Thanks to my partner's dedication and determination, my "Start Birding" and life coaching websites have now been updated. One of the reason's for this is so that I can link this blog and, through it, post regular news about the birdwatching classes. The websites don't allow me to do this easily as they are quite fiddly to update.
Anyhow, I'm up and running. If you're interested you can have a look at the sites and download leaflets and my latest Start Birding newsletter which contains the dates of my classes. I hope that you'll come and join me.
Over the last couple of weeks I've been out surveying a couple of farms, with my birding companion, as part of the British Trust for Ornithology Breeding Birds Survey. The warm weather and sunshine has certainly encouraged the birds to sing, making identification much easier for me when I'm feeling a bit bleary-eyed first thing in the morning. Many birds were collecting nesting materials and looked fully engaged in creating the next generation. I'm looking forward to the late visits when breeding is well underway and we can see how successful the have been.
A couple of years ago, about this time, I took possession of a week old duckling. It's mum had been killed and a friend rescued it from certain death. I had no idea how such a little thing could change my life. We had a fantastic summer looking after it, buying bigger and bigger pens to keep it outside during the day and housing it in our bathroom at night to keep it safe from foxes. We finally had to give her up and I was very pleased that she had 9 ducklings last spring. I'm hoping that she will breed again this year. Fingers crossed.
