Country diary: An impromptu birding trip with a total stranger – and it was magical

Slimbridge, Gloucestershire: A chance meeting led me and my partner into an afternoon of discovery and generosity that is nothing like a certain YouTube documentary on birding

“What did you just see?” a bearded man asked, through the open window of his old Mini Cooper.

“Slimbridge Wetland Centre is closed. I just missed it!”

We too had been greeted at Slimbridge by a shut door at the visitor centre, dashing our hopes of some late-afternoon birdwatching. “I’m going to find another way to the estuary. Want to hop in?”

Before I had a chance to contemplate this stranger’s offer, my partner, Beth, had jumped into the back seat of the Mini, and we motored away into the unknown.

We set off on foot down a promising track, following our new friend, Phil. With each step towards the shore he became more alive, extolling the weather, the ancient churches on the hills, and our fortuitous meeting.

I’m not an expert birdwatcher, but Phil has a lifetime of honed skill – he cupped his ear to the curlew’s cry, pointed to long-tailed tits, shelducks, dunlins and a medley of geese. We learned that he’s a composer, and helps to run a museum in the mid-Wales town where my sister lives.

As we approached the Severn seawall, roe deer with glowing antlers stared at us. I couldn’t help but think of Listers, a rip-roaring YouTube documentary about two young men who enter the cut-throat world of competitive birdwatching, spending a year chasing glory and rare birds across the US. They found that an ostensibly nature-based activity can become a Pokémon-style “Gotta catch ’em all” exercise, in which underhand strategy and toxic behaviour can be hard to avoid. Not so here, as we followed our excited leader’s stream of identifications and free-flowing observations.

The moment we mounted the seawall, we saw a horizon ablaze with a sunburst of burnished copper. The mudflats were dotted with countless waders and gulls, and the Severn’s mighty tide was already starting to rush in. “See the marsh harrier? Incredible, incredible,” Phil murmured. We watched as the harrier glided over, sublime, sending ripples through the assembly. And there wasn’t a whiff of competition.