After a lot of correspondence through email, today I finally had the chance to meet up with another avid birder in person. John and I decided to go birdwatching around the Cetina Marshes in Puerto Real, in the province of Cádiz in the south of Spain. We arrived around nine o'clock in the morning in order to avoid the heat, as late April temperatures this year already seem to announce a scorching summer.
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I was born in Southampton (UK) but have lived most of my adult life in Canterbury in SE England.
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t like watching birds but I think I only started to consider myself a “birdwatcher” when I was in secondary school. I was very lucky that three other people in my class were “into” birds. We started to go out together specifically with the idea of finding and watching birds in the winter of 1962/63. It was an exceptionally cold winter so there were huge movements of birds (mainly thrushes) which really ignited our interest. All of us are still very active birdwatchers (with one now being an authority on the birds of New Guinea having written a field guide to the birds of that island and a book of birds of paradise). So, my answer to the question is – frighteningly – 60 years!
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| One of the many Yellow Wagtails we spotted |
I’m not entirely sure! I’ve seen about 420 in the UK alone and around 2,200 species in all having travelled around much of Europe, parts of North America and, more recently, Australia, Singapore, India, Morocco and Japan. This may seem an impressive number but most of my contemporaries have seen two or three times as many species.
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| Little Tern |
How did you get started with birdwatching?
As I said before, I think doing something better than my older siblings was an encouragement but it helped that we lived on the edge of Southampton so there were woods and other habitats to explore close to home. With less traffic on the roads and little awareness of ‘stranger danger’, my generation were free to explore unsupervised in a way that many children today (in the UK at least) are not free to do. So, from when I was quite young my older brother and I went out looking for newts, sticklebacks, birds’ nests, etc. It also helped that my parents were very sympathetic and encouraged my interest. As also noted above, it was a great help to have friends who were birdwatchers and, in my teens, belonging to the junior branch of the Southampton Natural History Society was also helpful.
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| Marsh Harrier |
Which equipment do you have?
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Do you have, or have you had, any professional link with birdwatching?
I was a part-time ‘Field Teacher’ for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) at their Dungeness reserve (Kent) for ten years. This involved taking groups of adults and children out onto the reserve showing them birds, pond life, insects, etc. I am also involved with editing and writing wildlife guides to various parts of Europe for the Crossbill Guides Foundation (https://crossbillguides.nl). I co-authored the Crossbill Guide to Western Andalucia (and wrote chunks of the sister volume on eastern Andalucia).
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| Mediterranean Short-toed Lark |
How often do you observe birds?
I’m lucky since, as I’m retired and have relatively few commitments, I can go out birding when I like. When in Spain I pretty much birdwatch every day, but I do so less often in the UK (although I still get out at least once a week and usually more often during spring & autumn).
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| Curlew Sandpiper in flight |
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| Curlew Sandpiper |
In the UK, my favourite location is the Stour valley east of my hometown (Canterbury). I can walk from home to Fordwich-Westbere marshes and can get to Stodmarsh National Nature Reserve in 15 minutes by car. The valley has a good mix of habitats (reedbeds, woodland, etc) and consequently an interesting range of species. Migrants also funnel along the valley so there’s always the chance of seeing something unusual.
In Spain, my favourite site is the terrace of my small house in Alcalá de los Gazules not least because it’s only seven paces and up a flight of thirteen steps from my bedroom! I can sit in the sunshine (unlike in the UK!) and watch whatever drifts over particularly during migration periods. I’ve seen 23 species of birds of prey here and in spring/summer I can watch dozens of Lesser Kestrels playing in the sky above me. It’s where I’m typing this and, as I’ve been doing so, a Honey Buzzard (a very scarce bird in the UK) has flown low over my head.
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| Dunlin |
Do you have any special anecdote? Something special that happened while you were birdwatching?
Nothing that would interest anyone other than a keen birder. I still treasure hitchhiking the length of England (Southampton to Newcastle) to see two rare arctic gulls – Ivory and Ross’s Gull – when I was a teenager. We had them in the same field of view in our binoculars which is the only time such a feat has been possible in the UK.
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| Collared Pratincole |
Do you have any favourite bird?
An impossible question. I often say that it’s the last bird I’ve seen. It’s easier if I change the question to “Which bird were you most thrilled to see?” In that case, my answer (today) would be Blakiston’s Fish Owl (the largest owl in the world), very closely followed by Steller’s Sea Eagle and albatross (of any species). They’re all birds I’d longed to see since childhood and never thought I would ever catch up with but I saw all of them on a winter trip to Japan in 2020 (which finished a week before Covid stopped travel). On another day, though, I might change the order of those three and put the eagle or albatross first. If limited to Europe, I’d say Bee-eater or Wallcreeper. At least, that’s what I’d claim today since, as I said at the start, it’s an impossible question to answer.
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| Collared Pratincole displaying the 'broken wing act' to distract possible predators. |
Is there
any location or bird species you really want to see?
There are too many to list. Quetzal
in Costa Rica is certainly one, particularly since my brother (who isn’t a
birdwatcher) saw them there this year. However, my main ‘dream bird’ is Andean Condor (in the Andes, of course)
closely followed by Diademed Plover (also in South America).
The constantly rising temperatures, the drought we are seeing right now during our walk, people denying climate change... it can be quite saddening to be a nature lover these days...
Having been interested in birds for so long it pains me to witness how many species are now in very sharp decline, particularly in the UK. For example, Turtle Doves were which were familiar everyday birds in my youth are now rare having declined by over 98%. However, I do not wish to end on a negative note, so I’ll add that I am much encouraged by the greater awareness of environmental problems shown by the younger generation. With inspirational people like Greta Thunberg fighting the cause then there’s room for some guarded optimism.
John, thanks a lot for your time!
Thanks to you, it was interesting to meet you in person!