NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

There are days when I decide that I am going to bin Twitter. These are the days when I spend far too long reading through the tweets and when I tweet something that becomes contentious. Days when... you get the picture. But when I think such thoughts I remember that this platform has become my primary source for latest bird information, world news alerts and social contacts. It is also a place that I can tweet out any old rubbish and then have a conversation. These are my tweets for today: As you can see, a right old mix of the banal and vaguely interesting. But they did elicit some response and a bit of banter. I also responded to tweets posted by other users and so became embroiled in conversations as diverse as the 1989 Kent Golden-winged Warbler, #BWKM0, and Kent birders. They say that television is the 'thief of time', but that could just as well apply to Twitter. Sometimes a tweet just takes off for no particular reason - this one garnered over 1200 likes. It also produce...

Yesterday evening I had written a lengthy post on the subject of birding behaviour during the second lockdown, but then deleted it rather than publish it - this after a bit of soul-searching when I thought better of it, and decided that it might ruffle a few feathers That wasn't something that I wished to happen.  So I tweeted this instead: As can be seen, it has gathered a lot of interest, with over 58,000 views, 40 Retweets and getting on for 950 likes. But what about the 'not likes'? Even though I do put out the odd contentious tweet from time to time I am still a sensitive soul and do not like to think that anybody would be upset by what I post. I felt happy that the above post would be taken as a pat-on-the-back to those birders who have stuck to the government lockdown recommendations. Plenty haven't - or at least have played loose with the nitty-gritty of lockdown - and this has annoyed me somewhat. I could go into a bit more detail, but really don't want to....

Twitter is not for everyone, that I can appreciate, but for many it is a useful platform - one on which to keep informed, share thoughts, announce and entertain. I’ve tweeted from my account for six years now, and several years before that on another. I’ve made many contacts, mainly of people who I have not met in person. But there is another group, mostly birders, who intrigue me - it is made up of lapsed contacts. Having been birding for over 46 years I am bound to have met thousands of birders. Some have been an almost constant presence, even if they have been for broken spells across those 46 years. But most of them have briefly flitted in, and out, of my orbit. It could have been that I spent a single car journey with them; a week at a bird observatory; shared a patch; went on a twitch; used to be birding companions; were friends of a friend. They all left a mark, a memory and a name that has lodged in my brain. And now we follow each other or at least converse on twitter. Some we...

I have mentioned this 'Private Eye' cartoon before, of a little old lady at the window of a railway station ticket office asking for a "return to simpler times please". That struck a chord with me at the time and still does today. Simpler times... what does that really imply? To me it means a world pre-Brexit, pre-Trump and pre-social media. And yes, I do get the irony of that last one, considering that I use it on a daily basis and am doing so in communicating with you right now. The first two points I'll leave well-alone for now, they really are too divisive, particularly the first. But as for wanting to return to a time before 'social media' that might need a bit of explaining, so here goes... The internet has been a game changer for most of the human race. Information at your finger-tips, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When I was in education and had an assignment to do on, say, King Charles the Second, there were maybe a handful of books in ...

Last Friday evening, as I was trawling through my Twitter feed, I was struck by the number of tweets that were looking back over the past year and picking out ornithological highlights - they were all of rare birds. Not one mentioned anything beyond rarity. In response I tweeted the following: Why are so many birder’s highlights from 2018 purely of rarity? What of spectacle, intimate encounter and pure joy? Birding is more than the rare. Much more. It was just a throwaway tweet, sent out there as much as a 'said-out-loud' thought to myself. The response to it has been remarkable - it has obviously struck a chord. As of noon today, 30 hours after it was sent, a total of 41,867 people have viewed it. There have been 1,459 total engagements. 809 Likes. 98 Retweets. And 91 Replies. The replies have been fascinating. They have come from various parts of the world and have shared with me (and those linked to this particular thread) a multitude of thoughts and observations. Ther...

A number of my linked bloggers have been discussing the merits (or otherwise) of social media, plus whether or not ‘cyber’ friends can be considered ‘real' friends. Never one to miss an opportunity to sound off, or use the ideas of others, I will join in with the fun. Facebook Apparently now the domain of the middle-aged, as the youngsters of today have largely given up on it in favour of using Instagram and Snap Chat (and before you think I’m really well up on all of this, I’m not. I read it somewhere). My adoption on Facebook was very late indeed. I tend not to use my personal timeline much, and if you were to visit my ‘home page’ you would be hard pushed for find out anything about me at all. 99% of my activity on this platform is as a member of various natural history groups - I must be a member of 40+, all sorts of generalist and specialist subjects. These are useful for keeping up to date with what is being seen, identification tips, taxonomic changes, member’s opinions...

These are my favourite Twitter conversations that I (possibly) read during 2014... BillyBigTicks 13 grey geese over Walland Marsh, possibly White-fronts PipitShagger1974 10 White-fronts and 3 Bean Geese on Walland Marsh, showing well by Stringer's Corner BillyBigTicks I thought three of them looked bigger, lol PipitShagger1974 2 Taiga and 1 Tundra Bean, 6 adult and 4 first-winter White-fronts. My weekends in Norfolk are paying off Who's the daddy? BillyBigTicks Top birding mate! Birdguides The 13 Walland Marsh grey geese have been confirmed as Greylags SidNoMates Robin at Spurn DesperateBirder82 Where? SidNoMates By post 45, seaward side of road DesperateBirder82 Did you get a good view? SidNoMates Red breast and shit DesperateBirder82 Are you still there? SidNoMates No, in Crown and Anchor DesperateBirder82 On site now but no sign of Robin KingWankLister I'm on my way from Teeside, please keep looking - need it for my Spurn list DesperateBi...

I once knew a birder who spent most of the day - almost every day - in the field. But most of that time was not spent looking through his optics. He would spend it peering at the screen of his smart phone, or responding to the bleeps and whistles that came from a small device that I assumed was a pager. These two objects (phone and pager) dictated his birding life, from where he would be birding in the next hour right through to what he would do when he got there. Also, his awareness of those other birders around him was but periphery, such was his concentration on those devices. He had divorced himself from the reality of where he was and who he was with. However, such behavior, rather than being extreme, is actually quite common. Being able to communicate instantaneously is something that a bloke of my age does not take for granted. Who reading this can remember the run to a phone box after finding a rare bird, the frantic feeding of coins into the slot and the hope that the pers...

It's been some time since I've posted what could be described as an 'angry' post. There would always be something that had 'got my goat', annoyed me or something would happen that I would then consider to be preposterous. Try as hard as I can, there's nothing at the moment that is bothering me. And this is after two weeks being spent in the company of that most weird branch of humanity, the birder... I know, I am one of them too. Is this a sign of contentment? Mellowing with age? Running out of ideas? Maybe. But there is one area that has helped me to find a sense of calm and that is reorganising my Twitter account. Some time ago I was following 200-300 people, mainly birders from southern England. I did this to get a good feed of breaking bird news. Maybe 50% of the tweets I received were relevant to that aim, with another 20% being re-tweets of what I had already read and the remaining 30% a combination of drivel, inane humour and bollocks. A lot of th...

Fiddler's elbows and whore's drawers are not as 'up-and-down' as I am when it comes to the adoption of Twitter. I've got to face the fact that it is the vehicle of choice for most birders to get their information out there. It is also a great tool for mobilising the masses to act upon important environmental issues. All I need is a 'waffle filter'. So, if you tweet and want to receive more innane waffle why not follow me - Steve Gale @surreynature - and I will reciprocate. Technology moves at such a swift pace that I'm sure that in a couple of years time we will all be scattering our information in a different way. Maybe we will embrace an ironic retro message dissemination service such as carrier pigeon...

I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter. For those of you who are unsure as to what Twitter is, it is an online social networking and microblogging service that allows users to post 'tweets' (messages) that are allowed to contain no more than 140 characters. I was an early user of this service as, working with journalists as I do, a number of my colleagues adopted it as a means of gleaning information. Further down the line they realised that they could use it to spread their work to a larger audience. I, on the other hand, found out that I could gather natural history information. It was not until last autumn that I came to the conclusion that I needed to take it far more seriously, as a large number of local birders were sending out any 'scarce bird alerts' by tweeting rather than texting, which had until then been the prefered means of information dissemination (that sounds very media savvy, doesn't it). Without Twitter I was finding myself out of the ...

Those that couldn't do it - because they were too old, lacked the courage or were needed in other places - could only admire these brave lads from afar. They sent them messages - "Go and do it for all of us that cannot" "No regrets. Just do it now" And when these heroic men succeeded, they were showered with more tributes - "Well done" "Well done indeed, great work!" "Who dares wins!" Are we talking about Second World War Spitfire pilots here? No . Intrepid explorers discovering wonderous things in far-flung wilderness? No. Brave firefighters risking their lives on a daily basis? No, not them either... we a talking about birders who got in a car, drove a few miles and saw a bird that somebody else had found. Welcome to the world of Twitter! Welcome to what passes as success and which draws admiration in the 21st century! I think I need to time travel back to an era when things weren't so f***ed up...

After tweeting since September on a regular basis (after having had an account for quite a long time) I've closed it. I found myself checking on others tweets far too regularly, was tweeting for the sake of it and decided that too much of my time was being spent with it. My original aim was sharing of information - well, texting, emailing, phone calling and - get this for an idea - face-to-face conversation - will suffice. I'm not a luddite, I've decided it isn't for me. Any regular visitor to this blog will at once identify such action as typical of me. Never settling on anything, always questioning what I do and how I do it. Common sense or measured reasoning are sometimes lacking in such judgements, but this just feels right.

It's funny how birds that 'come your way' do so with a great fat dollop of chance. This afternoon I went to Canons Farm and decided to park on the eastern boundary of the recording area in Holly Lane West - I normally park on the opposite side. Because of that decision I found myself walking across a stubble field that ordinarily I wouldn't even look at (for those that do detail this particular field has been christened Pipit Field). Three passerines got up in front of me and quickly settled again. Through binoculars I couldn't immediately see them so I slowly edged closer, more in hope than expectation. After a couple of minutes one came into view, followed by the other two. Each bird's generous supercillium that met on the nape (in a 'V') gave the identification game up quite quickly as three smart Woodlarks paraded in front of me. I didn't need to use my scope that hung redundantly by my side as they were very close. Then the farce started. I kn...