Twitch-a-Whoa!

I only dropped in for 5 minutes as it was such a beautiful evening in the hope of reclaiming some peace and perspective after a typical day at the office. The first Hide I tried had bundles of the former, a handful of pochard, a couple of tufted ducks, a couple of Great-Crested Grebes at the far side of the lake and the same wing-beaten cormorants. I sat for about half an hour hoping to discover a magnificent Osprey or first-time recorded Griffon Vulture but was rudely interrupted by an appropriately-dressed, bespectacled man inquiring as to the whereabouts of "Stilts".

I had mastered stilts by the age of 8, with only a couple of bruises and not one occasion of wrapping them around my sister's head, even though she would smirk in a particularly wobbly way to distract me on purpose. I knew of no other types of stilt so I humbly exposed the fact that " I'm a novice, I'm sorry. I've never even heard of Stilts, let alone know how to spot them". He enlightened me about the rare migrants that had been recorded here recently and we parted ways.

Eventually I made my way back to the car and spotted a lesser-sociable lawyer who I often do Swears for hovering around the car-park. I hailed him with our brotherly greeting " Oi, David! Nearly didn't recognize you without the suit", and promptly whispered conspiratorially, that there were a trio of stilts in the area. Fortunately, before I had time to reveal my ignorance of exactly what they were, he pointed me in the direction of their last-reported whereabouts and we both sped, at a sedate and non-obtrusive pace, down the designated lane.

10 minutes later I had got to know his wife reasonably well, ( she's much more personable than him), discovered that he, too, hadn't a clue what we were looking for ( slightly more of an idea about inheritance tax, perhaps, but even that is open to debate) and had the 3 Black-Winged Stilts in my vision. I was thrilled. They were tiny. They could have been Oyster-Catchers. I would not have known the difference were it not for.......

All these blokes with tripods!

This was A Proper Twitch. Not just an ordinary day down by the pond. They were arriving in flocks. They were invariably clad in full bearded plummage. One of them, who I soon discovered to be one of the local birding legends, thrust his fully-extended scope towards me and invited me to experience its delights. I salivated but managed not to dribble on the apparatus. The view of the 3 arrogant, foreign, little turbolence-migrants was fantastic. We then went on to sight yellow wagtail and a blue-headed wagtail ( which was my sighting even though all I did was ask what that "darker one" was)

And as I left, 2 hours later, as the sun dipped close to the horizon, I called my Dad, keen to tell him about my first-ever twitch.

" 3 of 'em, you say? Black wings, and white under-bellies. Like an avocet but with a straight, long beak. Aye! I saw 'em 3 weeks ago last Wednesday. Flew straight out o' Chowder Ness, fastest bloody things I've ever seen, looked like geese but slighter, hadn't a clue what they were and haven't seen anyone to ask since".

I'd just identified a Bird to My Dad. That is one of the best things I have ever done. I was not qualified, nor would I have been capable, of doing so a few hours earlier. I still couldn't tell you what family it belonged to, other than it's a Wader, not a Raptor and definitely not a Corvid. But I'd seen 'em. Me.

The Cosmopolitan Stilts were rare, but I suspect the sight of a pin-striped bedressed woman in 3" heels toting binoculars ( diddy ones) a camera and spare batteries was unique.