The Bearded Tit Part 25

'Hope you new boys got that!' they said to us.

'Yes,' I lied. 'The female's bigger than the male then?'

'Oh yes, absolutely.'

'The male's an even tinier nondescript grey dot,' murmured Tori, and we sped off to our cottage to watch Life of Birds Life of Birds on the video again. on the video again.

But you don't need television's state-of-the-art hi-tech natural history doc.u.mentaries to enjoy birds on television. Tori and I spend many a winter's evening huddled on the sofa together twitching. The lights are low, the screen flickers, there's a drink by our side and pen and paper in our hand. The tense music of Midsomer Murders Midsomer Murders starts, the scene is set... starts, the scene is set...

Barnaby's cla.s.sic car glides up the winding driveway between the rhododendrons and stops outside the Tudor-beamed farmhouse. He gets out and looks around the impressive garden.

'Chaffinch!' shouts Tori, and I jump.

But she's right. There in the background is the bright, rolling chirrup of the chaffinch. d.a.m.n, one-nil to her.

Barnaby reads the sign on the door: Midsomer Lodge Midsomer Lodge. He bangs on the door with the heavy wrought-iron knocker.

'Green woodp.e.c.k.e.r!' Tori shouts. 'Two-nil.'

'That's not fair, I was having a sip of wine!' I splutter. 'I heard it!'

'Ah, well, you need to concentrate on the programme.'

After twenty-five minutes we'd clocked up three chaffinches, a green woodp.e.c.k.e.r, two yellowhammers, a rook, eight collared doves, a moorhen, an unconvincing s.e.x scene and three murders. After the third advert break, we joined the inspector and Sergeant Troy by a river where a fisherman had stumbled upon the semi-naked body of the new vicar whom none of the villagers had taken to. I was ready.

'Sedge warbler!' I triumphed. 'Nine-eight and I storm into the lead for the first time in the match!'

'Er, hang on a minute,' said Tori, switching the sound off.

'What? That was was a sedge warbler. Unmistakable!' a sedge warbler. Unmistakable!'

'Yes, I heard it.' She looked serious. 'But you said sedge warbler before it started singing.'

'Er...'I wasn't expecting this. 'Well, look, it's clearly set in April. They're down by the river, I thought it was a fair punt that we'd hear a sedge warbler sooner or later.'

'Sooner or later, maybe. But not half a second before it starts singing.'

'Pure luck!'

'You've seen the episode before, haven't you?'

'A long time ago,' I confessed. 'I didn't realize till I saw the floating vicar. That's what reminded me. I remembered there being lots of sedge warblers about.'

Tori huffily switched off the television and the game was declared null and void.

'Don't you want to know who the murderer was?'

'It was the estate agent, wasn't it? I mean-' She stopped mid-sentence.

'You've seen it before as well, you cheat!'

The following night there was a repeat of Morse Morse. Hostilities would recommence.

Many apologies to everyone concerned with the productions. But once you know a few birdsongs they will be with you forever. They will forever distract you. Any drama, or comedy, set in rural England in the spring or summer, and they usually are in spring or summer because that's when England can be most attractively sold to America, will be spoiled for you by the twittering in the background. I've lost count of the number of episodes of Last of the Summer Wine Last of the Summer Wine that have been ruined for me by a wren or song thrush. Oh, and the script and the acting. that have been ruined for me by a wren or song thrush. Oh, and the script and the acting.

HEAVY.

A sh.e.l.l landed close by. The blast sounded shockingly close. I was a.s.sured that it was way off and told to calm down. The tanks were busy today. The few seconds between the boom of the sh.e.l.l being fired and the dull explosion as it landed were long and anxious. Was this the stench of war? The choking smell of ordnance discharge I had expected, but all around us I breathed in the smell of freshly turned soil; I thought about the trenches and wondered if this was the real stench of war. I trusted that those men knew what they were doing. sh.e.l.l landed close by. The blast sounded shockingly close. I was a.s.sured that it was way off and told to calm down. The tanks were busy today. The few seconds between the boom of the sh.e.l.l being fired and the dull explosion as it landed were long and anxious. Was this the stench of war? The choking smell of ordnance discharge I had expected, but all around us I breathed in the smell of freshly turned soil; I thought about the trenches and wondered if this was the real stench of war. I trusted that those men knew what they were doing.

Another heart-stopping boom. I jumped.

'Here they come now,' someone said and we heard the approaching engine of a jeep. A soldier shouted over to us, 'All clear; thanks for waiting!'

We drove on.

What a strange location Salisbury Plain is, a striking variety of habitats for all sorts of diverse creatures. Rabbits, hares, foxes, badgers, deer, game birds, larks, pipits, buzzards, harriers, buntings, finches and the British Army go about their business side by side.

On this day we were looking for a rather special bird.

Some birds are more interesting than others. No, that's not true. What am I saying? Some birds interest me me more than others. I suppose that's it. more than others. I suppose that's it.

I walk past ducks every day. I hear crows every day. Most days I can hardly move for wood pigeons. They're all interesting birds.

The crow family is devilishly savvy. Wood pigeons shouldn't be disregarded just because they're so good at breeding. And the poor mallard is stunning really, but it's just so common. And tame. You have to swing a well-aimed boot at one before it even considers waddling away. Without being in the 'duck-is-a-duck' school of birdwatching, it's tempting not to spend too much time and effort on them. You have a stretch of water, you'll get duck on it; mallards definitely, and OK a few others: teal, wigeon, gadwall and garganey, perhaps even an American wigeon, but they're all rather 'ducky'. And geese. They're more 'goosey' than 'ducky', but the same thing goes. Easy to see, geese, and they hang around in huge gangs. Swans the same.

And seagulls are all, to a lesser or greater extent, a bit samey. White and grey and loud and definitely 'seagully'.

Perhaps I should have been more excited when I saw my first great bustard.

Now, here is a quite amazing creature. The world's heaviest flying bird and at one time very much a part of the British countryside. This beast of a bird has a pale blue-grey head, white under-parts and ruddy plumage, heavily barred with black, and an often c.o.c.ked fantail. In breeding plumage the male develops bizarre, strangely human, large, white, moustachial whiskers. These features and its size made it very attractive to collectors. Being attractive to collectors is not a good thing for a bird. Being stuffed and mounted in a gla.s.s case in someone's drawing room are not ideal breeding conditions for a bird. This generously breasted bird, so reminiscent of the turkey, was also more than welcome on the dining table. Changes in agricultural practices as well as human persecution would have contributed to its decline, but whatever the causes the last known breeding pair of this once abundant British bird was resident in Suffolk in 1832. The name 'bustard' or 'bistard' was first recorded in the 1300s. It shares the morpheme 'tard' with its scientific name, Otis tarda Otis tarda. From Greek and Latin this should mean something like 'the slow bird with funny little ear tufts', but there is nothing particularly slow (or late, or tardy, or r.e.t.a.r.ded) about this huge bird. For its size, it runs and flies quite powerfully. It certainly looks no dimmer than most 'game' birds. Tarda Tarda may be an even older Celtic or Basque word, the meaning of which no one knows, or if they do know, they're not telling. may be an even older Celtic or Basque word, the meaning of which no one knows, or if they do know, they're not telling.

Currently, the Great Bustard Group is running a reintroduction programme on Salisbury plain. Chicks hatched in Saratov in Russia are released into a huge holding pen, where they can eat and forage in safety until they're ready to fly off on their own. Each bird has a colour-coded, numbered wing-tag for easy identification, and some have radio transmitters so that their whereabouts can be checked. It's an exciting project and depends a lot on the general public who are encouraged to report any sighting of the bird, noting, at least, the colour of the wing-tag. And the great bustard is not a bird you'd mistake for any other bird, so the general public will be in no doubt that it has seen something special. This is more than an escaped turkey. But there again it does look a bit turkey-like. And it has that general ground-dwelling game-bird look to it, so, as I said, on seeing one in the wild my face registered the sighting with a lesser-than-expected Vow factor'.

It happened when I was filming for the BBC's Saving Planet Earth Saving Planet Earth. I was looking at three species under threat: the European eel, the barbastelle bat and the great bustard. I was being driven over the plain in a Land Rover by David Waters of the Great Bustard Group; there was a camera fixed on the outside of the vehicle, pointing back through the open pa.s.senger window at me. There was no hiding place. I had to be careful: no looking at my watch, reading the paper or yawning. The last was the most difficult as I'd just consumed two and a half pints of Great Bustard Ale in a pub near Stonehenge called, of course, the Great Bustard Inn.

It was a clear day and we were following the faint bleeps of the radio transmitter on our receiver; it was getter louder. Somewhere not too far away was a great bustard.

'That signal's getting stronger, David, does that mean we're getting closer?' I asked with the dim fatuity expected of television presenters nowadays.

'It does indeed, Rory. Keep your eyes peeled.'

'You bet,' I said, struggling against the overwhelming desire to unpeel them. 'I can't wait to see my first bustard,' I said, sounding like a t.w.a.t, which I believe is also the job of most TV presenters now. Like all ground-dwelling birds, great bustards are hard to see, despite their size. David had advised me to look out for the long, grey neck above the stalks of the oilseed rape.

'Wow, look, look, there! Over there! Amazing!' I shrieked with genuine excitement. I grabbed my binoculars and trained them on the magnificent bird not ten yards away: large, elegant, soaring close to the ground, pale grey and white like a huge, malevolent seagull, its wings held in a shallow 'V, the dihedral. It gently swooped out of sight behind the hedge.

'That was brilliant,' I said, turning to David. 'The first one I've ever seen!'

The bustard man turned towards me with a mild rebuke, 'That was a hen harrier, Rory.'

'I know. Wasn't it fantastic?'

The producer who was watching the footage from my camera without sound on a monitor about a mile away was very impressed.

When we met up with him later, he said, 'That was great. Wonderful reaction from Rory when he saw the bustard. Genuine excitement!'

'We didn't see a bustard,' David said. 'It was a hen harrier.'

A pause.

'Oh well,' said Peter, the producer, 'we'll get a shot of a bustard and cut in Rory's reaction to the harrier. That'll look fab.'

DANNY AND THE SIMILARITY OF WADERS.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, there's hundreds of the b.u.g.g.e.rs!'

Danny was looking out across the salt marsh from the hide at the huge numbers of birds a.s.sembled there.

'Er, can you moderate your language, please!'

A prissy couple of birding spinsters in the hide objected to his beginner's exuberance.

'You must excuse him.' I turned to them rea.s.suringly, 'He's a beginner. Just started; full of enthusiasm.'

They tutted and walked out.

'Right, Dan, lesson one: waders.'

'I haven't brought any, mate, I've only got my jeans.'

'Don't worry, you'll grow out of puns like that, Dan, eventually. Even I did. t.i.ts, p.e.c.k.e.rs, s.h.a.gs: all those. A wader is a wading bird. They tend to hang around together and they're quite similarly marked so when you see a huge number like this it's easy to think they're all the same, but there are probably twenty or so different species out there. And we're lucky it's late spring because they're in their breeding plumage. In the winter they are all identical. Identically dull. So, because they wade, they tend to have long legs; usually a long bill for poking around in mud and sand. Sometimes curled down like a curlew, occasionally turned up like an avocet, which is that white one with black bits.'

'That's a lovely bird!' He began to set up his camera.

'And what you'll notice also is that waders are very obliging photographic subjects. They pootle about in the water for hours, hardly moving. They'll pose for you, Danny. You can't fail to get a brilliant photo of a wader!'

'Wanna bet?' chuckled Danny, taking out a cigarette.

'You're not going to smoke in here, are you? You'll get arrested!'

'There's just you and me. Come on, mate!'

'If anyone comes in, I'm not with you.'

He puffed away as he a.s.sembled the telephoto lens of his camera.

'At least you haven't bought a bottle of Scotch.'

'Ta-ra!' With a flourish, he produced a hipflask from his jacket pocket.

'I'm sure we're breaking all sorts of twitching rules, you know.'

I took a burning swig of whisky and conceded that this was fun.

Tarty time,' he enthused. 'All we need now is some birds! Look, there's some. Ha ha ha. Sorry, mate. That's the last time I do the bird pun.'

We settled down to some mild twitching and Danny turned out to be a keen learner.

'So what's that one on that lump of mud?'

'That's a dunlin.'

'Is that common?'

'Very common. It's the wader's wader. It's the SI unit of waderness. It's a good one to know well because you can use it as a yardstick to identify other waders.'

'So what are we looking for to identify it as a dunlin?'

'Well, size of course. About eight inches. Its beak: longish, black, tapered, slightly decurved.'

'Hey,' Danny interrupted. 'Remember that time you couldn't get your computer working and you rang me up and asked me if I could sort it out?'

'Probably.'

'And I said, 'Is it booted up at the moment?' And you said, 'What the f.u.c.k are you talking about, Danny?' And I said, 'Booted up! Switched on! Running. Everybody knows what booted up means.' And you said, 'I don't know what it means so everybody doesn't know what it means so don't use jargon. Don't a.s.sume the person you're teaching knows anything about what you're talking about.''

'Yes, that sounds like me,' I admitted.

'Well, what the f.u.c.k does decurved decurved mean, then?' mean, then?'

'Oh, I do apologize. Curved downwards. These are adults, just about in their breeding plumage. So black patch on their belly, with dark streaks above on the breast. Back like all waders looks dull but close up is quite a nice arrangement of chestnutty-brown and black and cream.'

For the first time in my life I felt 'wise'. A strange feeling. I was a schoolteacher. A mentor. I was a wise elder imparting my hard-earned knowledge to a keen, uneducated youngster. I quite liked it. It made me feel important, a feeling I realized I was unused to.

'Calidris alpina is the scientific name, if you're interested.' is the scientific name, if you're interested.'

'No, I'm not. Don't get all schoolteachery on me.'

'Sorry.'

'Yes, I see what you mean. The longer you look at it, the prettier it gets. Good: that's one I've learned. Dunlin. What are those two by that wooden post?'

'Dunlin.'

'Oh yes, so they are. And that one there?'