by Alex Horne
The geology and natural history sections blurred together. Dinosaurs stood beside their reptilian descendants. A twelve-foot recreation of a giant moa – a huge flightless bird that wandered around New Zealand up to fifteen million years ago but became extinct in the 1500s – looked down on a stuffed kiwi. I looked down at the kiwi too and remembered seeing one myself somewhere long ago. Suddenly I was back in 1988, on the holiday of our childhoods, when Duncton took four weeks off work, grew his beard and the Horne family trundled around New Zealand in a campervan.
New Zealand April 1988.
The natural history section was comprised almost entirely of stuffed animals, mostly Edwardian examples, a few Victorian, preserved by the most famous taxidermists of the time. This was an eerie throwback to the early days of birdwatching, when nearly all research was carried out on recently shot birds. It was stranger than a zoo, odder, even, than Birdworld, but I did get my first ever close up view of a wheatear, a hobby, a cuckoo and a nightjar. The jay looked as beautiful as any bird I’d seen in South Africa, the goldcrest smaller and more fragile than any humming or sunbird. One box contained two great bustards, frozen in the throes of some threatening mating ritual, enormous old British birds with wingspans of up to two metres forty centimetres, interrupted for ever. Gilbert White used to see great bustards while birding in nearby Selborne but, like the moa, they became extinct (in Britain) through over-zealous hunting in the 1800s. But, according to the helpful and well laid-out information printed by the exhibit (probably produced by that man on reception), they were reintroduced to Wiltshire from the Transvolga region of southern Russia in 200410 and seem to be doing well. I made a mental note to pop over to the Salisbury Plains when I’m next in the area.
Ignoring the crocodiles, lions and tigers, just as I had in London Zoo and the Addo Elephant Park, I made my way to the history section. Having retraced my own few years I now paced back through the Victorian era, past Georgian furniture, Medieval hats, Norman swords, Viking coins, Saxon shoes, stopping in the small corner devoted to Roman Britain. I scanned the few cases quickly for the piece of pottery I’d held in my hand two decades previously. I could almost feel it, the smooth rim at the top, the crisp edges, its pleasing weight. But was I remembering the shard itself, or just a memory of that memory? Either way, there was nothing like it in the first display. Instead there were complete urns and perfectly preserved vases, all found in the Haslemere area and dating back to 43–410 AD.
I moved along. There was one more case. This had to be the one: ‘Iron Age Britain – 700 BC–AD43’. Again, I skimmed over the exhibits quickly – coins, arrowheads and figurines. Then, next to a small bronze vessel found in Milford, Surrey, was a fairly unimpressive greyish brown piece of pottery without any explanatory notes. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It wasn’t quite how I remembered ‘my’ piece; it was smaller for a start, less rounded and maybe even a different shape – but this could have been it. It did have a smooth rim at the top and crisp edges. As I stared at it, I remembered once more holding ‘my’ piece in my pocket, wrapped – I now recalled – in a handkerchief, possibly Duncton’s, possibly Trader’s. A vague memory of ‘my’ piece snapping in my care flitted briefly through my mind. Was that right? Had I broken Grandpa’s pottery as well as stolen it? It was such a long time ago. I remembered Duncton telling me how he’d managed to snap one of Grandpa’s magical stones. Had we both done the same naughty thing as children? Or was I just muddling my memories?
Eventually surfacing from my trance, I wrote down the catalogue number handwritten on a sticker on the shard. I’d never looked at anything for so long in a museum before. I felt a bit dizzy. Groggily retracing my steps, I wondered if I’d really found what I was looking for. Something wasn’t quite right, and this time I wasn’t going to kid myself and say this definitely was the one. I needed more proof. I didn’t want to do another lesser spotted woodpecker.
Back at reception, I asked the wise man if it was possible to look up where an item had come from through its catalogue number. He said it was possible – they started keeping accurate records about twenty years ago – but he couldn’t help. I’d have to call the Assistant Curator. But she was on holiday. She’d be back in a couple of weeks’ time. I thanked the man, gave him my phone number, threw all my loose change (which unfortunately only amounted to about £1.50) in the donations bucket and headed off to Farnham.
Had I dipped for a second time in two weeks? Was I kidding myself again? Or had I found ‘my’ piece of Roman pottery once more? I wouldn’t know till the Assistant Curator got back from wherever Assistant Curators go on holiday.
1 Just a pen, luckily.
2 And money, and if you put a stitch in it you’ll save nine, and its daughter is truth. It also heals and takes its toll. But let’s not waste too much more of it worrying about all that now.
3 When I was little, Mat told me owls make that ‘twit twoo’ noise because sometimes they pick up mice that are too hot. ‘Hooo!’ they cry. ‘Hot! Hot! Hot!’ I believed him for ages. Brothers can be bad.
4 I don’t want to sound too hypocritical here. With trips to Istanbul, Bahrain and South Africa under my environmentally unsound belt, I know I’ve not been particularly eco-conscious recently. And I know that my behaviour was certainly twitcher-ish.
5 A cattle egret hanging out with cows doesn’t sound nearly as exciting as a fork-tailed drongo daringly riding a rhino but it’s basically the same thing. Birds often thrive in this sort of symbiotic relationship, and many of these relationships actually involve us. Those gulls chasing tractors, the robin in your garden or my pigeon catching the tube, they’re all using humans to help themselves. And by enjoying birdwatching, we can get something out of it too.
6 Although to my mind, these uncountable ‘escapes’ are actually the wildest birds you can get. They’ve escaped! And now they’re roaming free! That’s wild!
7 A name that sounds like what Duncton often had with my grandfather.
8 A name that sounds like a futuristic sports car for the Nuts generation.
9 Yes, in both senses, thank you and well done.
10 Under EU legislation (Habitats Directive 1992) the UK is obliged to reintroduce species ‘where it is considered feasible’. Who knew that? There must be some more fun animals we can get back … did we ever have elephants here? Llamas? Mammoths?
CHAPTER 12
Countdown
‘F*** it! I can’t be beaten now. If Lee claims he can get to Norfolk in time to see this bird, he truly is a hero and is welcome to it. I’m going to the pub.’
– Adrian M Riley
Alex:
260 species
Duncton:
214 species
6 December
I USED TO love Advent. I loved the teasing candles and calendars counting down, the volume of carols being turned tortuously up and the garish Christmas lights that suddenly appeared on neighbours’ houses as if by tacky magic. It was these potentially vulgar elements that made this the best time of year. It was the build-up, the expectation, the anticipation that I liked best and, like everyone else, I was so wound up by Christmas Eve I would stay awake all night then be too tetchy to enjoy the big day itself.
As a comedian, I now dread Advent. In particular I dread the arrival of office parties into my workplace, and all the vulgar elements they bring. Managers of offices and comedy clubs think it’s a good idea to hold Christmas parties at comedy nights, so every year groups of up to fifty people make their drunken way into clubs up and down the country, adorned with tinsel and baubles like slutty Christmas trees. They are all in a good mood. Christmas is coming, they’ll have a couple of days off and an added excuse to get drunk. And, by all accounts, office parties are fun, if sordid affairs. I’ve never attended one as I mostly work by myself. Key and I once got drunk and watched Takeshi’s Castle in mid-December, but that’s about it. I’ve turned into Scrooge.
As soon as December arrives, so do the festive suits, herded
into their seats by the office joker who has organised the event and who considers himself either a comedian or, perhaps worse, a comedy aficionado. They order too many drinks, the club owner rubs his hands together; everything looks rosy.
In the dressing room, at least two of the four comedians sit shaking their heads, knowing what’s going to happen next, and swearing they won’t allow themselves to be in the same situation next year. They can hear the noise levels increase out in the club, a member of staff tells them they’re on in a couple of minutes. They don’t feel nervous. They feel a grim acceptance of their grisly Christmas fate.
For, when the ‘comedy’ starts, these boisterous groups of Christmas revellers are suddenly told to shut up and listen. The fun and banter at the tables is interrupted and they’re asked to turn and face the front, baubles and all, and concentrate on me.
For some comedians these conditions are perfect. A great compère can address pithy remarks to every group, insult one member and include the rest, harnessing their exuberance to create a genuine party atmosphere. But then I come on and ruin it with the jokes I’ve spent all year crafting. I don’t like having to engage in conversation with the man at the front wearing Christmassy fake breasts, or listen to ‘Jane from accounts’ read out her Christmas cracker joke. I wrote my own. I’d prefer to tell them. Or even share a story about my birdwatching dad. But apparently they didn’t come here for that. One or two of them did, maybe, but the rest are here for the drinks, the disco, the Christmas craic.
There is often a short stand-off. The quieter audience members try to listen, the louder elements start to chat. The quieter elements are too polite to tell the louder ones to shut up. I’m too polite too. And I can’t be bothered. By now I’m just keen to take my ‘double Christmas cash’ and go home. When I get in, ignoring the garish decorations on the front of next door’s house, I feel guilty. Next year, I think, it’ll be different.
But this year I had a lot of Christmas gigs lined up, mostly in London, the office party capital of the world, and despite the welcome lack of travelling, they gradually sapped my energy and I limped towards Christmas and 2007.
David, my birdwatching crutch, pointed me in the direction of a couple more birds I might still find without leaving London with the following email:
There’s a ring-billed gull on the Isle of Dogs at the moment. It tends to show best on a falling tide, when the mud gets exposed – you’ve probably done your research, but its favourite place is to the east of the slipway at the end of Glenaffric Road, normally with the assembled commoner gulls – chance of yellow-legged there too … it’s a small example, so you should bone up on the ID features first – it basically looks like a Com Gull, but is lighter on the wings and mantle, with just a little bit of white on the ‘tertial step’ (sorry, techie talk!) … You could try for the monk parakeets at Mudchute City Farm, just around the corner (walk along the high grass causeway between the farm and Millwall Park), and there may be a black redstart at East India Dock bird sanctuary (they’re regular there at this time of year) …
This is what birders call ‘gen’: information about the whereabouts of a particular bird. I still wasn’t even nearly fluent in the lingo, but picked through it with the help of my bird guide and, for the first time in my life, checked the tides. In a post-Christmas-gig haze, I couldn’t really believe what I was doing, but with the help of the tidal section of the Birdwatcher’s Yearbook I managed to work out exactly when the moon would be pulling the seas back enough to expose the mud and, ideally, a gull with a stripy beak. Accomplishing this made me feel powerful again. I was in control.
Unfortunately, when I arrived at the end of Glenaffric Road, there were literally hundreds of the ‘commoner gulls’ David said would be ‘assembled’ there. I hadn’t appreciated how big a gull assembly would be. A roll call would take hours. I didn’t have hours. The tide, like time, waits for no man.
I’d done my best to ‘bone up’ on its ‘ID features’ but scanning the myriad seagulls, I couldn’t confidently say if one was a bit lighter coloured, heavier bodied, or if its bill was thicker. I also couldn’t even hope to see if its bill had a dash of black or if its irises were yellower than a common gull (a notable distinction apparently) because I didn’t have the Hubble telescope with me. It was like playing a game of Where’s Wally in which Wally was hiding out at a Where’s Wally impersonator convention.1 They all looked the same! Instead of throwing myself into the Thames (I would only have landed in the exposed mud anyway) I took David’s next piece of unlikely advice and tried for the monk parakeets at Mudchute City Farm.
This species was much easier. I walked ‘along the high grass causeway between the farm and Millwall Park’ as instructed and almost bumped my head on an enormous nest hanging from one of the bare, wintry (non-Christmassy) trees. A couple of squawks later and a bright green bird plopped into the nest, clutching a massive branch in its parroty mouth. He stood out like Wally would have on that beach in Bahrain. I looked at him, he ignored me, and got down to a bit of weaving. He didn’t look like a monk, he looked more like the ring-necked parakeets that have settled so well in London – in fact, these birds had also escaped from cages a generation or two ago and had established such a flourishing population that they were also now counted as a British bird. My list ticked over once again.
Not wanting to end my day with disappointment, I decided against looking for David’s black redstart. The first bird he’d ever shown me was the common redstart at Walthamstow Reservoirs. Rather than floundering around misidentifying robins by myself, I quite wanted him to show me this one too. I cut my losses and headed home to lie down in a dark room before it was time to stand up in an even darker one.
10 December
I spent most of December cowering in my kitchen, trying to recover from whatever had happened the night before, unable to face the Christmas crowds that were now thronging on every London street.2
From my window, I watched my fat robin prepare himself for the winter and found solace. He was joined by the chaffinches, blue tits and great tits that were now so familiar to me, and even, one morning a coal tit. Once more I found myself staring at them instead of the football I’d sat down to watch. I realised that although I would always be a glory fan who revelled in trips to South Africa or Anfield, I could also enjoy the smaller spectacles. When I have kids, I decided, they’ll support their local club. I assumed Rachel and I would move out of London when the time came, so I wasn’t talking QPR or, dare I say it, Chelsea. I was thinking about the equivalent of my robin, a plucky side who my kids could cheer on. Maybe I’d get behind them too.
14 December
The Assistant Curator of Haslemere Museum called me back.
‘I gather you were asking about a piece of Roman pottery?’ she asked in a kindly, primary-teacherish sort of way. I told her my story (missing out the bit about me stealing from my grandfather). She said she’d do her best to help and would be back in touch soon.
15 December
The Assistant Curator of Haslemere Museum called me back again. She was so kindly.
‘Hello Alex,’ she said.
‘Hello,’ I said. I didn’t know her name.
‘So, I’ve had a rummage round in our records and I’m afraid the name “Horne” didn’t come up as a donor.’
My heart sank. I’d got myself quite worked up about finding that fragment.
‘But that’s not to say it’s not here,’ she continued. I perked up again. This was a rollercoaster ride of a call from Haslemere.
‘You see, twenty years ago our system wasn’t very well established, so I can’t really pinpoint the piece myself. I’m afraid the donor details almost certainly weren’t recorded in the database. But …’ – I liked the sound of this – ‘… we do have about 5,000 Romano-British pieces in our reserve collection and you’re welcome to have a look at them. You just need to book an appointment, then come and see what you can find.’
See what you can find – t
hat was basically what I’d been doing all year. I booked an appointment for the following week and crossed my fingers.
18 December
The last gig of the year, like the last day of term, is a wonderful, silly occasion, for the comics and kids at least. You might start a little wearily but halfway through you remember how close you are to your holiday and the adrenaline takes over. You no longer care what people think. You’re going to have a good time whatever. But instead of heading out to celebrate after mine, I had to head straight home to bed.
I had arranged to pick Tim up at 4.15 a.m. for our last birdwatching trip of the year. His school (he’s a teacher, remember) had broken up for Christmas the night before and he was up for an adventure. And so, a little wearily at first, we drove out to Norfolk in the December dark, munching a festive turkey wrap as we went.
David’s final piece of advice was to get up to Holkham Nature Reserve on the north Norfolk coast before dawn, where throughout winter we could see 20,000 geese on the move. It was an unforgettable sight, he told me. I tried to think of all the other unforgettable sights from my life. There weren’t that many. Rachel on our wedding day, Gerrard lifting the cup in Istanbul, those starlings in Brighton … these were all treasured scenes. I wanted another. I checked what time dawn would be, feeling confident that even if they weren’t going to wait for me, I would at least know how long both time and tide were sticking around.
By this late stage of the year, getting up early was much less of a problem than it had been. As long as I had something I had to do, something I cared about, I was basically fine. A little weary, but fine. And if I’d dragged Tim all the way out here in the middle of the night, it was my duty to appear fine. Maybe that’s why dads like Duncton and David seem to have so much stamina, I thought, they just have to.