Wow, what a great way to spend a dull nightshift reading some fabulous tales !!
My story brings back a lot of great memories, but I always think that I was lucky growing up in the North East Of Scotland.
Cue Homer Simpson dream sequence...........
It was the summer of 80' when a warden from the RSPB reserve at Fowlshugh just south of Aberdeen came along to our school to give a talk - a brave man considering that the class was on our 3rd teacher of the year (the first left with 'stress' the second just disapeared) and we were only in primary 4 !!! You had to park your car 4 blocks away other wise it would spend the rest of its life on the BMX ramp !!
After the initial larking about at the back, something about this guy made me listen, he spoke the way we did, in a broad 'ehbirdeen' accent, and when you are a kid you can relate to that kind of thing....i.e 'he didnae soond like a ticher', but more amazingly (to me) he showed us slides of Puffins (I thought at the time they were penguins !!) and told us that these creatures were not to be found in Edinburgh zoo, but 20 miles down the road to Dundee !!!! Well that was it for me, I badgered my Dad for weeks on end to take me down there to see the penguins (!!) (much to my sisters distress) and on one fine sunny Sunday we set off in our inappropriate footwear and bright orange cagools and my Dixons own brand 8x30 binos which Granny had got me a few years previous, me smarting at the time as I had been promised the Action Man Helicopter !!.
As we parked the car I heard a sound (and smell) that still lives with me to this day, the sound of 1000's and 1000's of seabirds shreiking out, but we couldn't see anything........mum and sister remain in the car as we set off, starting to see a few birds over the clifftops, but where is the noise coming from ?? As we followed the cliffpath for a bit we round a corner and there it is.....................our jaws droped as we saw the sheer amount of penguins (later to be identified as Guillemots, Razorbills and Puffins).
3 hours later (it seemed like 10 minutes my mum and sis came round the corner only for the spectacle to be somewhat lost on them, however a Fulmar put that right my excreeting (spelling !) on her bright orange cagool, (she still won't buy RSPB raffle tickets to this day) and so the day was complete.
I never looked back from there, my next purchase being the Osborne book of Birds and my Dad sending off the £3 cheque for my YOC membership.
The local YOC group was run by a guy I think called Ian McLeod who was a giant of a guy, but my hero as a kid, I remember him pointing out Hen Harrier to me on that trip, not bad for my first ever raptor, the group had other superb leaders in it but I always am grateful to two guys Ian and Richard who took me under their wing (pardon the pun). Richard was about 6 years older than me and Ian about 4. Richard had passed on his knowledge to Ian over a few years and the Ian sort of took me on, and the system continued. I progressed on, making loads of friends in the group, eventually moving on to ringing and survey work with these guys till I discovered the other variety of Great British Bird.
I always look back and think about not only as a hobby, but as a life shaping experience, at 15 I went to my first ever Sand Martin ringing day, on that same day a friend at school died of solvent abuse, so if you hear me in these pages banging on about educating our kids about Natural History, it is because I always think I might have gone down that road myself, had these guys that took me birding when I was a kid through the YOC and other clubs not took an interest in me and shaped me into the person that I am today (I hope !!)
Just writing about this certainly has brought back some great memories !!
Paul
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