No worries Julian! Thanks for the offer – and if I’m in the area I’ll let you know 
South Stack in Anglesey was always one of my favourite day trips as a child. I certainly miss the cliff seabird colonies from back home… It’s a real shame Auks never made it down south – the cliffs around NSW and the South Coast would be perfect for them. The acclimatisation societies of old missed a trick there! (Cue next debate – haha!)
Happy Birding and a very Happy New Year to all,
Ed
Ed Williams Kingsville, VIC
On 04/01/2013, at 8:43 AM, “Julian B”
> Yes, Philip, the 16 500 [550 x 30] was an absurd exaggeration, as is the oft > touted fallacy that there are few or no birds in Britain. I had a teaching > colleague who, on returning from a year’s teacher exchange in London, > bemoaned the lack of British birds: sparrows and starlings with a few feral > pigeons to spare. Puzzled, I asked exactly where had she gone in search of > birds and was flabbergasted to learn that apart from one trip to Stratford > to see a Shakespearean drama she had never set foot beyond The Big Smoke. > > Nor was that the thrust of my point. Numbers are irrelevant in this debate. > What does it matter whether Britain has 50 or 500 fewer species that > Australia? Australia is 30-times the size of Britain and has habitat types > [e.g. deserts, rainforests] not found in Britain. No one doubts that > Australia has more bird species than a small European outpost and therefore > all those defensive parries [e.g. lack of birders makes it difficult to > discover the true Australian total; more than half of the British list (? > Evidence based or another stab in the dark?) consists of rare vagrants] were > unnecessary and rather missed my point by the proverbial country mile. > > I was simply trying to dispel the seemingly widely held antipodean view that > there are only a handful of rather drab and lacklustre avian species in > Britain. > > Given some of the responses [both in this public forum and emailed > privately] it appears to me that a number of correspondents are in danger of > comparing apples with oranges – equating Australian birdwatchers [birders] > with British “twitchers”. > > Twitching is not unique to Britain and alien to Australia – and anyone who > doubts that was obviously not present when the Blue Rock Thrush arrived at > the “Devil’s Kitchen” on the Sunshine Coast. And I do seem to recall one > rather well-known former Queensland politician/birder dropping everything to > race off in pursuit of a reported Great Reed-Warbler at Port Macquarie. > > Nor. of course, are all British birders mad twitchers. Lee Evans does not > hold sway over all! Penny gives a fine example of this. > > I would add my own contribution. Back in the early 1990s, having to return > to Britain on family matters, I took the opportunity to chase down that > elusive Puffin. On arriving at South Stack [Anglesey, North Wales] I was > amazed to see the number of family groups enjoying a picnic while birding. > I fell into conversation with one such family and moments later their > 14-year old son [along with the nine-year old daughter] called me over to > their telescope in which they had a Puffin! > > Fay and I hail from Staffordshire where our local patches included > Blithfield Reservoir [for which read “dam”] and Cannock Chase [a “chase” is > a large woodland area not owned by the Crown]. This was our > bread-and-butter birding. > > Yes, we twitched on occasions. We were there for the White-winged Black > Tern [a Staffordshire rarity]. We were among the crowd for the Salisbury > White Stork as we were for the Red Phalarope BUT these were anomalies. Our > birding consisted of regular counts at the Doxey Marshes, the Uttoxeter > Quarry, at Belvide Reservoir, etc. > > It is surely an exercise in futility to maintain that it is better or worse > birding in Australia than in Britain [or vice verse]. The birding is > DIFFERENT. > > Here in Australia you can attend your local patch, any patch, and be largely > confident of the birds you can record. Yes, there are always the > exceptions: the Javan Pond Heron of Darwin; the Black-headed Gull at Broome > Sewage Treatment Plant; the Franklin Gull of Salisbury Plains; etc. But > they are random; there appears to be no rhyme or reason behind their sudden > and unexpected arrival on these shores. You wouldn’t hold your breath > awaiting the next one. > > In Brittan, on the other hand, especially at both the Spring and Autumn > passage seasons, one can be reasonably confident that something strange, > rare of unusual will appear somewhere, either from across the Atlantic or > overland from the farthest reaches of Siberia. > > In part it is that expectation that fuels many twitchers or simply warms the > cockles of the most humble patch birder. > > Other debateable points have been put forward in this thread but my final > [public] word is simply an apology to Ed. I seem to have usurped your > innocent parting quip to a fellow Pom and birder and turned it into a > diarrheic comedy of mostly misused English grammar and lacklustre logic. I > would make it up to you should you ever find yourself in my neck of the > woods [the South Burnett, some 280km NW of Brisbane] with time to watch [or > twitch] a few of my local birds. > > Julian > > =============================== > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, > send the message: > unsubscribe > (in the body of the message, with no Subject line) > to: birding-aus-request@vicnet.net.au > > http://birding-aus.org > =============================== ===============================
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