Wheat’s It All About?

Monday was the last of our child minding for the summer holidays, so I couldn’t make it up to Oakenclough where the long drive there and back makes for half a day’s commitment. 

Instead I made a 15 minute drive to Gulf Lane and grabbed an hour or two ringing at the Linnets with the aim of being home for breakfast. On 24th August there was a count of 160/185 Linnets, but today more like 70/80, an unexpected drop in numbers for this time of year perhaps explained by the current availability of food in the wider countryside. 

At 0900 the sky blackened from the North-West as a downpour arrived and forced an early end to my meagre catch of 6 Linnets, all first years, three of each sex, plus a single first year Reed Bunting. 

Reed Bunting 

Linnet 

A text from Andy advised that the downpour had reached Oakenclough, soaked him to the skin and he was packing in. Did I laugh? - just a little.  But he'd caught a few goodies by way of 1 Tree Pipit, 3 Willow Warblers, a Chiffchaff, a Meadow Pipit and two smart looking Bullfinch. 

Bullfinch 

Meanwhile just half a mile from Gulf Lane the appearance of a rare bird at Fluke Hall this weekend provoked a flood of twitchers to this otherwise quiet, mostly unmolested part of Wyre. 

A wheatear species first spotted along the sea wall on 1st September and identified as an adult female Eastern Black-eared Wheatear continues to create discussion and not a little controversy, even down to birders collecting a faeces sample from the bird’s rocky shore hangout for later DNA analysis. 

Poo sample 

The controversy centres around the fact that the autumnal Pied Wheatear Oenanthe pleschanka and the autumnal Black-eared Wheatear Oenanthe hispanica melanoleuca look remarkably similar, so much so that such occurrences sometimes remain unassigned. 

For what it’s worth, having studied the individual involved, plus a read of the Ringer’s Bible Svensson.  My own thoughts were firstly that the bird was clearly a first summer/juvenile, and not an adult ,and that the mantle colour and fringes, the darkish breast with little hint of colour, the long primary projection coupled with the slight scaling on the back point to a Pied Wheatear. 

Pied Wheatear? 

There is of course a remote possibility that the bird could prove to a hybrid/cross of wheatear sp; but that is another controversy in the waiting should the poo sample not prove a point in someone’s favour. 

This all begs an obvious question. If in error anyone ticked the "wrong" species on the list, once confirmation of the correct species is later agreed by “experts”, must those who ticked the wrong species return to the sea wall, search anew for the new bird, find and ID it, and then eat humble pie? 

All this high-stakes twitching and controversy is too complicated for me. Think I will stick to being a low-key, unsophisticated ringer with nothing to say. 

Linking today with Eileen's Saturday Blog. 

Twitchers are Losers?

Isn't it good to see a little controversy in the birding world now and then? Even if it's an old chestnut. 

From 10,000 Birds June 30th 2018. Twitchers are Losers.

Twitchers

"Everyone likes to see a rare bird. Whether it’s new for your life list, country list, state list, or county list, a new bird is a joy, a blessing. But listing, especially in a limited geographical area, is a game of diminishing returns. After all, once you have checked a bird off of your checklist there is no checking it again (unless you are into year listing). What’s a motivated lister to do? Some folks who are really into listing figure out what birds they still need for their list that are still at least theoretically possible to see and come up with strategies to see them. They wait for the winds to be right for a lake watch, sea watch, or hawk watch. They put themselves in the lines of hurricanes. They get to migrant traps that are perfect under certain conditions at the time of year that their quarry is most likely to arrive. And, most importantly, they never stop searching. 

Other listers turn to the dark side. They lurk on listservs, ogle eBird, follow Facebook, tempt themselves on Twitter. They wait for others to find birds and they chase them. That is, they twitch. Instead of seeking out their own discoveries they follow in the footsteps of others and seek out species already seen. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I might have been known to twitch. But the more I bird the less I feel the need to chase after other birder’s finds. I like birding my local patches and when I find the occasional mini-rarity it gives me far more of a thrill than seeing a bird in the company of dozens. Almost every birder has chased at least one bird at some point and that’s alright. But if you are exclusively chasing, constantly twitching birds others have found and not patch birding on the regular, not introducing others to birding, not contributing to conservation, you are not just failing birds and the birding community but you are, pretty much, a loser. 

After all, the real winners in birding are the ones who find the rarities. They win the accolades and admiration. Everyone will remember from now until we all die that it was Matt Daw who found the Rufous-necked Wood Rail. But no one really cares about the twitcher who saw it. Even on a large scale, twitching is becoming less admired. Yes, birders still do Big Years in limited geographical areas but the ABA-Area Big Year, twitch-heavy affair that it has become, is less impressive now that the World Big Year has become a thing. If the world is your playing field the only rarities you might chase are rare on a global scale in that they are Critically Endangered, not dirt-common birds that wandered off course. 

Twitchers consume vast quantities of fuel and contribute to climate change. They help perpetuate a not-very-flattering image of birding. And for every study about how much money a twitch contributes to a local economy – money that would probably have been better spent on something besides gasoline and fast food – I’ll show you a story about a brouhaha that erupted when misbehaving twitchers spoiled relations between local birders and their community. 

So twitch less and bird local patches more. Lead walks for your local bird club or Audubon Society. Show kids birds. Volunteer for conservation organizations. Just ease up on the twitching, loser."

Comments now folks.

Back to ringing tomorrow on Another Bird Blog.

Very soon I will post a review of the new book by Katrina van Grouw, Unnatural Selection. It's a winner!