If I used to be requested what influences remodeled me from a birdwatcher to a birder / lister, I might have to pick two books:
A Twitcher’s Diary, by Richard Millington:
….and Invoice Oddie’s The Huge Hen Race:
I’ve met each authors on many events: I first ran into RGM on the well-known (infamous?) Nancy’s Cafe in Cley again within the early eighties. Though he spends plenty of his time vintage dealing these day’s, he can nonetheless be seen across the Cley sq.. Should you’ve by no means learn his twitcher’s diary, you actually ought to! It is a memoire of the golden days when a life checklist of 300 nonetheless put you within the prime couple of hundred UK birders!
The primary time I met Invoice Oddie was by the roadside at Stiffkey, within the ‘Flint Barn Layby’. I used to be happy to indicate him a Purple Kite within the distant conifer belt – nonetheless a uncommon chook in these days. He was a member of a group that took half in a televised 24 hour Hen Race in 1982, being overwhelmed by one other group together with Invoice Urwin, the Head of Key Stage 2 at Acle Major that I changed in 1986. This guide impressed me to participate in a number of subsequent chook races, a few which my group – The Cley Casuals – received. We obtained our prize from Invoice on the Rutland Hen honest! I met Mr Oddie on quite a few different events, and – I am happy to say – by no means as soon as talked about the Goodies!
