Stortford Hoopoe Twitch

I don’t generally do twitching. It’s not that I have anything against it; its just that with my type of birding – usually tucked in at the start or end of the day – its not feasible. Also, I think you start the day with an ideal list and then measure how far you fall short, whereas if you just go out, everything is a plus.

And if I’m honest, when I do go twitching I become a person I don’t particularly like; nervous, tense, short with people, just generally unpleasant and irritating.

Bishop’s Stortford has been host to a Hoopoe recently. I hadn’t been partly because I’d seen a couple just a few weeks ago on Rhodes, and partly for the above reasons. But I was up early and had a spare hour, and got to Grange Paddocks just after it had been located searching for ants on a football pitch, and it disappeared at 8:15ish – just in time to get to Waitrose at opening time!

There are lots of excellent photos of birds on Surfbirds and on the local sites - links on the right, but here’s mine, and of a Mallard duckling that was with its more usual mottled brethren.