Birds on the Brain

Posted on 21. Aug, 2009 by Kerry Banks in Travel Blog

I snapped this photo within walking distance of my home in Vancouver, which would be tough to do in most cities. After I had taken a few shots of the blue heron, it was scared off by a lycra-clad cyclist, who was riding through the marsh, blithely chugging past a sign that reads “Environmentally Sensitive Area. Please Keep Out.” This also struck me as a uniquely Vancouver event. At least, he said “Sorry” as the big bird flapped away.

courtesy Kerry Banks

The heron was hunting for fish in one of the ponds near Jericho Beach, a wetlands habitat that is home to several species of waterfowl as well as turtles, frogs, muskrats and beavers. My main purpose for visiting Jericho is to take pictures, but since the area is rife with birds, I find that I am slowly and unintentionally joining the ranks of what is North America’s fastest growing hobby: birdwatching.

It’s a development that my family regards with some bemusement. My wife has begun calling me “Nature Boy” and my teenage daughter is less than impressed. At dinner the other night as I was describing some of the birds I’ve seen at Jericho, she said, “You seem to know a lot about them. Have you given them human names yet?” Her final retort, as she left the table, was “Birds are boring.” I can’t agree. They sing, screech, swim, waddle, fly, fight and hunt. And when you actually stop to examine their plumage it is hard to deny their beauty. Most things, with the possible exception of Brittany Spears, become more interesting the more you know about them, and I find this to be true of birds.

I’m not alone in this opinion. About 70 million North Americans currently participate in birdwatching, a hobby that employs more than 60,000 people in the retail and nature tour trades, and generates more than $25 billion dollars annually. Spending on bird watching is on the rise around the globe. For example, the birders who flock to Kuşcenneti National Park at Lake Manyas in Turkey are estimated to spend as much as $103 million annually. Guided birding tours have become a major business with at least 127 companies offering them worldwide. There are now several websites that cater specifically to bird watching enthusiasts who are keen to travel, such as www.travellingbirder.com and Where Do You Want to Go Birding Today? www.camacdonald.com/birding/birding.htm.

courtesy Kerry Banks

Some of these birdwatching trips venture to remote and inhospitable regions. One of the popular destinations for Birdseekers, an English company that offers bird-watching tours at some 30 different global locations, are barren, windswept islands in Alaska’s Bering Sea. The company’s founder and director, Steve Bird (yes, that’s his real name) says that his clients are willing to pay $16,000 or more for a 25-day trip to Alaska for the chance to spot a Bristle-thighed Curlew, McKay’s Bunting, Smith’s Longspur or Red-legged Kittiwake.

The term “twitcher,” is reserved for those who travel long distances to see a rare bird that is then “ticked” off on a “list.” According to Wikipedia, the usage of the term twitcher began in the 1950s, originating from a phrase used to describe the nervous behaviour of Howard Medhurst, a British birdwatcher. Prior to that the term used for those who chased avian rarities was “pot-hunter,” “tally-hunter,” or “tick-hunter.”

My budding interest in birds pales in comparison to the extreme behaviour of hard-core birders. A couple of years ago, the appearance of a rare type of turtle dove drew a flood of twitchers to a remote island in the Orkney Islands. On the first day of the dove’s sighting there were 27 car-loads of birders on the ferry, charter flights from England and dozens on scheduled flights. In the space of 10 days around 1,000 twitchers came and went. Among the onlookers was Lee Evans, who earned himself a Guinness Book record entry for the number of bird species seen in Britain in a year (359 in 1990). When a reporter asked him why he does it, Evans said: “We’re sad gits, really. We’re misfits, anti-social obsessives, and I know I’m one of the worst because even the other birders say I’m mad. I’m quite prepared to admit it, but don’t ask me to stop because I can’t, even though I know I’m too old now to ever be number one.”

courtesy Kerry Banks

There are about 10,000 species of birds and only a small number of people have seen more than 7,000. Many birdwatchers have spent their entire lives trying to spot all the bird species of the world and some have lost their lives in the process. One of the most famous is Phoebe Snetsinger, a globe-trotting American woman who set off on an almost non-stop series of journeys to exotic locales after being diagnosed with malignant cancer. When her cancer went into remission, she continued travelling, surviving an attack and rape in New Guinea, before finally dying in a road accident in Madagascar in 1999. She observed as many as 8,400 species, a feat that no fellow twitcher is near to challenging.

Predictably, Great Britain produces some of the planet’s most fanatical twitchers. In 2008, Alan Davies and Ruth Miller, from North Wales, set a new world record by observing an amazing 4,327 different species during a year-long tour, easily exceeding the previous record of 3,662, set by an American spotter in 1995. In an interview, Davies, 47, said: “Birds are my passion, always have been. From a very early age, birds have been the focus of my life. They have been reason to suffer altitude sickness in the Andes to see an Ecuadorian Hillstar, trek across the Karoo desert in 45 degrees Celsius to glimpse a small grey Eremomela, empty my stomach over the side of a small boat with engine failure just to see an Isabelline Wheatear. To see birds in wonderful places is what I live for.”

courtesy Kerry Banks

The two ecccetrics sold their houses to fund the trip, which began in Arizona on January, and spanned British back gardens, Asian rainforests and Arctic ice floes, among other terrains. The adventure was not free from setbacks. While in Vancouver, in April, they had possessions stolen from their car, including a camera, mobile phone and video camera featuring footage of many of rare birds they had ticked off their list. After a brief return to their rented flat in Wales, the couple spent Christmas in the Ecuadorian jungle, where they proudly spotted such species as the Vermilion Tanager, Green Jay and Saffron-Crowned Tanager. On their blog, they wrote: “Highlights along this track included Bearded Guan, Black-and-Chestnut Eagle. A female Masked Trogon added a splash of colour. Leaving the park behind we headed for our lodgings at Madre Tierra at Vilcabamba (the Valley of Longevity) and had our Christmas supper of roast turkey.”

However (and this must be quite a blow), while the pair carefully documented their expedition through the blog, photographs and film, their achievement will not enter the record books, as they were not accompanied by an independent adjudicator.

Lead image by Kerry Banks