Almost Like a Whale

Almost Like a Whale

Birdwatchers and ornithologists are not at all the same. To the latter, everything about birds is of interest - how they migrate, where they breed, or what they eat. Birdwatchers have a single concern, which is to see as many kinds as they can. Once seen, as soon forgotten, or, at least, ticked off and added to the Life List that is the basis of their self-esteem.

I went through the same phase. After the usual interest in stamps and an eccentric deviation into cheese labels, I was given a pair of binoculars. At the age of twelve I eavesdropped on a group of excited amateurs (twitchers, as they call themselves nowadays) as they peered at some gulls bobbing, on a dim winter day, on the then filthy waters of the River Mersey. All agreed: one of the birds was not an ordinary herring gull, but the much scarcer glaucous gull, seldom seen so far south. My problem was that I could not see any difference. A member of the flock was a rarity, but which was it? Did it count? Could I check the box in my bird book? It was my introduction to the ethics of science. I admit it: I made the tick, but then I rubbed it out.

Twitchers, like scientists, belong to a fellowship of faith. They play cards against Nature. It is possible to win every time by faking one's hand, but to do so removes the point of the game. That is the strength of science, and its greatest weakness. Without collective trust it could not work. Instead there would be the dismal apparatus of mutual suspicion familiar to every accountant.

Birding is refreshingly free from fraud. It has had its scandals, such as the notorious case of the Hastings Rarities (a set of bizarre sightings on the South Coast in Edwardian times), the dubious claim of a Dalmatian pelican in Colchester in the 1960s, and more. Even so - and whatever the rivalry amongst the twitching fanatics - most of those involved in the sport play by the rules.

One problem baffles the most ethical birdwatcher. Stamps (or cheese labels) are easy. The 1853 One Shilling Cape of Good Hope Triangular (or the 1954 Vache qui Rit) is, or is not, genuine. Fakery apart, there is no reason to question the object itself. But what if it is ambiguous? Then opinion, the enemy of science, creeps in. Is one kind of bird really unlike another? How different does it have to be to count as distinct? What, indeed, is a 'species' in the first place? Does it have a scientific definition, or is it all in the eye of the beholder?

US Fish and Wildlife Service/ Stefan Dobert Spot the difference? Only an expert can tell the difference between an Iceland and a glaucous gull.