Addicted?
Last year I gave up twitching. I've been trying to give it up for several years, for various reasons, but it obviously became easier when Covid was upon us, and last year I was quite happy to not see any American warblers, nor seabirds, since I've seen lots in my foreign travels. I had to go for Grey-headed Lapwing, as I wanted a photo, and really enjoyed the White's Thrush on Shetland because although it wasn't a tick I'd not had really good views previously. Anyway that wasn't a twitch 'cos I was on Shetland. Except I didn't need to go twice.
At the end of the year I was quite happy, no more twitching, year listing only out of interest and not making a conscious effort. As Ann is happy for me to continue travelling I have a trip to Ghana in the planning stages. I had devised a plan to give me a focus of where to travel a few years ago, my "Dirty Dozen". This is a list of species on Category A which I haven't seen anywhere in the world. Several trips in 2022 got me three of those (Caspian Plover, White-winged Lark and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker), and taxonomists got me Yelkouan Shearwater by lumping it (I'll still go to see one if I get the chance, it will almost certainly be re-split). So it's now eight, and the first question anyone asks is obviously what are they? So here we go- Northern Hawk Owl, Tengmalm's Owl, Macqueen's Bustard, Egyptian Nightjar, Amur Falcon, Black-billed Cuckoo, Red-throated Thrush and Pallas' Bunting. Four of those I could have twitched in the UK but they were all during the time I was trying to give up twitching. Red-throated Thrush I should have got on my way home from Heathrow as we'd been in Egypt, but we decided to leave it till the following day. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I think there's a reasonable chance of two or three turning up in the UK again, if so I shall twitch them.
So, I've almost given up twitching; no, I HAVE (except for those three species). I felt really good after my trip to Sri Lanka, and didn't do any birding except to photograph the Yellowlegs at Frampton. Got Christmas and New Year out of the way, decided to only go out if the weather was OK., made a resolution and went down to the van at Kessingland with Ann on New Years day. I decided to go to see the Northern Waterthrush on Friday as it was closer than it would have been at home. I didn't need it, just something to do. I got there ten minutes too late, chatted to a few friends, waited another two and a half hours and gave up.
It doesn't work like that! We had to come home as Ann had an appointment on Monday, on Tuesday I got up before dawn to drive down to the Waterthrush. Resolution blown, several years hard(ish) effort wasted, I'm twitching again! And just to stop me kidding myself, I saw Lee as I got back to my car. The Canvasback at Abberton was in an area where it can't be seen, so I'll probably go back for that sometime. At least I've stuck to my new parameters, I don't feel compelled to go for anything now, I'll always be addicted, but at least it doesn't harm anyone else. In fact, Ann said she might start up again if it's not too far to walk. A big plus is that I no longer care about anything I don't see, but if any of my "naughty nine" turn up on Orkney, Shetland or Scilly, I'll see you there! I suppose another motivation is that of getting a better photo. The scanned print from 1996 was taken looking over a low wall, lying flat with a 500mm lens resting on the wall. Such were the narrow viewing conditions that Ann had Mark Golley on top of her, (with her permission)! Later of course the target was hopping around on the lawn and good shots were obtained, but we were off to the next bird.
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