After a session trying to photograph St Davids Cathedral (click to read), I decided to go for a coffee. It was while I drank it that I had a brain wave. Why not take a wildlife cruise out from St Justinians later in the day? Conditions seemed perfect. So I compared the options available from the various boat operators in St Davids and chose a ninety minute “evening shearwater cruise” leaving at 6.30 p.m. I was so sure I would have some great photographic opportunities from the boat that I slouched around the St. Davids area for most of the day. I suppose some measure of complacency had crept in.
Come 6.30pm I boarded the boat. It was a RIB with fixed seats and once seated the punters were expected to stay in place. The boatman told us that “every seat is a front row seat”. The company owner was on board with four of her friends; needless to say they had the best seats – at the front. We were then informed that – actually – there were very few shearwaters around at the moment. Once underway we did a clockwise half-circuit of Ramsey Island: this meant that those in the seats on the starboard (right-hand) side of the boat (and the front…..) had uninterrupted views of the few seals in the caves and coves. I was on the port side – and it was very frustrating. Then we headed a couple of miles offshore to search for shearwaters, and there were a few, but all very distant. It also occurred to me that there were hardly ANY seabirds around at all. I should have known better than to book a wildlife cruise at the end of August when most of the seabirds would have left the cliffs several weeks earlier.
But the boat company should have warned potential passengers that this would be the case. Falcon Boats was the culprit in this instance but I’m sure they all do it. I’ll certainly be far more careful before going out on a tourist boat again.
I recounted in this post how I managed to get some good photographs of an osprey from the Curlew hide at the Teifi Marshes on the journey down. There were other photographers in the hide and a few visitors popped in and out. The “locals” engaged in conversations with each other over the heads of other people in the hide. On the way back I called in there again and inside was another bunch of local photographers in there. They talked very loudly to each other about some incident in a car park that one of them had experienced. It was as if they owned the place. How must other people in the hide have felt about this? It was so rude. I left suddenly and shut the door after me. I wished I had slammed it harder to make my feelings known.
The problem with the Teifi Marshes is that access to the hides is via a multi-use path from Cardigan to Cilgerran that is frequently used by non-birders, including families with small children and dogs. In fact, judging by some of the vehicles I have seen in the car park, the path is also popular with commercial dog-walking and child-minding operators. Some of these people have no idea of how to behave in a hide. Several years ago one of the latter, complete with toddlers and a pram, crammed themselves into one of the hides and began chattering away to her friend. I asked her to keep the noise down and was met with a mouthful of the foulest language you can imagine.
Hide etiquette can be tricky. I’ve often enjoyed conversations with fellow birders in hides and the exchange of information there can be useful. I’m happy to help less experienced visitors with bird ID as well. Sometimes a position in the front row of a hide is a very valuable asset and the photographer is reluctant to give it away. I’ve done it myself – at the Snettisham wader roost, for example. My thinking went something like this: “I got up really early, walked two miles to get here, waited for my turn and I’m damn well going to take my time.” But there is no excuse for the rudeness I experienced that day in Cardigan.
Well, I know this post has been a bit of a moan. We all like a moan sometimes but sometimes there are good grounds for it. Just don’t get me started on the dog-owners who don’t control their pets while out in the landscape!
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