There have been several books about twitching in Britain in the past, some interesting and exciting, others so full of inaccuracies that they were better off in the fiction section. And, I must admit, I do like reading tales of twitching; as someone who used to be an active twitcher, I understand the thrill of seeing something new, the logistics of getting there and the obsession required to reach the far-flung corners of Britain (and, in this case, Ireland) at the drop of a hat. I am also fascinated by the characters involved – some are great bird-finders; some rely on the next piece of rare-bird news to plan their day; some are from well-paid jobs with understanding bosses; some have understanding partners and supportive friends; while for others there’s an element of ‘sneaking in’ the twitching between other aspects of their life. Many of the people and places named in this book are familiar to me from my days living in the UK.

During the story I get selected for a BBC documentary called "Twitchers: A very British Obsession" and formed a successful WhatsApp group called “Casual Twitchers”. This was my first book and I didn't expect to get complaints about my single life between 2000 to 2002 (Chapter 2 to 4). I decided to remove the offending passages and rewrite these early years and republish as "Twitching by A birder's hectic life as he chases rare species across Britain and Ireland". Perhaps he ought to publish two editions - the revised sanitised version and the original, the latter to contain a warning on the cover that some of its content may cause offence to certain readers.

This is simply a religion. Belief systems, priests telling everyone what to say or think, salvation by doing and saying the right things, all heading towards utopia (which we never seem to arrive at!).

But sections of soon came under the notice of feminist Lucy McRobert who, like him, is both a birder and a writer - but on a different wavelength and at the primmer end of the literary spectrum.Garry's description of every Twitch he has done in the last 24 years and his illustrations of the best rare birds Innuendo and/or explicit images were also a mainstay of the Carry On and Confessions of movies that were popular in the 1980s and before. Any author who deviates from what is considered decorous and appropriate enjoys no licence - he (or she) risks being singled out and pilloried with opprobrium. I had never heard of a foam party until I read this book – maybe I should get out more, or maybe not.

Merganser "I enjoyed this fast-paced and engaging romp through his years of birding by author Garry Bagnell Britain isn't the only place that has hatched a culture of fierce birdwatching. In the United States, book-turned-Hollywood-film The Big Year chronicled the quest of three men vying in long-held American competitions to spot the most species in a single year. Nevertheless, observers say the intensity of the rivalries and the small size of the twitching community – in the thousands – have singled out British birders as some of the world's most relentless. Birdspotter This author has written a brutally honest and in-depth account of his life and hobby. This version, dubbed the '18+ edition' in some quarters, is compulsive reading from the start. The most unfortunate twitchers race many kilometres to spot a bird only to find that their flighty subjects have flown off – a bummer known in the twitching world as a "dip". One of the most infamous dips came as Webb pursued a long-tailed shrike in the Outer Hebrides off mainland Scotland. The boat he and 12 others had hired died in choppy waters, forcing a daring rescue by Her Majesty's Coastguard. "We were worried for our lives for a bit, but we were more worried about not seeing this bird," he said.A term coined in the 1960s to describe the jaw-rattling sound of chasing after rare birds on rumbling motorbikes, "twitchers" are narrowly defined as bird-watchers willing to drop everything to chase a sighting. More broadly, it includes those who see a bird within a few days of an urgent bulletin. Encountering rare birds is amazing, I’ll never forget coming across a grounded little auk in a public park and if I ever look out at my mum’s bird table and see a rose coloured starling I’d probably be at serious risk of cardiac arrest from excitement. But instead of seeing something that’s wandered on to your local patch you travel hundreds of miles to see it then I feel that the experience is a bit devalued. 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. If you’ve done something really, really bad and you wish to atone for your sins there are several things you can do: you could wear a hair shirt for a month, you could walk naked through Canterbury on a market day whilst self-flagellating and proclaiming your sins or you could read this book. In retrospect I think I would have preferred to have suffered the walk of shame, at least that would have been a more interesting way to spend my time. In other countries, the world of birdwatching may be a largely gentle place ruled by calm, binocular-toting souls who patiently wait for their reward. But in Britain, it can be a truly savage domain, a nest of intrigue, fierce rivalries and legal disputes. Fluttering somewhere between sport and passion, it can leave in its path a grim tableau of ruined marriages, traffic chaos and pride, both wounded and stoked.