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