Virgin Twitcher

Daisy Turnip writes.....

And so the day arrived when we were to go twitching. I walked into the kitchen and heard Hubby say, ‘She’s up early because we are going bird watching today’. Yes, I saw his raised eyebrow and the smirk on Daughter’s face!!

We sorted out the day’s provisions, put on our fleeces, walking boots, grabbed a couple of pairs of binoculars and put our raincoats in the boot and set off down the M40 for our first virgin twitching trip to Otmoor Nature Reserve .

On our way there I asked Hubby if he thought there was a twitcher etiquette we should know about. We assumed it would be a common sense approach of no mobiles and to be quiet at all times. Simple?

We arrived in the village of Otmoor and found the car park at the end of a single track road. As soon as we got out of the car all you could hear was peace perfect peace and the sound of singing birds – an entire orchestra of them by the sound of it, it was amazing just how many birds we could hear. It was a bit ‘nippy’ and it looked a little grey overhead so we also put on our waterproofs. Etiquette rule number one broken!! Bright red Berghaus coats are obviously not the thing to wear when you are twitching! Well, yes, of course, it does seem obvious now, but first thing this morning, I really didn’t think about it. Everyone we saw at the reserve wore muted greens and browns! Throughout the entire day, we were the only people I saw wearing BRIGHT RED! And although everyone responded to our, ‘good morning’ and ‘afternoon’ greetings, they all seemed to be telepathically screaming, ‘WHAT’S WITH THE RED?’ It could have been our paranoia, but we sensed the feeling that the professional twitchers didn’t approve. (Mental note, wear camouflage paintball gear next time)

As we left the car part, for a split second I thought the BBC was filming for Nature Watch. People – and there were quite a few – were carrying around these huge tripods with ‘things’ on top of them. Hubby, AKA Encyclopaedia Britannica, informed me the kit is called a spotter scope – click here if you want to see what they are. You have to admit, it does look a little like a microphone that they use when filming?!?! When we go walking, our rucksacks are a little cumbersome, but these tripods were HUGE and people were carrying them round the entire nature reserve! I felt a little pathetic when I compared them to our little hand sized binoculars.

Hubby has only very very mildly ridiculed me about wanting to go bird watching. I did wonder why he hadn’t issued full scale ‘p’ take on me. However, as we made our way round the reserve he pointed out the following - swan, tern, lapwing, mallard, teal, coot, moorhen, buzzard, kestrel, pheasant, mute swan, heron and grasshopper warbler. Do you think he’s possibly a closet twitcher, now finally unleashed because his wife wants to go watch birds? He informed me ‘NOT!’

The highlight of my day was the ‘battle of the buzzard’. The buzzard was looking for food and kept swooping down to the ground searching for nests and chicks. Then, out of nowhere several lapwings appeared and started to attack the buzzard – they looked like WW2 fighter planes battling in the sky. It was really amazing. I never thought another bird would try and attack a buzzard, even if it was to protect their chicks. On this occasion the lapwings won, the buzzard left without a catch.

The weird point of the day was being laughed at by teenagers!!! I guess they’d been dragged out for the day by their Mother and they didn’t look particularly keen on being there, but I was seriously impressed that a mother could get 3 teenagers out into a nature reserve!! We were walking up as they were walking back and knowing teenage daughters, I immediately spotted THAT look on each face as they glanced us up and down and checked out the binoculars we were both carrying. The hand went over each mouth as they started to talk about us. I see THAT look and FEEL that teenage aura every day! As we were passing each other, I saw their lips go taut and their eyes begin to bulge as they desperately tried not to laugh. As we passed, we then heard the tittering!

It did make us laugh, but I wasn’t quite sure what to think. Being laughed at when we go mountain walking - for having a plastic map cover ‘thingy’ hanging from my neck, rucksack and gaiters etc - I can happily deal with that and frequently think, ‘you have absolutely NO idea what you are missing’. But, on the twitching score, we hadn’t seen the buzzard yet so I had no ‘wow factor’ in order for me to make a mental retort to them. To be honest, I was still trying to work out for myself why were we there!

The most comical part of the day’s adventure was when we sat behind a viewing screen which was located at the head of a pond. It wasn’t majorly busy on the pond front, however there were quite a few birds having a swim around. And right in front of the screen was a swan, and for the next 20 minutes we sat and watched as it dived for food on the bottom of the pond. Etiquette rule number two – don’t laugh at the birds, especially if you’re wearing a bright red coat. Luckily, there were no other twitchers around, but it was very comical – 20 minutes of bottom watching, with the odd flip of his feet!

And so, the virgin twitching experience was over. We got back in the car, ready to drive home. As we pulled off, Hubby said, ‘You just made me walk 2.8 miles to look, in detail, at a swan’s backside!’