Prologue

Birdwatching and I have enjoyed, if that's the right term, an intermittent relationship from a very early age. A country upbringing, combined with a pair of birthday binoculars and regular weekend walks as a small boy led me to notice increasingly the small twittering creatures that inhabited the trees and hedges of my ramblings.

Looking for and observing these unfettered creatures increasingly gave more purpose to the pre-lunch ambles every Sunday, and eventually finding and seeing them became an end in itself. A pastime I understood to be called birdwatching.

I came to delight in seeing their myriad shapes, characteristics and, above all, their beauty. I enjoyed in the wild those that I saw, and marvelled at those, oft of a brighter hue, that inhabited the world further afield. My searching never took me far, I was not driven to extend my sightings to far flung parts of the world or, indeed, even the wilder, untamed domains of Hertfordshire in which I grew up. Rather I was content with the partridges and pipits, and buntings and tits of the woods and fields of home.

Alas, as my schooldays and teens drew to a close my relationship with birds waned. We saw less and less of each other, my passion subsided and eventually we parted. The binoculars remained in their case, the field guides unopened, and the country lanes untrod. I had discovered an alternate world of work, backpacking and other passions.

I did not stop altogether noticing the birdies; I would still marvel at various species I saw on my travels to parts of Africa, Europe and Asia, but they were incidental and an aside to me travelling.

Then middle age crept up like the thief of time it is and, as many men are, I was drawn back to interests of my childhood. An inexplicable desire came upon me to seek again the birds of wood and field, and after a few simple amblings I experienced again that innate pleasure in witnessing the antics, variety and simple beauty of British birdlife.

A lot has changed in those years since I last practised this hobby and much of it down to the web and the wealth of information available to birdwatchers professional and amateur. I have found and enjoyed a variety of sites and bloggers, and read with interest their stories and observations.So, this blog is simply to be my humble and personal reflection on my own amateur birdwatching efforts, and a modest record of sites and sightings I have enjoyed.

Please expect not reports of rare birds blown to our shores from faraway lands, or records of the discovery of a Siberian wiffle-waffle or some such exotica: I wouldn't know one if I saw one. My efforts will be modest and my achievements worse. For me the joy is in their beauty and being in their environment, not the tracking down and ticking of lists.

Nonetheless, I hope that some of my recordings may be as valuable to others as the more dedicated birdwatchers' experiences have been to me since I recently rekindled this passion.