1. Right here in Britain we now have a saying that there’s no such factor as unhealthy climate, simply the fallacious clothes. I’m undecided which you can actually name -20degC (-7.6degF) unhealthy climate, because it’s fairly regular within the Arctic, and I used to be in Arctic Finland in December. Nevertheless, I used to be responsible of getting the fallacious clothes, or, to be extra exact, footwear. I used to be standing in deep snow, ready (or hoping) for a Pine Grosbeak to return to a feeder. It didn’t seem, and nor did a lot else other than Bullfinches and a Siberian Tit. All of the whereas my toes have been getting colder and colder till I couldn’t bear the agony any extra.
Bullfinch
Happily I used to be about to fly south, and we have been birding not removed from the airport. Half an hour later I thawed my frozen toes out by placing them, one after the other, in sizzling water within the wash basin within the gents’s washroom at Kuusamo Airport. It’s a really small airport and happily nobody got here in to see a bare-footed Englishman attempting to convey some circulation again to his frozen toes. By the point I boarded my flight again to Helsinki I might really feel my toes once more, however it will be one other 10 years earlier than I lastly noticed my first Pine Grosbeak. And sure, that was in Arctic Finland not removed from Kuusamo, and in deep snow. This time I had the appropriate footwear. (David Tomlinson)
Siberian Tit
2. The Cape Physician had been blowing for every week and we have been so sick of it. The Cape Physician blows all illnesses away – or at the least that’s the explanation for naming Cape City’s southeasterly winds as such. Clear, clear skies are nice however the steady howling of the wind will get in your nerves. Time to maneuver north, into the Northern Cape province of South Africa and search for larks and pipits. One stop-over on the Velddrif saltworks and scan for attention-grabbing migrants. The wind was nonetheless very sturdy so scoping was exhausting. Hey! That’s an odd one… Scope out, vibration, out of focus, in focus. Swear. Curse. White rump, sure. No. Possibly. Eye stripe? Inconceivable to see properly. Scalloped again, sure. After 20 minutes of staring on the chicken we determined to name it a White-rumped Sandpiper, however with a query mark. With higher climate, the identification would have been a lot simpler, however would the animal have stayed in the identical place for such a very long time? Was it even alive or only a lifeless chicken shifting within the wind? (Peter Penning)
3. My birding story began two days earlier on December 25, 2011. A Smew had been sighted in a harbour, east of Toronto. The ebird reviewers and the native specialists argued whether or not it was an aviary escapee or a wild chicken. On December 27, my birding buddy Theresa referred to as to say it had been declared a wild and countable chicken. I instructed her my husband and I have been coming to get her, so we might see it. She was stunned, as a result of by the point we collected her and bought to the harbour, it will be near sundown. I used to be decided to not miss a lifer for each of us.
It was already a dismal day. As we have been midway to the chicken, it began to rain, however that rapidly turned to sleet. We bought to the harbour and noticed a birder standing close to the railings. We requested in regards to the Smew. He mentioned it had been proper there, about quarter-hour earlier. (That’s the story of my birding life.) He instructed us it was over on the opposite aspect of the harbour. We squinted via Theresa’s scope, because the sleet got here down and the daylight pale. Eventually, we discovered the chicken. We didn’t have the good seems we hoped for, however we had achieved our mission. (Leslie Kinrys)
Male Smew
4. On some birding journeys, I really feel like Rob McKenna, the truck driver in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Information to the Galaxy. Driving round in his truck, it rains on him each single day of his life as – although he doesn’t comprehend it – he’s a rain god and due to this fact the clouds need “to be close to him, to like him, to cherish him and to water him”.
Sure, there may be automobile birding – however even that will get troublesome as soon as the rain is simply too exhausting. I’ve experimented with numerous constructions permitting me to maintain some home windows open with out getting an excessive amount of water in – constructions involving plastic sheets and curtains – however to date unsuccessfully. The MacGyver in me appears to be lots weaker than the McKenna. It will get to the purpose the place I wish to simply cease the automobile and yell on the climate, pointless as that is likely to be.
There are constructive elements of birding in heavy rain. Some birds mean you can get nearer than traditional, probably simply having misplaced the need to reside below such moist situations. One in every of my favorite images thus taken is that of a Eurasian Wryneck really being climbed on by two snails. The chicken should have felt even worse than me on that day. (Kai Pflug)
Whitehead’s Trogon
5. Mount Kinabalu rises imposingly from the tropical lowlands of Malaysian Borneo to a peak of over 4,000 metres. This interprets into a powerful gradient of montane forest and an accordingly imposing array of mouth-watering chicken species, together with the favored “Whitehead’s Trio” (Whitehead’s Trogon, Whitehead’s Broadbill & Whitehead’s Spiderhunter). Sadly, birding in these altitudes is considerably of a double-edged sword, in that impenetrable fog usually erases any risk of seeing these beasts. I used to be in simply this example when, as a part of an extended Borneo tour a few years in the past, I trudged alongside the paths of Mt Kinabalu Nationwide Park, hoping to get a glimpse of a bunch of Naked-headed Laughingthrushes that have been calling simply metres away, however fully invisible behind the gray veil of fog. After an hour of ready within the clammy chilly, the laughingtrushes’ hoots steadily turned more and more muffled by the fog, indicating that these ghosts moved away from the path, by no means to be seen. In itself, I’d not have dwelled on this second, however such a stoic angle didn’t maintain after experiencing the identical with most different specials heard in my three days on the mountain. My persistence paid off throughout a short break within the fog on the ultimate afternoon with three Whitehead’s Trogons, their cracking purple plumage bursting within the inexperienced of the moss-covered branches. (Luca Feuerriegel)
Be aware: Photos of Bullfinch and Siberian Tit by David Tomlinson; image of Whitehead’s Trogon by Luca Feuerriegel; image of Smew by Andreas Trepte posted to Wikipedia Commons, a web based supply of copyright-free images; image at high of article of Eurasian Wryneck by Kai Pflug.
