I don't do twitches - but when I do, I particularly dislike twitching "little brown jobs". Birding for me is about spending time with the birds, observing and connecting with them and hopefully leaving with a good record shot or on very rare occasions a quality picture of the bird. A warbler twitch is definitely not the place to be.
Then why did I go to Farlington to see the Eastern Olivaceous Warbler? It is a rare bird, it would be a life tick and it was on what I consider to be my larger birding patch but equally I knew that I wouldn't like it. I called Dave up to see if he wanted to go but he refused to have anything to do with it. A man of principles!
What's worse is that it was a Sunday and parking at Farlington Marsh would be a nightmare. I got out of that one by parking just along the coast at Broadmarsh and walking the mile and a half to the twitch. The walk in was great with Spotted Flycatchers, Whinchats, and various other birds on show but I didn't stop to photograph them for fear of missing the target bird.
I did get to see it, two or three times, probably for a total of thirty seconds in a two hour and a half hour watch, but did I really see it? I was actually too busy getting the camera onto the bird and in focus to really spend time looking at it.
The twitch was exactly what I expected and I didn't enjoy it. I don't blame anyone. It's a free country and the bird does not belong to anyone other than perhaps the finder. I am fortunate in being able to stand off with a large lens and still get my picture, as are the expensive scope brigade but other less fortunate people still want to see the bird. Some people do get too close but then who am I to set the rules.
What else was around? Well, I didn't get to see any Bearded Tits and on the walk out, the Spotted Flycatchers and Whinchats had all disappeared. Disappointing day? Not really, that evening I did enjoy adding a tick to the life list that I don't like to admit to keeping!
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And that should have been an end to the blog.........
.....except three days later and the bird is still there. My record shot above is poor, numbers at the twitch will have dropped, the weather is nice, and even Dave is now interested. So back we go and I am really glad we did. On Sunday, with all the crowds around, the bird was playing hard to get and I ended up with three record shots from about two and a half hours watching. Today it was showing a little better and I had five hundred plus shots from about an hours watching.
Admittedly most of the shots are poor, being out of focus or with the bird partialy in cover, but there are a couple of decent ones in amongst them. More importantly I had time to study the bird today. The tail pumping is very distinct and it seems to have a different hunting style to other warblers. If I ever come across another one I think I would now have a good chance of recognising it.
Below are some of today's shots. A slightly better result than the picture above!
If only all little brown jobs showed as well as this.
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