Twitchers: A Very British Obsession

Twitching, it's like warfare.

It's 95% boredom, hanging around,

Thousands of people around the UK

trying to see as many species

Somebody always wants to be and it's one-upmanship all the time.

It's the equivalent of, like,

People would love me to miss a bird,

and totally dedicated to it.

to monitor their every move.

Birding is my fulfilment, but the extreme, at any cost, to anybody.

The person who's seen the most

Like a league table, an online record called the Life List

ranks each twitcher by the number of different species of birds

that they've seen in the UK

This is the ranking, so there's number one, Steve Gantlett.

There are no prizes or medals,

in Britain. So there's 259 people that have seen more birds than me.

This hobby isn't just about birds, it's about birds and people,

This guy's green, and in italics.

That mean's he's dead. He's died.

species of birds on his list.

I seem to feel that you get a different class of bird-watcher.

and a Championship twitcher.

Are you in the Premiership?

I don't think I've achieved anything in birding until I've hit 500 birds.

Twitchers start their lists with the most common birds,

but to climb the rankings they need to chase the real rarities,

I feel like I'm failing myself

It eats up at me. If there's a bird in the country I haven't seen,

I am in a completely crappy mood until I've actually made plans to go.

A migrating bird can fly off to it immediately is crucial.

When these birds just turn up,

These birds are lost individuals,

This is a film about some of the most driven twitchers in Britain, as they race to get to rare birds

during the autumn migration.

I can feel an ache in my chest and my throat when I'm going there,

I really feel a need for it.

Unlike Gary, Brett's already

In fact, he's got 528 on his list.

then you'll never get a big list,

But Brett's about to retire,

so he's on a quest to increase his score whilst he still has

murdered anybody yet, but...

Yeah, almost any length, yeah.

And the Craig family are facing

It's a chance for Gary to add to his list and climb the rankings.

and it's come into Britain.

the other end of the country.

It just makes me so excited thinking about it. A sandhill bloody crane!

It's unbelievable, isn't it?

Gary's place on the Life List other twitchers see the bird.

Keen to find out who else is going, he checks in with Lee Evans,

Many people going for this,

'About 30 or 40.' Is that all?

'Yeah, he's on his way, yeah.'

OK. Batty. Bonza needs it, I take it?

Does anybody know that I'm going? 'Er, yeah, they know you're going.'

And who's he, then? He wants everything as accurate as possible.

individual. He doesn't trust people.

don't like authority, do they?

as judge, jury and executioner

which birds are seen where,

and exactly who's seen them.

It's made him a controversial figure

I'm the equivalent of George Michael

his life, is exactly the same way

My name is always mentioned

My name will be put forward.

30% of British birders are cheats,

And then you've got quite a few

the male collecting instinct.

Listing for them is just that, just an extension of train spotting.

It's just numbers, isn't it?

Two cans of Red Bull, and two packs of Hula Hoops and a sandwich.

"Breeding birds acquire rusty tones

The difficult journey hasn't

60 twitchers I reckon, approximately.

Today you've got big listers here.

You've got people off sick, so you won't get the most friendliest

But everybody's in the same boat.

Life jackets are located in the saloon and on the boat deck.

The usual suspects are here. There are a few faces I don't recognise.

26 miles? That'll be the day!

There's a lot of people watching, hopefully the birds are over there.

Absolutely marvellous. The red panel on the face is really good, actually.

Distant, but you could see the bird.

Now he's seen the bird, Gary needs to be sure that Lee, twitching's

'Hi, Gary.' Hi, Lee, you all right?

'60 people?' 60 people connected,

Gary's made the long trip to Orkney to get an extra bird for his list.

But with 60 other twitchers seeing it too, Gary's overall place in the rankings won't have changed.

Every year people are getting

It's just a bit of a shame, that you can't have it to yourself.

It's not an exclusive club like it used to be, the sandhill crane.

The major rare birds, the rarest of all, are nicknamed "megas".

Do you know which way it went?

He only heard it? He heard it!

You never know how long these birds

any twitcher is always on the alert

or at the other end of the country.

of the UK's top 20 twitchers.

He used to work as a North Sea trawler man, and today he's come

to Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast to search for rare sea birds.

You just never know what's going

What's the point of making a list

There's no point in anything,

We're all here by accident, there's no point to anything.

It's just whatever point you want to make for yourself in life.

If you ask most people what they'd want most in the world,

they'd probably say something like world peace. But, I mean,

People want world peace so they can live their lives the way

And in my case that's seeing as many birds in Britain as I can.

Sandhill crane is still there.

Fantailed warbler's still in Kent.

What else have you been into,

I've always been interested in nature, and then I packed

When I first met him, I was told

he was the maddest birder in the country. And I said, "I know that!"

because March is the worst month

so it was the least likely month

because of needing to rush off

We got married in the morning and then went birding in the afternoon.

Do you remember Alice at work?

She was always saying to me, "You ought to take Cynthia for a proper

I wasn't expecting anything more,

At 64, he's just months away from retirement and, with few savings,

I know it will hurt me a lot.

It's a very, very weird experience.

from the time that pager goes off and there's a rare bird somewhere,

this world of make-believe.

It's a very weird sensation, and you just feel so happy.

It's an adventure, it's a journey, it's everything. You don't know

So you forget about problems?

I tell you what, I've got no problems when a bird turns up.

unfortunately. And I've got a child.

The autumn twitching season is in full swing, with rare birds

PHONE: 'In Oxon, the Azorean

But whilst twitchers are focused on the birds, one man is obsessed with

checking if the twitchers really

There's no-one that polarises

I've always been the policeman

You can't have a free-for-all.

I love what I do, but it's the people around it that make it sad.

A lot of the birding is all

You have to get inside the brains of birders, and the psyche of them,

And I've spent a whole career

And I can identify these strange bods that are going to commit

He's also one of the UK's keenest twitchers, and has ranked himself as seventh on the Life List.

It's like one member of one

I think it's something to do

He wants to feel important.

..maybe, you know, big fishes in small pools or something.

it can become quite a problem.

Who's he trying to catch, anyway?

Lee's always looking for a cheat.

He's obsessed about cheats.

And also there's big numbers, so I think we've got a good chance.

See what we're looking for.

The important thing is P10 on this bird is still growing. Right. OK.

Even for the most experienced twitchers, identifying birds

And this gull is somewhere amongst 2,000 others of different species.

I'm pretty sure I won't find him,

I'm pretty useless at catching gulls.

Really dark. Yeah, on its own.

Well done, thank you. That's great.

Hang on. Lee, we got it at the pool.

Lee Evans is on his way down

He's just half a mile away.

But 15 minutes after the group first spot the gull, it disappears.

We've lost it at the moment.

Who's actually got it at the moment? It's been lost at the moment.

so I presume it's gone, yeah.

but I'm a little bit annoyed

get all the features on it.

because nobody would believe us

would believe you? I bloody well saw it and identified it.

You know, when Lee gets here,

I've got two eyes. At least

Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

Well, no, it's raining at the moment,

But how do you know you're looking

They're not going all that way

You know, when I turn up at a rarity, you can almost feel that

all the voices talking about you.

You can see the little crowds

"Oh, there's Lee Evans over there", and all that sort of stuff.

I think he's a bit deranged myself.

You don't associate with Mr Evans?

God, no. No. I think there's

It's an obsession, but it's more

Finally, the gull reappears

This time, Lee's there to see it,

I just want to see it well if I can.

I saw it, yeah. You seen it?

Yeah. I saw it earlier. It was the primaries, Lee. It is the right bird.

I don't want to fall out with him.

We're never going to fall out,

Cheers, Lee. Take care, mate.

Gary's one of my closest associates in birding, and I really like him,

but I will still never let him into my inner circle as such.

Because I don't trust Gary.

I guess he's probably loyal, yeah,

because they don't like him.

This is what happens in this hobby.

but I can't sleep because of birds.

This thing caused me difficulties

The Life List isn't the only one that twitchers take seriously.

There's also the year list, spotting as many different species as possible in a single year.

To do a year list, a twitcher must spend huge amounts of time and money travelling the country,

most common to the most rare.

You need absolute dedication for that, because it's really hard work.

It really takes a lot out of you,

You've got to have incredible

I do a bare minimum of 68,000 miles.

Chris Craig is also devoting all of his spare time to year listing.

So far he's seen 310 birds,

It's just part of the way of life,

You're not focused on anything else for the weekend, so everything else drops away and this is the focus.

seven-year-old daughter Mya-Rose.

The year listing is a way of, I suppose, re-inspiring ourselves, and motivating ourselves to go out

and see birds every weekend.

The target at the beginning of the year was to see 300,

which is kind of a landmark in the UK, so we all managed

So it's like we might as well carry on going, really, to see what we can get to. Isn't it?

When we got together, I remember someone pointing him out and saying, "He's a twitcher, you know".

And I didn't even really know

"Oh, there's something a bit odd."

Helena famously said to me, "If you think I'm ever going

"in the middle of the night to go and see a bird, you must be joking!"

And look at her now. Everyone

The Craigs have been taking

Her fourth word was birdie, and she was actually pointing at a black lark at the time.

And this year, she's also made

Do you want to show your list?

Do I have to? No, you don't have to,

I'm second. Were you first before?

But competition from such a young recruit has ruffled a few feathers.

That we're just putting random should have my list taken off.

Did they not believe that you'd seen a black-browed albatross?

their home in Somerset to see

Yeah, it's usually a surprise.

What do you need to be a twitcher?

Have you got good eyesight?

I'm hopeful on quite a few birds,

There's definitely no sign of it.

Look, the sun's come out, Mya.

I think it probably went, erm,

It gets a bit boring, doesn't it?

ever hopeful of finding new

In just one day, they've travelled from Somerset to Warwickshire, Lancashire and the Lake District.

'The yellow-billed cuckoo is not, vegetation where it roosted.'

they arrive in Scotland, 450 miles from where they started off.

but then we actually can get away from it, because there's this other

passion in your life that takes

It just feels like another world.

The family are aiming to see a flock of Taiga bean geese that have just arrived in the UK.

at a bean goose in this book.

One of OUR favourite books.

A bit of black on it as well.

Can I have my breakfast now?

is spending a day with his family.

What's going to happen? I'm 42 now.

her husband, when she gets married, is going to drive me to the birds.

Do you tell your friends about your dad and his birds? Yeah.

No. Why isn't it very good?

and bird when it's something good.

That is true. I do go quite a lot.

It's interesting. She thinks that I'm never here for the family.

I suppose the family think that

Kim isn't, I can't blame her, really.

She sees what it's done to me.

We should do this more often,

The hobbies sort of do come first.

I've always been a collector.

registration plates of Rolls-Royces.

The serious hobby was plane spotting. An 18-year spell of my life,

I was obsessed with planes. I've never had any money, probably

never will have any money, because I love spending money on my hobbies.

it was a very expensive year.

spend £600 on a bird? Yeah.

It's the price you've got to pay.

If you want that bird that badly,

There's just a couple of weeks of the bird migration left,

but top twitcher Brett still hasn't got a new tick for his life list.

So he's blown £600 of his savings on a trip to the Isles of Scilly,

warblers before, so this bird doesn't count for his list.

there are fewer birds you need

to see, so it gets harder and harder

I'm at the point now where maybe three a year would be a good average.

And a lot of them will be birds that

it doesn't advance you any, doesn't put you ahead of your rivals, because they'll all see it, you know.

It's lovely weather, but I've

come here for the birds, and I'm really not seeing much.

Brett is only a few birds short of being top of the life list.

so it does hurt me that I'm

And it hurts me that I haven't

But, you know, I'd love to be

heavyweight boxing champion of the world and I certainly do have daydreams about it, yeah.

Hmm. It's sort of the ultimate heavyweight champion of the world?

the autumn, and hundreds of

on a quarry in South Shields.

A bird has been spotted that

The eastern crowned warbler normally spends its winters in Malaysia

spotted it said it was like

Garry's dropped everything at work and raced the 350 miles from Sussex.

the bird has become jittery

Right at the top of the ash.

Yeah, it's come out. It's in view.

What, down there? No, no, no.

Look, still in the same place.

Oh, yeah, right out. Higher.

Are you looking? I can't find it.

I saw it. I see it flying across.

It's actually a lifer for my father.

It's a British tick but it's a British tick for everyone because

been seen in Britain. I know.

This is no way for Britain's most famous lister to behave.

Sunderland? Oh, you're almost here.

Oh, 200 plus. All right, Lee.

Almost every serious twitcher has managed to see the bird.

But Brett still hasn't had a tick for his list this autumn

Scillies when the news broke.

Brett's had to fly to Penzance and drive up to South Shields.

I'm thinking I'm not going to see it tonight and probably won't see it tomorrow either.

I haven't had anything to eat all day, I'm shaking like a leaf.

I had about an hour's sleep last night, I just couldn't stop

Brett travelled all the way to South Shields from the Isles of Scilly.

kicking around in the bracken.

Mya and her parents are still second

He's stayed on the mainland

any individual seriously under the age of sort of ten, really.

you know, whether or not they're

taking any interest in what they're seeing is debatable.

Now, whether or not my Rose will

She's a very nice young girl, but you find with keen birding parents,

their children into the hobby.

the whole family's a birding family and then when the children grow up,

If you force something upon someone,

interested in bird-watching

It's not about getting Mya's list to some sort of high number so that

Because the chances are, when she gets a bit older and she starts wanting to go to parties and things,

it'll slow down a bit and, you know, the aim is really for her to have an interest so that it stays with her.

Have you seen this goldfinch,

Yeah. A really nice view of that. Have you looked through your

the Craigs are twitching on the

Scillies with their older daughter, and even their granddaughter.

your list ready, haven't you?

So do you think you'll like it, doing it as a family for a while together?

Yeah, I think we will. Well...

What do you mean, you don't want to?

You enjoy it once you're out.

Well, I'm not enjoying it now!

I'm surprised he ever sees any birds.

Let me put them in the car.

car because I don't want to spend

Have you got your passport?

Garry's off to Ireland. But this is one twitch that Lee doesn't feel the need to keep tabs on.

Garry's manic. As soon as he hears about the bird or reads it on his

pager, he's off, and doesn't think about the possibilities of it being there or not. He just goes.

They saw it flying in from the sea, saw it and it's gone again.

He said my chance of seeing the bird was less than 41%.

I don't know why he does it though. "I'm not going, therefore I'll

Well, I feel it's such a rare bird...

..the third record ever for Britain,

we've just got to go and have a look.

I'm really hopeful it'll be there.

It's 6am, and Garry's made it all the way from Sussex to Dublin.

Oh, gentlemen, start your engines!

But he's still got to drive another four and a half hours

to reach the bird, all the way to the west coast of Ireland.

So the basic route goes from

to Athlone, to Loughrea, to Galway, to Clifden, and then the boat to Inishbofin and back again.

Garry hasn't had confirmation that

spending over £200 and driving a

really, is the bird perishing.

It might just be absolutely exhausted

you went for it'd be boring.

The chase would be too easy.

You need the chase to be hard

Right, let's go and find out

from where it was yesterday.

It hasn't been seen since this morning by some Irish boys.

Let's go across and have a laugh.

eat I'll settle for that now.

I just didn't see the point

It's such a small island, it's not

But I'd look for it if they needed help, but you've done the whole island anyway, haven't you?

Don't know. I'm off. You off again?

So you're not going to go and help?

I might go on to that stool later.

Whenever I think of the birds I've missed that I should have

and it will hurt until either I see that bird or until the day I die.

Although he arrived too late for the eastern crowned warbler that

made the national news, Brett managed to see it the next morning, just hours before it flew off.

As soon as you see it the next morning, as soon as it's on your list, then you're happy, then you can

pensioner, and is facing a future with less money for twitching.

cope once he's not able to twitch

He's going to be miserable every time anything comes on. Desperate.

Yeah, yeah. Will you give up?

What if you had an injury or couldn't get out and about?

I mean, I can't just envisage sitting in the house doing nothing.

easy for me. I think it would

and for twitchers it's time to take a break from their lists.

been spending less time twitching.

I'll have a few more days off.

doubt about that, honestly.

As far as I know, their whole

but I guess it is just luck.

I'm very difficult to get on with,

but birds are my salvation.

and I can fall back to them.

birds than I do about people.

shirt's getting on my back.

Garry's now seen 498 different

Because I'm so close to getting I just thought it would be a

the top goalscorer at Arsenal, when he ripped off his shirt, it was "143 goals", I think,

or whatever the T-shirt said, and I just think that the day I get

my 500th bird in Britain I want to put this on, and say, "Look, I've done it, I've seen 500 birds."

The harder the bird, the more

I can't explain how it feels from the day that pager goes off,

Just the whole adventure to get to that bird is something that no other hobby will ever give me.

Grey phalarope at Werewood!

I've had one of those before,

# A-well everybody's heard about

# A-well-a bird, bird, bird

# A-well-a bird, bird, bird

Don't you know about the bird?

that the bird is a word... #