The issue opens with a celebration of the success story of the Avocet (the symbol of the RSPB), pictured above. There’s news of unusual sightings of a Booted Eagle in Cornwall, Ireland’s first Yellow-crowned Night Heron (featured on the cover of the magazine), Britain’s first Indian Golden Oriole in Northumberland, an Indigo Bunting in Whitburn and, elsewhere in the UK, an Alpine Accentor, a Marmora’s Warbler, a Collared Flycatcher, Green Warblers, a Thrush Nightingale, a Caspian Tern and Rustic Buntings. The reports are full of the the typical enthusiasm – hearts skipping beats and breathless excitement. I am not mocking – I get it, love the passion and I find the names alone, all new to me, inspiring. I also learnt that in the context, a “lifer” is a bird someone sees in their life for the first time.
I was also interested to read a little about the authentication of sightings which is far from automatic and has to be beyond reasonable doubt, involving the British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC) and the committee of the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOURC).
There are full articles on Green Sandpipers and also Black-tailed Godwits, of which it seems there are two sub-species, Limosa limoas limosa and Limosa limosa islandica.
It would be reasonable to ask why I don’t write more about birds seen other than in the UK and Ireland. The truth is not that I am being a little Englander about it, it’s that I have enough trouble absorbing, let alone retaining, the huge quantities of information that come my way these days about more local birds without often venturing too much further afield.
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