Twitching

A few days ago we went to Norfolk coast for birdwatching and ended up twitchering. Northeasterly wind on Monday brought many migrants to the Norfolk coast and the foggy, dump weather for the next few days seemed to force the birds to stay on the coast. Lots of twitchers were there to watch the rarities. But funnily enough, the two rare species that we saw were fairly common birds in Japan!



In The Sense of Wonder, Rachel Carson wrote about her memory of watching beautiful stars at night all alone with her friend on a flat headland. She said "if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century or even once in a human generation, this little headland would be thronged with spectators."
The migrant bird which happen to land on an unusual land and to be found by enthusiastic birders is exactly the case. But the same bird at their original site will not get much attention because...
"But it can be seen many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night perhaps they will never see it."
知人に連れられて、イギリスではじめて、珍鳥追っかけの人で賑わう地を訪ねた。どこの国にも珍鳥情報のネットワークがあり、特別な種が「出た」となると人が集まる。でも、何となくイギリスのトゥイッチャーの雰囲気が許せてしまうのは、大砲のようなレンズを抱えたカメラマンはまずいなくて、純粋に双眼鏡や望遠鏡で鳥を観察しに来ているバードウォッチャーが多いからかもしれない。