by Alex Horne
Further down the hill, I made out the unmistakeable shape of two birdwatchers and decided to ask them for help. This was potentially one of the most awkward social situations I’ve ever been involved in; it was very early in the morning and I was approaching two strange men on a heath. My best tactic, I thought, would be to get straight to the point, so after a brief bark of ‘Morning,’ I plumped for: ‘Have you seen the swift?’ By omitting ‘Alpine’, I hoped I sounded like less of an amateur than I felt.
The men weren’t impressed. ‘Oh no,’ one said, shaking his head. ‘He’s a late riser.’
Such a short, simple sentence, but spoken with so much authority. There was the immediate comprehension of the subject, of course, the ‘he’ implying both familiarity and knowledge of the bird’s sex, then ‘late riser’ – relaxed, colloquial, almost humorous anthropomorphic language.
‘Is he?’ I said. ‘Well, well, well.’ My early morning energy instantly dissipated, and I felt very tired.
Reluctant to shuffle away just yet, I lingered, trying to elicit a little more information about this lazy creature. It was all a bit stilted, but they said they were sure he’d turn up at about 10 a.m. and one of them gave me a mint before they made their excuses (‘Right, so we’re off to work the bushes …’). I sucked on the sweet, wished it was a bacon sandwich, and sat down on a bench. Was this fun? I could be in a nice warm bed with my wife rather than on a cold heath being rejected by strange men.
I wallowed in my chilly gloom for as long as I could bear it, then realised I should try to stay warm if I was going to survive the morning. I walked briskly towards the woods, swinging my arms as I went. By now the heath was filling up with dog walkers and joggers and I could just about appreciate being outside on what was still a bright morning. Emerging from the swiftless trees, just beyond the male swimming area (where the sight of wet men in pants shivering by the edge of the water did make me feel a little bit better), I found about half-a-dozen more birdwatchers, standing in a line and looking out over the water (away from the swimmers). This was more like it. Here I would surely find camaraderie, warmth and maybe even the swift.
I joined the group much like one might join a queue. At first I kept myself to myself, having a look through my binoculars at the ducks taking their own morning swim and playing it pretty cool. After about five minutes of this, the tall, dapper gentleman in front of me initiated a conversation by saying something like, ‘Bit chilly, isn’t it?’ I nodded and we happily exchanged similar comments for the next thirty minutes, not looking at each other, but constantly scanning the horizon.
‘Here for the swift?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes,’ he replied.
‘Been here long?’
‘Not really.’
‘Well, he’s a late riser, isn’t he?’
‘That he is.’
This was going immeasurably better.
After about an hour I discovered that my neighbour’s name was Martin.
‘I’m Alex, by the way,’ I blurted out.
‘Oh, Martin,’ he said, coping well.
‘Hello Martin.’
‘Nice to meet you, Alex.’
‘Nice to meet you too … I’m still quite new to the whole birding thing, so don’t know the etiquette.’
‘Oh,’ said Martin, who had clearly never thought about the etiquette of this situation, ‘you can talk to anybody. Always happy to engage in conversation. Just to pass the time as much as anything.’
That’s right, I thought, these are all normal people. Like Duncton.
We started to have a good chat, occasionally even making eye contact. He must have been in his fifties, a softly-spoken, gentle man. I’m sure he could tell I was a beginner but when pointing out a green woodpecker on the grass beneath the trees to our right he did so as if we were equals: ‘Green woody over there,’ he noted quietly, remarking, not boasting. I jotted down ‘one green woody’ in my book.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘indispensable tool, the notebook! Always keep one myself. Always worth keeping some kind of record, and handing it in to your county recorder. It all helps.’
By now I was no longer last in the queue. Another handful of hopefuls had joined and I was in the middle of the gang. I had been accepted by the tribe. Being a fairly large group, passers-by started stopping16 to ask what we were looking for. Someone would mutter ‘Alpine swift’ and the rest of us would nod seriously. Martin was more patient, explaining why this bird meant that so many men had gathered together on this particular morning, but it was definitely a case of ‘us and them’, and I felt honoured to be in the ‘us’ group.
Then, at around 9.25 a.m., it happened. Lawrence, an unusually trendy birder with long hair, goatee and bike, had given up for the day and was reluctantly cycling off for work, when he suddenly shrieked, leapt off his bicycle and pointed up to the sky. We ran towards him as one. If he’d been looking at us rather than the bird, we would have made a terrifying sight. Following Lawrence’s finger, we each caught sight of the bird wheeling around in the blue sky above us. I was about the fifth to locate it and was even able to point it out to an elderly birdwatcher beside me. He was overjoyed.
More than anything, I was simply relieved to have seen the bird. Unlike everyone else there, I hadn’t even seen a common swift, but as I looked at their smiling faces, I couldn’t help but share a little of their delight. ‘Well done Lawrence!’ shouted someone. One man wolf-whistled; another whispered ‘Lovely’ under his breath. ‘Who’d have thought it?’ said another. Even unruffled Martin got quite excited: ‘First the American robin, now this. It’s been a good fortnight.’
Once I’d seen the bird, I didn’t know how long I ought to stay looking at it. After five minutes everyone else was still rooted to the spot, so I continued to watch it circle above us, wondering if I could slip away without anyone noticing. The swift itself, by the way, was quite big, with a white underbelly. These were the things that meant it wasn’t a common swift. This one was also a bit of a show off and seemed to be performing for its fans, twisting and turning, rising and falling, also showing no signs of leaving. At one point it was joined by a sparrowhawk (another first for me) and genuine tension spread throughout the group as a skirmish ensued. Would the arrival of the Alpine swift be followed by its vicious murder? How would birdwatchers react to such an event? Surely it would still count on my list?
But it was only a minor kerfuffle. After a couple of flappy punches the sparrowhawk gave up and flew down towards south London. Soon the swift got bored too, banked sharply to the left and shot off north over the hill. Like an audience united by a feel-good film, the watching crowd gradually dispersed, occasionally acknowledging the event with a shy smile and the odd, ‘Well, that was very nice.’ Martin was now late for work, so I gave him a lift to Kentish Town tube station, where we said goodbye and vaguely agreed to probably see each other at the Wetland Centre (his convenient but expensive local patch) one of these days. My first twitch was over. I’d done it. I’d seen a bird Duncton almost certainly wouldn’t. When I got home I went back to bed but was too excited to sleep.
Derbyshire, April, fourteen years earlier. These are Chip’s words (although Mat did subtly add the phrase ‘saw some dippers’) – note the good use of statistics and the two camps of birders and non-birders with Mum somewhere in between. The Rumbelows Cup, of course, was the what the Milk Cup was called for a couple of years – after it had already changed to the Littlewoods Challenge Cup and before reverting back to drinks, with Coca-Cola, Worthington and now Carling.
14 April
Being retired means Duncton can spend his time doing whatever he fancies. If he wanted, he could sit inside and watch snooker all day, drinking Stella and getting fat. Luckily for both him and Mum, he’s a man with many interests, so easily fills his days with photography courses, Italian lessons, trips to Goodwood racecourse, and, of course, birdwatching. For the last month or so he’d been attending a course on birdsong, so when I suggested a birdwa
tching trip somewhere in Sussex on Good Friday, he agreed immediately, keen to put his new knowledge to the test.
Being a comedian, I can also do whatever I fancy, during the daytime at least, and was enjoying adding a sense of purpose to what can be long, occasionally lonely days filled with snooker-beer-and-fast-food temptation. I’m not complaining, obviously – being a comedian is a ridiculous, luxurious job – but you can’t spend the whole day at home writing jokes. One decent new gag a week is a pretty good strike rate.
About twenty miles southwest of Pulborough, on the coast between Chichester and Bognor Regis, lies a village called Pagham whose harbour has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest thanks to its salt marshes, mudflats, lagoons, reed-beds and shingle beaches that frequently attract rare migratory birds and Duncton in the spring. It was to this bird Mecca that we were heading, and it was these visitors we were hoping to see or, in Duncton’s case, hear. But when we asked one of the wardens what was around that morning, it was a local breeding bird that he was most excited about.
‘Well, the highlight at the moment is a long-eared owl,’ he said. ‘It’s down at the second severals. If you’re walking from this side it’s on the first hedge when you get to the second severals …’
For Duncton, a long-eared owl represented something of a holy grail. In all his many years of watching birds he’d never seen this crepuscular17 species. The long-eared owl would be for him what birdwatchers call a ‘lifer’. And while nearly every new bird was a lifer for a novice like me, Duncton rarely had the chance to see something for the first time any more. So as soon as the words were out of the warden’s mouth, we were off, striding towards the place where it was apparently dozing. As long as we arrived before dusk, the bird should be there. For me, the Great Owl Chase that followed neatly encapsulates the whole practice of birdwatching, as well as offering an insight as to how both a birder and a father should behave.
The ‘severals’ in question were, according to Duncton, ‘a good walk’ away. We had to be patient. Like the Alpine swift, I couldn’t expect to see the bird straight away. I had to put the hours in. And as we marched purposefully along the edges of fields and down towards the shore, the tension rose. Every birder we passed corroborated the story with comments like, ‘Yes, we saw it, it’s in the second severals’ and ‘Oh yes, it’s right there on the first hedge in the second severals – you can’t miss it.’ But what if we do miss it? thought Duncton. And what is a severals? thought I.
Of course, as we were walking, we were also watching – a birding trip with Duncton is never about just one bird, no matter how rare that bird might be – and at the end of the day (literally, not footballistically) the waders I had seen for the first time, prowling as if with their hands behind their back in the marshy, watery, brambly fields around us were, for me, at least as exciting as the solitary owl. There were plenty of redshanks showing off their bright orange legs; spotted redshanks, bigger and scruffier, a first also for Duncton that year; black-tailed godwits, whose name sounds like an insult;18 beaky curlews, petite common sandpipers, entertaining oystercatchers and finally, the crafty snipe that had evaded me every month so far. Following Duncton’s instructions and using his telescope, I could only just make it out, camouflaged brilliantly against the bank, but there it was, another lifer for me and another species for my list.
In the bushes on the side of the path we also saw some minute rouge-chested finches that Duncton told me were called linnets, and a little brown job called a Cetti’s warbler. As the year progressed, I would grow to dislike all warblers. They all look pretty much identical and can only be distinguished by the warbling after which they are named. That’s no fun. On this occasion, however, I was glad Duncton had the chance to show off his birdsong studies with the pronouncement: ‘Loud metallic cry – that must be a Cetti’s!’
‘Well done Duncton!’ I said, ‘very impressive.’ He could, of course, have been making the whole thing up. But that’s not what dads do.
Or at least that’s what I thought. As we neared the beach and Duncton’s first long-eared owl I finally asked him about the mysterious ‘severals’. ‘Exactly what are they?’ I said casually.
‘Oh, you know,’ replied Duncton, ‘just fields really.’
‘Right,’ I said, and we carried on walking, looking for the first hedge in the second field.
‘Well it can’t be either of those,’ said Duncton as we passed a couple of meadows on our right, the sea to the left. ‘There are no hedges, birdwatchers or owls. I guess it’s further on.’ He did take time to point out some of my first seabirds – stocky knots, bright white little egrets and turnstones turning stones – but I sensed he was beginning to worry. The sun was definitely thinking about setting and, as we all know, long-eared owls are famously crepuscular.
We passed another group of people, including three small children, all of whom had seen the bird and who gave us yet more detailed descriptions (‘If you look down from the horizon, it’s in line with a church, about chest high, above the reeds, in a tree, you can see it from the edge of the severals …’). Suddenly concerned that Duncton didn’t in fact know what he was doing, I decided to take control, using my novice status to our advantage. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry for my ignorance, but what is a severals?’ I asked.
‘Oh, it’s that reed-bed over there,’ they replied, pointing a few hundred yards down the beach.
‘Yes, it’s a reed-bed,’ confirmed Duncton. ‘We’ll be there soon.’
Bluffing, it seems, is one of the secrets of good fatherhood. From the kestrels of my youth to the Cetti’s warbler that afternoon, Duncton had always appeared omniscient. If I wanted to know anything – about birds, illnesses, anything – I would call him and he would tell me. But here, for perhaps the first time, he’d been caught out. He hadn’t known what a severals was, he told me, but he hadn’t thought it mattered. A couple of minutes later we found the owl and he was proved right; it hadn’t mattered. So to be a dad you don’t need to know everything. It just helps to look like you do.
As for the bird itself, for me it was a perfect example of something that looks to an outsider like nothing much at all, but which means absolutely everything to the enthusiast. It was the apparent anticlimax that marks all proper hobbies. It was a penny black, an expensive bottle of wine, a scrappy scoreless draw away from home.
It was Duncton, of course, who spotted the bird through his scope. I think I may have seen it a couple of seconds before through my battered binoculars, but had dismissed it as a woody lump. Because that was what it looked like – a small woody lump on a tree a long way off. It didn’t move once during the twenty minutes we were in its presence. From where we stood, I could just make out its wise, solemn face, but couldn’t even see its ears.19 How the first person spotted it, let alone identified it as a long-eared owl, I had no idea. It didn’t call, annoyingly for me. I was looking forward to hearing ‘twit-twoo’ and saying, ‘That’s an owl,’ without having attended a single birdsong class. It just sat there and, to my disappointment, did nothing for me. I wasn’t yet at the point where I could appreciate a birder’s bird.
But Duncton was overjoyed. ‘That is wonderful,’ he kept saying, ‘gorgeous.’ I’d never seen him so ecstatic. He even phoned up Mum to tell her the good news and I could tell just from his side of the conversation that she knew how much it meant to him. While they were chatting away like only people who’ve been married for thirty years can, my friend Tim sent me a text:
Horne – I’ve seen a moorhen. It’s in front of me in Regent’s Canal. There’s also a large goose. Tim x.
This made me almost as happy as the owl had Duncton. Tim had started birdwatching. This was great. I had a partner! A protégé even! And that same selfish part of me was proud too that I had suggested the trip to Duncton. It was because of me that we’d come to Pagham. It was thanks to me, really, that he’d seen his first long-eared owl.
17 April
I still wasn’t g
etting myself up and out of bed as early as a proper birdwatcher but it was Bank Holiday Monday and I did manage to make it over to The Welsh Harp by 9.45 a.m., so I was doing OK. I’d checked my various Batphones first thing and since there was nothing unusual about, thought I should give my local lake another chance. David had passed on the phone number of the area’s top birder who had very kindly agreed to show me round. Unfortunately I’d only had time to eat a Cadbury Crème Egg for breakfast, so I started feeling hungry as soon as I parked the car.
A pattern was already emerging among the birdwatchers I’d met that year: calm, patient, rugged, practical, healthy and erudite; all qualities befitting a good dad. They were also all male, another useful quality for fatherhood.
Andrew didn’t break that mould. In fact, he fitted so neatly into the mould it was almost as if the mould had originally been made around him. As a birder committed to Brent Reservoir he voluntarily looks after the place and generously guides newcomers like me around the different birdwatching spots. Today two other birdwatchers had also phoned for his help and he was more than happy to spend his day off leading us by the hand around the place he clearly loved. He told me to meet him in the Heron Hide, which, I found out, was that same Bill Oddie hide I’d tried and failed twice to enter earlier in the year.
As soon as I arrived at the now familiar closed door, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, that dreaded feeling of embarrassment when you know you’ve been a complete prat and that someone now thinks you’re a prat and they’re absolutely right to think you’re a prat. Taking a deep breath, I walked up to the door. There was still no obvious handle so I scrabbled round, trying to get a grip on the wooden frame, managing to girlishly break a nail in the process. Just as a third splinter pierced my right hand I heard muffled voices from within shouting ‘push’. I pushed. The door swung open and I entered the grotto to find three fully fledged and grinning birdwatchers.