Llanelli Naturalists Newsletter - January 2005 - No 71
Kath Pryce

There’s a first time for everything – on 9th November we became twitchers for a few hours after finding ourselves within driving distance of a Masked Shrike at Kilrenny near Anstruther in Fife.  The morning was beautifully sunny, the bird obligingly appeared within minutes of our arrival, and there were only four or five other twitchers there at the time, who were all most friendly and helpful.  The view of the shrike on Ivy (it was attracted by the late abundance of insects attracted to the flowers) was superb and Richard could not resist phoning Barry to tell him, “we are looking at it now!” (Sandra tells us that he did not initially believe us!).  I know we were very lucky, but have a suspicion that I’ll never be a real twitcher because, only the previous day we had a superb view of a single Little Egret at Vane Farm RSPB Reserve at Loch Leven and that gave me almost as much pleasure even though I have seen many at Penclacwydd and on the Burry Inlet.  However I am grateful that there are keen birdwatchers around who’s observation skills lead to the identification of rare or vagrant species as well as the monitoring of more familiar birds.  We need to develop and foster these skills in all aspects of natural history.