Surfing’s Dark Secret: Birding

Many folk have the other board sports of skateboarding and snowboarding as surfing’s obvious bedfellows.

These, the orthodoxy tells us, must surely be our bredren; presumably because the stance is so very similar. By that logic of course, the natural winter sport of the bodyboarder would be the skeleton bob, due to the similar body position. I haven’t seen loads of prone slab specialists get into that, just yet.

Golf is apparently quite popular too. It is fantastic fun, if fun means disaster capitalist cosplay in polo shirts and chino shorts. If you’re naturally suspicious of nature and prefer 150 acres of mown grass monoculture perpetually doused in pesticides, ideally right by the coast, well hello. Britain has more land devoted to golf courses than to housing, which is lucky. As an added bonus, golf is also very… Trumpy.  

Many prefer the high performance violence of MMA. MMA was invented in 2001 when Rodrigo Mixed watched boxing, perhaps archive footage of the sublime Sugar Ray Leonard, and thought ‘This is OK, but it needs less attention span, and more rabbit punching in the face with the heel of the hand whilst kneeling on the other’s one chest vibez.’ The surfing ohana remains forever in his debt.

Fishing is also incredibly popular, and these days there are even surf n’ fishing crossover brands, like Salty Crew. Fishing is a great one for nature lovers, marine wildlife enthusiasts or folk who just adore the great outdoors. You sense a wild creature swimming around free in the sea, perhaps even for decades, and instinctively think: “I’d love to hook you through the face, stove your fucking skull in with a mallet whilst you suffocate, then share pictures of your corpse.” 

Needless to say, none of these hobbies are wrong, per se. They’re just less right. Because the best of all the surfer’s side pursuits is of course, birding. Bird watching. Twitching. Looking at birds (or listening to them), then writing their names down (optional).

Shall we?

My bird journey began a couple years before my surf one, when I was 6. Dinton Pastures, East Berkshire was the spot. This being suburban Britain in the early 80’s, there wasn’t loads of colour. Then it happened, a Eurasian kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) flew past, in a mad, exhilarating brilliant flash of electric blue, turquoise and orange. That really lit my fire. At the time, I was too young and innocent to know about the social stigma. 

How was I to know that twitchers, as they were known at the time, probably got bullied at school? That somehow they were even less cool than the other anorak wearers, the train spotters. That they ate flavorless foil wrapped sandwiches from a lunch box on benches, alone. That they were generally regarded as socially awkward, bespectacled, middle aged virgins who weren’t very good at sports, driving, making friends, conversation or choosing clothes.

When surfing came into my life, it was at the expense of the birds. Through my teens, I have no real bird memories. I was in Madeira in late ‘99, where I met a girl in a nightclub in a medieval fort (ever cunning, I’d kept my surf vibes forefront, my partially lapsed bird sensibilities on the downlow). The night ended late and with no sleep, I drove back up from town to Jardim. Obviously, the surf was great. All week I’d watched seabirds fly wing tip to wave face as the swells bent in outside the beautiful Ponta Pequena. Waiting for a set, I saw a Cory’s shearwater (Calonectris borealis) come around the point, wingtip to wave face. The wave peaked and pitched, the bird was completely inside the tube. Not deep, its beak would’ve still been visible to the judges, but it was tunnelled. It was looking right at me, too.

The rocks are tricky coming in, at certain tides it’s easier to bum shuffle over a shallow boulder bit to save your fins, I scraped a buttock. Back on land, I was delirious from the lack of sleep, the perfect surf and the shearwater getting shacked. It all got too much and I broke down, crying and bleeding out the bum. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. 

Right there and then I knew I needed to tell more surf people about birds. 

Some years later, I travelled to a Red Bull event at Surf Snowdonia, North Wales with popular Australian surf journo and socialite Chris Binns. Needing an injection of adrenaline, I took Binnsy to nearby RSPB Conwy wetland reserve and whispered in his ear, “There’s no such thing as a seagull.” He played it cool, but I could tell that it blew his above average sized mind. 

On one occasion, I found myself enjoying a 5-star Portuguese breakfast with surf lords Marsh and Callinan. Ryan had watched The Big Year on his flight from Oz, a comedy about men trying to see as many bird species as possible in a calendar year (the US record is 837 species). I could tell he was curious, no, enthralled, so I regaled him with tales of the real life big year scene in the UK. I’m pretty sure he wanted to steal away to Tagus Estuary and bust out the 8 x 42’s, but alas taskmaster Dog quashed his birding dreams to concentrate on surfing. Yeah, OK, later that week he beat Medina, won the comp and qualified. But I still can’t help but think he missed a great opportunity to really turn his life around. 

A French shaper from Hossegor and I once chased a left point in Spain, an hour or so west of Mundaka (which, by the way, has an excellent birding spot in the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve). His previous interactions with birds had mainly been by eating them; the local delicacy here is foie gras, whereby fowl are force fed with a pipe until their liver expands to ten times its size. Another local speciality is Ortolan bunting (Emberiza hortulana), which is illegally trapped in cornfields, drowned in armagnac, then eaten, including bones, in a single bite. The tiny roasted songbird is eaten under a table cloth ‘to hide from god.’ Anyhows, at the magnificent Santoña Marshes in Spain, I introduced him to the delights of still living birds, from a wooden hide fifteen minutes from the wave. 

It was spring, and the raptors had made their way back from Africa across the Picos de Europa mountains, including osprey (Pandion haliaetus), including short toed snake eagles (Circaetus gallicus); your big guns, your showpiece charismatic macrofauna. Then, in a scrubby roadside thicket, the small, unassuming common redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus). “See that little reddish brown guy? He crossed the sand twice, before his first birthday.” Yep, all 15g of the wee sick cunt, taking on the harshest death zone on earth, solo, twice per year. “Wait. The Sahara? On his… own?!?” He was immediately intoxicated by the migratory magic of a little bird he’d never even noticed existed before. That was several years ago, and whenever we bump into each other now, he still keeps me abreast of any recent redstart sightings.

(BTW if you got $150 burning a hole, try to pick up a copy of The Redstart by John Buxton, possibly the second greatest* bird book ever written. Buxton observed the species while held in a POW camp in Germany during WW2 and wrote the book after his release. A stunning piece of work.)

A lay day at the Las Americas Pro Tenerife QS1000, I was sharing a hire car with Nic Leroy, WSL Europe’s Media Manager. For a tall man, his demeanor can be somewhat slumped. Hey, you’d be jaded too, if you’d written over two thousand press releases entitled ‘Pro Junior Quarter Finalists Decided at Pantin.’ We set off on the switchback road that climbs Mt Teide, pulling over in the pine forested lower slopes to twitch some of the endemic Canarian songbirds found nowhere else on earth, like the African blue tit, (Cyanistes teneriffae), the Sardinian warbler (Curruca melanocaphala), blue chaffinch (Fringilla teydea) as well as, of course, the Canary Island chiffchaff (Phylloscapus canariensis). We minced gingerly through the boulder strewn understory, binos primed. Just a few steps into the woodland a flittering bird song commences, but as you walk it’s always just off in the near distance. It takes about twenty minutes for wildlife to ignore you, when suddenly birds appear all around, like magic. “Since the early animals first evolved, earth was entirely bereft of call or song for a further 200 million years,” I whispered at Nic in my best Attenborough. “Primeval forests contained no trilling insects, nor chorus of vertebrate animals. For more than nine tenths of its history, earth has lacked any communicative sounds whatsoever.” He’s yet to sell all his golf clubs and buy his first binoculars, but I feel he’s now closer than ever.

One of Europe’s rarest birds, the Azores bullfinch, or priolo (Pyrrhula murina) clings on in a tiny remaining patch of its natural habitat in the northeast of Sao Miguel island (guess what? All the rest has been turned into cow pasture, cheese dicks) a short drive from the QS comp venue at Ribeira Grande. I drove up in search of it one arvo, didn’t see any, but I did find its jizz. Jizz is of course evidence of birds, or “the overall impression or appearance of a bird garnered from such features as shape, posture, flying style or other habitual movements, size and colouration combined with voice, habitat and location.” I actually talked about the priolo so much on the webcast I got a few complaints, mainly from fellow commentator philistines. Weirdly, the only time I’ve really been told off. Obviously, that only deepened my resolve to speak bird truth to ornithophobe power.

Birds are the surfer’s ultimate muse, inspiration, coaching manual, companion and protector. Sure, dolphins might win most animal popularity ankle tattoo contests, but dolphins aren’t really surfing. They are swimming, synchronized swimming perhaps, but still swimming. Birds draw inspirational lines; beautiful arcing cutbacks, sleek bottom turns, they even stall using their tail. Birds, just like surfers, give great importance to preening, basking in golden sunbeams. Birds cultivate striking and beautiful plumage to attract a mate. Seabirds must also preen to keep their plumage well-oiled and tended to in order for it to function against the ravages of salt water and the elements. The surfer washes out their wetsuit to promote its life and function. After scoring a secret spot, surfers try to keep it hush. Birders engage in suppression—the act of concealing news of a rare bird from other twitchers.

Then in the culture, there’s Hale’iwa, (home of the frigate bird), duck-diving, The Wounded Seagull, Bird Mahelona, The Condor, Owl Chapman, swallowtails, beak noses, Skip Frye’s logo, Osprey Surfboards, Bird Rock, Bird’s Surf Shed, Surf’s Up, Gul Wetsuits, the duck/penguin walk (see vintage Occ), The Voyage of the Cormorant, Bino Lopes (OK bit of a stretch). There’s Curren’s smooth figure 8 wrap at small Supers that pans seamlessly to a gull in glide, one of the finest sequences from Sonny Miller’s Searching For Tom Curren. There’s even @birds_surf a Twitter dedicated to identifying seabirds that happen to appear on the WSL webcasts… there’s much, much more.

“Free as a bird” illustrates how the very concept of liberty is chiefly associated with our feathered friends. How befitting then, that foremost among surfing’s secret network of underground birders, happens to be one of the most revered free surfers of all time. “My parents took us on a bus tour to Central QLD / Northern Territory when I was around 13-14 years old,” recalls Brendan ‘Margo’ Margiesen. “Travelling with us was a man called Keith Williams, a botanist and naturalist, with a wide range of knowledge in birds. I saw Keith pressing native plants with newspaper and cardboard, held together by a belt. I thought it was quite interesting. He took me under his wing, gave me a bird book, a pair of binoculars and taught me the bird species. After the trip, I studied the Field Guide Book of Australian Birds and there I was, a dorky teenager with a bird watching hobby wandering around the bushes of Byron Bay with a pair of binoculars (laughs). I was hooked. These days, birdwatching for me is the moment where I can completely forget what the waves are doing, what the surf looks like and daily routine, it is my Zen time. It’s addictive because it’s such a thrill to see a new species (for your life list) or an endangered species.” 

South African tube fiend Josh Redman warns of birding’s grippy talons. “If you take a minute to observe the lives of birds, beware. You may get sucked in too, it’s a slippery slope (laughs). It’s such a healthy hobby, I don’t see why more surfers are not into it. It’s all about chasing these uncertain payoffs in nature. When going on a surf trip, I first figure out what quiver I’m going to take according to what type of waves I’m hoping to get. Then I research the type of habitat is in that area and what type of birds I could find. You can sit in the lineup for hours waiting for that wave of the session. You may get it, you may not. It’s the same for birders when you put in solid hours hoping to see a particular bird, especially if it’s a lifer.

“Most people are surprised that I’m into birding and are, initially, quite amused. If anyone asks questions, I will chew your ear about it and definitely try to convert you. It is just such an interesting side of nature with so many variations of size, colour, habitats and calls, there is just an endless world to learn about and explore as well as take you to so many places that you would never have gone, which the same applies to surfing. Please let me know when the Stab Birding trip is going to happen (laughs).”

Birds by land, birds by sea. All around us. Beautiful, heroic, clever, mysterious, adventurous, the direct descendants of theropod dinosaurs. Blessed with the superpower of flight, god-like, revered by the ancients. The fastest creatures in the universe, they can fly at 320km/h, cover 12,000km non-stop, dive, swim, run, climb, cross vast oceans, deserts and mountains, migrate across the planet at will, following the sun, stars, winds and magnetic fields. They can eat, sleep and reproduce in mid air, you can bird whilst you surf, before and after. You can anticipate, track and stalk them… and yet nobody dies. You can follow the changing of the seasons by their song, the heralding of a new dawn, the coming of spring, a perpetual promise of levity, rejuvenation, optimism and renewal.

Birds have been on earth some hundred million years, and are likely to be around long after the horn goes on the human race’s elimination heat. 

“There’s no there, there” quipped famous pedant Gertrude Stein. But what there almost certainly is, is birds. Everywhere you look. 

OK, over to you.

*The Peregrine by JA Baker, is not only the finest bird / creative non-fiction book in existence, but almost certainly one of the greatest books ever written in the English language.