The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Embarrassing moments while birding OR, " Oi ! You ! What you doing with them binoculars ?"

Thinking about the embarrassing moment that I had recently while watching Waxwings in Grantham as the schoolchildren were leaving school (text of my post -18 Mar- reproduced below), I wondered whether other LBC members have experienced similar embarrassment while birding.

Steve Nesbitt had put up a post (Grantham Waxwings - Fri 18 Mar) telling how he had photographed Waxwings outside a school at around closing time. I replied :

I hope you didn't have the same experience I had on Wednesday when viewing Waxwings through binoculars as schoolchildren were coming out of school along Kenilworth Road after 3.00pm. There was I, parked along Kenilworth Road, admiring the flock of 19 Waxwings, when this 'character' appeared at my car window requesting a word. "To put it bluntly, he said, "are you looking at the schoolchildren ? - we do have paedophiles round here." At that precise moment, I felt like pulling his leg and saying, "Oh ! I bet you're one of us, aren't you ? Hop in the car, mate, and you can share my binoculars !"
However, discretion ruled the day (otherwise, I would have had 4 Squad Cars, 8 PCs, an armed SWAT Team and 2 Fire Engines surrounding me within 5 minutes), so I politely explained all about Waxwings, their rarity and pointed to the berry tree. He seemed satisfied and sloped off.
(Fortunately. Steve had taken the wise precaution of alerting the school crossing warden as to what he was doing.)

Over the years, I've had other embarrassing birding moments, two of which follow :

What was that flesh-coloured bird in the distance ? OR " Honest, Officer, I'm just an innocent birder checking out some Parus major".

Some years ago, I was birding along the Coto Donana coast area in SW Spain. One morning, I was driving along past a coastal marsh site near a small town when I spotted some bird activity on the marsh. I pulled over and, parking on the grassy verge, I was soon enjoying a small group of White Storks and even a Purple Gallinule. What I couldn't understand, however, was why many of the passing motorists were hooting and grinning broadly while giving me the thumbs-up sign. It was only when I focussed further into the distance beyond the marsh towards the beach that I began to see groups of flesh-coloured bodies plus a sign in Spanish declaring the area to be a nudist/naturist area. At that moment, the local Guardia pulled up and approached me. I hastened to explain how I was an 'innocent' birdwatcher and I'd had no idea what area lay in the distance beyond the marsh. Anyway, they let me off with a caution for illegally parking on the road verge but not before they had both spent some considerable time checking out the working condition of my binoculars by looking into the distance beyond the marsh towards the beach.

Life in the undergrowth OR A nature call and the call of nature.

I was on a Lincoln Group visit to RSPB Lakenheath to see the Golden Orioles in the days before "facilities " were installed. After a long coach journey from Lincoln it wasn't surprising that soon after arrival certain individuals peeled (that word contains an 'l') off in various directions for whatever reason. I was lucky in soon locating a calling Golden Oriole in the upper branches of a Poplar but, while admiring its colourful appearance and great fluty call, I couldn't help noticing some additional activity towards the foot of the tree. It dawned on me at once that this was obviously an area - apparently safe from prying eyes - where distressed ladies could literally go about their business in complete privycy, sorry, privacy. Unfortunately, I realised that I had focussed perfectly on one lady, in a group of three, caught in a rather compromising position. I immediately recognised her (well, her face ,anyway ), as the tetchy woman whose favourite coach seat I'd apparently taken in Lincoln. Meanwhile, she'd caught sight of the prying Tom -aka Freddy - and, balancing precariously on one leg, she began to wave her arms furiously in my direction .... and I don't believe it was because she'd sat on a thorn. Sad to relate, but she then lost her balance, falling on top of another woman and they both disappeared, desperately clutching each other, behind a bush and out of view ......it all seem to happen quite slowly, almost like in slow motion. "Oh dear!" I thought, "What have I done now ?"

I enjoyed the rest of the visit to RSPB Lakenheath.....well, that is until we all assembled for the return journey to Lincoln : but that's another story! Anyway, I never saw that woman again on any subsequent Lincoln Group trip. Perhaps, she didn't want to show her face again, or anything else for that matter.

I'm sure other LBC members have had similarly embarrassing moments (and I do hope the Lakenheath lady isn't reading this as an LBC member) and would like to share them with us.

Regards,

Freddy

Spanish Police, hmmmm. We were cycling over a mountain in N. Spain in the late 80s when eventually, after not seeing another soul for hours, a Police car approaches. It stops when it reaches us and in best sign language explains that we are riding 2 abreast and that is illegal, WE MUST RIDE SINGLE FILE.

We looked at each other in utter amazement and argued that we were not causing any hazard as we may have well been on the moon. The Police were very strict and insisted we adhere to Spanish law. They watched us ride away single file.

Thankfully one of us was not relieving himself amongst the alpine flora or who knows what may have happened.

freddie
i have a story for you that i could not possibly put on here, next time i see you in the flesh remind me unless we both have a senior moment at the same time

terry whalin

I'm intrigued, Terry. Why don't you pm the story to me while it's still crisp and fresh (though perhaps not totally clean) in your mind ?

Freddy

1 - Sending my poor Dad on a lengthy detour to chase what I thought was a Stork. It was actually a Mute Swan.

2 - Seeing what I thought was a Barn Owl was in fact an England flag tied to a lamp post.

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Nice ones, Katherine - they certainly made me chuckle. .....and we've all been there.

Your second one reminds me of an RSPB trip we made to a Lincs Reserve a few years ago. A woman member in the hide with us insisted that we counted the number of Greylag Geese she could clearly see in the distance - she was really deflated when we told her they were sheep.

Another mistaken ID experience of a different sort was one I had in the 70s at my local patch at Dungeness, when I lived in nearby Folkestone. They were landscaping some pits and had brought in some heavy equipment. Somebody in the hide referenced a bird in relation to a crane - " Oh, my God," shrieked some ardent twitcher, "Where's the Crane ?"
(The great birder, Peter Grant, was in the hide at the time and he nearly fell off the bench laughing.)

Freddy