Those of you with a sense of nostalgia may recall that more than a decade ago Bird Watching magazine ‘invented’ a thing called Birding Lunch. The idea was, instead of sitting at your desk, spreading crumbs on the keyboard, or even worse, staring at your phone screen for an hour, to go out, on at least one lunchtime a week to do a spot of birding. The clue was in the name. And of course we encouraged participants to share their findings and experience on social media (which seemed much more innocent in days of yore). IMHO it was great, and I spent many a happy lunch hour on my bike down at Ferry Meadows CP, which is only a mile or so from the BW office.
Way before the days of our flexible #My200BirdYear challenge, Birding Lunch was not the only natty wheeze we at Bird Watching look back at with moistened eye. Take the Mini Sit, for instance. Remember that? The Mini Sit was based on the North American Big Sit. The idea of the latter was to ‘do’ a Big Day or 24-hour bird race, but from the confines of a small space (technically, a 17-foot diameter circle, according to the official American rules, they being sticklers for obeying rules and lovers of imperial measurements).
The Mini Sit was similarly (though not so strictly) confined, but instead of 24-hours, it takes place over a single hour. I recall (and you may remember reading about) a fun day out when the BW team did three Mini Sits at a sites spread around Peterborough.
I was thinking along the lines of Mini Sits and Birding Lunches when I was contacted by an old friend of mine, Craig Durham, in August. Back in October 1983, as an 18-year-old, I was one of the first students to arrive in a large student house in Bristol. I opened the front door to greet Craig and his mother as they arrived later that day. At the time, I was sporting a great big bushy beard as a post-school ‘rebellion’ and what with my already receding hairline and said straggly facial hair, Craig said he thought I looked 35.
Anyhow, after a career as a petroleum engineer, my friend Craig is pretty much retired and living in Aberdeen, and regularly visits his aged parents in Cambridge. So, we have become reacquainted after many years, and have met in Peterborough a few times for the odd beer.
In late summer, we decided that much better than a pint and a sarnie and supping and chewing over old times like a couple of bald codgers, would be a trip out to do a spot of birdwatching, something which Craig had just about zero knowledge of. So, on 23 August, I picked him up at the station and we went out for an extended birding lunch and a wee bit of a mini sit, at one of my favourite spots, Deeping Lakes LWT (about 20 minutes from out house).
The genius of the east pit of Deeping Lakes at this time of year, is that you can perch by one of the viewing screens and see more than a thousand birds spread out in front of you, of a wide variety of species (yes, 400 will be Lapwings, 200 Mallards, 150 Black-headed Gulls, 100 Coots… ). It is the perfect spot for total beginners, yet there is always something to tickle the fancy of experienced birders. Also, the birds there spent a fair amount of time in their favoured areas, so they can be looked in turn and crucial ID information shared.
For a complete birding starter, Craig had remarkable aptitude with the binoculars and came with a thirst for knowledge and desire to learn about what we were looking at. So, that made my life very easy for me as his ‘teacher’. I was able to point out the white bill and frontal shield of the Coots as the origin of ‘bald as a Coot’. I could talk through the sizes and shapes of the various dabbling ducks (the drakes being in drab eclipse), as well as deliver a lesson on the importance of the colour of the ‘speculum’.
We got close up views of Lapwings, and thanks to them calling flying around and showing off their plumage, I could talk about the alternative names of Peewit and Green Plover. And talking of waders, a few Snipe also came very close to our screen, showing their sewing machine feeding technique, absurdly long bills and beautifully striped plumage.
Craig could experience for the first time not only egrets, but side by side Little and Great White Egrets. Not only was I able to point out Mute Swans, but a sleepy, summering Whooper Swan for comparison. I could point out the difference between Woodpigeon and Stock Dove, Yellow Wagtail and Pied Wagtail. The total beginner was even able to get his first advice on how to tell a Black-headed Gull from a Lesser Black-backed Gull while simultaneously enjoying the probing feeding technique of a Glossy Ibis. We even had a fly-by male Marsh Harrier as part of the 45 birds species we ticked. Hardly a typical first day birdwatching.
At one stage, a fellow birder drove slowly past and told us we had just missed a Bittern flying along the reedy back edge of the pit. It was probably best we didn’t see that, you can’t see everything on your first birding trip!
If you haven’t tried it have a go at a Mini Sit and take a friend out for a Birding Lunch. Go retro.