Twitching by numbers: Twenty-four years of chasing rare birds around Britain and Ireland

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I’m still bemused that the author felt compelled to water down/ delete certain sections just because a single magazine columnist condemned the book having identified what she deemed to be ‘sexism’.

Garry Richard Bagnell books and biography | Waterstones

Garry’s book goes into that, in depth. The level of commitment to see a bird in the shetlands, Scilly’s and everywhere in between shows no limits. I loved the ‘See you in a couple of days, darling’ attitude when the Mega alert landed and he was off on another adventure. An adventure that could quite easily end up being empty handed and missing a bird by minutes. That after the gruelling drive and ferry to somewhere like the Shetland Isles!! However principally, and overwhelmingly, it is a e-book about twitching – the fieldsport of speeding round attempting to see uncommon birds so as to add to your lifelong record of untamed birds seen in Britain and Eire. Like most sports activities, twitching will appear completely pointless to the overwhelming majority of individuals. Who cares that Scotland beat England at rugby just lately? Fairly a couple of, together with me. And who cares that Garry Bagnell has seen 553 hen species in Britain and Eire (which places him approach behind Steve Gantlett on an estimated 590 species)? Fairly a couple of folks and they’re principally males. Do I care? Not deeply, however I’m definitely on this e-book as a result of it’s a very clear description of the fieldsport of twitching from the perspective of a eager exponent.The cover? Gives a good idea of what the book contains. The book is illustrated by the author and, although infinitely better than I could do myself, the illustrations are all quite good, but not tip top. The Ovenbird gives a fair idea of the quality of illustrations. I’d give it 6/10. A shame as there are lots of bird watchers who’d be interested in his bird watching activities, certainly not in his misogynistic and homophobic views, failed marriages and bigoted comments, these views aren’t acceptable in today’s multicultural, multiethnic and equal society. Henry Fox-Talbot got so peeved by twitchers peering into his garden that he invented photography so that they could have books full of birdy photographs which would obviate this antisocial behaviour but it didn’t work very well and although there are squillions of such books the uninvited peering still goes on and these days with the added nuisance of throwing empty shandy cans into the aforementioned garden so the dog can mince them into small sharp shards.

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Though most twitchers are bird-lovers, the sport is mostly about the chase. Bagnell, for instance, drove 90 minutes and searched the ground for a half-hour before he spotted the coy shorelark in beach scrub. He eyed it for a few moments before tweeting his find, then moved on. "I've got another bird to get three hours away," he said. I had never heard of a foam party until I read this book – maybe I should get out more, or maybe not. He hasn’t wasted a second of his life because he is also an authority on aircraft and a county standard chess player Just before Christmas, Garry Bagnell published Twitching by numbers: Twenty-four years of chasing rare birds around Britain and Ireland.Twitching by Numbers’ by Garry Bagnell, a memoir of his anecdotes about birdwatching, published in this very year 2022. Insert joke about tits here, but seriously this is why women still feel so unwelcome in the birding community.

Twitching by numbers: Twenty-four years of chasing rare…

But sections of soon came under the notice of feminist Lucy McRobert who, like him, is both a birder and a writer - but on a different wavelength and at the primmer end of the literary spectrum.I was also surprised to find that another friend of mine was mentioned in the book a couple of times, I knew he was good but not that good! As a relatively new birder, I first stumbled across Garry and other associated characters in the BBC documentary about twitching. I was hooked on the dedication, commitment and - dare I say - slight competitiveness amongst them!