Naumann’s Thrush – Woodford Green, Essex, 6^th February 1990

A less than successful attempt to capture how the bird looked in the very early morning light as it fed on the cricket pitches.

Finally the thrush succumbs!!!

Pete Ewer, Mike Thompson and I had had an unfeasibly bad start to 1990. On Saturday the 13th January, we’d dipped Wallcreeper having gone to Amsterdam for the day on the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland and the boat train from Hook of Holland to Amsterdam.... .

And then we went to Starcross / Dawlish in Devon on Sunday the 4th February on what turned out to be a complete fool’s errand. We had chased a rumour of a Green Heron which came to nothing, and only later on had we realised that there had been two Serins nearby...... .

This was incidental though. All the time we were standing around waiting for the Green Heron rumour to become something somewhat more tangible another rumour was slowly escalating... .

It went something like this...:

- ‘news of something big is going to break later today’;

- ‘news of something big in South-east England is going to break later today’;

- ‘news of something big in Greater London is going to break later today’;

- ‘news of a rare thrush in Greater London is going to break later today’;

- etc..

By the time we had travelled back to St. Albans later that evening I think we knew something like the full story.

Unbelievably, there was a Naumann’s Thrush in Woodford Green, on the edge of Epping Forest in north-east London!!!!! A what now??????

Necessarily, Pete and I were there early the following morning. But not early enough, as it turned out, as we just missed its pre-dawn appearance on the artificial wicket of the cricket pitch.

Hundreds of birders were arrayed all the way around the boundary of cricket field, standing close to the edge of the woodland that surrounded it. Sometime soon after dawn, there was a sudden ‘dread’ as seemingly birders in the far corner of the cricket field got news that the bird had been seen nearby. Seeing these birders running all of a sudden, everyone else set off running towards this point from all sides of the cricket pitch. Hundreds of birders, all clad virtually the same (at the time, in regulation issue Barbour jackets) and carrying tripods, etc., all charged across the cricket field as fast as they could.

This scenario always amused me greatly, as I imagined some bloke in one of the council houses which bounded on side of the cricket field lazily getting out of bed, stretching and then pulling back the curtains to see this apparent invading army storming towards the council estate, and shouting, “FUCK!!!!!! Hilda!!!!! Get in the wardrobe. The bloody Russians are here...!!!!!”

Anyway, later, whilst we were still moping about, David Cotteridge, who was there with a friend who was a press photographer, asked whether any of us would participate in a staged photograph. Given that most people there should have been at work, most birders quickly disappeared as they didn’t want their photograph taking, but Pete and I stepped forward, and volunteered to do so.

That was as good as it got..... . I later commuted into Central London from whichever was the nearest or most convenient nearby railway station. I was at work at ERL by about 09:15. (ERL, now ERM, was the environmental consultancy I was working for in London at this time).

OBVIOUSLY, Pete and I repeated the process the following morning, Tuesday the 6th February, with the very important exception that we made sure we got there earlier, given we had arrived just too late the previous day.

As a result we were able to witness its appearance out of the dark; in the (very dark) semi-light, I was able to eliminate the other thrushes due to a combination of its upright Wheatear-like stance and initially the pale wing-panels reminiscent of a female Ring Ouzel. As the light improved, so did the views, revealing plumage with a colouration recalling somewhat lighter female Blackbirds or (apparently) American Robin having been bleached out. Later in better light the upper-parts were a warmish grey-brown, and the under-parts were white and closely mottled with diamond shaped orange-rufous spots. The rump and the tail were more rufous, and it had a distinctive facial pattern, combining supercilium and sub-malar stripe like a female Bluethroat.

Having seen it, we departed. Pete again dropped me at whichever railway station it was, and I again commuted in to Baker Street Underground Station to arrive at work at ERL at around 09:25.

On my desk someone had placed a photocopy of the back page of that days Daily Telegraph on which there was a large black and white photograph depicting a group of birders walking through a wooded area. I was right in the middle of the group looking towards the camera. Pete was obscured by the other birders. Someone had ringed my face. Fair cop. Was I bothered? No, I had seen Naumann’s Thrush!!!

An old newspaper cutting, featuring the photograph of the staged twitch, taken by Dave Cotteridge's press photographer friend, which appeared in the Daily Telegraph, and which was placed on my desk at work, with me circled, the morning that I arrived late at work for the second day running, but crucially, this time, with Naumann's Thrush on my list.  Obviously, I'm completely inconspicuous in the photograph, dominating the scene, dead centre, and looking directly at camera.....

Paul Pugh, my long-time best birding mate and twitching arch-rival hadn’t – so I prepared a spoof flyer to celebrate my success and antagonise him further.

My spoof film review flyer, prepared solely to grip Paul Pugh off.

I saw it again when we went back on Saturday the 24th February. I also saw Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the woodlands.

So in the end, I had storming views of a stonking bird after a stinking early 1990.

Naumann's Thrush, Woodford Green, Essex, February 1990 (photographs credited to Peter Ewer).