Confessions of a lapsed birder

Gray Catbird – Trevescan, Land’s End, Cornwall, 20^th October 2018

Gray Catbird near Lands' End, Cornwall, October 2018 briefly attempting some blue sky thinking....... (I wonder whether there are any trans-Atlantic flights from St. Just?).

Between Saturday the 22nd September and Sunday the 14th October 2018, Ken and Amanda Shaw and I were in Shetland, spending three (yep, three!!) weeks on Unst. This involved, in effect, three different crews in each of the three weeks involved; the first week in was Pete and Nancy Gordon and Stuart and Barbara Benn, for example. Besides the ‘usual’ padders, we’d had some good birds, which included River Warbler, Citrine Wagtail, Pechora Pipit, etc., but we’d dipped Eastern Yellow Wagtail and struggled to find any really good birds ourselves. I’d also seen lots of otters. I’d enjoyed it – certainly socially, but it wasn’t 2016, but then again 2016 wasn’t going to happen every year (or indeed, any year, apart from 2016.....). We ended the trip with a bit of a flourish, seeing Pied-billed Grebe and Booted Warbler in South Mainland Shetland, and then, a short while before we had to go to Sumburgh Airport for our flight, Ken found a Shore Lark whilst stood right next to me to the east of Grutness Harbour. Ho-hum.

Once back home there was just a sense of ‘what might have been’, but I attempted to just return back to ‘normal’ life.

However, on Monday the 15th October, my sense of ‘what might have been’ went into overdrive as the news of a Gray Catbird near Land’s End came through on Rare Bird Alert.

Now, this was hard to hear. I very definitely had previous with Gray Catbird. And not in a good way, at all!!!!

I’d seen and heard them in Texas in April 1992, but then, when birding with Stuart Green on Barra on the 12th October 2009, we had heard a strange call coming from an area of recently planted scrub woodland that was predominantly alder in-between the Loch an Duin Reservoir and Brevig. It was a weird shrieking call.

Although we were both good at calls, we couldn’t quite place it; we tried to make it all sorts but in the ended we decided it sounded like an Icelandic race Redwing distress calling whilst a Sparrowhawk was dispatching it..... .

In trying to sort it out, Stuart remained on the road whilst I went in, full expecting to flush a Sparrowhawk, and find either a dead Redwing or some Redwing feathers. When I got to where Stuart was indicating, there was nothing, so the mystery deepened, or at least remained. Soon afterwards Mark Oksien and Stuart Rivers arrived in Mark’s mobile home, but if ever there were two birders you didn’t want to share a ‘we’ve just had a strange call’ story with, it was them, and they, and eventually we moved on, our story forgotten.

Or, not quite ..... . Many weeks later Stuart ‘phoned me, and suggested I should listen to something. He then played the call of Gray Catbird down the ‘phone..... . Somehow the acoustics involved made me even more sure that this was precisely what we had heard that afternoon on Barra. I felt sick. Stuart and I both knew what we had heard but it was all too little too late. What could we do with a retrospective ‘record’ of a heard only Gray Catbird? Stuart swore me to secrecy; what else could we do with a brutal tale of what might have been.

Later, when I read up on Gray Catbird, I discovered the species, ‘prefers alder thickets’ said the book. That helped. That helped a lot. FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!

When re-visiting this account recently, it has occurred to me that had it occurred some 15 years later we may just have (literally!) been way better equipped to cope with this set of circumstances than we were then. For example, had it happened in recent years we could perhaps have made a sound recording of our mystery call (and perhaps attempted to use playback to entice the bird into view?) and maybe identified the call more quickly from the sound recording (AND had evidence of our record!). And maybe we could just have used Merlin, and realised what we were hearing there and then!

However, all of this is now idle speculation, clearly. Useless.

So, yes, I had previous, and somehow the chance of at least partially banishing this hurt began to materialise. The bird ‘stuck’ day after day. A twitchable Gray Catbird? How was this possible?

Meanwhile, Paul Pugh had sorted out some top tickets for him and me to see U2 at Manchester Arena on Friday the 19th October. This involved staying overnight. I had arranged two rooms at the Copthorne Hotel in Salford Quays, Manchester.

As the bird continued to linger, I resolved that if it was still there on the Saturday morning I was going to drive from Manchester to Land’s End. As you do.

Therefore, I travelled from Edinburgh to Manchester on the Friday, rendezvoused with Paul, walked across Manchester, attended the gig (which was very good), returned to the hotel, crashed out and then awakened the following morning to the joyous news it was still there. Some eating and drinking was undoubtedly enjoyed the previous evening but I can’t remember too much about that. I do know that any plans for a leisurely breakfast were hastily abandoned as I wished Paul goodbye and departed for Land’s End.

Now, driving from Salford Quays in Manchester to Lands’ End isn’t a short journey. It took at least six hours, but again, Manchester is a lot closer to Land’s End than Edinburgh is, so I was striking whilst I had the chance.

I suspect it was around about 14:30 before I finally arrived almost as far west as I could drive in England.

The location involved a large area of scrub vegetation (bramble, bracken, etc.) on what was Treeve Common, between Sennen and Land’s End. The access arrangements were excellent; I pulled off the A30(T) into the field parked up, and, having gathered up my paraphernalia strolled across the field to the scattered group of birders at the other end of the field (later paying for the privilege by throwing some coins into the bucket on the way out).

There were perhaps fifteen cars already there, and so 20 or 30 birders at most. As suggested, the assembled birders were scattered near the field margin looking over the derelict Cornish bank into the scrub beyond. A few other birders were out on the Common itself and were looking into the scrub area from the other side. I sized up my options and went to the furthest away group of birders.

This was partly because they appeared to be the ones closest to the area being looked at. As I assembled my gear, I realised that I had opted to stand next to John Swallow, who had apparently just earlier that afternoon returned to St. Just from St Mary’s, having been in Rosenhill Cottage on St. Agnes..... . Small world!!!!! Anyway, I joined him, and over the course of the next hour or so, we had a very good chat and managed to see the bird on three separate occasions, at c.14:50, 15:20 and 15:45.

In general, it wasn’t showing, but with patience, very good views of what was by reputation a notoriously elusive bird were obtained as it slowly worked its way to the top of a clump of scrub and then remained there long enough to get the ‘scope on it. On the last occasion, it flew, carrying a blackberry, and we watched as it went past us into some nearby cover; supposedly where it roosted.

With that we both decided it was time to go. During my chat with John I had explained to him that I had travelled there from Manchester having seen U2 to night before. He asked where I was planning to go that night. I really hadn’t got as far as considering this. I no longer had the option of my traditional staging post in Chesterfield and wasn’t really sure about other options. Fantastically, John solved my problem me; I was invited to stay with John and Margaret in Kintbury near Newbury that night..... . After all the driving I had done in the past 24 hours it was a long drive there but nothing like as long as my drive to an unknown destination further north might have been. And Margaret was a wonderful hostess; I told John to make sure she didn’t go to any trouble, but she rustled up some fantastic home-made soup. Perfect. It really was the perfect end to a perfect day.

The bird was a first winter. It was similar in size and shape to something between a Robin and Song Thrush with a long tail which had a rounded end and was occasionally half-cocked. Its plumage was a concolourous grey (gray!) both in terms of the upper-parts and the under-parts, apart from the rufous / vinous(!) under-tail coverts and the black crown. It had a black pointed bill and black legs.

John and I left independently after the last flight view. As I drove east on the A30(T) through Cornwall I had a ‘phone call from Dennis Morrison asking me whether I wanted to go to Cornwall to see the Gray Catbird. I explained that I had just seen it having been in Manchester the night before. I strongly encouraged him to go for it despite the extreme distances involved. I assured him the best I could that the bird looked reasonably settled and told him he wouldn’t regret it if he did. I don’t think he did..... .