The Coot and Calandra

In mid-April 1996, Paul C left for Antigua and his brother’s wedding, and promptly two ticks broke for him on consecutive evenings: the birding gods just like to play with us sometimes. They were ticks for the rest of us too, as the first was Britain’s first American Coot!

I had a new boss at work (though I had known him as a colleague for years), and he had just given me his home phone number so I could ask for time off if something broke after office hours. I don’t think either of us was expecting that privilege to be used on two consecutive nights! He happily said yes the first time, and so I could dawn the coot the next morning, the 17th – I was joined by James and Alastair, and also by a young Jon Dunn, long before his Shetland days. Stodmarsh in Kent was the venue, and a great place it is too, though I’ve rarely been since – the Nightingales singing in the darkness were a lovely prelude to Jon relocating the coot just after dawn swimming towards us down a small channel off the Lampen Wall. It was a strange feeling watching a first for Britain with so few other birders around – presumably most had yet to be able to scrounge time off work. Great views, a good selection of other birds, and back in Somerset for early afternoon.

That evening, a Calandra Lark broke on Scilly. Another big need, and thankfully I didn’t have to make the choice as to which bird to go for. Another call to the boss, who sounded a little less happy this time, but was a star and let me go again.

James and I left Taunton at about 7.30 am for an 11.25 chopper from Penzance – I couldn’t face an earlier run as I was still shattered from losing two complete nights’ sleep out of the last four (the previous one was for the two Harlequin Ducks in Ayrshire, so it was turning out to be a busy and enjoyable week). This was risky with a diurnal migrant, of course, and to add to it we hit low water on a spring tide, so once we were on St Mary’s we had a sweaty hour waiting for the tide to come up far enough for a boat to be able to land on St Agnes.

At last we got on to Aggie, and headed round via the Parsonage, as advised by a few birders heading back, to ensure we didn’t flush the bird. Sweatily we arrived at the cricket pitch, to find no birders and no bird. After several minutes’ anxious scanning suddenly there was the Calandra in my scope! In light rain it showed well for the next hour and a half, during which time the crowd swelled to five (including, unexpectedly, another Somerset birder, and only occasional twitcher even back then, Chris Gladman). To this day I consider the cricket pitch on Aggie to be hallowed ground.

We retired to the Turk’s Head for a celebratory pint, then while waiting by the quay for the boat we were joined by Pete Hutchins and Trevor Ellery, who had also managed to get on that afternoon in time to see the bird. In all only 21 birders made it from the mainland, most still being occupied by the coot; a rather larger crowd gathered the next day but unfortunately dipped.

Thankfully for Paul, he only had to wait till the next year to see Calandra, on the Isle of Man, and the coot stuck around. On his return from Antigua he was a little disturbed to be asked to see a steward before leaving the plane, thinking perhaps it might be bad news. It must have been a relief to see it was just a brief message from me, one that nonplussed the airport staff member I had spoken to on the phone, until I explained – ‘American Coot still on Stodmarsh’. He saw it that afternoon.