With ‘finds’ lists seeing something of a rise in popularity of late with the relaunching of a UK250 club, and my own good fortune to be in the right place at the right time on a couple of occasions this last week, I thought I’d write a piece around finding your own birds and what – if anything – it all means.
First off, lets look at what a ‘find’ list actually is – a simple list of birds you’ve found yourself. Nothing contentious there, right? Well, you’d think not but you’re actually opening a huge can of worms. A quick look at a few online lists should set you straight. While thinking about writing this the other day, I came across a Baird’s Sandpiper found by Andy Kane and I on someone else’s find list; we even released news of it as it was in a public location and had it accepted by BBRC, so it’s mildly annoying to see it on someone else’s list. Well it would be if I was bothered about such stuff. Looking more closely, you may notice the same bird with multiple different finders – this seems to be more of a Shetland speciality than Lanceolated Warblers. If you’re with a group and a mate puts something up and someone else in your party identifies it, then all 10 of you get a find, right? (Okay, 10 is an exaggeration… but forgive the hyperbole to make my point). Or maybe it was a find involving a tricky identification and you added something to the pot, so you deserve a find too, surely? Even if you weren’t involved in the initial finding? Mmmm…. contentious!
Perhaps the most important point to bear in mind is that finds lists aren’t really comparable in a truly objective sense on any level whatsoever. So many other factors come into play to influence the make-up of a person’s finds list.
In terms of finds, a list for the whole UK (other political / administrative bodies are available) is very obviously massively different to a finds list for an inland patch. Where you go to find your birds will obviously play a huge part. You could go up to Shetland for a couple of autumns and come back with Wryneck, Yellow-browed, Richard’s Pipit, Barred Warbler and Rosefinch without much effort at all. In contrast, finding those same birds on the Norfolk coast is certainly doable with a few years of effort, but much harder. If you limit yourself to a smaller area, then it’s harder still. If you live inland, then any one of those birds is worthy of much more kudos in my eyes. Similarly, seabirds from the south-west with lots of other observers present might boost your finds list – especially if you’re not all that concerned about who actually saw it first. Besides, who can remember a few years after the event anyway?
The same situation can be seen at county level, and I’m sure there are a fair few finds lists with Long-tailed Skua from the north Norfolk coast on them that don’t appear in the Norfolk Bird and Mammal Report with the same initials. Even at a local level, there have been several good seabirds that have flown past Andy Kane and I while we’ve been hunkered down in our seawatch location. One of us has shouted “LT” or “Black-throat” and the bird has moved through. For the large majority of these individuals, we’d both have picked the birds up given a few more seconds, but for a handful of them, and being totally honest, we both might have missed a couple over the years. Still, it doesn’t matter much as we’ve both found a healthy number of straightforward ones.
Our current and seemingly inexorable slide to an embarrassingly idiotic jump into a climate abyss has thrown the cat among the pigeons with respect to finding birds too. Those species that were prized as superb bits of luck / skill to find are now becoming easier to find, and very quickly too. Tell me you found a Glossy Ibis 15 years ago and I’ll be very impressed. Tell me tomorrow and I’ll barely raise my eyebrows. Lots of species are going the same way, with Black-winged Stilt, Night Heron, Purple Heron, Cattle Egret, following the same path as Great White and Little Egrets before them. Squacco is one I’m still pretty pleased with though. Or were we just lucky to be out very early on that lovely May morning in 2020? The recent increase in Beeeater sightings has devalued the eight over my allotment one sunny morning a little (and the 12 at Hickling last weekend didn’t help), but they’ll always be great birds for those of us for whom they seemed to be once-in-a-lifetime finds. Pallid Swift and Alpine Swift influxes have reduced the cachet of those species on the coast too, but they’ll still remain phenomenal finds inland for a long time yet.
The amount of time you have to indulge yourself in finding new birds will also have a large influence on the total. If you don’t have to bear the day-to-day drudgery of full-time work, then you can spend more time searching and finding. Perhaps birding with a mate or two will increase your finds – even if your mate sees the bird first, you would definitely have picked it up, wouldn’t you? So, that’s another few on your list right there.
So, if you want a huge finds list, go birding with several people, go to Shetland, get around your county and country as much as possible, have a lot of free time and live somewhere where there’s a good chance of finding birds. Living at a time of a rapidly changing climate seems to have one of its vanishingly few benefits in the shape of new birds to find.
Now, here’s the rub. Very few of us will fit more than a few of those criteria. Don't beat yourself up and don't be unduly impressed by a number. For me, 300 finds, mostly local, has been the number to aim for as I live somewhere very good for finding scarce and rare birds in a national context and I have increasing amounts of free time now. I don’t get out of my TG42 square much at all for birding these days and going anywhere further than Happisburgh or Hemsby isn’t really in keeping with my low-carbon birding ethos. I generally bird on my own or with Andy Kane, so don’t have much scope for adding birds as part of a group. Birding with someone as incredibly sharp and keen as Andy has meant I’ve been fortunate enough to be the second person to see and enjoy some amazing birds rather than getting them as a find – Lesser Grey Shrike, a few White-rumped Sandpipers, Black Stork, a couple of Caspian Terns, Marsh Sandpiper, Cory’s Shearwaters, Western Bonelli’s, Western Subalpine, Tawny Pipit, a few Savi’s, Marsh, Red-footed Falcons, Dusky Warblers, Pallas’s and plenty more. And I’d love a repeat of the Blyth’s Pipit Andy identified at Happisburgh…
The rapid rise of low-carbon birding as the climate shit starts to hit the fan has seen some people reappraise not just what their birding means to them, but some of the bigger questions around what satisfaction and enjoyment of life in general is about. There has been a return to localism – something that will without question grow as things worsen. This may, paradoxically, give inland local patchers a renewed impetus to get out there looking as new species become a definite possibility at locations where they were previously the stuff of a madman’s dreams.
Birding a local patch and slowly adding new finds over a period of time is just about the best thing about birding I can think off. You don’t have to travel, it doesn’t cost you anything, it needn’t take up your time, the walking and cycling keeps you fit, you become part of the fabric of your patch and community, and your local birding knowledge and skills grow as you grow. There’s no need to compare your list to anyone else’s. At all. If you’ve found 200 birds at any inland patch, or 250 birds mostly inland and local, then you have cracked the hobby. If you’ve found 300 mostly on the coast and local, then likewise I tip my hat to you. I'm currently on 299 but with no birds from islands and 86% of my 324 birds in TG42 as finds. If you’re one of those driven people like James MacCallum, Graham Catley and Andy Kane, who have birded a local patch for many years and found an inordinate number of birds, well above 300, then you’ve truly been living the birding dream. The only regret I have is not starting my local birding in east Norfolk sooner. I’m 17 years in now and it’s all that matters, birding wise. Foreign trips were fun back in the unenlightened days of seeming self-fulfillment in the 90s and I have some great memories, particularly of living abroad and the people and places I encountered - as much as the birds I saw - but nothing has given me joy like birding my square and occasionally adding new birds, sometimes even new finds. I hope you enjoy your birding as much as I have over the last 17 years here. And I hope you get to add a few new finds on your patch in the coming years too. Good luck. Enjoy them all.
Ok, you're back in the room. I was lucky to be in the right spot at the right time to find a Caspian Tern last week and then a Ferruginous Duck yesterday. The former was a serendipitous find of a new second-year bird, rather than the returning colour-ringed adult, while the latter (a 2CY female) I discovered, had been seen earlier when Phil said “There was a Ferruginous reported here earlier” as we scanned the water, and I said “I’m looking at it”. It’s not a clean enough find for #300 so it won’t be going on the list as my 300th UK find. Besides, it’s a Ferruginous Duck in the broads. I’d never hear the last of it.
Find #299 Image by Shannon Clifford (thanks Shannon)
Not find #300 Pic by Paul Baker (thanks Paul)
As an afterthought, howabout that Eleonora’s Falcon that flew past me as I was seawatching at Sea Palling last year and then went past Andy at Eccles? I know it was first seen a week before but I was genuinely surprised to see it off the end of my road. That would be a decent 300th. Okay, calm down, I was only asking…
*The tautologous nonsense of the term “self-find” has been studiously avoided throughout to remove the need for Ryan Irvine to spend all next week on our Whatsapp group moaning about it.
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