...and one back for my list at least, thanks to a recent judgement of the British Birds Rarities Committee. They have concluded - and I'm in no position to argue - that the Redhead I pursued in South Wales in 2003 may have been a half-breed (for any non-birders reading this, and to avoid causing offence to ginger women from the principality, a Redhead is type of duck). Some anomalous features apparently could not rule out a hybrid. I'm not sure exactly which, but rules is rules.
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| The product of an inter-species duck-hump? I just hope they enjoyed it. |
Crawling through a hawthorn hedge with my pal Matt Jones to grab this photo in fading light after the bloke on the gate at Lisvane Reservoir had locked up and told us to bugger off was all in vain then. I could, of course, ignore this judgement and leave Redhead on my list, like a rebel without a point. But I'm far too conformist for that. And besides, if we all started making up our own rules for what went on our little lists where would it all end? Desperate twitchers would be, like, setting up their own clubs, and splitting species willy-nilly to bump the numbers up! How mad would that be!
