Midlands Birding Blog

Twitter is a great thing for birding, in countless ways. In my previous writing, I have sung its praises, from allowing the real-time tracking of rarities to providing an unparalleled community of like-minded people.  However, it can be easy to find yourself constantly comparing your own birding to those on social media. And this can be quite a disheartening thing. Just as with any social media, people usually tend to post their "best self" or in the case of birding twitter, their birding highlights. With a limit of 280 characters, of course we'd mention the Jack Snipe we found on our patch, and probably not mention the 3 hours spent trudging through empty fields. Likewise, in a post of the year's highlights, we're not going to waste precious words lamenting the many dips and bird-less days along the way (unless making a point to that effect).  As a result, a Twitter session can often lead to the feeling that you're the only one to whom the birds don't com

I love birding in Norfolk - you can’t quite beat the feeling of walking down the Titchwell West Bank Path with waders calling all around you and the autumn wind heralding the start of migration. I used to come here every year with my grandparents; my grandad got me into birding from the beginning, and this reserve holds some of my most treasured birding memories.   The West Bank Path at Titchwell Marsh, overlooking the reedbed Birds or not, there's just something about being at Titchwell that means I love every visit. Yet I miss the excitement and unbridled optimism that I had here as a 10 year old on every single trip. I know that it’s still in there but has been beaten and aged by pragmatism and experience. The fact is that now when I visit Norfolk I know what’s around and I know what has been around for the last few weeks, if not months. There's no doubt that news services are one of the best things about modern birding - I recently wrote a post expressing this sentiment. H