Snipe

More local birding this week produced a Snipe. No wintering birds at all to our knowledge, and then mid-April once birds are on the move we get three in a week. Very odd. I realise that counting individual Snipe is pretty tragic as a past time, but Waders are basically like gold dust here in Wanstead. One day, or perhaps in a future life, I will live somewhere amazing for birding, where Snipe and many other birds are simply a regular part of the landscape. Ubiquitous. Would I then become complacent? Probably I would, in the same way that I ignore Blue Tits and, now, Blackcaps. Do birders lucky enough to live on the coast become numb to the wonders that surround them if that is their daily diet? Is the “good bird” threshold somehow raised to stratospheric levels, where even such irregular species as Redstart and Ring Ouzel are declassified into regular dross, and only BBRC birds are worthy of note? I suppose it is all location location location, which is why for Wanstead even a common Wader is frankly amazing, whereas at Rainham they give up counting Snipe when they reach 100 yet would all run quite quickly for a Redstart. Hey ho.

Whatever (if you live in Iceland)