Talking Birds: Mark Pearson interviews Bob Flood
Robert Louis / Bob Flood is a lifelong birder currently living on the Isles of Scilly. When 16, he lost the use of his right arm and badly damaged his right leg in a motorbike accident. Bob holds two doctorates (PhD and DSc) in systemic studies. Main interests are tubenoses and birds of the Isles of Scilly. Bob is the main researcher and author of the very successful multimedia ID guides to North Atlantic seabirds (4 vols: Storm-petrels, Pterodroma Petrels, Albatrosses & Fulmarine Petrels, Shearwaters – latter in preparation) and the Essential Guide to Birds of the Isles of Scilly. Bob has published widely on tubenoses, e.g. in African BirdLife, Birding, Birding World, Birdwatch, British Birds, Bulletin of British Ornithologists’Club, Cotinga, Dutch Birding, Marine Ornithology, North American Birds, Notornis, Sandgrouse, Seabird. Bob travels the remote oceans in search of tubenoses and ‘big moments’ include the co-rediscovery of the thought to be extinct New Zealand Storm-petrel (NZSP) in 2003, and leading an expedition to Fiji this year that discovered the first NZSP away from New Zealand. Of several life / death close calls, Bob was ship’s ornithologist on MV Explorer that hit an iceberg and sank in Antarctica in November 2007.
MP: Where did it begin and did you have a mentor who steered you onto your birding path?
BF: I cannot remember where / how birding came into my life, except that it was early in my formative years. First bird memories are from the late 1950s / early 1960s, such as autumnal days in Winchelsea at my Grandparent’s bungalow, on the margins of Pett Level, where the telephone wires held row after row of swallows and martins. What were they doing? Why were they doing it? I wanted to know. I learned that they were heading to Africa. What would it be like to fly to Africa? What will they see when they arrive in Africa? And so it went on. I found such things so, so interesting. My Tri-ang train set and F1 Scalextric were OK, I competed well in conker championships, and playing doctors and nurses had its moments; but nothing, nothing compared to the natural world. From that era, I proudly present my first ever bird photo, the masterpiece being titled, ‘Blackbird in Grandparents’ backyard’. All rights reserved.
At the time we lived next to Whiteknights Park, Reading University. I cut a hole in the wire fencing, thinking it was private, sneaked in and came across woodpeckers and waterfowl. About 1965, we moved a short distance to Maiden Erlegh Lake, Lower Early, where housing gave way to countryside. It was magical to explore by cycle endless country lanes, search for birds and butterflies in fields and hedgerows, and fish in the streams, then all so rich in wildlife. I kept a mini aquarium in the backyard full of beautifully ugly creatures gathered from the nearby lake and streams. It is hard for me to accept that in 1977 development of this area created one of the largest private housing estates in Europe! My childhood memories are now buried beneath square mile after square mile of brick and mortar. The lake is a so-called ‘nature reserve’ with far less nature than I knew 50 years ago.
Anyway, I collected bird eggs at the time, scrambling up Hawthorn trees to rob a domed twig-constructed Magpie’s nest, bashing through brambles to get to a perfect moss-lined Robin’s nest, building a raft to paddle out to a Great Crested Grebe’s nest with eggs hidden under weed by the adults. Thankfully, with a severe reprimand, my parents confiscated my egg collection and with foresight they replaced it with a pair of binoculars. With ‘face on’, I went to the lake planning to sulk ‘till tea time, but my first ‘bin views’ of the Great Crested Grebes transformed the moment. The grebes were nothing less than gorgeous and were fascinating to watch. I felt terribly bad that I had snuffed out the offspring of these sublime birds. This was the first and last time in life that I truly reformed.
So, when about 10, ‘for proper’ I started watching birds and other wildlife. My parents arranged a lift for me to attend meetings of the Reading Ornithological Club. At these meetings I heard about the local Manor Farm (Reading Sewage Works) where species that I had never heard of before were frequently seen. It was later to host serious national rarities including a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Black-winged Pratincole, and was the scene in 1976 of the infamous incident ‘farmer covers birders in pig slurry’.
From Manor Farm, I could walk along the then under-construction M4, to Burghfield Gravel Pits and on to Theale Gravel Pits. On Saturdays, my mother gave me the bus fare to Manor Farm, and a thru’penny bit for scraps and a drink from the chippy. I’d be gone ‘till late evening. I also spent many weekdays at Theale Gravel Pits rather than at Theale Grammar School. Playing truant and other unmentionable mischiefs of mine cheesed off the headmaster who, after seemingly enjoying caning me multiple times, eventually tired of it and expelled me. More effort to interest the child and less caning might have been a better approach.
Worthy of a read, the rise and demise of Manor Farm written by Peter Gipson records for posterity the history of this once super-productive inland site. Although I do not feature at all in the account or the record books, frequent solo visits there in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s were an important stepping stone in my morphing from eager kid-birder to addicted birder with no hope of rehab.
For sure, this transition had its dicey moments. I developed a keen interest in girls and was very grateful to Mary Quant who made hot pants fashionable at the time. During these years I managed to get myself into a few tricky situations, and my mother made it clear to me in no uncertain terms, that she didn’t approve of many of my female ‘companion’ and that I was not to ‘bring any more of ‘wicked girls’ into my house’. Some of these ‘wicked girls’ were actually quite nice and accompanied me on walks along the River Thames, from Purley, the location of our new family home, to Pangbourne. We watched ‘wicked’ Tree Sparrows mating, tracked down Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers by call, and watched Badgers at a set that I stumbled upon. All these species are now extinct in that area, as far as I know, though Common Buzzard has returned and Red Kite, unknown in my time, is now common.
Then there were the space smarties. Some made me rush around here and there and everywhere, others slooooooowed me down, yet others made everything colourful. Little brown jobs transformed into birds of paradise. I learned in time, though, that the real bird was actually far more beautiful than the altered-mind versions, and in the real world I was never chased home by spiders from Mars. Next Generation Birders – skip the smarty stage, it adds nothing and takes away lives.
So, in answer to your question Mark, reflecting back on those years, birds and nature were like irresistible sirens that lured me into the wild. I spent most of the time in the field on my own. There were no mentors, though I do appreciate the supportive ‘grown-ups’: Peter Standley, Charlie White, Jeff Hunt (deceased), Trevor Guyot, John Hobson (even as a kid I realised that Hobbo was a fruitcake), and the famous Robert Gilmour who found time to give me – a mere kid-birder – advice on sketching and painting. Thanks gents. That said, clearly it was my parents (deceased) who recognised that birds and nature had totally captured my imagination as a child, and who encouraged and strategically guided me into constructive birding. Blame them.
MP: There's been a lot of talk in recent times of Scilly fading away while the Northern Isles are in the ascendency. Of course, this is partly the self-fulfilling prophecy of changing coverage – more birders and twitchers are heading north, and hence more birds are found and so on, with the opposite effect on Scilly. Do you think there has been a genuine change in the status of rarities and scarcities or is it other factors that are the main drivers?
BF: After the turbulence of my youth, which was much naughtier and darker than portrayed above, and with just two scrape-pass O Levels, I somehow bamboozled selectors at City University in London to offer me a place on the BSc in Systems and Management. Six years later I had a first class BSc, a PhD, a wife Mandy, and a baby boy Ross.
As an aside, what did a university education do for me? To adapt a quote from Earl C. Kelly:
In some ways I feel as confused as ever
but believe I am confused on a higher level
and about more important things.
My subject was systems science and one thing for which it did add clarity, put simply, is that the only thing that doesn’t change is change itself. Manor Farm is a great example of change in the world of birding. The demise of Tree Sparrows and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers and the rise of Common Buzzard and Red Kite along the River Thames at Purley is another example. Scilly is just one more example. Even though I accept that change is inevitable, the sad tones at the end of Peter Gipson’s account of the demise of Manor Farm resonate strongly with my sad feelings about Scilly, now that the pulsating ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s are gone for good.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience captured the inevitability of such change through the following powerful metaphor in lyrics on the album Axis Bold as Love (1969):
And castles made of sand
Slip into the sea
Eventually…
All things are castles made of sand.
To some extent the situation in Scilly is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as you suggest Mark, but the fundamental change, in my opinion, is in the weather patterns. For example, autumn depressions racing across the Atlantic carrying juicy vagrants now mainly head to the north of Scilly, mainly to Scotland.
Scilly still performs given favourable weather conditions. In September 2011 a low smashed into the islands. Within a few days the 20 or so birders on St Mary’s had found Solitary Sandpiper, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Waterthrush, Baltimore Oriole, Red-eyed Vireo, and Black and White Warbler. These were mostly within a kilometre of Hugh Town! Other locations on St Mary’s and off islands received little or no coverage. What other megas might have been found if there had been, say, 100 birders out searching? Last October, Scilly had both a Dusky Thrush and a Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, but the former eluded all but one birder, and the latter performed Kamikaze before anyone saw it, otherwise Scilly would have looked pretty damn good on the pager.
That aside, Scilly’s recent track record of largely repeats of the same vagrant species is undoubtedly a negative factor. At least for now, the Northern Isles promise different vagrant species and with little vegetation in which to hide, unlike Scilly, they are likely to be found. Further, the ‘follow that pager’ strategy encourages some birders to be home-based and not somewhere like Scilly. Not helping things, Scilly fails to compete on price. Transport to the islands is not subsidised, whereas it is for the Scottish Isles, and prices on the islands are relatively expensive. Declining numbers of birders means many cafes and restaurants are now closed by early October. The process of change is irreversible.
On the plus side, Scilly Pelagics has opened up a whole new dimension to Scilly and to UK birding. Our trips to sea provide fantastic opportunities to observe seabirds close up and to photograph them. The pelagics bring new faces to Scilly and in recent years it has been very pleasing to see on board Next Generation Birders. It is good that these younger folk get to experience Scilly.
MP: You pioneered the increasingly successful pelagics into the SW approaches. Do you remember the first reconnaissance trips, and the discoveries and feelings that came with them?
I saw shark fishing trips as character building for my young lad Ross and being the upstanding father that I am… Alright, alright, I took Ross shark fishing so I could go seabirding. We went on as many shark fishing trips as possible. Some trips were ballistic. I remember one night when I saw 200 to 300 hundred Great Shearwaters close to the boat, a Sabine’s Gull right overhead, hundreds of stormies, and a handful of jaegers. In 1995, I thought I saw a Wilson’s Storm-petrel. In 1996, I was sure I saw a Wilson’s, but barely knew the resident birders and said nothing. In 1997, I had crippling views of a Wilson’s and thought, ‘what the heck’, and chalked up the sighting on the bird sightings board. It was met with some scepticism, but artist wizard Ren Hathway and good old Viv Stratton came along two evenings later and we found another Wilson’s. By 1999, local birders were joining some of the shark fishing trips and records of Wilson’s mounted up. Then, in 1999, out with Ross, I saw a Fea’s Petrel (now Desertas / Fea’s), and another or the same one a week later, with local birders on board. Will Wagstaff saw the first for Scilly in 1996.
Ashley Fisher and I both moved to Scilly within a few months of each other, around 1999, and we became instant birding buddies. From 2000, we joined every single shark fishing trip out of St Mary’s. Initially these were with Alec Hicks. Alec made it possible by not charging us. A few years on we also joined Joe Pender’s trips and he didn’t charge us either. Without these two skippers Scilly Pelagics would not have happened. By 2002, we were often at sea six days a week June–August inclusive, and quite often did a day trip on one boat and an evening trip on the other boat. One year we did over 60 trips. Resident birder John Higginson caught the bug and became an integral part of the fixtures and fittings.
Scilly Pelagics was not launched as a business. Rather, it slowly emerged through our want to be on every shark fishing trip from St Mary’s, reporting sightings from these trips on RBA pagers, word of mouth from the first handful of punters blown away by close views of seabirds, and better and better photos as digital photography stole the show. By 2005, Scilly Pelagics had become an entity and a fixture in the UK birding calendar. Private charters increased. In 2006, the concept of weekend Birder Special Pelagics – Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday daytime, Monday evening – was conceived and launched with Joe Pender on MV Sapphire. It remains a great success today. Birder specials do not piggy-back fishing trips and so we have the freedom to explore Scillonian waters, head to reefs and banks, and to chase down trawlers. Now that Scilly has 4G, we can use smart phones with AIS apps to find trawlers live, rather than head off roughly in the direction one had been reported a few hours previous. This year, Joe and I have sold a record number of seats on Birder Special Pelagics.
MP: Do you think that there are as yet untapped pelagic opportunities in British and Irish waters?
BF: No, I think that everyone should sign up to Scilly Pelagics.
OK, seriously, setting up and operating pelagics is not straightforward. There has to be the birds, the demand to see the birds, a fair chance of seeing the birds, a suitable boat and experienced skipper willing to run pelagics at an affordable price, special insurance, a reasonable guarantee for mid to long-distance travellers that the pelagics will run and not be cancelled at the last minute, access to fish oil and chum, and so on. Probably, most pelagics that can operate given these criteria do operate. Some run just a few times a year, others more frequently, depending on location. We are lucky. Joe runs MV Sapphire trips June to October inclusive, with our Birder Specials in August.
A potential opportunity not yet exploited is trips to the shelf edge in the southwest approaches. That is something Joe and I have chewed over numerous times. Regular trips to the shelf edge would quickly change the status of seabirds recorded off Britain. Trips would be possible given a faster boat, like MV Stormy Petrel II out of Hatteras (USA), but the price tag for such a vehicle is way beyond the potential returns. I suspect that the same is true for the Irish seabirders and the Porcupine Bank. Such a shame. More easily achievable is spring pelagics and we are looking into experimenting in May within the next year or two. Any interested parties please let me know.
MP: What's your prediction for the next seabird addition(s) to the British list?
BF: I thought that you said no tough questions Mark? That’s a tough question, especially with ongoing splitting and lumping, re-lumping and re-splitting, making for Procellariiformes taxonomical bedlam. Ignoring that, the next new seabird could easily be something completely bonkers. There’s been Soft-plumaged Petrel off Norway, with nearest breeding at Tristan da Cunha, and Buller’s Shearwater off the east coast USA, which breeds exclusively in New Zealand. Bonkers. However, there are taxa that I expect to fall. South Polar Skua is near certain, even if the existing southern skua records don’t get through as South Polar. Boobies are popping up here and there, and Red-footed has already fallen. Recent pelagics off Madeira, off Lanzarote, and off the Azores have demonstrated that Black-bellied Storm-petrel and Trindade Petrel regularly visit the northeast Atlantic. There must be a day in the future when a Fea’s-complex Pterodroma turns out to be a Zino’s. Data loggers show that failed breeder Bermuda Petrels come near to southwest England April–May, but with a population of only about 300 birds the chances of seeing one are incredibly low. Niall Keogh and friends’ sighting of a Bermuda Petrel on 19 May 2014, over the Porcupine Bank, off Ireland, was nothing less than a monster lottery win. I’m really, really pleased for you Niall, really, honestly, and truthfully (you bastard). The skua aside, the next new seabird could well be any of the above. I’ve got a feeling about Black-bellied Storm-petrel though.
MP: If you could see just one more seabird in your lifetime, then what would it be and why?
BF: I confess without guilt or remorse that in my world the only ‘true seabirds’ are the tubenoses. I like very much frigatebirds, tropicbirds, gannets and boobies, skuas, cormorants and shags, phalaropes, etc. But only tubenoses really turn me on. Tubenoses are ‘truly pelagic’, mainly nest on remote islands and spend the rest of the time beyond coastal horizons. They are supremely adapted to their oceanic home and it is a marvel to watch them living out their lives so far away from terra firma. To get to see them typically necessitates getting on a boat or a ship and heading off into the blue yonder. I relish that challenge. So, my one special seabird has to be a tubenose somewhere far away. I’ve seen over 90% of all tubenoses, whichever taxonomy one goes by, but my choice isn’t a tubenose that I haven’t seen. Apart from dark-morph Polynesian Storm-petrel, it’s fairly easy to narrow choice down to a Pterodroma. I would want to see the spectacular Pterodroma aerodynamics just one more time. I especially like the chunky ones. So, I choose as my last ever seabird the super-smart and chunky White-headed Petrel, performing at its maximum potential in the windy southern oceans, 1,000 miles from land and human civilisation (cue-in satisfied-sigh sound effect).
MP: Owing to their respective range restrictions, breeding and foraging ecology, tubenoses are a notoriously vulnerable family, with many in need of high priority conservation and protection. Do you think enough is being done generally, and are there any particular projects and programmes that you feel are exemplars of their kind?
BF: The plight of seabirds and sealife in general moves relentlessly on, from one disaster to another. It is extremely depressing.
The introduction of invasive predators to islands during the era of exploration has decimated populations of island breeding birds across the globe. Work has been done on many islands to control / eliminate invasive species using now well-developed techniques. There are tremendous success stories. I’ve seen two successful projects at first hand.
Every November, most years, I am lucky enough to visit a Bermuda Petrel colony. David Wingate and now Jeremy Madeiros have committed the best part of their lives to saving the Bermuda Petrel from an otherwise certain extinction. I also know Dave Boyle and he arranged for ‘my’ extreme pelagic team, including Peter Harrison, to visit the Magenta Petrel colony on Chatham Island to see the species and to hear about the amazing conservation efforts. These and many other such folk on like projects worldwide give up so much for conservation and are to be admired and loudly applauded.
As a result, I have held Bermuda Petrels and at night had them flying over and between Jeremy and I, giving their evocative calls. I have experienced the even rarer Magenta Petrel at night, flying overhead calling and later shuffling on the ground around my feet. I can’t even begin to explain how those experiences felt. I hope that such experiences are still possible for future generations.
Some very rare species of seabird are harvested by humans to this very day, including the Fea’s Petrel on Fogo. Next time you see a ‘Fea’s Petrel’ just think that its fate might be being roasted over a grill or being curried. I once had a chance to eat a Sooty Shearwater at a restaurant on Stewart Island, New Zealand, part of an allowed quota, but I just couldn’t do it.
Net fishing for Tuna killed many thousands of dolphins and other bycatch. After global pressure the practice was curtailed. Next up and still going is longline fishing, which kills tens of thousands of albatrosses and petrels every year. Predictions say that without action most taxa of albatross are heading toward extinction. Huge amounts of effort put in by the magnificent Save the Albatross team resulted in numerous mitigation techniques and these have been successfully implemented by some fisheries. Other fisheries are receiving education about the win-win outcome of mitigation techniques – catch a fish with market value, not an albatross to discard dead. Yet, one-third of fishing is thought to be pirate fishing, outside of the influence / control of conservation bodies and governments.
Just at the time that extirpation of island invasives is achieving great successes, and Save the Albatross has given hope, the problem of plastics in the ocean is rearing its seriously ugly head. The warnings were out some time ago. Statistics abound, but just one is enough to illustrate the seriousness of the problem. Recent research has demonstrated that about 70% of Great Shearwaters in the North Atlantic have plastic in their stomach. You may have been at one of the recent exciting seawatches in the southwest of England; but reflect for a moment and think that for every 10 Great Shearwaters that you saw, seven of them were carrying plastics in their stomach. Plastics are a killer. Seven out of 10 Great Shearwaters are facing the serious consequences of plastics, either to their own survival, or to the survival of their chicks if they pass on plastics or are unable to provision adequately.
I suspect that you’re all aware of the many washed-up whales that have perished because of plastics accumulated in their stomachs. The problem will not easily be dealt with. Estimates are of billions of metric tons of plastics already in the ocean and millions more metric tons being added each year. Meanwhile, governments and industry ‘think about it’.
If any of this bothers you, then please, please support conservation in whatever way(s) you can.
MP: You travel far and wide in search of seabirds, often to remote and unspoiled locations. Is there one place that particularly stands out for you, and why?
BF: Following on, Mark, from the last question, I have indeed been to many remote island locations, across all oceans, but sadly recall very few that remain unspoiled. For example, one of the main shorelines at Henderson Island, where the endemic Henderson Petrel breeds, is so deep in debris, a lot of it plastic, that it is hardly possible to actually get to the sea. Look on a map at where Henderson Island is located. It’s far, far away from any human civilisation. Nowhere, it seems, is unaffected by human ‘progress’.
Still, there is one place that I hanker for more than anywhere else in the world. Folk who sailed on the Atlantic Odyssey will understand. Gough Island stands in the central South Atlantic. Approaching the island in the first few hours of daylight provides THE greatest tubenose spectacular seen anywhere on planet Earth. It supports an estimated 10 million birds of more than 20 species. Albatrosses, Fulmarine petrels, Procellaria petrels, Pterodromas, shearwaters, prions, diving-petrels, and storm-petrels together fill the air with glorious feathers. Wave after wave of seabirds radiate out from the island to forage at sea. Once up close, the island itself presents much more like the land that time forgot than the science fiction film of the same name. The sights of dramatic rock faces covered in ‘prehistoric’ vegetation lined with waterfalls, the sounds of the waterfalls and the sea and the seabirds, the rare evocative smell from times past, all combine to transport you to another dimension. I will be back there next year.
MP: Ten years ago this November you were on board MV Explorer in Antarctica when she hit an iceberg and shortly after sank. What are you memories of that night and experience? Has it changed how you feel about being on boats and going on seabirding trips?
BF: I hear voices say, ‘Things like that don’t happen to me?’ Quite possibly so for many folk, but ‘things like that’ happen to Bob. Among other things: Motorbike accident when 16 YO. Passenger in two nasty car accidents. Passenger on Jumbo 747-400 that nearly ran out of fuel over London, on maiden flight of another Jumbo when the under carriage wouldn’t release, and passenger on yet another plane that aborted landing just in time to miss an aircraft on the runway. Passenger on MV Plancius when she broke down off South Georgia, stranding us for 9 days awaiting a rescue boat. Witness to a ‘fellow crew member’ jumping off the stern of the ship half-way across the Drake Passage.
And, yes, in November 2007, I was a member of the expedition team on board MV Explorer when she hit an iceberg in Antarctica and shortly after sank. I agreed to a radio interview about my experience shortly after returning home - the interview animated with photos.
It would be untruthful to say that none of this has impacted on my way of thinking. I’ll save the details of that for the much-needed journal Psychiatry for Birders. To be sure, I’ll not stop going on boats or stop going on seabirding trips.
MP: You're an island dweller at heart, but if you had to move back onto the British mainland, where would you go?
BF: When 33 YO, I bamboozled the selection panel at Hull University into appointing me to the Chair in Management Sciences. We lived by Hull waterfront, at Cottingham, and in the tiny hamlet of Dunnington, near to Skipsea. I simply loved the nine years we lived in the East Ridings of Yorkshire – the people, the place, the birding. I mainly birded at sites that I stumbled upon, but occasionally visited Hornsea, Spurn, Flamborough, and Filey. Mainly due to overseas travel with work, I didn’t get to know any of the local birders at the time, except for Pete Greaves, though that was in Scilly during our family holidays late August / early September. Ironically, I got to know plenty of Yorky birders after we moved to Scilly. Incidentally, is anyone else aware that South Yorkshire birders perform rather freaky rituals? Anyway, if there was no more Scilly, then I would without doubt return to East Yorkshire.
MP: Apologies for potentially opening up old wounds, but what have been you're most painful ones-that-got-away?
BF: The one that got away that seriously irks me is a Blyth’s Pipit, more because of the circumstances than the species. I found it on Porthellick Down near the southern runway of the airport. It was flighty, but I saw enough to convince myself of its ID. I beckoned over nearby birders, including several I know and respect, and about 12 of them attained similar views. The bird then flew off and called, but I have a hearing deficiency and the call didn’t register clearly. Everyone agreed on the ID as Blyth’s and those who knew the call said it was spot on for Blyth’s.
We watched the bird fly all the way to Peninnis Head and people went to look for it. About half an hour later, Ashley Fisher and I were searching around the spot of the original sighting (returned to the scene of the crime). I was really surprised when, nearby, we came across an obvious Richard’s Pipit. Surely this couldn’t have been the bird in question? Then a Tawny Pipit on Peninnis Head came on the pager. What?! By the time we got there it had flown. It was all such a mess that I decided to forget the original sighting. That evening, a message was posted something like, ‘Blyth’s Pipit Peninnis Head, not Tawny Pipit, re-identified from photos’. It was accepted by BBRC.
MP: On a happier note, what do you consider your best find(s)?
BF: Finding rare birds in Scilly is no big deal, though it’s nice. All you have to do is go out and at some point a rare will present itself. The real skill is in knowing what it is. I’m just about OK with land bird ID.
An ambition of mine while living in Scilly was to find a Yank passerine. It took until 2011, but the Baltimore Oriole on the Garrison was worth the wait. After tubenoses, I particularly like crakes, owls and waders. Little Crake, adult Solitary Sandpiper, and juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper rate highly in my finds, though I still want for a rare owl. Little Swift found from my front room, the same day that I found Scilly’s first Savi’s Warbler at Porthellick, made for a very special finder’s day. The 1S male Lesser Kestrel was a nerve-wracker. Three Great Reed Warblers is a pleasing hatrick, though I thought I was losing my marbles when one flew out of dead phragmites in chilling north-westerlies one March 20. Who wouldn’t want to find an Aquatic Warbler? I really enjoyed finding adult Marsh Sandpiper, male Desert Wheatear, and 1S male Sardinian Warbler among others. Not surprisingly, though, the most thrilling Scilly find was a tubenose, to date Britain’s only at-sea Swinhoe’s Storm-petrel. I was scanning the slick when the Swinhoe’s flew into my field of view. The adrenalin rush was massive, literally making my head fizz, back chill, and legs weak.
For the last 10 years or so, I’ve buddied up with seabirder friends, mainly from North America, and spent increasingly more time with them on self-organised extreme pelagics. At the same time, I’ve been researching and writing the series of multimedia ID guides to North Atlantic seabirds. The sacrifice I’ve had to make is massively reduced birding time in Scilly. The loss of Scilly finds, though, is compensated for by some pretty extraordinary seabird encounters.
The most incredible series of finds relates to streaky storm-petrels in the southwestern Pacific. In November 2003, Bryan Thomas and I were the first people to find and positively ID a population of the thought to be extinct streaky New Zealand Storm-petrel. At the time, there was just a single putative sighting in January 2003 and three museum skins collected the 19th century. Remarkably, in May this year, a New Zealand Storm-petrel came to chum during one of our ‘not too extreme’ seabirding expeditions off Fiji. Apart from one or two pended records off southwest Australia, this is the first record of the species away from New Zealand and extends the range 2,000 km to the north. What’s more, I was on the Heritage expedition in April 2008 when the first ever streaky ‘New Caledonian’ Storm-petrel was found. I must have streaky pheromones.
MP: Any final thoughts Bob?
BF: Thanks Mark for the opportunity to be an interviewee. It’s been a rather interesting experience piecing together the parts of my life that your questions spotlighted. I enjoy peaking behind the scenes via other birders’ birding stories and hope that mine are of some interest to RBA readers.
Come back to me in 10 years and I’ll write you an article ‘Birding from the Zimmerframe’.
14 Augsut 2017
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Mark Pearson
Mark is an obsessive birder, natural history writer, field ornithologist, speaker, guide and passionate conservationist. Originally from Flamborough, Mark recently returned to his beloved Yorkshire coast after many years elsewhere, and now calls Filey Bird Observatory home (where he juggles various roles for the Obs).
He has travelled extensively in pursuit of birds and wildlife but remains especially passionate about his native area. His writing is widely published, much of which is archived here, while his photographic nature journal Northern Rustic can be found here.
In Talking Birds Mark interviews some of the most well-known (and not so well known) birders from Britain and around the world. You can read previous interviews in the series here.
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| Bob Flood | Jonathan Meyrav | Brett Richards | Jonny Rankin | |||
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