Corey’s post on looking for a Eurasian Collared Dove last week (Couldn’t collar a Collared Dove) ended with the words, “And if you European birders are snickering to yourselves about this failed twitch (yes, this means you Charlie), well, how many Mourning Doves did you see today?” Collared Doves are of course common in my neck of the woods (it’s one of the few birds I get in my tiny garden actually), and whilst I’d be unlikely to twitch a Collared Dove under most, if not any, circumstances, Corey’s wry comment did make we wonder if you American birders would be interested in what Nearctic ‘everyday birds’ have struggled across the Atlantic and are currently getting us Brit birders into a flap…

I’m on a mailing list for the UK 400 Club, which is run by the UK birding legend that is Lee Evans (Don’t know Lee? He’s a one-man twitching industry - have a look at his website at www.uk400clubonline.co.uk to get an idea) and here’s a short excerpt of the “Bird Alert” news I received today:

“It was another exciting day with the third AMERICAN BUFF-BELLIED PIPIT discovered in as many days. This time it was the archipelago of Scilly’s turn, with their third individual (perhaps 4th it we consider the 1996 records as two individuals) showing well in bulb fields at Carn Friars, St Mary’s, from late afternoon until dusk.

Also from North America came further waders, including a GREATER YELLOWLEGS that rested for just 20 minutes at Baston Langtoft Long Pit (Lincs) and a ‘new’ BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER in Norfolk - feeding with 3 Ringed Plovers in the field NE of Happisburgh Lighthouse. A further BUFF-BREAST was on St Mary’s Airfield (Scilly) at dusk whilst a LESSER YELLOWLEGS and Pectoral Sandpiper were at Tinker’s Marsh, Walberswick (Suffolk) and a SPOTTED SANDPIPER at Heoga Ness, Yell (Shetland) (present for its 3rd day). SPOTTED SANDPIPERS also remain on Unst (Shetland) and on Porthellick Pool, St Mary’s (Scilly) whilst the juvenile LONG-BILLED DOWITCHERS remain at Titchwell Marsh RSPB (Norfolk) and Bardney Lock (Lincs) and the juvenile moulting to first-winter WILSON’S PHALAROPE at Upton Warren Flashes Pool (Worcs). Up to 15 Pectoral Sandpipers remain, including 3 at Ness Machair, Lewis (Outer Hebrides), 3 at Strathbeg RSPB (Aberdeenshire), 2 at Tophill Low D Reservoir (East Yorks), 2 at Gibraltar Point NR (Lincs) and singles at Bough Beech Reservoir (Kent), Rush Hills Scrape, Hickling (Norfolk), Saltholme Pools (Cleveland), River Medway at Wouldham (Kent) and at Bardney Lock (Lincs).”

It’s a little early yet for passerine vagrants, but early October usually causes mass twitching for such ‘regular’ UK rarities as American Robin, Blackpoll Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, Baltimore Oriole, or Dark-eyed Junco. You should be here when something REALLY rare turns up: I remember being one of about 3000 people who twitched the UK’s first Red-breasted Nuthatch and first Golden-winged Warbler back in the late 1980s. There are probably more twitchers in the UK now than fifteen years ago - and I can’t imagine the chaos that would follow someone turning up either a Prothonotary or a Cerulean Warbler.

In fact for a long time the only ‘American birds’ I’d ever seen I’d twitched in the UK - my first ever twitch back in 1982 was for a Green Heron followed the next day by an immature American Redstart, and long before I started travelling for a living I’d twitched birds like Baird’s Sandpiper, Common Nighthawk, Chimney Swift, Yellowthroat, Black and White Warbler, Swainson’s Thrush, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Even now, after probably hundreds of short visits to North America, I’ve still only ever seen both Upland Sandpiper and Solitary Sandpiper on twitches here in Britain…

Most of the birds on that list wouldn’t get many North American birders reaching for their binoculars, and ‘horses for courses’ is the phrase that springs to mind. I remember once hugely impressing two NY birders (not Mike or Corey incidentally) when I identified a Black-billed Magpie in flight on Long Island back in about 1990. Magpies are two-a-penny round here of course, and I was probably a little dismissive, which was entirely the wrong thing to be. I always bear that in mind, you know, when I get excited seeing yet another White-throated Sparrow, one of my favourite birds in the world, and have any US birding companion looking at me with incomprehension that such a common bird would elicit such a reaction from a supposedly “ace birder” who must have seen hundreds…and I make a promise now, that if any 10,000 Birds reader should pitch up in the UK looking for ‘garden birds’ like Great Tits and Blackbirds I’ll be every bit as keen to show them to you as you’ll be to add them to your life-list…