Lee G. R. Evans
Lee Evans is a well-known British bird-lover, author on rare birds and bird tour leader. He has seen 579 species of bird in Britain and Ireland; however his principal interest is British Isles yearlisting, where he aims to see over 300 species of bird in the wild in Britain and Ireland each year.[1][2] Amongst his many accolades are seeing a record 386 species in Britain and Ireland in 1996, 704 species in the Western Palearctic in one calendar year, 222 species in Britain in January and 209 species in just one week - he is addicted and obsessed in every way.
Evans setup and runs the UK 400 Club, a group for birders interested in rare birds and twitching, but his role there is sometimes seen as a conflict of interest by his close rivals[3] - and some editorial comments he has made and the resulting writs[4] have made him a controversial figure in British twitching[5]
He has written 27 different books on birds, including the highly acclaimed and sought-after Rare Birds in Britain 1800-1990 and a number of volumes in his Rare Birds and Scarce Migrants of... series as well as producing a large number of identification papers (such as those on white wagtails, redpolls, Hume's yellow-browed warbler, etc.) and was instrumental in launching the Bird Information Service and its associated magazine and Birdlines.
Evans is a regular contributor to BirdWatching magazine, writing a monthly round-up of UK and Irish rarities.
References
- ↑ Marinne MacDonald (27 January 1993). "Twitcher devotes his life to an obsessive flight of fancy". The Independent. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
- ↑ May, Derwent (12 September 2009). "Feather report: The Ultimate Site Guide to Scarcer British Birds". The Times. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
- ↑ Sam Wollaston (2 November 2010). "TV review: The Trip, Coppers, The Little House, Twitchers: A Very British Obsession, Extreme Fishing with Robson Green". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
The nicest film of the evening was Twitchers: A Very British Obsession (BBC4), which looked, with a raised eyebrow, at the extraordinary world of competitive birdwatching. This is not about going for a walk with a pair of binoculars to see what's around. It's about maniacally chasing round the country, ticking off birds on "Life Lists" and "Year Lists". It's about spotting more birds than anyone else, and about pulling sickies to drive 600 miles to see – or maybe not see – a sandhill crane. It can be about deception, about pretending to see a bird when really you haven't. There's even a self-appointed gavver called Lee Evans. Lee is a twitcher himself and has been fortunate enough to win the Year List six times in the last eight years. "It's like putting Dracula in charge of the national blood transfusion service," moans a rival. The one thing twitching doesn't seem to be about is the birds themselves – none of the twitchers show any affection, or even interest in the creatures they go to such lengths to spot. It's just about the competition. It could be about trains; for one man it was aeroplanes, but he switched to twitching, presumably because he'd seen all the planes. Fascinating and bewildering.
- ↑ Adam Lusher (25 March 2001). "Feathers fly in fight to be top twitcher". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
- ↑ GEOFFREY WANSELL (10 January 2008). "The bird brains: the dark and dishonest world of twitchers". Daily Mail. Retrieved 4 December 2011.