The twitch

Thursday June 21.

What this holiday needed was a rare bird. That's what I told Lyn on Thursday, and she was up for it. A housing estate in suburban Lowestoft, lovely.

As twitches go it was pretty much perfection. The directions were easy to follow, and we arrived to find a dozen slightly gloomy twitchers (including Lee Evans who seems to be everywhere) muttering that the bird hadn't been seen for 45 minutes.

We clambered out of the car and took up a position opposite someone's back garden. Our fellow twitchers wandered off to "look for the bird", and Lyn and I were left with one other birder. Five minutes later a small group of Starlings flew out of the garden, and the Rose-coloured Starling was with them. I bellowed "there it is," and it perched obligingly in an ornamental conifer.

The boy !

The others hurried back, but we were ready to go. Bird in the bag. I wish twitching was always this easy.