how far would you go?

for one of these?

According to today's Irish Examiner, "busloads of british bird-watchers" are coming over to see the house crow in Cobh. This is a bit inaccurate, as twitchers rarely travel by bus (although I did get the overnight bus from Aberdeen to London for the golden-winged warbler at New Hythe many moons ago - successfully too). There were a reasonable number of UK twitchers in Cobh this morning though, which makes me wonder why they're here.

Firstly, I must state up front that I do keep a UK & Ireland list. But only because I birded over there for approx 12 years, and now I'm birding over here, so I don't really get UK ticks very often these days (the Heathrow brown shrike was my last - just happened to be in the area). It is a bit pathetic though, cos my UK list is still sub 400, while my irish list is 300 plus (but only just!). Combined, my UK/Ire list would be just about passable, if I just declared it as UK, or really really good, if I just declared it as Irish, but its not (and I don't!). Must point out here that the Galley patch list beats all, in order of importance!

If I still lived in the UK, I wouldn't keep a UK/Ire list, despite having seeing some great birds over here before I emigrated. I don't really see the point, as they are two different countries. I'm pretty sure Irish birders wouldn't dream of keeping such a list, although a few ship-assisted twitchers did jump on the Dublin - Holyhead ferry for the Anglesey black lark. This was only because it was a Western Pal tick or research purposes or something tho.  

Such ramblings don't even scratch the surface of whether this particular bird is tickable though! There's been quite a lot of debate on the IBN on such matters, with the best pro statement seeming to imply that house crows actually choose to travel on ships in order to reach new habitats in which to breed. All a bit "Battlestar Galactica" type of idea, but with a smaller cast, and fewer special effects. A point in defence of ticking it (from the same source) was that plenty of birders (including me) ticked the tailless white-crowned sparrow in Dursey Sound, so if that was ok as a very likely ship-assist, then why not this?

I'm sure both debates will rumble on, but for me, I was pleasantly surprised by the house crow - it was a cool bird! And who knows, I might even tick it yet!