On the way home next day some common scoter, turnstones, a redshank and a razorbill were in sight at Rhos (although no purple sandpiper, the main target). Next, my next monthly WeBS duck count added, oddly, a couple of ravens and a bullfinch. A youth group trip back to Wales on the following weekend required a drive down to the beach at Black Rock Sands that allowed passing views of sanderling, ringed plover and dunlin, to bring up a nice-sounding seventy-seven.
Then came another teeth-gnashing miss. For a charity training weekend we had to drive to Kent. I happily ticked off red kite over the M40 as my wife drove; then I decided to look for somewhere a bit nicer than a service station to stop for lunch. Browsing on my phone, I opened BirdGuides and it occurred to me to look at the BirdMap feature, one I don’t often use. I woke up suddenly. What was that rare bird symbol doing on the map, apparently almost on top of the M40? What? Black-bellied dipper in High Wycombe? Reported only an hour ago? Almost exactly on our route? Come to daddy! Or rather, daddy will come rapidly to you. Lunch beside the water in High Wycombe sounded suddenly like a glorious idea. Well, it was very nice; but the dipper had gone (infuriatingly, it came back the next day). Huh – dipped out on a dipper.
Back home, the shutters started to come down. Boris decreed that isolation was the public duty; but isolation on a bike on a fine spring day riding to Elton Hall Flash is no burden. Moreover, for once I had hit the jackpot. Amongst others, two gadwall were slinking across a pool, seven black-tailed godwits were giving an aerial display and, best of all, the Flashes’ first five whooper swans of the year were cruising nervously across Elton Hall Flash. Not everything I found was evidence of spring winging through the air; I was freewheeling past a reedy possible Cetti’s warbler haunt, using my ears more than my eyes, when I nearly ran down a pair of frogs copulating on the road.
Yet I now have a Green Birding List of eighty-five by mid-March 2020, with nearly all the summer migrants still to come! This is starting to look like a worthwhile challenge. Watch this space; perhaps an Episode Three will take me to a Green ton. Unless someone even greener (or faster cycling) beats me to it?
Past readers may recall that at New Year I started a Green Birding List, which reached 86 species by mid-March 2020. That is, a list of species seen without using fossil fuels for pleasure birding. I included birds seen while: (1) walking or cycling from home; (2) using public transport; (3) driving to do official bird census work (WeBS and BTO counts—but not mere local ‘patching’); and (4) driving on genuine journeys of social duty (for family, work, charity, etc. Cheshire highlights of my List thus far included pintail, whooper swan and Mediterranean gull; a bad miss was Kumlien’s gull (aargh!!!—long story).
When lockdown began, categories (2) to (4) in my List took a back seat. Like everyone else I was suddenly limited to foot and bike. I decided to relabel my number (1) category as a “Fuel-Free” Birding List; this currently stood at 70. And I would still maintain my original (1)-(4) as a “Green Travel” Birding List.
As we all know, on 23rd March 2020 the world turned upside down. Boris had already pulled down the shutters on our old social lives; now we could exercise for one bare hour and then go straight home. My own exercise would be one of my three regular ten-mile cycle routes; my favourite one happens (no, really, it does, I have witnesses who will read this) to go past Sandbach Flashes. So my first new bird, at Pump House Flash by the road, is the lovely form of 2020’s first little ringed plover. However, I then dip out on the reported black redstart in Sandbach town, finding only a disheartened-looking birder who is just departing. Still, neither of us has much to complain about. NHS, keep going!!!
Next day, I amble out into the garden to plant seed potatoes—although I doubt the supermarket shelves will ever be cleared of spuds. Many of us have rediscovered our own gardens; singing goldcrest is nice. Buzzards are mewing overhead; they are as common as cats here. Pausing on my spade, I check Birdguides. Oh, no! A garden just four miles north of me has just had an osprey fly over it. Ouch—I’ll look closer at those buzzards in future. Time for a walk—that is, one of those walks where Christine wonders why I walk with my neck cricked, scowling up at the sky. We stroll to town to buy some tins of meat for the food bank. What rats have emptied the shelves of all but two tins? We lift our spirits by walking back along a muddy lane where a beautiful grey wagtail is new for my List—although it took Chris to notice it. I must have a species blind spot; I’ve passed the mill several times.
Birding by bike is a great tradition; Cheshire’s early ornithologists knew their songbird populations from their constant riding (on calm days, I presume!). I mourn the day when I used to pick up local corn buntings that way. Now, I must keep my bins tucked inside my jacket; on strict lockdown one hardly dares to do something as frivolous as visibly carrying optics—so I startle the few other road users by my weirdly shaped man bust. And I dare not pause to rest and scan for longer than a minute or so (police cars pass regularly). However, many birds can be spotted within sixty seconds, when you know what should be around and where. At the Flashes, the blackwits on the mud are surprisingly untroubled when my yellow jacket appears above them. Heading home, I pass Foden’s Flash and hear a shrill call right over my head—get the brain in gear!—a stunning kingfisher, gliding away. Magnificent; but dare I tell Christine? She will be furious that she missed it (she adores kingfishers; I have to admit to it, so she waves a saucepan at me.)
Then there comes a painful (in more than one way) miss. I have a social duty—an appointment to give blood (oddly on Good Friday, which for me is a very meaningful day to do that). And my route to the donation centre goes right past a little owl site! On my return journey, I decide that I can legally de-stress (after an encounter definitely not kept at a social distance) by taking my permitted walk. Ouch—no owl; chance blown. But—consolation wow!—a bare-looking flood pool nearby holds four fine yellow and six white wagtails. Bingo.
Next day, on a walk from home, tree sparrows are new beside the canal—so where have you rascals been all winter? Certain species are much scarcer than they used to be—where are all the treecreepers? They were badly down in the last CAWOS Atlas and suffer in wet winters. Anyway, back on the bike. A cold NE wind makes for brisk cycling; but it also brings down falls of both martins plus a common sandpiper at the Flashes. Linnet; that’s 99 on my original Green Travel Birding List. What could bring up my ton?
Hey—I’ve had a lightbulb moment. Brilliant idea. There is one place, within lockdown cycling range of my home, where I might hear a grasshopper warbler from the road. That would be a great 100th species for my List. (It would also be the final, crowning triumph for Button B of my new hearing aids.) But when I get there the marsh is silent. The super story-ending doesn’t happen. Bah—gropped out on a gropper? My century bird is a cheerful, plump whitethroat instead.
Now it’s time to tackle a harder target: can I reach 100 species for my tougher Fuel-Free Birding List? That list has reached 82 so far. Wait, make that 83, because I’ve just had an adventure. I’m cycling down Elton Lane when I notice some sheep and lambs. Aaah. One lamb is very small and rather dirty looking. Aaah! Hey, that lamb is newly born. AAAH! And behind a worried Mum, only feet away, is standing—Whoa! A large crow. A very large crow, chomping on the afterbirth with a bill like a meat-cleaver: no, raven! Great—or not so great: this brute is showing a more than casual interest in ‘my’ lamb.
Shock, horror—my 83rd Fuel-Free species is intent on murder. Ovicide, I suppose it would be, or lambicide. Hey, what a lockdown classic! My hour is over; must I now head for home? Not likely; emergencies are allowed, and this is a clear matter of lamb or death. I can’t get near, and dare not shout and frighten Mum. So I cycle right up to the hedge, displaying fiercely in my brilliant yellow jacket, strutting my stuff as I glare across the field. The raven looks irritated and sulkily takes two steps back, then holds its ground. I clap my hands, imitating a shotgun as well as I can. There are two ravens: they lumber up into the air. The local crows and jackdaws go bananas and a fine aerial dogfight shows off well those diamond-shaped tails that I always look for. I stay until they depart. So, what further adventures will take me to my new target?
In late April, the coronavirus lockdown began to be eased: ‘You can drive to a nearby green space, as long as you drive for a lot less time than you walk’. Does that help me with my Green Travel List? No, actually! If I drive to a birding location for exercise, that’s still using fossil fuel for leisure birding, which my List doesn’t allow. It’s what most birders do in normal times. So my Fuel-Free List remains my focus. I’ll cycle on. But how far? In theory I could cycle to, say, New Brighton for seabirds—a round trip of 112 miles—but I would be an invalid by the time I got home (even though my Grandad once did that ride in a day). I decide to limit my Fuel-Free List to a strict map range of ten miles from home as Cornus corone flies.
Migrants are arriving. Cycling a lane, I have a birding wow moment, when birdsong explodes into my left ear from inside a dense hawthorn hedge. My bike brakes to a halt without my brain apparently being in the loop. What? Oh—of course! The CAWOS Atlas complains that some observers don’t know this song—Brett Westwood, writing in British Wildlife magazine, gives it the great description of a ‘revelatory rattle’. And I’ve always hesitated at the statement that this is the commonest Sylvia warbler over much of farmland Cheshire. But perhaps it is; by mid-May I have cycled-mapped a remarkable eight lesser whitethroats singing within 3 miles of Sandbach, although some proved to be transients. Certainly a good year.
And there are other, equally nice pluses. A stoat races across the road ahead of my bike carrying something—while being bombed (Zoom-bombed?) by the jackdaws whose tree it has just left. Carelessly, I mistake another kingfisher for a reed warbler until she makes a brilliant blue plunge from her reed for a fat little fish that she eats in full view of me. Christine and I notice a bit of brown rubbish in the River Dane at Davenport—which morphs into a goosander Mum with five adorable fluff-balls. There are also hazards. A grey squirrel runs the wrong way, missing my front wheel on a steep downhill by millimetres. A hawthorn tunnel path on the National Cycling Network is an entertaining place to accelerate in top gear, until you meet a woodpigeon doing the same thing—head on!
On April 26th, our extended family tackle the 2.6/26 sponsored challenge, in our case for Marie Curie. ‘Dad, what are you going to do? Run 26K?’ Er, no. I decide on a 26 bird challenge. I keep cycling until I have located 26 singing chiffchaffs; it takes me 11.7 miles, during which I also pass 24 other assorted warblers, including 5 reed, plus a common tern. Great fun; I’ll try my novel Chiffchaff Challenge next year too, and try to break the ten mile barrier. Summer arrivals continue. A swift flying over our lawn at twelve-all is my excuse for losing at badminton to Christine; but I cycle miles and miles while always missing the reported cuckoo. A stunning male garganey on Hancock’s Flood could hardly have been showier, but a string of scratchy warblers infuriatingly play hide-and-seek.
With lockdown easing, all the local birders have suddenly reappeared. I’m delighted to find that many now have a bird ‘Lockdown List’, mostly collected fuel-free. Perhaps they will tell their stories too. Excellent. Well, it should be, except that I now have serious competition. Dave and Pete are both approaching 90 and John is on 96, after (jealousy!) having a hobby over his house. I scrutinize an OS map with a ruler to confirm that Bosley Cloud is just within my ten mile range. A long ride and climb mean that redstart, tree pipit and redpoll boost my count pleasingly. What next? An owl hunt? Huh! All the tawny owls in the district refuse to hoot; but again serendipity triumphs—with a beautiful barn owl hunting at Watch Lane Flash. By the end of May I reach my second target, with a century (101) in my Fuel-Free List. Much more valuably, I have learnt an awful lot about birds near my home that I never knew were there.
My next List hope is one of the 2020 influx of quails. This involves a long, hot, weary stand with Dave and Tony at a field gate. It ends when Tony decides to stir his mug of tea with a teaspoon. This is a method of pishing that I had never considered might work, but Tony has great experience; and amazingly the triple tinkle of his spoon is echoed by the quail at the far end of the field. Cheers, Tony! A contrast to that hot twitch, much later, is a little owl at Bradwall that plays hide-and-seek in the near darkness. Next a long bike ride to an unnamed spot reveals two black-necked grebes—in June!—with one of them in stunning plumage. However, the birders watching it with me are bemused when I also cheer a male pochard paddling past it. To be fair to the pochard, it too is in fine dress. A dipper on Congleton weir gives me a welcome hat-trick for a day that takes me to 110.
Next comes a fine specimen of a yellow-legged gull at Sandbach Flashes, followed by a delightful long ride to Wybunbury through the lanes for a superbly confiding spotted flycatcher. Phew!—that was my last hope for a spot fly. I commence a long weary return into the wind. Stopping to rest, it occurs to me that I ought to check Twitter, even though I have no plans to flog further upwind than I need to. But what if... Yeah, sure—it would have to be a stellar rarity in this gale—What? A strange white image appears on my phone. You cannot be serious! The third Sandbach Flashes record of a gannet? Gritting my teeth, I pedal on into the wind, delicately nursing a crumbling front chain-ring. Just before I arrive, the bird vanishes. Ouch!—but no surprise; I have an eccentric history with gannets. I have cut them out of fishing nets in Connemara and Fetlar, flown low over 5,000 unexpectedly for our honeymoon on Alderney, and stared with little interest at 60,000 of them from a small boat off Grassholm in a wicked sea. Next day, I pedal to pay regretful tribute to the wounded, great, sad, doomed bird marooned on the mud. Suitably, it is raining.
A couple of new birds for my list are reported—I wish I hadn’t seen the reports. Firstly because my bike is in bits, so I have to borrow my daughter’s—cue loud expostulations and a trapped finger when I leap onto and try to ride it. I am a different shape by the time I locate the green sandpiper—if that’s what it is, blurred by all the rain on the lens. (A week later there were twelve.)
And then there was that perishing great egret! Is a birder allowed to spit feathers? Not only does it vanish, but the heavens open on me until every piece of clothing that a gentleman can decently be seen in is sodden. I hope I have inspired someone in green birding today. One week later I cycle past the Flashes; Dennis is photographing something on Pump House Flash, but I’m in a bad mood and don’t even bother to look. Later, inevitably, I have to ride back—too late. As I remount, a dark shape passes over. Just a buzzard; and a crow mobbing … except that the crow is not mobbing the buzzard. It appears to be diving at empty air, until from the pale evening sky a great white shape materialises. The beautiful big faery flaps high across the Flash and is gone again. Perhaps that’s a suitably mysterious revelation of this awesome bird. On another day, serendipity helps again, as an unexpected whimbrel flies over me calling—not bad, for a day where birding wasn’t even the main target (that was an Essex skipper). To end July, a wild hobby chase found me a red kite instead, and a greenshank failure turned into a ruff, for a gratifying Fuel-Free total of 120. There’s no way I can keep this pace up for the rest of the year.
Past readers may recall that I am keeping two environmentally friendly bird lists for 2020. One is a ‘Fuel-free Birding List’, of birds seen using only bike and boots, within ten miles of my inland home. My other list is a ‘Green Travel Birding List’, which allows me also to use public transport, plus driving for official bird censuses and for social and family duties. I was amazed when by July the first list, at 120, was only nine species behind the easier second list.
For my Green Travel list, a useful fact is that my sister lives at West Kirby. Visits to her have proved profitable for green birding for many years (especially if the family fancies a walk to Hilbre). Way back in 1979, I directed to nearby Meols one family stroll that involved me, my sister and spouse, Mum, Dad and nana—alias the Asian Desert Warbler of that famous year! All the family enjoyed watching the crowd that was watching the crowd that was watching the bird. Sadly 2020 brings me no nana; but a sisterly visit in August is nicely preceded by high tide at Hoylake, which adds curlew sandpiper, Manx shearwater and 20 little terns to my Green Travel List.
Meanwhile, for my Fuel-free List it’s surprising how many surprises turn up—such as a shag at Astbury Mere. However, the most frustrating bird family this year is the chats. This year all available stonechats have dodged behind stones to avoid me, I missed a wheatear by minutes, and even taking my boots and socks off and wading through floodwater was not enough to find a whinchat. (Is that a new way to dip out?). But then comes September—and suddenly chats are like London buses; in the space of 72 hours all three species sit up and pose for me. Huh! Tell me which half-dozen weeks to birdwatch for, during next year, and I’ll sleep through all the rest.
There were failures that I never overcame. I was not the only local birder this year who failed to solve The Mystery of the Missing Hobby. Perhaps the movements of hobbies near my home are governed by quantum mechanics, so that they click in and (when I appear) out of existence with no explanation; or maybe Schrödinger’s cat ate the one I was supposed to see. But in October a lovely female goldeneye brings up my 125 species, followed minutes later, at long last, by the local peregrine I should have seen in the spring.
All the easy birds have been ticked off, and I am grimly adding them singly now. It’s reached the point where I am setting out on my bike in search of birds that common sense tells me have probably already gone. A long ride to Redesmere finds a fine flock of waterfowl but the red-crested pochard is not among them. A faint hope of an Egyptian goose on floods at Rode Heath is another predictably vain ride. However, it does me get me out on good long bike rides that I need to get fit.
And purple days still happen. It is probably the muddiest expedition of the year. I hate cycling in wellies. But we slither and slide to an unidentified bone-chilling spot where we set up our scopes and scan the bushes hopefully, looking for perhaps only a couple of feathers showing in the deep darkness under the bushes. A first scan finds nothing—we ignore the plump bird sitting in full view in the leafless tree in front of the bushes (mental assumption—just a woodpigeon). Huh—nothing at all, apart from that brown woodpig. Brown? Perched openly in the winter sunshine, a fluffed-up, comfortable-looking long-eared owl gazes back at us sleepily. Confessions of a lazy birder… And the same day adds a jack snipe in flight, a water rail, and even an actual real visible Cetti’s warbler! As I say, tell me in advance what day the birds have marked in their diaries. But the rough area I planned to explore next has a tractor cutting it all down. Ah well, you can’t win’ em all. (Trump is still trying, though).
Now it’s time for another unlikely expedition. It’s said that the canal bank is the best place to watch for a woodcock. Oh, yeah? Somewhere in the gloom somewhere between the Trent and the Mersey? Can you narrow it down a bit, please? From the vague clues I am given I make a guess and cycle along the muddy towpath to a rough field in front of trees. Plenty of rooks and jackdaws high against the darkening sky, but I scan among them in vain. I am thinking of leaving when a black shape zooms up from the field below, almost straight at me. I don’t know which of us is more shocked—I am glowing weirdly in the gloom in my cycling jacket, so the bird swerves wildly round, a stunning silhouette just above the skyline only twenty yards from me. Wow—I’d never realised woodcock were such solid birds, and what a bill! One of those moments that lasts for a second and fills the memory for a year.
Next comes a long flog to Lapwing Hall Pool (just inside my ten-mile radius) for a smew. What is it about this particular lake, that the bird I want is always the very last one I look at there?
Time is getting short—and what I have is under pressure. As it happens, I’ve just been elected the new secretary of our church—I thought of refusing to admit I’d won and challenging the results, but I don’t think I’d get away with it. So, aargh!—paperwork. Those COVID risk assessments! I’m editing the latest one when my phone wakes up. WHAT? A dusky warbler at Astbury? I can’t risk missing that! Sadly, it’s too late to cycle safely there on Day One. And on Day Two, to my great dismay, I am committed to helping a friend fail their driving test for the eighth time. (No, I’m not part of a Deep State green plan to force drivers off the road.)
And there’s no report yet of Dusky, by the time I set out after lunch on Day Three. I ride to Astbury for the exercise anyway; then I check my phone again. Still no sightings. Gloom. But I’m here now. Reaching the lake, I Google the call of dusky warbler and play it back to see what I’m listening for—but I keep the sound low so that I don’t start a stampede of any nearby birders… The last report was from the west side of the lake, but I am feeling some bladder pressure, so I decide not to ride to join the disappointed crowd yet (or at all, if there are too many), and I turn the other way round the lake heading first for the facilities at the visitor centre. Along the path ahead, only one grey-haired couple is in sight. They are carrying bins and obviously looking for dusky, but they are in the wrong place and don’t act like seriously hard-bitten twitchers, so I only slow slightly. ‘Any good?’ I ask dismissively.
The man holds out a flat hand and wiggles it. ‘Sort of.’
‘Oh!’ I pull on my brakes and come to a halt beside a bush. Inside it, by the water less than five yards away, something is making an unusual but suddenly not unfamiliar ticking sound. Wow! Serendipity or what? I glimpse what looks like a fat brown chiffchaff and call out. It’s strange how a crowd can materialise from an empty path; and the magnetic attraction of birders for each other accelerates exponentially as the crowd gets bigger. But the bird moves away fast. Soon, I pedal away from the gathering mob, still heading on round the lake towards a place of aquatic relief. Further along, two new birders have glimpsed something. I halt again, to stand behind them. There!! I point, and the crowd is suddenly right behind me again. Sighs of delight fill the air. After a short but convincing great show by a great little bird, the crowd turns to me on my bike. ‘Well done!’ ‘Thanks!’ ‘I’d given up and was on the way back to my car!’—an exquisitely satisfying compliment, that. Bikes forever!
I am up to 134 species ‘Fuel-free’ and 149 by ‘Green Travel’; can I reach the round numbers? After Christmas, snow, ice and slush deter me from cycling; but on New Year’s Eve caution fails me. Somehow, I’ve never ticked off a convincing siskin in 2020; and I received new bins from Santa. Surely? Riding gingerly to Foden’s Flash, I scrutinise the top of every alder tree in the area through crystal-clear lenses, then give up. Riding home, three little birds fly into a solitary thin alder—right above a (too) busy road junction where none of the cars can stop, but I can! What a satisfying finish. Geronimo! 135 and 150.
So, there’s my gauntlets. Any takers for either? I could (and perhaps should) have recorded more species to show the potential of green birding. Shamefully, in my ‘Fuel-free’ total of 135 I missed locally all of cuckoo, hobby and green woodpecker, all ‘shanks and all rarer sandpipers and tits, golden plover, waxwing, and all winter gulls. And there were few bonuses in my list—no fly-through raptors or terns. So my total could easily be challenged. Yet I feel little guilt; cycle birders cannot roar to the lake just before the mega takes flight. (Actually, I missed most good birds by getting out of bed too late.) But this has been one of my best bird memory years.
Now, how’s your green list for 2021 doing, anyone? It doesn’t seem worth trying very hard now we’re back in Tier Four, or is it Five? On New Year’s Day I might just stay in bed and look out of the window. Except that—oooh! Is that really a stunning male blackcap on my feeders? And oooh! again, a black redstart on the pavement outside the Oxfam shop where my wife works! Missed that one last year! Perhaps I will start a new list, after all. Alternatively, does anyone want to borrow my bike?
George B. Hill