Confessions of a lapsed birder

Tree Swallow – Porthellick, St. Mary's, Scillies, Cornwall, 9^th June 1990

Hurray!! Another tick – after an epic twitch – again a ferry journey was necessary to get us there. There wasn’t, perhaps, the anticipation of the Pallas’s Sandgrouse (owing to tiredness and drowsiness due to both pain-killing and sea-sickness pills!). Also, it was an instantaneous decision, without any time to consider dipping.

Pete, Mike and I had driven from St. Albans to Penzance between 19:30 on the evening of Friday the 8th June and 02:30 on the early morning of the following day. We then ‘slept’ in the car before getting the Scillonian to Hugh Town on St. Marys.

During the crossing I was ill.

All not helped by the fact that I had an as yet undiagnosed broken wrist..... .

What? You want the full story? The full, unexpurgated story....?

Right. So. Working for Bechtel on the Shell North West Ethylene Pipeline Project meant that I was reunited with Nick Smith (who had been the BP Environmental Officer on the Purbeck to Southampton Pipeline) and Dave Maynard (who had been one of the BP Archaeologists on the same project); I had been the Environmental Officer for the pipeline construction contractor, Press Pipelines, and as such worked ‘opposite’ the two of them.

Now, we were working together. This was brilliant, as we all got on very well. The week I returned back to work, having been trapped on Fair Isle by weather which prevented flights (hell, eh, being trapped on Fair Isle in early June??) ended on Friday the 8th June. There was something of a liquid lunch culture at Bechtel on Fridays. This, combined with the fact that it was Nick’s birthday and the fact that we all got on very well meant that we did six pints of Guinness each (two rounds of three pints each – simples). This wouldn’t have been a problem but.............. .

A few days earlier the rather stupendous news of the Ancient Murrelet on Lundy had broken. Paul, fair play to him, had somehow chartered a fishing boat to take us to Lundy from Ilfracombe, and so after ‘work’ I was rushing home from the Bechtel offices in The Strand in Central London to get ready to drive to North Devon with Pete and Mike....... .

Or that was the plan. I’m not even sure we returned back to work that afternoon, but presumably we did, as I travelled home with my briefcase, and probably hadn’t taken that to the pub.

Anyway, I left the office and rushed to the tube station to take a Circle or District Line train from Embankment to Blackfriars, as ‘normal’. Except it wasn’t as ‘normal’..... . I rushed more than ‘normal’ (I had an appointment with a fantastic bird, a first for the Western Palaearctic!) and I was pissed. This was a fatal combination. For reasons that are unclear my route took me down the steps between The Strand and Victoria Embankment. Now, as I rushed I might well have still tripped anyway, but as I rushed whilst pissed, and then tripped, I fell headlong down the steps.... .

I put my left hand out to break my fall. This worked. Of sorts. My briefcase was in my right hand and was damaged as I, and it, crashed to the ground. There I lay, spread-eagled, suited and booted, and (still) pissed.... . This being London, no one offered any sort of help; I vaguely remember people stepping around me with evident disgust (no doubt thinking to themselves, “Oh, my God! He’s drunk”).

Anyway, I gathered myself and my briefcase up, and continued, nay (yep, you’ve got it) rushed to the tube station and caught a tube to Blackfriars, and from there a Thameslink train back to St. Albans. All in all, although my wrist hurt like fuck quite a lot I was of the opinion it could have been worse and anyway, I just had to get home so I could get my gear together and we could meet up and drive off to North Devon.

Now, I’m not sure at what stage our plans changed, but in these pre-mobile days, it may have been that I had a voicemail message or a call from Paul once I arrived home. Anyway, in summary, the twitch to Lundy was off, as the weather / shipping forecast wasn’t good and so the fishing boat wasn’t going to be going.

However, this meant that Plan B had instantly kicked in. A Tree Swallow (another first for the Western Palaearctic) had been identified at Porthellick on St. Mary’s on Wednesday the 6th June, and was still around. Hence we drove overnight to Penzance in south-west Cornwall rather than to Ilfracombe in north Devon. At the same time, birders from all over the UK were doing the same..... .

Me, with my very painful left wrist. Hence me not sleeping very well in the car, once we were in Penzance. Hence me not feeling very well on the Scillonian, during what was a pleasant enough crossing.

We’d met up with Paul and others in Penzance that morning; as suggested, he and many other birders had driven through the night to be there in time for the sailing of the Scillonian.

Feeling rough, I prepared as best as I could for the crossing. Sea-sickness pills always make me incredibly thirsty. I’m not sure I was up for a full cooked breakfast or whatever, but I did have a small carton of Ribena to combat the thirst. Who knows? Maybe I hadn’t imbibed much else (other than various pills!) since those six pints of Guinness. Anyway, later, whilst we were sea-watching from the decks of the Scillonian I began to feel queasy, and then very queasy and then...... .

I chundered over the handrail of the Scillonian, but there was nothing to throw up except various bodily liquids and Ribena. As a result, this purplish amorphous shape floated around in the air currents created by the movement of the ship. It hovered about like an apparition, as though it was deciding who to crash land on, before thankfully dissipating and drifting down to the sea below and behind the Scillonian. Too much detail, but it was very funny, or so I was told. Maybe you had to be there? Oh, wait! I was, at least in ......... .

Anyway, once the Scillonian had moored in Hugh Town we disembarked and yomped all the way to Porthellick like an invading (but very ill-disciplined, straggling) army.

Despite everything, we, and more to the point, I, got there, we got to Porthellick. We were met by the sight of a huge gallery of c.500 birders. And the star act. It was a fantastic performer, most memorably watched as it hawked for insects over Porthellick Bay, where I watched it from close to the monument to Sir Cloudesley Shovell... . The assembled birders obviously vied for suitable places from which to watch. As a result I watched at one stage from a location at which I was stood on Hottentot Fig that dominates the upper reaches of many sandy beaches in the Scillies.

..... when a passing local woman told me off for standing on the pretty flowers, I gave her VERY short shrift. (“What, you mean this invasive non-native plant???” FFS!!!).

Anyway, where was I? Aaaah, yes, the bird!!! It was like a House Martin x Swallow hybrid on steroids. It was a very bulky martin; the broad wings, the often fanned tail and the stocky body all combined to give the bird a distinctive jizz. The shape was almost reminiscent of Starling at times. It was both very rapid and very fluid in flight. The under-parts – the throat, breast, vent and under-tail coverts were a very brilliant white. The upper-parts (and also the under-side of the wings and tail) were generally blue black. However, the back, rump and head were suffused with a vivid blue-green. In certain lights the remiges and retrices looked greyer.

My notebook indicates that whilst on St. Marys I also saw an immature Night Heron which was also at Porthellick and a Ring-billed Gull which was on the Porthcressa Beach.

All I know is that having seen the bird I walked back towards Hugh Town and went to the hospital about my wrist (I got my priorities right, obviously). When, eventually, I saw a doctor he told me to rest my elbow on his desk and give him my hand, which I did. He vigorously waggled it around and pronounced that my wrist was just badly sprained. He advised me that if it was still causing me pain in a few weeks I should go to see my own doctor. I think he was sick of visiting birders and holidaymakers using the scarce resources of the hospital on St. Marys.........

Cutting a long story short, when, several weeks later, I did finally go to see my doctor he more or less instantly diagnosed a broken wrist. But I’d seen Tree Swallow...... .