How fast can a birder move?

Not a question I have pondered too much in my life but having recently witnessed a hilarious event, it is worth a bit of consideration and sharing with you.

I have been moved by many birds in my life.  The thrill of being part of a group when each of you gets to take a very quick peek through the undergrowth at a lifer. In this case stealth and not speed is required. So maybe a few examples of birders moving in the undergrowth isn't going to answer this question. I have been moved by a rhino and a pride of lion while on foot in the Kruger National Park but as they aren't birding related, maybe we can save those embarrassing stories for another day. 

One of the events that stands out for me is the sighting of the Franklin's Gull at Centurion Lake during mid-August 2008. I recall hearing the news and immediately sending out an alert via e-mail to the BLNG members to make sure our members in Pretoria stood a chance of catching up with this rarity. These were the days before Facebook was around to spread this kind of message so e-mail and telephone was what we had. I was frustratingly stuck at the office in meetings at Sandton and just couldn't get away. About an hour after sharing the news, a 2 hour meeting was cancelled and I had a gap in my diary. Thankfully my hubby had a gap in his diary too (and we work at the same office) so a quick phone call later and we were on the road heading north. No binoculars but lots of energy. In my haste to get on the road, I forgot the directions at the office but we decided to wing it anyway. How big could the lake be anyway?

For someone seriously unfit, I can confirm that lake is huge. When you arrive at the mall side and realise after a while that you need to get to the office park side, brisk walking is required. Brisk walking in work clothes is not simple. Your high-heeled shoes are a serious inhibitor and floppy trousers get in the way of free movement, things you only notice when dashing around a rather large lake trying to find someone wearing binoculars. The crazy dash ended well with us spotting Lisl van Deventer and a pair of binoculars dangling around her neck. The event ended with "...they lived happily ever after" but no further mention will be made of the heavy breathing, panting and wheezing that got in the way of "hello", "thanks for showing us the bird", "glad we could borrow your binocs" and "cheers, we have to get back to the office now".

My latest example of a fast moving birder was just yesterday at Kgomo Kgomo.  Bets, Elouise and I decided there was only once choice of a birding venue on Boxing Day and after hearing news of the volume of water and the specials on display, we were away. Arriving just after 5:30am we were late. The Pretoria-based birders were able to get there quicker than us so were already enjoying their second coffees while we acclimatised ourselves. A swift check through Lisl's scope got us the Wooly-necked Stork and then the rush of greeting everyone and checking where to look for already-ticked species was on the cards. Rain was not our friend and soon we were all in our cars and driving up and down the roads in the area to work on our atlas cards, as playing in the rain wasn't too much fun.  By midday we met up with Lisl and Jerome at the bridge to catch up on events.  Lisl was kind enough to show us the area where we could sit and stake out the Lesser Moorhen. Strolling back to our vehicle and chairs, I happened to mention to Lisl our great sighting of a Dusky Lark a few hours earlier as it was a lifer for Elouise.

After a few seconds I realised I was talking to myself. Lisl had dashed back to Jerome and his bakkie and was muttering furiously. She turned around with eyes wide and pupils dilated. "Where, where, where?". By this stage, Jerome had started throwing their chairs and anything else lying around, into the back of the bakkie. After giving clear directions to Lisl, she lunged into the bakkie and was barely able to close the door before Jerome popped a u-turn and went careening into the village. From the time I muttered "Dusky Lark" to seeing them turn the corner only about 2 minutes must have passed. Elouise and Betsie were still getting our chairs out the back of the car when it was all over and the three of us stood alone on the bridge. Just us three, lots of water and hundreds of birds.

Not only did Lisl and Jerome physically move that fast but when we got a call a few minutes later to come and help join the search, we found another four cars filled with birders also looking for the lark. Either Lisl types smses really quickly or there's a technology grapevine at work that will just boggle the mind. Four other cars had literally appeared from nowhere in a few minutes and with the guys peeling out of those cars, the hunt was on. 

That's how fast birders can move if they need to. After a while we abandoned the search and went back to the bridge to quietly stalk the Lesser Moorhen. 45 minutes of quiet patience (most of it spent on a chair next to the road) paid off and we were rewarded with two sightings of this rare bird. By this time is was after 1pm and having been up since 2:30am, we sluggishly packed the chairs and scopes up. We lethargically climbed into the car to tackle the road back home. We took a slow drive down the Zaagkuildrift Road to maximise the atlasing time, before joining the craziness of the N1 back south.

Whether you're a fast mover or a slow shaker, there is place for everyone in the birding world.

Why birders are crazy

Us birders are a crazy bunch. We have odd habits and people who aren't birders don't understand us. We get up early. Really early. We drive to unheard of places that no-one other than birders have even heard about. We drive and walk through informal settlements with binoculars hanging around our necks as if we don't have a care in the world. We confer furiously with each other about some or other blob in the distance. We type into our smart phones or list birds on little black hardcover books that barely fit into our pockets. We nibble a lot and tend to eat unhealthy snacks, just to fill the holes in our tummies between ticks. We own a pair of gumboots and know how to use them. We own numerous tubes of sunblock and inevitably forget to use it. Our headgear smells of mouldy linen along with our Drimacs which are kept rolled up in a backpack or tossed onto the back seat of our cars. Most of us own a steel flask that is battered and bashed but still keeps coffee and hot water, hot. We consider rusks to be a food group. We know how to take care of ablutions in seconds on a busy road. If we don't already own a 4x4, we know another birder who has one and we abuse the relationship ruthlessly to get to those unheard of places. We check our smartphones regularly throughout the day for Facebook updates on the locality of some hard to find species. We count lifers. We have the entire southern part of Africa broken up into tiny little blocks and we even count the birds we see inside those little blocks. Technology has become part of our daily activities and we struggle to remember the old days and how we ever birded without it. The longer the camera lens, the deeper the pockets. We tolerate the uninitiated but not the boasters or the liars. Our employer never gives us enough vacation days in a year. We dream of jobs that would pay us enough to stay out in the field to do what we love, every day. We understand a 2 terabyte hard drive is the start of a collection, not enough to contain all the bird photographs we will ever take in our lifetime. We're frustrated birding in national parks as we can't get out of our cars and stalk something small and brown that just flew into the undergrowth. We only stop for animals long enough to look for an oxpecker with a yellow bill. Red Bull is our friend. We're always planning the next outing or negotiating with spouses for time away from them and the kids. We live for the next adventure. Love us and know you will always need to keep the car filled with petrol because we never know when the next rare bird alert might arrive in our inboxes.