Country diary: I see 38 bird species in a day - but does it matter? | Richard Smyth

Swillington Ings, West Yorkshire: I'm counting, but not counting. The highlight, though, has to be those those gentleman thugs, the greater black-backed gullsLast week, three guys I know took a winter walk around this patch of water, wetland and waterside scrub, and saw 84 bird species. I'm going to write that out in full, like they used to on the football results when someone notched up an improbable score: eighty-four. Most people would be hard-pressed to name 84 bird species, let alone find that many on this frost-bitten stretch of post?industrial West Yorkshire. And they do this every year (in a good cause: the Michael Clegg Memorial Bird Race, in aid of Yorkshire Swifts).And now here I am. I do keep a list when I go birdwatching, but really only for form's sake. My lists will never impress anyone, nor will they ever be of use to ornithologists of the future. Continue reading...