The Norfolk Bird Race!

The Norfolk Bird Race was first held in May 2015 with two teams competing against each other to try and see or hear as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. The race owes it origins to the original Big Bird Race held back in the 1980s between teams from The Flora and Fauna Preservation Society (containing Bill Oddie) and Countrylife Magazine (with David Tomlinson). This race and the subsequent book acted as inspiration for me when I read it as a teenager many years ago and in 2015 I finally got round to emulating my heroes and participating in a bird race of my own.

The race is a sponsored event in association with The Norfolk Bird and Wildlife Fair and raises money for worthwhile conservation charities and projects, which in 2015 was the BTO's House Martin Appeal.  In 2016 the race will raise funds for the wonderful Wader Quest.

Last year two teams took part, with the Norfolk Team narrowly pipping the Visitors Team to the Norfolk Bird Fair Bird Race Trophy. This year the race is back and is bigger and better with five teams competing for the prize.

The Norfolk Home Guard

Last year’s winning captain Ian Dearing has a new team this year and is strong favourite to retain the trophy. His team of seasoned birders offer experience, guile and local knowledge making them the team to beat.

Team: Ian Dearing (@IanDearing1), Chris (@LewishamBirder), Tim (@suburbanbirder) and Mark Clements (@MarkClements27)

Northern Raiders

Still smarting from last year’s narrow defeat, team captain Andrew Whitelee has brought together a crack squad of birders from the north and over the border who are keen to grab the trophy. Refusing to announce the final team until race day, do they have something cunning up their sleeve?

Squad: Andrew Whitelee (@VerdantWildlife), Penny Insole (@Dotterel4), Dave Foster (@Pratorum2112), Scott O’Hara (@Scott_OHara) and Dr Stuart Crutchfield (@stucrutchfield).

Wader Quest

This year’s chosen charity is Wader Quest, and they have entered a team into the race. Captained by Dan Bradbury who has links to the original Big Bird Race (John Burton is his boss!) they bring racing pedigree to the event with a blend of experience and youth. Definitely this year’s dark horses.

Team: Dan Bradbury (@cantdonoses), Rick and Elis Simpson (@WaderQuest) and Oliver Simms (@OSimmsBirding)

The Fellowship of the Wing

The other half of last year’s winning team, Jack Baddams has split from Ian Dearing (artistic birding differences perhaps?) and has a new team of young guns vying for the prize. Has Jack poached enough local knowledge off Ian to retain the trophy with his new team?

Team: Jack Baddams (@), Samuel Jones (@samuel_ei_jones), Joseph Monkhouse (@josephmonkhouse) and Liam Curson.

Tit Flock

Another team of Next Gen Birders, bringing youth and enthusiasm to the race. Captained by Jake Gearty, this team is a real unknown quantity – don’t back against them when it comes to race day.

Squad: Jake Gearty (@Jake_Gearty), Alex Berryman (@AlexJB497) , Drew Lyness (@DJLbirding) Michael Murphy (@MSMurphy300) and Dan McGib (@DanMcgib)

So pick a team and give them and waders your support by donating on our Just Giving page

https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/Norfolk-Bird-Race-2016

Remember, waders need love too.

Andrew Whitelee

A day with Penguins and Seals on Macquarie Island - Oliver Simms

A day with Penguins and Seals on Macquarie Island

While working in an office for most of last winter, I resolved that I would do something completely different in winter 2015/16 and take the majority of my leave over the Christmas period. I did not entirely know what, but when I saw the Enderby Trust Scholarship advertised, I thought I would give it a go. The scholarship gives under–30s the chance to travel on a Heritage Expedition voyage to the Subantarctic at a substantially reduced price.

In mid-October I was informed that I had been fortunate enough to 'win' a place on the "Galapagos of the Southern Ocean" expedition to Campbell, Auckland, Macquarie and Snares Islands. I immediately sorted out flights and a week's travelling around New Zealand as I prepared for what I knew would be a great trip.

I am writing a separate full trip report but there is simply too much to cover in a single blog post so I have decided to focus on one special day, spent on Macquarie Island. The island is technically part of Tasmania despite being over 1500 kilometres to the south east. It is now uninhabited apart from an Australian Antarctic Division scientific research base.

I was not on the island to do scientific research but to admire the vast colonies of penguins and other seabirds. I was fortunate to spend two days in this wonderful place and the first in particular will live long in the memory.

The weather was absolutely glorious so I was up early full of excitement. An early trip to the deck produced my first Southern Giant Petrel and the endemic Macquarie Shag.

At about mid morning, the zodiacs were launched and we headed to Sandy Bay, the site of the vast penguin colonies.

I spent the whole morning in the bay photographing the numerous Royal and King Penguins and Elephant Seals. I’m not really a photographer and I just have a basic Canon SX40 bridge camera but even I managed to get some decent results (in my opinion at least!). The Royal Penguin babies were particularly cute but my highlight was a baby Elephant Seal that tried to suckle from my knee! We had to go back to the ship for lunch but I spotted my first Black-browed Albatross from the zodiac.

After lunch, I eagerly took up the option to return to Sandy Bay for the afternoon. I spent a lot of time watching the penguins swimming in the seaweed pools and decided to scan them regularly. This paid off to an extent as Edin (fellow scholarship recipient and young birder) and I found a couple of Rockhoppers but there was no vagrant penguin like a Chinstrap or Macaroni. That was perhaps somewhat over-optimistic.

Reluctantly at 5pm, I had to tear myself away from Sandy Bay and take a zodiac back to the ship. This brilliant day was however not finished yet as from the Zodiac, I spotted a large splash and shouted that it was too big for a penguin. 

Alex, the guide, then shouted Orca as we disembarked on to the ship. I was a bit confused as I definitely saw a large blow as well but as we got on to the ship we had superb views of a pod of ten Orcas breaching as they chased seals. We watched them for a fair bit - long enough for me to run in and call people who were in the restaurant but not long enough for those on the next zodiac to see them. This was a spectacular end to a spectacular day.

I would like to thank Rodney Russ and Heritage Expeditions again for giving me such an amazing opportunity. Applications will probably open again in August for scholarships for voyages next winter and I would urge any NGB that can to apply. If you want to know more, feel free to drop me a message.

- Oliver Simms

Waders With The Power To Inspire - Oliver Simms

When people ask me how I got in to birdwatching, the honest answer is that I don’t really know. I sort of started for the sake of it when I was 13. I had always had an interest in animals and enjoyed seeing the larger, more spectacular birds but, struggling for things to keep me occupied in the summer holiday, I seem to remember starting to write down all the birds that I saw. One thing though is certain, two different days watching waders helped cement my passion for birds.

A few weeks after I started listing the birds, a family holiday in the Peak District gave me the opportunity to enhance my ever growing list. I can’t remember how but somehow I had heard that Old Moor RSPB near Barnsley was the best site in the area and I managed to persuade my family to stop “briefly” as we drove back from a trip to York. The “brief” stop lasted over two hours and the only reason I was dragged away was because the reserve was closing. I wrote down 83 species for these two hours, no doubt some of them farcical (Marsh Warbler certainly!), but it was the waders that really stood out for me.

Up until this point, I only really recalled seeing three species of wader (Lapwing, Curlew and Oystercatcher) in my life and all before I truly began birdwatching. For whatever reason, waders were a family that I had seen in my field guide, eye-catching species that captured my imagination and I was desperate to see more of them. Indeed, I had hoped that I would kickstart my wader list at Old Moor but nothing prepared me for the sheer variety of species. In the first hide, some local birder helpfully explained to me how to separate Common and Green Sandpipers, as these became the first new wader species of the day for me.

We then walked round to the “Wader Scrape Hide”, with the name alone causing me  no end of excitement. I was blown away. Amongst the thousands of Lapwing (exciting enough itself for me at the time) were Golden Plover, Dunlin, Snipe, Black-tailed Godwit, Ruff, Greenshank and, the real prize, a full summer plumaged Spotted Redshank, which an RSPB volunteer had helpfully pointed out to me. I seem to remember being quite disappointed when I was told it was a Spotted Redshank as I had been desperate to see a Redshank not a Spotted Redshank! It was only last year, almost 8 years later, that I saw my next pristine summer plumaged Spotted Redshank.

Redshank - Samuel Langlois

Dunlin - Samuel Langlois

7 months later and my birdwatching obsession had grown tenfold but I had not yet had a comparable experience with my beloved waders. I had visited several sites that I thought would be good for waders including Rainham Marshes RSPB, Rutland Water and WWT Slimbridge but only seen 3 or 4 species each time, though I had seen Redshank on each occasion! I had a free day in the Easter Holidays and decided that I was going to go somewhere by train. I decided on Rainham Marshes and I called them up to see if a 14 year old could join the RSPB without his parents present. An hour later they phoned back to say that I could but I would not be allowed in the reserve unaccompanied due to “open water”.  Furious, I set about finding somewhere else to go and I heard that Two Tree Island in Leigh was good for waders so I decided to go there.

I had never birdwatched in a saltmarsh or estuarine habitat so I did not quite know what to expect but I was hopeful of a couple of wader species. As I walked up towards the hide, I saw what I initially took to be a gull mobbing a Buzzard. I raised my binoculars and realised it wasn’t a Buzzard but a Carrion Crow so I was confused as why the “gull” was so small. The penny soon dropped, this was my first Avocet! As I got in to the hide, the excitement continued as the saltmarsh threw up more and more wonderful waders. There must have been 12 or so species of wader, I’d never seen anything like it! Highlights for me included my first Turnstone, Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel and Grey Plover. Looking back, if I had the same day now, the highlight would have probably been the Cuckoo singing outside the hide but, at the time, all I cared about was the wading birds.

Almost eight years since these first experiences, waders still capture my imagination. Whether the excitement of finding a Common Sandpiper on my generally waderless patch, a day on the Norfolk coast watching swirling flocks, twitching a transatlantic vagrant or enjoying Blacksmith Plovers in South Africa, I still take pleasure in these wonderful birds. Although I have seen rarities including Greater Yellowlegs, Broad-billed Sandpiper and Short-billed Dowitcher, one breeding species still eludes me; the Dotterel. I am determined this year to track one down!

Hopefully my story highlights the importance of protecting waders. It is essential not only so that future generations can enjoy them as much as I have but also because they have a special power to inspire a love for all birds and, as a result, a determination to conserve them. Those interested, feel free to the visit the WaderQuest website using the following link: http://www.waderquest.org/ 

Purple Sandpiper - Samuel Langlois

Oliver is a 22 year old Classics graduate from Durham University and, after spending his last free summer as a bird guide and hotel manager in Ecuador, now works as an auditor at the National Audit Office. He previously served as Trip Officer in the Next Generation Birders committee and is now a trustee of Wader Quest. When he is not staring at spreadsheets at work, he enjoys NGB trips to Spurn, hill walking and birding in the tropics.