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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bill moss" data-source="post: 1315894" data-attributes="member: 28305">Hi folks,Been thinking about this; as with most I'm spoiled for choice. But if you don't mind my rattling on a bit there is one that stands out because.........Are you sitting comfortably?Many of you will know that my interest in birds was sparked off by my childless Uncle taking me with him on expeditions (bus, bikes, walks) in the countryside around St. Albans, starting when I was a 'pre-teen'. Many happy memories of then, especially when Uncle got bitten by a Squirrel and when we found a sleeping Dormouse but let's go on. Then when I was 16 I left school after sitting what is now O-levels and joined the RAF and from then until the mid-1970s (my late 40s) I did no 'serious' birding at all. In the meantime I'd been to what is now Zimbabwe and I'm ashamed to say kept no list of what I saw. Then left the RAF, got married, moved around a bit and finally settled here (S Glos) in 1964; in all that time I can't tell you what birds I saw, apart from Marabou in S. Rhodesia (as it then was) and they do tend to stick in the mind. Then one day, when we were between dogs, D and me went for a walk down the Lane and down the footpath between the fields and there on the ground on the edge of a field was a most remarkable bird. It was about the size of a Mistle Thrush but was orangey-buff with black and white wings and tail, a long thin down-curved bill, and a crest on it's head. We stood and looked at  it and it looked at us and then it took off and flew away across the field looking like a 'flying bath-towel'. 'What was that?' D asked me and I had to confess that I didn't know (my Uncle's expertise began and ended with the more usual birds of the British Countryside).D was convinced that it was an escaped bird but I wasn't so sure, I hadn't noticed any leg rings (naive me). I looked in my old birdy books from way back (when I found them) and of course nothing. So to the library and there it was........a Hoopoe!And that's when I started all over again, bought the books and the optics and the clothing and the rest, as they say, is History.I've seen 3 more Hoopoe since then, including another one a few years later standing in the road about 5 miles from here. I stopped and it flew onto a low branch of a big tree and I got great views of it (but no photo); I've seen lots of other rarities (including a first for the UK), but that first Hoopoe has to be the defining moment.Apologies for the length of this.Bill.</blockquote>

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