World Trip Reports
not-twitched list
I have a big thing for pre-emptive twitching. Picking the location on weather and time of year, and trying to be there when the big news breaks, or better still finding the bird in the first place. It has a very low success rate, but somehow the rewards are much greater. Anyway...to the point of my post. I was contemplating what the best birds that I had technically not twitched were, aside from things I'd found....the ones where I happened to be in the right place when the news broke.
1. I was on my way to Shetland, mainly to see Mr A.Ross and have a week's birding up north, when the Pallas's Sandgrouse turned up.
2. I was walking back from Blakeney point when someone cantering past me said "Did I know about the Pacific Swift at Cley"
3. I appeared at Blacktoft about 15 seconds after Penduline Tits!
4. An August speculative day trip to Scilly, while on a family holiday in Cornwall. That day a Citrine Wag turned up on tresco...which sort of counted as a twitch since I would otherwise have gone to Aggie. As I got off the boat I met another birder who said "There is a really good looking stint on the Great Pool".
It was an adult Semi-P....
5. I was watching an Olive-backed Pipit on Fair Isle, down to a few feet, when Paul Harvey came running towards me shouting can you see it as he hurdled a fence. i thought to myself this is a bit keen, he must have seen dozens of these! I turned round to see an Eye-browed Thrush!
Hi Jane,
Obviously,this doesn't include finds?
Well,in that case,can think of a few off the top of my head:
1)May 10th 2001.A few of us headed down to Great Saltee for our usual spring weekend.As the boat pulled out of the harbour,a phone call came from some birders who had gone over the previous evening to say that some ringers had just found a Woodlark(only the second Irish record since 1966 of this former scarce local resident,and the first twitchable bird).That crossing seemed to take ages....
2)October 1999 I was on Cape for a week,and had already seen a few good birds(including an Eastern Olivaceous Warbler on arrival which went missing later the same day as we saw it!).There was nothing much on this particular day,and we were all gathered by the "Waist" when Steve Wing arrived with his ringing bag....and a Thrush Nightingale in it!
3)Smerwick Harbour(Co.Kerry)this Sep:a report of a possible Semi-P Plover lured three of us to Kerry,but there was no further sign of this.While there,a friend of mine(who didn't know the area)went wandering up a channel running back from the beach(unknown to him and to me,there was a flooded area back there).Next thing I know,he's ringing me to say that he's just found his and my first Wilson's Phalarope...!
There are others,but don't want to go on all day!
Harry H
My best was when I was at Penrhos Park in Anglesey on my way home and somebody asked me "Did you come to see the White-Billed Diver?"
James