Bananabill

I finished February 1996 on 173 for the year, way ahead of my previous best by that time. It was at this point that I started to think seriously about doing 300 again, though anything more had not occurred to me at this stage. As the last day of February drew to a close my immediate focus was on a tick, though – a White-billed Diver that had, remarkably, turned up 20 miles inland along the River Witham in Lincolnshire (only the second inland record)!

A skittles match the night before ensured I couldn’t be there at dawn, but by 10 am on 1 March I was at Tattershall Bridge. I parked up and started pegging it along the riverside road to try to see the bird. There it was! A proper ‘bananabill’, it was an impressive beast indeed, and on a river which was only 20 or so yards wide it couldn’t help but to show staggeringly well. The downside was that it was slightly oiled, and preening constantly at a small patch on its flank. I was also told that there was a big fishing match along that stretch of river the next day, so I feared for its safety – and sadly was to be proved all too right.

I struck up a conversation with a bloke near me who turned out not to be a birder at all, but a roving reporter for Yorkshire TV. When he heard that I had travelled from Somerset, he interviewed me on the spot. What’s more, I found out later that the interview went out on the local news that night. Fame at last! Given how I must have looked that morning, I hope it went out after the 9pm watershed. 

There seemed to have been a pretty good arrival of seabirds in the area. Both Red-throated and Great Northern Divers were reported from nearby Tattershall Gravel Pits, and a Black-throated had also been reported the day before. Nobody at the White-billed seemed to know what birds exactly were where, and it was tricky enough just to find the right pits. The Great Northern reported that morning turned out in fact to be the Black-throated, but there was no sign of the Red-throated. There was, however, a Red-necked Grebe that nobody had mentioned, and a Slav Grebe on the river added to the list. The Red-crested Pochard by the bridge only had one intact wing, though.

Having the time, I went down the road to Peterborough to see my second Black-throated Thrush of the year, the long-staying Werrington bird. Another first-winter male, it gave excellent, close-range views.

The next day was Alastair’s wedding (the reason he hadn’t been able to come with me for the diver), so I hid from him all afternoon the horrible news of the demise of the White-billed Diver at the hands of a (distraught) fisherman. It swallowed two sets of treble hooks intended for pike, and despite being taken into care, it could not be saved. A sad end to a magnificent bird. 

A happier ending, though, for Alastair, as another twitchable bird turned up later the same month at Blyth, and also showed excellently. (Hang on – that means he’s got it up on me for Northumberland – rats!)

Cedar Waxwing

On the evening of Tuesday 20 February 1996 the shock news of a possible Cedar Waxwing in the Midlands broke, and it was confirmed the next morning. I had been slightly disbelieving at first, so soon after the Stepaside incident, and thought I was seriously stuffed in terms of being able to go for it due to work commitments. My boss noticed something was off, and asked me if I was all right – ‘No, there’s a first for Britain in Nottingham.’(It would be years hence that the 1985 Noss bird would finally claim that accolade, so at this point that was true.) I managed to clear what work absolutely had to be done and talked her into giving me the half-day, gathered up Alastair, and screamed up to Nottingham.

On arrival at the site, only just north of the city centre, I was greeted by a beaming Tony Collinson telling me that it had been showing wonderfully well but had just flown off. I liked Tony, so I didn’t hit him. Instead, I pegged it off in the general direction of where it had gone, only to discover that I had left my fags in the car. Oh no – possibly two hours nervously looking for a first for Britain and no nicotine! (Sad wretch that I am.) Piled into the nearest shop for fags and lighter, ended up losing Alastair. 

At this point I still have no idea where the bird is, so I run across the busy A60 and down the pavement, looking for bird or birders. Then, a lucky break. A bloke in a suit with camera round his neck (local press, I suspect) sees my bins, stops me, points down a side street, and asks what ‘they down there’ are all looking at. I very quickly explain, then scuttle down the street to join the pack of birders. One hasty set of directions later, I am staring at the right bit of the (huge, perhaps 400 strong) flock of Bohemian Waxwings, and the yellowish belly of the Cedar stands out a mile. A few minutes later the whole flock took off and headed back over the A60 to where they had been before. Phew! But joy and relief quickly turned to concern – I’d scored, but Alastair was nowhere to be seen and hadn’t seen the bird!

More mad scurrying around, then, to try and find him or the bird – I managed the latter first, relocating the flock from a distance and legging it to find about 30 birders staring up into a tree at the one pale set of undertail coverts amongst the array of chestnut ones. Alastair appeared, thankfully, and a comic episode ensued, as no matter what directions I gave him, he could not see the bird. We’ve all been there (I certainly have, plenty of times) – it was blindingly obvious to me, but I knew exactly where it was, had seen hundreds of the things before, and wasn’t in the same panicky state of need. Finally he got on it. A Devon crew including Dave Hopkins arrived just in time, as about five minutes later the whole flock took off again, not to be relocated that day. 

I don’t know what the good people of Nottingham thought about all this – a vanload of builders who stopped and asked me what was going on looked very bemused when told. I got home a few hours later to find messages from Paul and James, asking for gen – neither had been available at the critical time earlier, but thankfully both saw the bird well the next day.

Stepaside

 By mid-February 1996 I was pretty much fully committed to doing a big year list, having had a good January (more of that another time, perhaps). So as another weekend approached, I was eyeing up a list of potential targets in the southeast. Then, on the Friday evening, uproar!

Rumours started running around that evening of a Summer Tanager wintering in a village in South Wales. The news was filtering out via the internet – we wouldn’t bat an eyelid at that these days, but back then, long before the heydays of social media, it was a rare and unusual occurrence. Apparently a local resident had seen a funny bird in their garden and emailed a pic to a local RSPB representative, who had identified it as a Summer Tanager. But there were no site details at all to begin with, and only later in the evening did we find out the name of the village, a little place called Stepaside, about 20 miles past Carmarthen, just off the main road to Pembroke Dock. And that was all we had to go on.

It all had a bit of a funny smell about it, but that didn’t stop Paul, James, Stuey Read, and I joining a band of about 40 other hopefuls in the village before dawn on Saturday 17th. That there was a wildlife park in the village, just across the valley from where we stood, did not help the feeling that something was off, and it was quite bizarre watching captive White Storks in their pens as dawn broke. Still we were here, and there was quite possibly a huge megatick on offer, so time to start searching! 

We did a bit of milling around aimlessly for an hour or so, looking in gardens, then suddenly the crowd all started heading in one direction. Apparently a local resident, understandably slightly concerned to see a group of blokes looking into his garden quite early on a Saturday morning, had come out to ask politely what was going on. One of the birders there had explained, at which point the houseowner immediately caved and dobbed in one of his neighbours – the bird had been seen in a garden about 100 yards up the same road, name and address supplied!

So we follow the marching birders, and soon after we find out that not only are we in the right place, but the bird is still present. Tension sets in all round and access to the garden is hastily negotiated. Meanwhile, Ian Lewington sticks his head under the hedge, sees the bird, and announces that it isn’t a Summer Tanager. It isn’t a tanager at all, in fact, but a species of weaver (a Taveta Golden Weaver, we found out later). An obvious escape, and possibly even from the wildlife park down the valley. 

It was an interesting and attractive bird in its own right, and I managed to see the funny side of the whole situation. Some other birders were fuming and threatening to do bloodcurdling things to the local RSPB rep who had ‘confirmed’ the ID. Not that I was immune to this feeling – it had screwed up my plans for the weekend, after all. I decided the only thing to do with the rest of the day was to drive to West Sussex to see a Rough-legged Buzzard. That’s year listing for you. 

Taveta Golden Weaver
Ltshears, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons