This book wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea but I enjoyed it. The author has already created a bit of a Twitter storm by offending some readers with remarks that were definitely not politically correct. I have only read the expurgated version so I am mostly unsighted on what has been removed. It would still be possible to be offended by some parts of this book as rare birds are, one could say, objectified as mere numbers to be added to the author’s list, and the carbon emissions from chasing around these isles are pretty high and yes, there are some comments on some (unnamed) womens’ appearance.
But mostly, and overwhelmingly, this is a book about twitching – the fieldsport of rushing around trying to see rare birds to add to your lifelong list of wild birds seen in Britain and Ireland. Like most sports, twitching will seem entirely pointless to the vast majority of people. Who cares that Scotland beat England at rugby recently? Quite a few, including me. And who cares that Garry Bagnell has seen 553 bird species in Britain and Ireland (which puts him way behind Steve Gantlett on an estimated 590 species)? Quite a few people and they are mostly men. Do I care? Not deeply, but I am certainly interested in this book because it is a very clear description of the fieldsport of twitching from the viewpoint of a keen exponent.
The table near the back of this book which lists the Top 10 listers in Britain and Ireland in 1987 and now (two names appear in both lists) is fascinating. You would have been at the top of the list in 1987, aside Ron Johns, if you had seen a paltry (I jest!) 463 species whereas now Steve Gantlett’s estimated 590 species leads them all. Twitching is a lifetime marathon and as the author points out you’ll have to spend a good four decades at it, and fairly obsessively at it, to stand any chance of a top 10 ranking. All the names in the two lists are men – who could have guessed?
Garry is an accountant and that’s why the book has its title – it is not only the numbers of birds he has supplied but the numbers of many other things too. He has spent tens of thousands of pounds and travelled tens of thousands of miles chasing rare birds. Many he has seen, some he has missed, and he gives good accounts of both in these pages. He also tells us of the junk food he has eaten, the beverages drunk on the road, the hours sleeping in the car at motorway services to catch up on sleep and the costs of travel on each trip. If you ever wanted to understand what twitching is, then this detailed account would be a good place to start.
However, once you got your head around what twitching is, you still might wonder why people do it. Because this author is very open about sharing his thoughts and feelings, and a lot of details, you might get more of a handle on the ‘why?’ question. He is clearly something of an obsessive, and his other past hobbies have included plane spotting and stamp collecting. I’ve met a few twitchers in my time but not, as far as I know, the author, but he seems a fairly typical specimen although I doubt that many could write a book of this type which has humour and pace. He comes across as a laddish character with flaws (we all have flaws) and perhaps his openness was what got him criticism for some of his remarks, and perhaps that criticism was well deserved. However, the more rounded account contained in this book is of a man with some acts of considerable kindness to his name, who has suffered from depression in the past and who happily acknowledges that he might be ‘on the spectrum’.
I had never heard of a foam party until I read this book – maybe I should get out more, or maybe not.
The cover? Gives a good idea of what the book contains. The book is illustrated by the author and, although infinitely better than I could do myself, the illustrations are all quite good, but not tip top. The Ovenbird gives a fair idea of the quality of illustrations. I’d give it 6/10.
Twitching by Numbers: twenty-four years of chasing rare birds around Britain and Ireland by Garry Bagnell is self published.
My forthcoming book, Reflections, will be published on 4 July and already can be ordered.
Details – click here.
[registration_form]
Henry Fox-Talbot got so peeved by twitchers peering into his garden that he invented photography so that they could have books full of birdy photographs which would obviate this antisocial behaviour but it didn’t work very well and although there are squillions of such books the uninvited peering still goes on and these days with the added nuisance of throwing empty shandy cans into the aforementioned garden so the dog can mince them into small sharp shards.
But there is a missing book. The one where pictures of raptors in flight away from the camera in the near dark at the edges of tracks and forests allows their identification from memory of a two-second sighting when you weren’t expecting it so you didn’t have a pair of night-vision binoculars handy. That would be a useful book for people who are unaffected by uncontrolled twitching.
I’m still bemused that the author felt compelled to water down/ delete certain sections just because a single magazine columnist condemned the book having identified what she deemed to be ‘sexism’.
This created a platform for outrage and vilification from others who had never even read the book.
On the plus side for him, the ensuing controversy has probably worked wonders for sales.
Credit it to GB also, for his determination and enterprise in publishing the title at his own risk without the comfort of an advance payment or the prospect of royalties from an established publishing house.
A true birding entrepreneur!
I read the book and it was very interesting. The author has a lot of anger in him and some people might find it offensive, but I thought it was great. He talks about things that people might not see as important and makes a point of what he thinks is important.
I’m not a twitcher, but can understand some of the appeal. However, racing round the country to spot a rare bird is pushing it a bit not just for resource use/carbon emission reasons. Our reliance on personal transport because of underfunded public transport (and many people’s preference for the former) means an utterly savage proportion of the population have been involved in serious accidents – I’ve known people who’ve been killed in car crashes, who doesn’t? I’ve a friend who happened to be behind a steering wheel at the wrong place and time which was when a wee boy decided to dash across the road. The child died and subsequently my friend has spent a lot of time dealing with mental health issues – that it wasn’t his fault makes no difference and it won’t be something his own kids will forget either he had just picked them up from school.
The idea of tanking it down the motorway and ultimately along iffy back roads when you’re probably tired just for the chance to catch a glimpse of a rare bird is not a good idea, if it was just your own life/health that might be acceptable, but in a fast moving heavy lump of metal it’s never just about you. The human fallout and carnage from this reverence for the supposed personal freedom brought by a car (often to sit in a traffic jam with all the others enjoying their ‘freedom’ of the road) is horrendous and really deserves to be brought up alongside the environmental cost. Driving an unnecessarily large and heavier car to keep up with the Jones’s isn’t just an added burden re inflated air pollution it means any accident involving them will be more serious than it would have been – especially for cyclists and pedestrians and obviously children – a bad situation being made even worse. This should be brought up all the time, automatically even, when the real costs of Chelsea tractors are up for discussion but rarely is. A bit of a digression from the core topic, hopefully not an unjustified one?
Re the rare birds themselves it can’t be much fun if you’re an absolutely knackered off course migrant and hundreds of people descend creating a bit of a commotion. There are stories of sticks being thrown at bushes so birds would be flushed out to get a better look at them, and exhausted, agitated birds flying from bush to bush until they were nabbed by a sparrowhawk. This one can’t be blamed on twitchers, but there have also been cases where high profile birds have been shot – a red footed falcon in Shropshire and a little bustard in Norfolk – the latter was found on a road verge where it was highly visible. Casual violence from a passing numpty or deliberate two fingers to the birding community?
Encountering rare birds is amazing, I’ll never forget coming across a grounded little auk in a public park and if I ever look out at my mum’s bird table and see a rose coloured starling I’d probably be at serious risk of cardiac arrest from excitement. But instead of seeing something that’s wandered on to your local patch you travel hundreds of miles to see it then I feel that the experience is a bit devalued. All the same twitching is a far less damaging way to be obsessive about birds than standing in a butt and try to shoot as many as possible that have been driven towards you by a bored teenager looking for beer money.