Birder's Journey to the Big 300+, A

Hands up if your career is not your first passion? My escape this past 43 years has been ‘birding and twitching’ – the thrill of rare bird pursuit, in-field identification, visiting beautiful places, eventful journeys and meeting unique characters. Locating and identifying a rare bird in the field is complex. What one observer can identify in a 5th of a second may simply appear as a blob to another. Are some of us re-invoking primeval instincts or simply re-educating our brain to see that which others cannot? For birders, the list of species identified is sacrosanct and trust paramount. We don’t collect, we just list, and it can get competitive. Join me on a rollercoaster adventure that takes up the challenge of seeing more than half the wild bird species ever recorded in Britain, in just one year. It won’t be a smooth ride.