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Garry is an accountant and that’s why the book has its title – it is not only the numbers of birds he has supplied but the numbers of many other things too. Innuendo and/or explicit images were also a mainstay of the Carry On and Confessions of movies that were popular in the 1980s and before. I'm a 55 year old accountant who lives in Southwater, West Sussex with my wife Kim, daughter Georgie and our pets Barney, Pepper, Midge and Poppy.
Twitching by Numbers: twenty-four years of chasing rare birds around Britain and Ireland by Garry Bagnell is self published.
The legendary warden from the 1960’s and 1970’s at Minsmere, Bert Axel had the same strong feeling as well about this subject. I’m still bemused that the author felt compelled to water down/ delete certain sections just because a single magazine columnist condemned the book having identified what she deemed to be ‘sexism’.
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. He is clearly something of an obsessive, and his other past hobbies have included plane spotting and stamp collecting.Any author who deviates from what is considered decorous and appropriate enjoys no licence - he (or she) risks being singled out and pilloried with opprobrium. Some of his comments might might strike a discordant note with certain readers, but credit to him for his endeavour - putting together an illustrated book takes a fair bit of sweat and toil. If you ever wanted to understand what twitching is, then this detailed account would be a good place to start. There were some reserves of course that were open every day such as the RSPB’s headquarters The Lodge Reserve but closed around 5. There are stories of sticks being thrown at bushes so birds would be flushed out to get a better look at them, and exhausted, agitated birds flying from bush to bush until they were nabbed by a sparrowhawk.
Following Ms McRobert's influential intervention, many others have entered the fray - most to support her viewpoint but others to counter-attack on behalf of Mr Bagnell who has mounted his own spirited self-defence. The book is illustrated by the author and, although infinitely better than I could do myself, the illustrations are all quite good, but not tip top. Because this author is very open about sharing his thoughts and feelings, and a lot of details, you might get more of a handle on the ‘why? You would have been at the top of the list in 1987, aside Ron Johns, if you had seen a paltry (I jest!
I've just spent the last year writing a book about the last 24 years of twitching birds in Britain and Ireland.
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