Twitching by numbers: A birder's account of his hectic life as he chases rare species across Britain and Ireland

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I had never heard of a foam party until I read this book – maybe I should get out more, or maybe not. He Tweeted many times asking for advice and just before publication provided an example of the introduction but it had none of the above in it. Driving an unnecessarily large and heavier car to keep up with the Jones’s isn’t just an added burden re inflated air pollution it means any accident involving them will be more serious than it would have been – especially for cyclists and pedestrians and obviously children – a bad situation being made even worse. All the same twitching is a far less damaging way to be obsessive about birds than standing in a butt and try to shoot as many as possible that have been driven towards you by a bored teenager looking for beer money.

How refreshing, therefore, to come across Twitching By Numbers - a birder's account of his hectic life as he chases rare species across Britain and Ireland. 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? However, racing round the country to spot a rare bird is pushing it a bit not just for resource use/carbon emission reasons. I offered him some advice and in fact had a long conversation with him about the pitfalls of getting a publisher and self publishing (I have done both).I offered to proof read it for him and suggested that he get people who don't know him to read it, mainly for typos and content. What further marks out his book as special is that the illustrations are all by Garry himself - not photographs but exquisite colour artwork which beautifully captures the spirit as well as the plumage of such species as varied thrush, indigo bunting, American redstart, common nighthawk and song sparrow.

Henry Fox-Talbot got so peeved by twitchers peering into his garden that he invented photography so that they could have books full of birdy photographs which would obviate this antisocial behaviour but it didn’t work very well and although there are squillions of such books the uninvited peering still goes on and these days with the added nuisance of throwing empty shandy cans into the aforementioned garden so the dog can mince them into small sharp shards.Luckily at Leighton Moss no charge for permits for members, but member had for admission at lots of reserves. He talks about things that people might not see as important and makes a point of what he thinks is important. 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’. Also there is the problem of disturbance of rare birds often with twitchers in there hundreds at least. The author has a lot of anger in him and some people might find it offensive, but I thought it was great.