A few days before Christmas in 2004, a small orange bird forsook the rainforests of Guatemala and touched down in an Oxford garden. It became an instant sensation. As the first Baltimore Oriole to visit mainland Britain in 15 years, it brought hundreds of camouflaged men with telescopes – some from as far as Belgium – to wait hopefully in a cold, wet, windy Headingly cul-de-sac.
The twitch, or hunt, for the Baltimore Oriole divided the local community of Northfield Road. While some residents complained at the sudden lack of parking and gross invasions of their privacy, others opened their gardens for a small fee (one woman made over £150 in 10 minutes – profits went to a Birmingham cat’s home). But although the characters ranged from the mildly weird to the downright sociopathic, and although there was almost a brawl for the best view, the story of extreme birdwatching is much broader than this incongruous Oxfordshire moment.
In extreme birding, people are known to hire light aircraft to twitch sudden ‘rarities’ in Shetland, or spend months battling disease, insects and snakes in uncharted rainforest. It’s a pastime not without it’s dangers – in the haste of a twitch, car crashes are common, but there have been disappearances in Nepal, kidnappings in Indonesia, murder in Peru at the hands of the Shining Path, and plenty of gunpoint robbery.
There’s a lingering problem, however: birds aren’t sexy and the twitching fraternity is ageing. It’s long term future is in doubt. So can the adventures and exotic expeditions of extreme birdwatching lure young blood to the tradition? Or, like model railways and stamp collecting, is this historic pastime on it’s way out?
Extreme Birdwatching, UK