Stick or twist?

There was a time when news of a West Midlands tick could have had me dropping everything and heading for the bird without a second thought. This sort of thinking has left me with a pretty impressive West Mids list of 292.

However, age seems to be dulling my need to add an extra tick to that particular book. At 11.14am today a text alert sounded on my phone as I sat at my work station. A Great Reed Warbler had chosen today to appear at Grimley near Worcester. Twenty minutes later an old friend, Terry, rang to give me detailed directions, and to tell me that everybody who was anybody in the county had seen it.

Cue the weather forecast. Torrential rain was set to arrive during the afternoon. I can no longer ask my boss for permission for an impromptu holiday at extremely short notice. In short, I was stuck and faced with the prospect of a soggy evening staring at a small reed covered pond.

Stick or twist..... I stuck.

I have not had much luck with Great Reed Warblers. It is somewhat tenuously on my British list thanks to a brief flight view of the long staying Welney bird back in 1981. Sure, I could hear it singing alright, but a view is required for a lifer. Many years later I twitched another stayer, this time at Netherfield lagoon in Notts. We picked a foul day, such as today, and were unable to see the bird, though it sang well for us.

The West Midlands has had only four, the first two were pulled out of mist-nets at Brandon in Warks in the 1970s , the third, also at Brandon, tantalised would be twitchers, including me, the morning after its discovery in May 2005. It was apparently a female, and I didn't see it. The one I should have got was at Barton in Staffs in 2007, but I had been birding all day and felt knackered. Stick or twist. I should have twisted. It was gone next day.

I know I should get up at dawn, but I can't be bothered. If it's there in the morning I will go tomorrow evening.

With this kind of thinking I doubt I'll ever get to 300.