View From The Shed by Shaun Finnie - IT'S NOT THERE

IT'S NOT THERE

I've recently been listening to an excellent podcast about an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the fabled Yeti, the Abominable Snowman. It's a great series but I don't think that I need a spoiler alert when I say that they don't come back with indisputable film, pelts or even a tame Yeti on a lead at the end of it. After all, that kind of thing would have been all over the media, don't you think? It would at least have been newsworthy enough to feature in the '...and finally', slot at the end of News At Ten where they show something light-hearted like a skateboarding dog to distract us from the previous half hour of doom and gloom.

The presenters of this podcast didn't really find anything that you'd call scientific proof of the Yeti's existence and, obviously, that left them a little disappointed, but one phrase that they kept repeating resonated with me; “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” (a version of which was first written by the missionary William Wright in 1888, not the cosmologists Carl Sagan or Martin Rees – regular readers will know that I hate it when quotes are misattributed). In other words, just because they didn't find what they went searching for, doesn't mean that it isn't there somewhere.

This same phrase should be tattooed on the hearts of all serious birdwatchers, as it relates to an attitude that seems to be prevalent among a section of the birdwatching community. It usually plays out like this...

Me – Hi. Have you seen (Bird X, the one that they and often me are looking for)?
Them – No, it's flown off.

I usually just smile, nod and move on. They're right, in their own head at least, so who am I to argue? And what good would it do if I did?

But... but... I know from my own experiences as a welcome volunteer at RSPB Old Moor that what their answer really should have been. “I didn't see (Bird X) but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's flown off. It could just as easily be feeding around the other side of an island or sitting in a bush.”

About half of the time the bird in question will appear later in the day, oblivious to the disappointment that it caused by daring to step out of site for a few moments. Of course the other 50% of the time the original failed spotter will be correct. The bird has indeed flown off. But if you haven't actually seen depart, flapping further and further away until it's just the merest speck in the distance, how can you really be sure that it has done so?

At the time of me talking to this other birder, the bird in question is comparable to Schröedinger's Cat. If you don't know what that is, it's the subject of a famous hypothetical experiment. The very simplified version of it is that if you seal a cat in a box then said feline can be described as (according to Erwin Schröedinger) both alive and dead at the same time because there's no way that an outside observer can tell. Following that logic, even if nobody sees it, our Bird X can be said to be both here and gone at the same time. Sort of... in a way... have you ever started a simile and then got muddled by your own logic?

Let's look at this another way. We know that our Old Moor site is home to a handful of Bitterns and a few dozen Bearded Reedlings (rename according to your preference). They live here every day of the year but that doesn't mean that we can report sightings of them on all of those days. There is even less chance of each and every visitor seeing them but they never question me when I say that we have these birds on site (well, very few do). So why do some automatically assume that any visiting bird that they personally don't see can't possibly still be around?

At the moment it's moving season. Lots of birds are in the migration preparation stage of their annual travels, where they fly in relatively small steps from their Summer breeding grounds closer to the coast before making the final push to wherever they will spend their Winter. This means that they will arrive at our reserve (or any other spot that they feel comfortable), feed up for a day, a week, maybe more, and then move on. We've had quite a few waders doing just this over the last few weeks, especially some of the rarer Sandpiper species. They're probably gone now, because they haven't been seen for a while. Or maybe they're hiding. Or maybe more of their species will take their place on the migration trail. After all, one Curlew Sandpiper looks much the same as another to me. Unless it's in Winter plumage. Sometimes I hate birds.

I guess the point I'm struggling to get across is that you should always test things for yourself and don't always automatically assume the worst. Just turn up and be happy with what you see. Sometimes nature gives you the happiest of surprises. And with any luck, by the time this is published there will be some on the sightings board...