This Birding Life (26 page)

European warblers are a bit of an acquired taste. Their small size, muted colours and evasive habits make them difficult to identify even if you get a good view – and usually you don't. But though New World warblers share the elusive nature of their Old World cousins, they more than make up for this with their stunning colours.

Until I visited Cape May this autumn, I'd only seen a dozen of the 30 or so warbler species regularly found on the east coast of the US. In one memorable morning's birding I almost doubled this tally.

Not that it was easy. We started off on Higbees Dyke, arguably the best place to witness autumn songbird migration in the whole of North America. A cold front had passed the day before, followed by light north-westerly winds: ideal for what local expert Richard Crossley described as a flight. He had warned us to get up early and be on the dyke as the sun rose, at about half past six.

So there we were: a score of souls waiting in breathless anticipation of a birding spectacle to remember. With realism typical of his native Yorkshire, Richard warned us that things might not go according to plan. Like migrating songbirds everywhere, warblers are anything but predictable, and we feared that the whole event might be a sad anticlimax.

Then a dot flew over our heads. Followed by another. And another. The flight had begun. My first reaction was panic: how could I hope to identify these airborne specks, especially as there were several species I had never seen before? The locals held no such fears, and a steady chorus of name-checks hit the autumnal air. Wilson's, Yellow, Prairie, Black-throated Blue, Blackpoll… the list went on and on. Occasionally other birds were seen: orioles, tanagers and chunky Rose-breasted Grosbeaks – even a tiny Red-breasted Nuthatch that almost landed on our heads as it passed.

By now, two things were working to my advantage: the light was better, and I was starting to feel more confidence in my identification skills. As the warblers flew only yards above us, I could make out the black undertail of Magnolia, the humbug-like appearance of Black-and-white, and the distinctive jizz of Northern Waterthrush. Occasionally there would be one which baffled me completely, until I was rescued by Richard's confident call of a scarcer species such as Worm-eating Warbler.

After an hour that combined elation and bewilderment in roughly equal quantities, the flight stopped, almost as abruptly as it had begun.
Now was the time to comb the fields and woods, to try to get a better look at the birds we had seen passing overhead.

Providing you get decent views, New World warblers are not that difficult to identify – but some species are so elusive they can easily be overlooked. Fortunately I had excellent guides. As well as Richard, whose ability to find these birds verges on the supernatural, there was Sean, a newly arrived visitor from Ireland, who was as keen to reacquaint himself with past favourites as I was to see them for the first time.

We spent two hours looking, listening, pishing and squeaking – using everything in the birder's armoury to pin down these shy little creatures. By the end we had come across a total of 20 different species of warbler – a far cry from Cape May's record of over 30 in a day, but more than enough to keep me happy. A visit to the Ocean View provided a welcome end to the excursion: two eggs over easy, crispy bacon and a steaming plate of pancakes.

‘I see you've brought the English weather with you!' If I had a dollar for every time an American birder said those words to me last month, I'd be a rich man. We were in Cape May, New Jersey, enjoying the delights of spring migration, US-style.

The organisers of the Spring Birding Weekend were understandably miffed. After a heatwave earlier in the month, temperatures had plummeted, and clouds and rain were the order of the day. Because I am English, and was scheduled to give a talk on birds and weather, it was clearly all my fault. Not that the birds minded too much. True, it wasn't quite the spectacle we had been promised, but there was still plenty to keep us happy, with something new to see every day.

The only problem was what to call the birds we saw. When European settlers originally colonised North America, they were quite understandably homesick. So when they saw a vaguely familiar bird, they named it after one from back home. The trouble is that they were not all that good at identification.

This may explain why they have a robin the size of a thrush that looks like a blackbird. Sparrows that are actually buntings. And warblers. Not the drab, confusing mob we know and love, but a band of multicoloured, dancing sprites, which bring joy to even the most jaded birder, whatever the weather.

Then there is another confusing category: species which occur on both sides of the Atlantic, but have different names. When a birder called out ‘Common Loon', on an otherwise uneventful offshore boat trip, he momentarily confused me. Lifting my binoculars, I realised I was looking at a Great Northern Diver in full breeding plumage. We were also hoping to see Parasitic Jaegers or, as we call them, Arctic Skuas. And I kept having to stop myself referring to waders, which over there are known as shorebirds.

For a while, the rain threatened to spoil the whole weekend. But as often happens with birding, an unpromising day can turn out much better than expected. As we were walking around the lake, with a group of beginner birders led by local expert Richard Crossley, we became aware of hundreds of birds swooping low over the water.

They were swallows, busily catching insects forced down by the poor weather. Not just one or two species, as we might expect in Britain, but no fewer than six different kinds. Once again, linguistic differences caused confusion when I called out Sand Martin (which they call Bank Swallow). By far the commonest species was the Barn Swallow, the same species we see every summer. But unlike our birds, these had rich russet underparts, rather than pale buff.

We could also see Tree Swallows, flashing bluish-green as they swooped before our eyes; Rough-winged Swallows, a chunkier version
of the Sand Martin; huge, dark Purple Martins; and two Cliff Swallows, their pinkish rumps clearly visible as they flew by.

Despite this spectacular aerial display, our novice birders seemed singularly unimpressed. Richard, with classic Yorkshire tact, explained that this really was an unusual and impressive sight. Then we got to the bottom of the problem: the fact that to a beginner, all swallows look the same. So as the birds lined up conveniently on a telegraph wire, Richard pointed out their diagnostic features as patiently as he could. Under his expert tuition, people finally began to understand the subtle differences between the species, and frowns gave way to smiles.

Half an hour later, we reached the car park, soaked but satisfied. As we parted company, I wondered if one day in the future, those new birders will look back fondly on that damp afternoon as the first time they really began to appreciate the joys of birding – despite the weather.

Suzanne and I left London mid-morning, on our honeymoon at last. By late afternoon we were sitting by the hotel pool sipping a cold beer and watching birds hop around the carefully manicured gardens. We might have been on the Isles of Scilly, Tenerife or Mallorca, but we weren't. It was nudging 100 degrees in the shade, the birds were new and exotic, and we were on another continent: Africa.

Our destination was The Gambia, that tiny West African republic just a six-hour flight from Gatwick. With only an hour's time difference, we didn't have to worry about jetlag, and we spent one of the most restful and stress-free fortnights I have ever experienced.

We also, I have to confess, went birding. OK, so watching birds isn't what you would call a traditional honeymoon activity, but birding is so
easy in The Gambia that you can't really avoid it. Fortunately, too, Suzanne shares my enthusiasm and interest.

On our first evening, without leaving the poolside bar, we saw a Red-eyed Dove, Speckled Pigeon and the aptly named Beautiful Sunbird. On a quick walk around the Hotel Kairaba gardens we saw three species of glossy starling and two local specialities: White-crowned Robin-chat and Yellow-crowned Gonolek. These normally shy forest birds have become accustomed to people and perched invitingly close, allowing us to admire their splendid plumage.

The next day, in the grounds of the hotel next door, the Senegambia, we added even more species to our ‘garden list'. These included shrikes, parrots and two species of kingfisher: the large, showy Blue-breasted, and the tiny, jewel-like African Pygmy Kingfisher, one of the highlights of the trip.

You could spend a fortnight here without leaving the hotel grounds, and you would still see more than 60 different species, while a couple of excursions on foot to the nearby rice fields, creek and forest would add another 50. So one morning we took a walk around Kotu Creek, where Pied Kingfishers hovered over the water, while flocks of Little Bee-eaters gathered nearby. We also saw male Red Bishops, looking like giant red-and-black bumblebees, perform their extraordinary display flight.

That evening, we explored Bijilo Forest Park, a tract of original palm forest just a few minutes walk from the hotel gates. At first, we saw very little, but as the sun began to set Swallow-tailed and Little Bee-eaters treated us to stunning close-up views. A perched raptor turned out to be a Lizard Buzzard, which stayed put long enough for us to admire its beautifully marked plumage through our new telescope.

But it was at dusk, as we strolled back towards the park gates, that we enjoyed the most memorable encounter, when three tiny, bantamlike birds appeared on the path a few metres ahead of us. They were Stone Partridges, a shy and elusive gamebird that rarely ventures out
of the dense undergrowth. To our delight, the partridges carried on walking along the path, uttering quiet, liquid calls as they went, and allowing us to see every detail of their intricately marked plumage.

We wandered back along the beach, watching the sun set over the Atlantic, before enjoying a celebratory cocktail at the poolside bar. A notice proclaimed that it was happy hour. I couldn't argue with that.