Who
would have thought that the ‘deal clincher’ in our house purchase would be a
bird? The decision to move into the country had been taken quite quickly once
we realised that we were spending just about every weekend out of town. If I
wasn’t engaged in solitary bird watching trips, we were both in the car
exploring quiet country roads between the Lincolnshire Wolds and the coast, or
parking the car and taking a walk.
We
had set ourselves a budget and, several viewings later, fell in love with a
Victorian farmhouse just 5 miles out of town that had been almost totally
re-built 18 years earlier - and was roughly 50% over our budget. But on a cold
and windy October morning, during endless surveys, searches and frustration,
any doubts I may have had about the house were quickly dispelled.
I’d
set off early on my bike to see if I could locate the osprey that had been
reported in the general area of the house we were considering buying. Ospreys
are not a common sight in Lincolnshire, although they may pass through on their
spring and autumn migration, and I’d never been lucky enough to see one. I
searched a couple of square miles without luck, but then suddenly, coming to
the end of a short farm track, I caught sight of a large bird about half a mile
away on top of an electricity pole. I raised my binoculars and confirmed that
it was indeed the osprey, but my first ever sighting of this hugely impressive
bird was nothing compared to the excitement I felt when I realised where it was
perched – the pole was right outside the front of what was now most definitely
‘our’ house. We moved in eight weeks later, in December 2000.
The
osprey stuck around for about two weeks, and for much of that time it was
closely observed as it went about its daily routine, sometimes by as many as
thirty birdwatchers armed with an impressive array of optical equipment. It
obliged by repeatedly swooping on the river that ran alongside the road, and
snatching fish from just beneath the surface. I saw it a couple of times more
before it left to continue what was probably a 4000 mile flight to West Africa
for the winter. I wondered if it would return next year when we’d settled in.
Please
don’t misunderstand. I’m not obsessed with birds. I’m what Simon Barnes calls a
‘bad birdwatcher’, someone constantly observing the natural world, aware of
what joy and excitement a chance observation can bring, but lacking the
messianic zeal of a ‘twitcher.’ Although birds don’t dominate my life, I think
I’d be lost without them. I’ve been fascinated by them virtually all of my
life, learning to identify 50 of them using a set of Brooke Bond ‘Bird
Portraits’ cards collected from packets of PG Tips tea in the 1950s.
I
have never been on a bird watching holiday, I don’t belong to a club, and I
don’t own a pager. If I see a large group of birdwatchers, armed with
telescopes and telephoto lenses, my curiosity will be stirred, but I’ll often wander
off in the opposite direction, preferring solitude, and an often fruitless
search for something spectacular of my own, to the certainty of catching sight
of a rarity.
I have seen some spectacular sights though, but not necessarily spectacular from a serious twitcher’s point of view, and I haven’t seen many rare visitors to the British Isles. There are still many resident British birds I have never seen either, but the act of looking for them has brought immense pleasure, and some thrilling experiences. Some of the most spectacular of these followed our move into the country, and for some of them I didn’t even have to leave the house!
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