I also spent some time in the Alentejo region – my favourite part of Portugal where I indulged in all sorts of avian goodies such as displaying Great Bustards and surprisingly large numbers of Black-bellied Sandgrouse.

The Birdfair was a success and despite the grey clouds and occasional dim light we still managed to see a host of great birds. I even had a lifer in the aural shape of a singing and calling Iberian Chiffchaff.

It’s always worth looking at every bird you come across, even if it is in the middle of the concrete jungle. I went home after seeing the Great Black-back to pore over a couple of books to remind myself of its characteristics. Always be open to learning more about the birds that you often take for granted.  

I had a lovely Sunday morning/early afternoon co-leading a bird walk at Rainham Marshes in the company of the hugely knowledgable Howard Vaughan and up to 40 eager birders.

We saw a lot of the usual suspects – Shelduck, Wigeon, Teal, Kestrel and Skylark along with an unexpected couple of Red Kites that materialised distantly before vanishing.

The Northern Shoveler, as its name suggests, is a bit of a northern duck. I’m not speaking about the north of England though. They breed largely, if not wholly, within the Northern Hemisphere taking in North America and the northern areas of Europe and Asia. In the winter they range further south of the equator and can very rarely found as far south as Australia.

Why am I discussing the humble Shoveler? Well, today I saw a beautiful drake fly through the sunlit mist at The Scrubs to reveal itself to me briefly before disappearing off southeast. You may be saying, ‘so what’, but I was in heaven. My morning had been made and my day set up. The reason for my jubilation was that the drake I saw was only the third time in 20 years that a Shoveler had been seen over my patch.

I remember the first time I ever saw one. It was during the winter of 1977 and I was sifting through the assembled waterfowl at Brent Reservoir when I happened across a flock of what to most people is a common duck. I was mesmerised by the males finery and the spatula-like bill that both sexes possessed. I have always liked Shovelers despite not being a great lover of ducks. The bird I saw today made me realise that even ducks can have an amazing grace about them.

When the world renowned bird artist Ian Lewington told me at the British Birdwatching Fair last year that he was finishing illustrating a new tome to be called Rare Birds of North America I started salivating on the spot. He is one of my favourite bird artists – ever – and the rare birds of America intrigue me greatly. So when my postwoman dropped the package containing the book through my letterbox I was waiting to catch it before it hit the floor. I was reading it before I had even taken of all the packaging!

The authors definition of a rarity is very clear and that is, ‘no such definition will ever be perfect – nature does not fit into boxes of human construct -‘. The book deals with species that are truly rare within North America as a whole as opposed to just being rare in one region yet common elsewhere, for example. Thus, understandibly many of the species featured in the book emanate mostly from Asia and the Neotropics. The authors also make the destinction of featuring the rarities and their trends of appearance since the 1970’s.

The opening pages discuss in some detail the essence behind vagrancy and rarity in North America. It talks about the likely provenance of certain species or groups of species as well as examining some of the stats involved in the rare bird records. It’s all written with a very easy style that doesn’t leave you feeling like sticking matchsticks between your eyelids to keep them open. But it is the species accounts that interested me most, not least because they were accompanied by Ian’s superb artwork. As a British birder I wasn’t too interested in reading about the field identification of many of the species featured although, I totally got the need for it as many of my North American colleagues would not have the intimate knowledge of Lapwings that perhaps I have. On my side of the pond I have access to a  myraid of fieldguides that do just that. However, I must state that the last comment was a purely personal one as there is absolutely nothing wrong with the book’s treatment of the individual species. Indeed, it was very useful to read about the field characteristics of the Kelp Gull, for example, because I don’t see them too often. I could liken reading the species accounts to having a delicious fruit cake in front of me but instead of eating it slice by slice I devour the individual raisins first. And the ‘raisins’ in this case were the ‘Comments’ section for each species which were written in a non-prescriptive and conversational way. Sentences like ‘Jack Snipe are amazing’ – the opening line within the Jack Snipe’s comment section – made me feel very excited. If I lived in North America and hadn’t seen a Jack Snipe before I certainly would want to after reading that line!

North America is a massive place and although it is home to a multitude of birders not all of them are out there looking for rarities. The beauty of this book is that it could serve as motivation for the birders who may not have realised that the chances of finding a rare bird whilst out on the patch or just generally birding is very real and actually much more likely than initially supposed.

This work pays homage to the books that have covered the same ground for the rarities in Europe and has been long overdue in North America.

Rare Birds of North America is worth every cent of its $35 price tag and deserves to find its way on the bookshelves of every North American birder plus a few other bookshelves elsewhere in the world.

Rare Birds of North America  ISBN-13: 9780691117966

Available from Wildsounds quote code URB35

http://www.wildsounds.com/lookup.htm?ref=URBAN&prodid=9780691117966

Griffon Vulture
What an amazing few days I have just had!

Navarra is a great place for birding and a shot hop from the UK.

A full version of my memorable trip to the Navarra Region in Spain will appear in a future issue of Bird Watching Magazine.

Meanwhile, here’s my trip list

I started this year with all the best intentions of keeping a regularly updated blog with all my latest news and views. Well, so much for that. My main excuse is the fact that I was frantically finishing my next book – Look Up! How To Be An Urban Birder.

Had I not been so preoccupied I would have been lamenting the loss of Birding World which published its last edition in December after 27 years in early January. I will really miss this monthly magazine because of the great ID articles that they carried, the publication’s pioneering attitude towards splitting species and of course, the monthly rarity updates for not only the UK but for Europe as well. The final issue also showed me how out of touch I had become. Birding World always educated me with latest splits so when I saw the editorial covering the occurrences of Laurence’s Brent Goose I thought, ‘What the hell is that? Never heard of it!’

I have had a long connection with Birding World because I knew co-founder, Richard Millington from back in the day. Back then the magazine was known as ‘Twitching’ and was produced quite cheaply as a black-and-white stapled print out. At the time I was working at The Sunday Times and I managed to secure an editorial piece for the magazine in the paper. A thankful Richard Millington gave me five years free subscription thereafter and my love affair with Twitching and latterly Birding World began.

I guess with the advent of the internet and with it the fact that the up to date birding news is now instantly available must have taken its toll on subscriptions. But there is something very visceral about receiving the news in the form of a magazine that you can file away and refer back to. Yes, I will miss it. Not least because it made me visit my mum on a monthly basis. You see, the address for my subscription was at her house. I never changed it. Don’t get me wrong, I love visiting my old mum but it made her feel good to hand over my copy of Birding World still wrapped in its delivery cellophane. Good things never last.