This article, by Alison Hill, first appeared in the Winter 2024 edition of Palores.
In spite of taking an active interest in birds for over 60 years I have never had the confidence to lead other birders in a walk. What changed this was a serious accident in September 2022 which left me with a new understanding of what it’s like to be limited through physical injury. The RSPB, National Trust, Wildlife Trusts and other organisations have all made great strides in providing access for wheelchair users to hides, loos, cafes and information centres. But, as I soon discovered, other issues can also be limiting.
What if you are no longer driving? Or don’t have a blue badge for parking? What if your pain/low stamina means you need to sit down frequently – on a raised seat or a tree trunk so you can get up again? Or if there is no loo and, as a woman, you need a handy tree branch to help you? When I started to think about possible birding excursions, I began to realise just how limited my options now were.
But one of these options is just down the road from me, and it’s even accessible by bus. I live in Malpas, with three buses a day to Truro, passing Boscawen Park with its wonderful swathes of mud and channels, two cafes, two lots of toilets including accessible ones, a shelter with tables, and lots of benches for those with tired legs or backs. There’s even a duck pond opposite, which frequently turns up unexpected wild- fowl. Overall, this is a good area for birds in the winter, with regular Cur- lew, Redshank, Black- tailed Godwit, Dunlin, Oystercatcher, Teal, Little Egret, Pied and Grey Wagtail, often giving excellent close views – and here, all these birds are likely to be visible from benches in the car park, only 50 yards from the bus set-down.
The recently renovated, wheelchair-accessible path from the car park to Sunny Corner (less than half a mile) may additionally offer Green- shank, Wigeon, occasional Spotted Redshank, plus Osprey in Autumn, and we’ve also had Mediterranean Gull, Avocet, and Spoonbill in most recent years.
Now, what I’d really like to do is roam the cliffs and moors and beaches seeing birds I didn’t see last month. Grey Phalarope? Busy little Sanderling? Even just a Lapwing with its plaintive call? But it turns out that my local wader/water-bird area offers plenty of birding sights and sounds to keep me going, and the ‘patch’ could benefit from regular reporting through the six months of late autumn and winter.
Having got this far in my thinking, I began to wonder how many other birders there are in Cornwall who feel similarly restricted. Both the area and the hobby attract plenty of people who are, shall we say, no longer as fit or as young as they might wish and face increasing limitations to their favourite activities. Perhaps they’d like to join me, since I know the area quite well? So I took a deep breath and in I plunged.
Our organiser of walks Jennifer Carter was extremely helpful and encouraging and after a long session working out which day saw the best conjunction of state of outgoing tide, bus times between Truro and Boscawen, and avoiding weekends when the park, the parking and indeed the water are too busy for birds and watchers alike, I picked a day and it was advertised on the events page as Truro Gentle Birding.
Would anyone be interested? Had I actually put people off with the carefully placed word ‘accessible’? Did this walk, in a park on the edge of a town, sound too banal? But I soon had two people on my list and by the time the day arrived the walk was full (ten participants, plus myself and a supportive friend).
At the park it was rather blustery, rain threatened, there was a strong smell of drains at the chosen meeting place – and not many birds. I waited with trepidation to see who would turn up. Would anyone actually be interested in Curlews and Redshank or were all the participants expecting me to find an Osprey and a couple of Avocets for them? Would everyone be ‘better’ birdwatchers than me, eager to show off their knowledge and boast about having seen the Red-footed Booby on Bishop Rock? One of the first arrivals was already busy filling in his birding notebook… But by the time we set off he had already been most helpful in finding and directing others to birds and had willingly agreed to record our birds and report our list – thank you, Gus! He and others who know the general area were very helpful in sharing their knowledge with us all. We all know different things, part of the beauty of group birdwatching.
We didn’t see anything spectacular; it’s a little early in the season, so no godwits or Dunlin even. But I don’t think that’s what people had joined the walk for. They just wanted to share their hobby, whether serious and long-standing or new, with like-minded people; and to benefit from the multiplicity of eyes and knowledge. I found myself concluding that leading a walk can mean as little as organising the date and meeting point and then suggesting periodically ‘shall we move on now?’ Five of us then had lunch together, with an animated, ornithologically- focussed conversation that would have bored the socks off an eavesdropper not interested in birds. Our group of strangers ended up feeling more like a group of friends. I already have four people on my list for the next walk.
My one sadness is that, as far as I know, no-one from my ‘target group’ joined us. So come on – even if you feel you’ll be too slow or may need to leave us to have a rest, give us a try. Birdwatching should be for all. And if you’ve occasionally wondered why there are no walks near you – why not plunge in and lead one? You may enjoy it as much as I did.
