Yearly round up part I

“So, where oh where have been this calendar year our dear Q@Spurn?” I hear the two readers other than my mother cry.
I’ll tell you. But I won’t tell you everywhere I’ve been as I can’t remember as I don’t keep a notebook like proper birders are meant to as I a) can’t be bothered, b) think it’s a bit wanky (proper word) and c) I should’ve stopped after “b)” as I don’t have a third reason. What I actually do is make a note in “notes” on my phone of the new birds I’ve had during the year which is actually keeping a digital notebook, so I CAN be bothered after all and maybe all of the above is pointless drivel. This is boring isn’t it? I’m bored so you MUST be.

Cast your minds back to March. Or April. A Baikal Teal has been found in Cambridgeshire. Being a mental twitcher who drops everything and runs out of meetings and weddings at the breaking news of a mega, it was there for seven days before I SHOT OFF to see it. Distantly. Very distantly in fact. Being a duck means you have a hard time to get accepted as wild in this country what with all the escapes and wildfowl collections and so forth. But with this duck showing brilliantly down to a range of c.1.7 miles there was no chance of some miserable bastard photographing it with a ring on thus having no chance of it being proved an escapee it would be accepted. Result! Or is it?!
The Baikal Teal was gone the next day. Smugness fills the air knowing that you’ve seen something on its last day as no one else will then see it as I’m vindictive like that in the cut throat world of twitchering.
I missed the Flamborough bird due to me fitting three doors for a man clearly of Indian descent in Hull. Dissent.
So what does the Baikal Teal then do after I’d driven 800 miles the previous day? It flies directly to Spurn! Directly! The Cunt. Actually it’s not a cunt, a (the) Baikal Teal. At Spurn! In Yorkshire! Best get there. Spurn/Yorkshire ticktastic. I’m really close to 300 for Spurn. But who’s bothered? Youre not. Why the fuck would you be? So what did the crazy Baikal Teal do after this? It turns up in Durham. So I went to Durham as, at this point, I was now fucking obsessed with this Baikal Teal. It then relocated to Northumberland. So I went to Northumberland. It then dropped back down to Cleveland. So I went to Cleveland thus  confirming my status as national record holder by seeing the same bird in five different counties. It then did the honest thing and left the country. I miss that Baikal Teal, we struck quite a bond, at one point I’m sure it even recognised me.
The last three trips to various counties may or may not be true but as Twilf says “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good yarn”.
Fine advice indeed.



Fin


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