Near Mythicals

If you are a regular reader of my blogs, you would have heard me use the word “near mythicals” quite a lot.

What are “near mythicals”?

Well first of all you won’t find the term in any birding book. It is a phrase me and my good birding friend Nigel coined, and we have spread its use across the Newport Wetland message board.

“Near mythicals” are the birds that you know exist as you’ve seen photos of them taken by other people, but you never quite see them. They are not necessarily rare birds; they can be as common as the Wren. A good example of one of the most common birds in the UK, but how often do you actually see one, and when you do, how fleeting is your view? You quite often hear their explosive call coming from a shrub or bramble patch, but all you see is a shape moving around in the undergrowth, indeed their Latin name literally means “hole dweller”.

My own personal “near mythicals” are of course Bearded Tits. I have been visiting Newport Wetlands for about four or five years now. Although I see them more regularly, having learnt to ID them in flight a little better, I can still count on one hand the number I have seen in picture perfect pose on a reed stem. Someone at RSPB HQ, The Lodge, clearly has a sense of humour as the last edition of Birds magazine had a picture to die for on the cover, of a Bearded Tit dipping into water. My membership card this year also has a picture of a Bearded Tit on it.

I have other “near mythicals”. I would love to see a Crossbill. It is missing off my life list. I once stood in a car park at Gibraltar Point looking into the branches of the pine trees there until my neck hurt. These wonderful birds have one of the most adaptive bills in the British Isles. It is crossed so it can remove the seeds from pine cones easily. I am told one of the best ways to get a heads up that they may be feeding hidden in the tops of the trees is to watch for the seed kernels dropping from high above. Eventually someone wandered up to me in that car park and told me they were there half an hour ago. That is another sign of a true “near mythical”.

“Near mythicals” can change from year to year. The Green Woodpecker eluded me a couple of years back. It ended up being the last bird ticked on my 2011 list, ironically at the Lodge in Sandy. It was one of the first last year, when one obligingly flew down in front of me whilst getting the new year list off to a start at Newport Wetlands. Until recently Spoonbills were eluding me by a couple of days everywhere I visited. We tracked them down on the East coast of England!

2014 is going to be the year of the Hawfinch for me. I have never ever seen this most stunning of the finches. I know the Forest Of Dean is a good place to find them, and I also have a visit to North Wales pencilled in. Hopefully in the not too distant future I will be bringing you a blog regaling my first sighting of this bird!

You see “near mythicals” don’t have to stay “near mythicals” for ever. If you are willing to get up early, and put the time in you can be rewarded with some incredible views of these elusive birds. One such example of this is another Newport Wetlands birder, and friend of mine, John. He made it his mission to get those definitive photos of the Bearded Tits. He was down in the reed beds at the crack of dawn as often as he could. I bumped into him a few times on the days I managed to get up early. The Bearded Tits had left several minutes before my arrival in case you are wondering. It had become a real labour of love. The result was the magical piece of film he produced that is attached to the end of this blog. There is no better example of what you put in you can get back out! I hope you enjoy it, and get to see some of your own “near mythicals” soon!

All Images © Anthony Walton