''Which complete knob 'ed invented twitching?''

Catching that Adult Male Sparrowhawk last Sunday, really did make me think about a few things and one particular matter that sprung to mind was that of twitching! I was curious as to what was going to be my next twitch. All too soon, it happened...

Mr Hinchcliffe had tempted me into going over to Morpeth in Northumberland for an Adult Squacco heron and then on for a Desert Wheatear at Seahouses near Berwick-Upon-Tweed.. These would have been British ticks and very welcome yearticks for the both of us, but what was to happen in the following hours truely was a shock and didn't take time to hit home!

Leaving Bangor early on Wednesday 17th November, it wasn't long until we had our first text to tell us the status on the heron. To our dismay, the Adult Squacco Heron had unfortunately died overnight due to a heavy frost; at this point, we were sat at Newcastle station! You can imagine the atmosphere when we recieved this message and then to top it all off, the Desert Wheatear wasn't seen all day! Things got drastic after recieving those 2 messages, so we decided to order 1 each of these to calm the nerves...

I have to refer back to the title now and ask who the hell did invent twitching?! Why the hell do I travel all those miles to find out the bird has died?! God knows??? I mean my bins or scope didn't even see daylight that day - just stuck in the rucksack!

Twitching is what it is at the end of day, you have your good days and then you have your bad days, that's how it goes I'm afraid... Arriving back into Bangor late that evening, we could reflect on our days journey and had time to think of our career change! Metal-detecting maybe?? I have to say though, it's the thrill of the chase, if it was easy it would be boring!

The picture of myself and the picture of Zac, show just how thrilled we were to recieve those 2 messages... Anyone who walked in our way or annoyed us that day got what was coming to them..