The arrival in the region of a whitethroated robin, a bird not normally seen on British soil, sent birdwatchers into quite a frenzy. Chris Brayshay, a long-time twitcher, gives an insight into the often maligned pastime.

‘GET a life,” snarled the man in the van as he and his metal box sped past. Others, unable to articulate, simply sound their horn in derision as they pass the clutch of birdwatchers standing behind a forest of telescopes, overlooking the North Tees marshes from the edge of the A178 Seaton Carew Road.

Fortunately, idiots like that are in an increasing minority. Broadcasters like Sir David Attenborough, Chris Packham, Simon King and Bill Oddie have triggered a new interest in bird and wildlife watching. Millions watched Attenborough’s Life on Earth series, and Big Brother lost out in the TV ratings war to Springwatch.

It must be 35 years ago that I made a pilgrimage to mid-Wales to catch a sight of one of only a surviving handful of red kites.

Now, with the swing of the pendulum back towards conservation this spectacular raptor can be seen almost anywhere in the UK. Other birds of prey are also making a comeback, including the once near-exterminated peregrine falcon.

It is amazing to have a stunning close-up shot of a particular bird on your television screen – but that is still no substitute for seeing it in its natural environment.

I was privileged to see the first, and only, black lark, to be seen in the UK, on the Island of Anglesey eight years ago this very week, a bird which should have been in Turkey or the Caucasus.

Just like the arrival of the white-throated robin in Hartlepool this week, there lies the fascination – how a 20 millimetre frame of feather and bone can make a journey of thousands of miles across land and sea.

Most people would have resigned themselves to the fact the white-throated robin would remain no more than a drawing or colour plate in a reference book – never dreaming they would ever get the chance of seeing one in the flesh. Birdwatchers do dream of these things – that’s why they converged on Hartlepool Headland on Monday from all over the country.

BIRDWATCHERS, or so-called twitchers, people who are prepared to travel across the UK to see a rare bird, help sustain a multi-million pound optics industry.

Gone are the old heavy “bins” that birders of my vintage began birding with, to be replaced with lightweight binoculars with colour-coated lenses and multi-positioning rubber eye pieces to suit spectacle wearers; while light, but strong, carbon tripods replace the hernia inducing heavy traditional tripods of yesteryear.

The clothing industry also caters for the birder with waxed, lightweight, weatherproof, multi-pocketed jackets, fleeces and rain-proof trousers. There are even tailor-made back packs to accommodate telescopes and tripods.

The average twitcher carries gear worth several thousand pounds. I used an old Shell road map to find my way to the Welsh red kites, but these days twitchers use an electronic pager and sat nav and to get up-to-the-minute information on sightings and their locations.

The average spent on a pair of binoculars is £400, while a telescope will cost well over £1,000.

The local economy also gets a boost whenever twitchers descend on a town.

“It certainly doesn’t hurt,” says Scott Gaiety, whose family owns Verrils fish and chip shop on Hartlepool Headland. Birders call the greenery surrounding the shop The Chip Shop Trees – as they are often the first landfall for exhausted and hungry migrant birds.

The word “twitcher” is slang, a derogatory term used by the uninitiated. It presupposes that everyone is content to confine their birdwatching to their own garden or home patch.

But surely, it is healthier getting out into the countryside and fresh air, and see birds in – or out of – their natural environment, than sitting hunched in front of a TV screen or computer keyboard?

Not everyone can afford expensive holidays abroad, so seeing an avian visitor turning up in the UK from a foreign shore could be the only chance a watcher gets of seeing a particular rarity.

LET’S put to bed another myth.

Most twitchers are responsible, educated people, as the Headland resident learnt when he allowed a never-ending procession of wellbehaved watchers into his garden to watch the white-throated robin.

The one thing they all have in common is a fascination and love of birds, a thrill a minority of people deride.

Ted Parker, self-confessed twitcher and past chairman of the Teesmouth Bird Club, said: “There is an element of the derogatory in the term twitching, because of the belief that people are obsessed with chasing rare birds. But everyone wants to see something different.

“Seeing a rare bird is no different to, if you are an angler, wanting to catch the biggest fish, seeing a rare train, if a train spotter, or a rare stamp, if a collector.’’ Mr Parker said many bird watchers also carry out “mundane’’ surveys , bird counts and work in partnership with other organisations and clubs. He said: “These people don’t just go around chasing rare birds – they add to our knowledge and enjoyment of birds."

Top North-East sightings

Brian Unwin, The Northern Echo’s Birdwatch columnist, recalls some highlights of his 50-plus years of birdwatching in the region.

1959: Britain’s second-ever dusky thrush (nests central Siberia) on Hartlepool Headland.

1982: Then regarded as Britain’s first long-toed stint (Siberia) at Saltholme Pool, Teesmouth. In 1995, it was dropped to “second” after a report of one in Cornwall in 1970 was accepted.

1989: Double-crested cormorant (North America) at Charlton’s Pond, Billingham.

1992: Britiain’s first spectacled warbler (Mediterrranean) in Filey’s clifftop country park.

1996: Britain’s second great knot (Siberia) at Seal Sands and Bran Sands, Teesmouth.

1999: Britain’s first short-billed dowitcher (Canada), initially in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, but later in Teesmouth’s Greatham Creek area.

2003: Britain’s first taiga flycatcher (Siberia) at Flamborough Head.

2007: Britain’s first Pacific diver (Siberia, Alaska, Canada) at Farnham Gravel Pits, Knaresborough – and its second-ever brown flycatcher (Siberia) at Flamborough Head.

2009: Britain’s second glaucous-winged gull (Pacific coasts of Russia, Alaska and Canada) in Teesmouth’s Saltholme Reserve/Cowpen Marsh, and its first-ever eastern crowned warbler (Russian Far East, NE China and Japan) at Trow Quarrey, South Shields.