by Bill Oddie
Frankly, the technology made for tedious filming, but it was alleviated by gales of laughter, especially from one of our American palaeontologists whose job was to translate my commentary into a language that American viewers could understand! They say that Brits and Americans are divided by a common language. Maybe, but giggling sure brings us together! And believe me, playing ‘whack the frozen turkey’ is a real ice-breaker (pun slightly intended).
Talking of Americans, further proof of a generous budget and a major personal attraction was that the schedule included three days in Texas! One of the things I love about visiting different American states is that each one has its own clichés. No sooner had we left the airport than we were driving through oilfields, passing diners advertised by giant cowboys saying ‘Howdy Pardner’, and calling at gas stations where you could fill your tank for the price of a cup of tea. Best of all, the birds were Texan too. High in the glaringly blue sky, the ‘buzzards’ were circling just like they do in cowboy movies, though in fact they are not buzzards, they are Turkey Vultures. Whirring wings over the roadside meadows were – what else? – meadowlarks, and along the field margins were birds that looked like a cross between a lark and a sparrow. Lark Sparrow? Yep, you got it. Perched on wires and fence posts was a species I last saw in spring 1965 flitting around magnolia blossoms in Louisiana, and one that still gets my vote as one of the world’s most elegant birds: Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Even better, my eye was diverted by a creature scuttling along about 20 metres ahead of us as if daring us to catch up. ‘A hare?’ suggested our driver. Nope. A Roadrunner. Just like in the cartoon, except they don’t go ‘beep beep’!
Pretty soon I could stand no more. Nature called. Our car stopped and I leapt out and disappeared behind a small clump of trees. ‘How long will you be?’ shouted our producer. ‘Half an hour,’ I called back, ‘maybe a bit longer. Would an hour be OK?’
‘Forty minutes. No more.’
It is, of course, not usual to haggle over how long an emergency stop is going to take, but I’m sure he’d realised that I was desperate to seek relief not from my bladder but from my frustration at being in a brand new location and not being able to do a bit of proper birding.
I was patiently stalking a Lark Sparrow – a new bird for me – when I was reminded of the reason we were in Texas. My binoculars followed the bird as it shuffled into what was clearly a completely dry riverbed. An ex-creek, I guess, in Texan. I noticed that what I’d assumed to be pebbles were all shell-shaped. Closer inspection revealed that this was because they were shells. Or rather they had been. A very, very long time ago. The more I looked, the more I found. Cockle fossils, mussel fossils, little fossils, big fossils. Very big fossils! You bet.
They call it Dinosaur Valley. There is a river, much wider than a creek, but especially after a dry period, the water can be very shallow or indeed absent. We set up the camera at the top of the bank, I looked down and we recorded my reaction. Wow! There below me, criss-crossing the riverbed, and as clear as if they had been stencilled overnight, were huge footprints. Two very obvious lines, and another area where the pattern was less orderly. We carried on down the slope and onto the shoreline, where we realised that what looked like sand was in fact hard flat rock. I waded into the shallows, and literally followed in the dinosaur’s footsteps.
The true size of anything under water is, of course, hard to judge, but now I could measure each print in ‘hands’ (I needed more than two). Clearly, the producer’s notion of me leaping from one print to another wasn’t going to happen. An Olympic long jumper wouldn’t have made it. Instead, I splashed around a bit and attempted to convey a word picture of what the palaeolithic scene might have looked like. This was obviously a drinking and bathing place. There were clearly different species visiting it, and experts have identified them. Some were relatively small, others were enormous. Some were harmless grazers, others fearsome carnivores, including the killer dinosaurs featured in our programmes.
We left the location astonished by what we had seen and delighted with what we had filmed. Incontrovertible evidence of life on ancient Earth, so different from now, and yet with many similarities to the modern world. Who among us would not be impressed? Quite a few it seems.
As we returned to the valley’s main gateway, I veered towards a large white wooden-slatted building, which on the way in I had assumed was an information centre and gift shop. I was looking forward to buying fluffy dinosaurs for my granddaughters and a bag of assorted fossils for my grandson, and for me. However, as I approached the door I realised that it was not a shop; it was a church. The preacher and his congregation, far from celebrating dinosaurs, would be cursing them, if indeed they believed in their existence at all. Even more abhorrent was the concept of ‘evolution’, especially the suggestion that man himself is descended from ‘lower forms’, which is considered not merely a fallacy, but an iniquitous falsehood, a heresy and a sin. Such are the convictions and the creed of the ‘Creationist’ churches. There are an awful lot of them in the States, especially down south.
I have to admit that when you compare the two basic theories of the origins of life on Earth – either that it evolved over millions and millions of years or that God created it in six days – I personally find it hard to believe either of them. But Creationists v Evolutionists isn’t just a matter of opinion or amiable rivalry. As you exit under the Dinosaur Valley Archway, the very first building is that church, challenging you to choose between confrontation and salvation. I could almost hear the preacher’s voice: ‘OK, you jest go ahead and look at them so-called din-ee-saw prints if you like, but after that, you’d better git in church and repent, for you have looked upon a lie! May the Lord forgive your sins.’
Sir David Attenborough told me that he was once on a lecture tour of the US, talking about prehistory and, of course, dinosaurs. Every show was a sell-out success – until he went down South. The hall was full, and the audience weren’t actually hostile, but they were less than enthusiastic. When David had finished there wasn’t the usual storm of applause. There was a mere trickle. Then everyone filed out in silence. David thanked them and withdrew to the wings where the theatre owner was waiting to escort him from the building, and possibly out of town. The man was uncomfortably silent, so David spoke: ‘Er, was that all right? Only it didn’t seem to go terribly well… did it?’ The theatre owner took a deep breath and said – in that southern drawl that slips so easily from hospitality to menace – ‘Folks round here don’t care to think about that kind of thing.’
We couldn’t possibly do a programme promising killer dinosaurs without featuring velociraptors. Perhaps the phrase ‘The Truth About’ implied that we were going to mollify – if not obliterate – their fearsome reputation, as established so chillingly in Jurassic Park. Well, maybe so. Scientific research has concluded that they were quite small and that they hunted in packs, probably seeking out prey that was already injured or sick. To demonstrate the relatively unthreatening nature and modest stature of Velociraptor, my producer had the quaint notion of comparing it to a turkey. Not totally inappropriate, since it is often mooted that birds evolved from dinosaurs. The idea was that I would crouch a little, thus approximating the size of a Velociraptor, with the similar-sized turkey standing beside me.
Our assistant producer was sent to procure a performing – or at least docile – turkey. There are Wild Turkeys wandering the woods in Texas, but they tend to betray their wildness by hiding or running away very fast (behaviour that has no doubt evolved as a response to being frequently shot at). The assistant producer phoned a turkey farm. The phone was answered by what sounded like a southern belle.
Farm owner: Hi y’all. How can we help you today?
Assistant producer: Er, we are looking for a turkey.
Owner: Well, mam, you sure come to the right place. Would you be wanting that plucked, or unplucked, or would you be fixin’ to kill it youself? You can take ’em dead or alive!
Assistant produ
cer: We want it alive. We want it for a television show.
Owner: A TV show? A show about turkeys! Well I never. You want a whole bunch of ‘em? I can get you some real lively ones.
Assistant producer: No, we only want one. And we don’t really want it lively.
Owner: And what kinda show is this?
Assistant producer: We’re from the BBC.
Owner: The BBC! Oh my Lord! Hey Reuben, The BBC! Doctor Who, Downtown Abbey, Benny Hill! Oh my, we love the BBC. Oh my my. One of our turkeys gonna be on the BBC. Praise the Lord. We are so honoured! Tell me, mam, what kinda show is this?
Assistant producer: It’s about dinosaurs.
There was a moment’s silence as her voice snapped into menace mode.
Owner: Listen, lady, I don’t care who you from. We are not letting one of our turkeys appear on no programme about that e-vo-lution shit! No, mam.
Fortunately, we managed to get a Buddhist turkey flown in from Florida.
PS The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs was issued as a BBC DVD in 2005, and may still be available somewhere!
chapter twenty-two
One That Got Away
A birder friend of mine, while admitting that he had very little artistic ability, nevertheless reckoned that if he encountered an unfamiliar bird in the field, even the most rudimentary thumbnail sketch was worth more than several pages of notes, at which point he showed me his hasty pencil portrait of an as-yet-unidentified bunting. I commented that it certainly looked more like a thumbnail than a bird, which was only as unkind as it was true! Nevertheless, this certainly has not deterred him from sketching before writing and – for several reasons – I have to agree that that is the best way.
For a start, scribbling notes largely involves looking down at the page, not up at the bird. Indeed, there is a danger that concentrating on meticulous details of supercilia, tertials, primary tips, crown stripes and rumps can be so absorbing that by the time you have finally decided to scope it the bird has flown off when you weren’t looking. Mind you, I can testify to the fact that there are some ‘creative’ twitchers who won’t let a little thing like a fleeting or inadequate view of a ‘possible’ rarity stop them producing a two-page spread of field sketches from all angles and in a variety of poses, quite likely with little arrows indicating the diagnostic features. This, however, is not proof that they actually saw diagnostic details, but only that they know what they are. Whatever the truth, they are convincingly illustrated in their drawings, suitably labelled: ‘Tail spread to reveal white outer tail feathers. Showed grey rump clearly on landing. Rufus streaking visible on flanks when bird is perching.’ Which, of course, it is doing in the picture. By the way, I do hope you don’t think I am insinuating there is such a thing as ‘illustrated stringing’. I would prefer to call it ‘enhanced field sketches’, which as it happens is my personal favourite genre of bird art.
Some people sketch what they see. Others sketch what they want to see. Or perhaps wish they’d seen. I myself belong to the second camp, but only when I fancy doing a ‘proper painting’. When faced with a suspected or even certain rarity I am with Mr Thumbnail. I draw – or rather scribble – while still looking at the bird through binoculars or telescope. What I produce is a tad more avian than a thumbnail, but it is barely recognisable as a bird. Ear coverts end up where undertail coverts should be, and the wing (no point in depicting two ’cos they’re both the same!) may be completely detached. The overall result looks more like one of those puzzles in kids’ comics, where you have a few apparently random lines, but when you join up the little numbers or dots it becomes something recognisable (though probably not a rare bunting).
So, I confess, my field sketches are a mess, but they do their job, which is to record enough detail to identify the bird. Once I have the identification sorted, I may attempt art. In fact, I only ever paint on holiday, so most of the species are Mediterranean rather than British. Golden Orioles, Woodchat Shrikes, Hoopoes, Azure-winged Magpies, Red-necked Nightjars and feral waxbills, from which miscellany you may deduce that I am a regular to southern Portugal. I am so familiar with the birds there that I feel I don’t need them to pose. Instead, I set myself up in ‘watercolour corner’ (other family members paint other things) where I do a fairly rapid pencil sketch of my chosen bird or birds and colour in a few bits. It is all a bit cursory, because I am impatient to get on to the fun part, which I call ‘designing the set and providing the props’. I rarely show a bird perched, feeding or doing whatever it is doing in the same context I saw it originally. For example, I saw the Woodchat on a wooden fence. I put it perching on barbed wire, with a few tufts of sheep’s wool and a discarded fag packet snared on one rung and a half-eaten lizard on another. I also added a broken wine bottle – Mateus rosé – overgrown by thistles at the foot of the fence post. Some of my pictures look as though they were designed for a ‘Take Your Litter Home’ campaign. In fact, they often involve me taking other people’s litter home. It is not easy to depict a Portuguese ice-cream wrapper from memory. By the end of the holiday, ‘watercolour corner’ is scattered with more detritus than a teenager’s bedroom. I have considered entering it for the Turner Prize. With no due modesty, I admit I am proud enough of my little paintings to not mind people seeing them, or even bidding for them in a charity raffle. However, the same definitely does not apply to my field sketches.
Ironically, I may well have been intimidated by my first ‘mentor’ – the wondrous Dr E. A. R. (Eric) Ennion who was in charge of Monks’ House Bird Observatory back in the 1950s. Many times as a teenager I sat with him on a Northumberland beach gazing out at the Farne Islands, while he dashed off instant drawings on the back of a fag packet, which he usually gave me to keep. Inevitably, alas, I didn’t. The back of a fag packet was also the canvas of choice for another legendary field artist, R. A. Richardson, the Prince of Cley. He wasn’t really a prince, of course, but he did habitually wear a suit of shining black leather and ride a proud and noble steed. A Harley Davidson I presume. As a teenager, I sat at the feet – or rather peered over the shoulder – of these two talented and incredibly nice men as they illustrated whatever birds we had been discussing or were watching. They were both generous and entertaining people as well as genius artists. If I had to establish a preference, as they say, I think I would have to favour Ennion, whose finished paintings somehow managed to retain the immediacy, movement and life of field sketches, despite his birds having jagged outlines that verged on impressionistic. It’s a style that flourishes in the work of John Busby.
So, whether your motive is art or identification, field sketching is a talent to be envied and a skill to be learnt. If nothing else, if you are fortunate enough to find a rarity, a decent sketch, done while the bird was visible, will surely impress those who carry the poisoned chalice of judgement, such as the Rarities Committee. On the other hand, thanks to ever-evolving technology, it is now possible to capture a digital image on just about any implement from a phone to a ‘tablet’. Even a camera! So ubiquitous are these devices that some rarities committees have announced that they will no longer accept any claims that don’t have photographic evidence. Of course, in most cases, there is. But if there isn’t, what about a decent, accurate sketch?
Do you sense a story of string or injustice about to unfold? The date was mid-September, a few years ago. The place: Tresco on the Isles of Scilly. It is early afternoon and it is warm and sunny. I am lounging almost on my back in our cottage garden. Hirundines are circling lazily on the thermals, along with a few gulls and the occasional raptor. One in particular catches my eye and makes me grab my binoculars. It is a falcon. Kestrel? No. Hobby? No. Peregrine? No. Merlin? Definitely not. That accounts for all the species I had seen on the island so far that week. This bird wasn’t any of those.
The truth is that I knew what it was but I would need to prove it. I rapidly did a sketch, as it circled higher and higher and then drifted out of sight. As I scribbled a few notes, I found myself muttering: ‘
Black underwing-coverts. It’s the only one.’ All that remained was to flick to the falcons in a European field guide where I would surely confirm what I was actually sure of. However – I know it seems a bit arrogant – but I don’t bother to take a field guide on a British holiday. Besides, there is usually one among the books in the accommodation, alongside the Ian Rankins and the various Shades of Grey.
However, the only bird book on our shelf was purely British and belonged back in the era of ‘I-Spy’. Off I scampered towards the quay, keeping one eye on the sky in case the bird reappeared, while thinking: ‘Perhaps I should get one of those new-fangled smartphones.’ With my other eye, I spied two island kids kicking a ball around their garden. I assumed they were too young to know much about European raptors, so I asked: ‘Is your mum in?’ At which moment, mum appeared. On the mainland, she would no doubt have hustled the kids away from the strange man who was suspiciously panting with excitement. Instead, I simply got a typical Scilly greeting: ‘Lovely day isn’t it?’ I agreed effusively, and asked: ‘You don’t happen to have a bird book do you?’
‘Oh, I’m not sure,’ she replied. ‘I think we have. Do you want to come in and have a look?’ That wouldn’t happen on the mainland either.
Thirty seconds later, I was flicking through the pages of a relatively recent Birds of Britain and Europe. After another 10 seconds I was perusing a plateful of falcons and smiling at the first line of the text: ‘The only European falcon with black underwing-coverts.’ Eleonora’s Falcon. Of course, I knew that, didn’t I?