Your Birding Anniversary (1 Viewer)

Do you remember your Birding Anniversary? Do you do anything special for it? My anniversary is on 16th February (18th anniversary this Sunday) I always go to my first ever local patch which is The Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. Back then a pond was full of birds sadly not so much now but I still get good birds there, I'm looking forward what will turn up this year on my 18th anniversary.

Don’t remember the date, Euan. I do remember the reason. We had some visiting friends that were big birders. They wanted to see the Elegant Trojan which, at the time, a few would come up to the Huachuca Mountains in AZ to nest. We took them there and a few other places in the area looking for birds. Missed the Trogan but the trip made me realize how I could combine walking in nature with birding. It took me another 5 years before I saw a Trogan!
Found this forum shortly after the visitors left.

28 May, 1979, at the age of 12, I became keen enough to write my birding notes up and put them in the folder, something I still do although they have been printed rather than hand written for a very long time.

Unfortunately my obsessively tidy mother chucked out all my meticulously kept ring-bound birding notes from age 12-16 while I was away at uni, so my first ever 'proper' birding trip (to Gosforth Park Nature Reserve - lifers including willow tit and tawny owl if I remember correctly) is lost to posterity.
I do remember the anniversary of seeing my first yellow-browed warbler though, which needed to be written up in order to get accepted in those days - 14th October....a very long time ago!