Last week, three guys I know took a winter walk around this patch of water, wetland and waterside scrub, and saw 84 bird species. I’m going to write that out in full, like they used to on the football results when someone notched up an improbable score: eighty-four. Most people would be hard-pressed to name 84 bird species, let alone find that many on this frost-bitten stretch of post‑industrial West Yorkshire. And they do this every year (in a good cause: the Michael Clegg Memorial Bird Race, in aid of Yorkshire Swifts).
And now here I am. I do keep a list when I go birdwatching, but really only for form’s sake. My lists will never impress anyone, nor will they ever be of use to ornithologists of the future.
So as I wander through the creaking icescape, I note down magpie and long-tailed tit, pochard and goldeneye, brambling and kestrel. Redwings and fieldfares heckle from the berry hedges like punters in the peanut gallery. A marsh harrier cruises over. There’s a heron on a stone pillar, all cheekbones and eyeliner.
“Love the birds you’re with” is how I see it. I don’t think I’ve ever travelled more than half a mile to seek out a particular species. That isn’t why I couldn’t spot 84 species in a day – there’s also my glaring lack of expertise, commitment and gumption – but still, I’m happy with my haul.
Today my favourites are the greater black-backed gulls at the far side of the lake (by this point my fingers are frozen: in my notebook they appear as “g-bb guis”). They’re scavengers, kleptoparasites, killers (I fear for the local rabbits). Gentleman thugs in naval trim. In the air they come in like bombers; as I’m tracking one through the bins, it crosses the flight path of a cormorant, which by comparison looks like the nine-stone weakling in a Charles Atlas ad.
For the record, I wind up with 37. Then I remember, on my way out, to have a look for the little owl who lives near the gates. There she is: 38. I’ll take it.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
• This article was amended on Wednesday 21 January as the previous photo showed the wrong species of gull
