Hats off to him, too, for self-publishing (and marketing) the book at his own expense rather than hawking it around mainstream publishers. Insights into family, personal and professional life provide balance and Garry appears to be just a normal guy. Albeit a highly driven normal guy!

Garry Bagnell - Facebook Garry Bagnell - Facebook

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. KEEN birder Gary Bagnell has pledged to rewrite sections of his first book after it came under fire on social media. 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. 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.I had by no means heard of a foam get together till I learn this e-book – perhaps I ought to get out extra, or perhaps not. 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. Twitching by Numbers: twenty-four years of chasing uncommon birds round Britain and Eire by Garry Bagnell is self printed. 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’.

Garry Bagnell – Mark Avery Twitching by Numbers by Garry Bagnell – Mark Avery

A smartphone app to help British birders is being advertised as an essential tool when "there have even been recent cases of violent clashes between bird watchers as people desperately try to get the very best spots". Garry Bagnell looks for a shorelark at Great Yarmouth. Unsuccessful sightings are known as 'dips'. Photograph: Andrew Testa/The Washington Post

Twitching by Numbers: twenty-four years of chasing rare birds around Britain and Ireland by Garry Bagnell is self published. Anyway, if you have the remotest interest in birding grab a copy, hopefully you will receive version one. There is an edited second version out there as well. The desk close to the again of this e-book which lists the High 10 listers in Britain and Eire in 1987 and now (two names seem in each lists) is fascinating. You’d have been on the prime of the record in 1987, apart Ron Johns, in the event you had seen a paltry (I jest!) 463 species whereas now Steve Gantlett’s estimated 590 species leads all of them. Twitching is a lifetime marathon and because the writer factors out you’ll must spend 4 a long time at it, and pretty obsessively at it, to face any probability of a prime 10 rating. All of the names within the two lists are males – who may have guessed? I was also surprised to find that another friend of mine was mentioned in the book a couple of times, I knew he was good but not that good! 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".