A month or so ago I was in Norfolk and was approached by a fellow bird-watcher with the usual question "Anything about?" "Not a lot, plenty of Avocets and Egrets though". Avocets: another bird which has spread from just a few early colonisers in the last half-century.
Little Egret |
Our attitudes towards different birds, and particularly the attitudes of birders, has always puzzled me. For some reason a bird which has arrived here as a result of human activity - birds which have been bred for shooting purposes or escaped from wildfowl collections, for example - are seen as some kind of lesser being and "don't really count" as wild birds. But Little Egrets, which have probably prospered as a result of global warming, and Red Kites, which have been deliberately bred and released by conservationists are something to get excited about.
What really gets people travelling hundreds of miles to glimpse though, are the poor little creatures that, either through bad navigation or being blown off-course by storms, have ended up shivering and bedraggled on some remote headland. I don't get it, why is a bird which has the initiative and resourcefulness to escape from captivity and then retains enough of its instinctive behaviour to survive in an alien environment, any less interesting than a lost and probably doomed stray.
Take care.
Little Egret's are beautiful aren't they? I've actually only ever seen them in Romania and have never yet seen an avocet. Hope to do something about that now that my younger son is living in Norfolk:) Istill haven't heard a cuckoo this year even though I've been to a couple of areas where I've heard them in recent years, maybe they just haven't arrived yet so I'll keep on hoping.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely, such graceful birds. I was watching a skylark soaring up from a field on the Solway Firth coast last week. Sadly I can't hear their song anymore, since I lost my hearing.
ReplyDeleteYou should be able to catch up with an avocet on the N Norfolk coast - try Cley or Titchwell RSPB sites. Sorry to learn that you can't hear the skylarks any more, that's really sad.
ReplyDeleteThey are beautiful. I guess I am not around birders at all, except in blogging so don't run into that mindset. To me a beautiful bird is a beautiful bird.
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