View From The Shed by Volunteer Shaun - O Lucky Man!

O LUCKY MAN!

Autumn is here. You may have noticed. It seemed to fall with a huge, grey and wet ‘thud’ last week as the sun ran away, chased by gloomy clouds and earlier dusk times. Just a few weeks ago we were enjoying evening shandies in beer gardens. Now the wind is howling, the rain is pelting, the mercury is dropping and we’re digging out our big coats - even the hardiest of Yorkshire people among us. Apart from our Volunteer Tim. He’s still wearing his shorts when he works at Old Moor’s Welcome Shed. I think he was a postman in a previous life.

These sudden changes in temperature and number of daylight hours act as a trigger for many of our so-called ‘British’ birds, telling them that it’s time to migrate to their warmer Winter homes. This might be just the other side of the Channel or the other side of the world but I hope they were prepared for it. The seasonal change has been dramatically swift this year and many birds, either individually or in larger flocks, have reacted to the alarm call by setting off along centuries-old flight paths.

Here at RSPB Old Moor we lie on one of these aerial superhighways, which means that we’re lucky enough to see some species at this time of year that would never normally drop down into our wetland, like the flock of over 250 Pink-Footed Geese did recently. And sometimes rarer birds turn up.

Ruddy Shelduck, Spotted Redshank, Lesser Yellowlegs, Little Stint, Sandwich Tern and a Red-Necked Phalarope have all been sighted in our Dearne Valley over the last few weeks. Those in the know will tell you that some of these birds are serious rarities in these parts, especially that final one. These Phalaropes (a kind of wading bird smaller than a Starling) usually spend Summer in the Shetlands before heading East to the Arabian Sea or West to Peru until, in six months time, turning around and coming back to our northern islands. 

That’s six birds that we would not usually get to see around here and any serious Barnsley Birder would be happy to add them to their year sightings list. Any serious Barnsley Birder…  like me. That’s me, who spends chunks of every week volunteering at the nature reserve. I’m really pleased that they all dropped in for a short wash and brush up, a pit stop on their long annual journey. And I’m also very pleased that many of the local birders took the opportunity to come to our Dearne Valley sites to see them. But I’m slightly less happy that I was on holiday at the time and missed every single one of them. Sure, I had a fabulous time away but…   

And this is where birdwatching can be incredibly frustrating. Of course you remember the glorious days where you saw the best that nature has to offer, usually when you least expect it, but the ones that get away are the ones that seem to stick in the memory the most. “Oh, you should have been here five minutes ago mate, it’s just flown off”.

I was simply unlucky and I have to live with it. Hopefully one day I’ll see a Red-Necked Phalarope. Or I won’t. Much of birdwatching - like life in general - is about being in the right place at the right time. 

However it does irk me somewhat when I talk to visitors at the Old Moor Welcome Shed and take my time to tell them of all the birdy delights that are out there. They seem really interested and I’m just about to wish them an exciting day when they utter the killer words, “Oh but they won’t be out there now. They never are when I turn up. I’m so unlucky.”

How do they expect me to react to that? My automatic response is, “Well please turn around and get back in your car then! We have lots of other people who want to see these birds. I don’t want you spoiling it for them too.” Of course none of this actually makes it through my lips (I have to write that, my boss reads these blogs). I just put on a smile and tell them that the birds are most definitely out there and maybe they’ll be lucky.

But will they? Do we, to a degree, make our own luck? No, we can’t influence a fair coin toss or dice roll, but do we get what we expect to get, simply by expecting it? Do these people’s negative expectations subliminally influence their vision so that they actually don’t see these rarities, even if they are right in front of them? It has happened, many times, when people have come back and claimed, “No Spoonbills, I told you I wouldn’t see them”, yet other visitors who were at the same place and the same time have come back with photographic evidence of the bird in question. Undoubtedly we see what we want to see.

And those birds that use us as a staging post along their migration route. Is it just blind luck that makes them choose us to visit? Or could it perhaps be the decades of hard work from our wardens to make the reserve as attractive as possible to these kinds of species so that they’d choose us over other bits of the country to rest up for a while?

Did I see the Phalarope that I’ve always wanted to? No. But I consider myself incredibly lucky to live in a time and place where there are still these magnificent little creatures around and there is still a possibility that I might one day see them. If we don’t do what we can now, our grandchildren’s grandchildren might not be so fortunate.

And don’t forget; the harder you work the luckier you get. If you come to Old Moor tomorrow will you see any of these rare migratory visitors? I don’t know, I can’t read the future. But I do know that you have much more chance of seeing them if you visit us than if you stay on your sofa watching “Bargain Hunt”.

Be lucky!