Now...pictures will follow....I promise....but heres a little story...
So I went back to college...maybe a mid-life crisis...having had enough of trying to help people that were, for the most part, bent on sabotage.
I didnt buy a Porsche or a Ferrari...I went back to something I loved - the countryside.
I had this lecturer whose name is Reg Lanaway. Ive never heard a bad word said about Reg and everyone seems to love the guy. He must be about 900 years old, as wise as the proverbial owl and spent his life teaching farming, and latterly, birds and small mammal identification.
I was at Plumpton College around the end of the last Century (amazing that we live in times when we, those over 20 I guess, can write that).
Anyway, having been out and about on a few birding trips with Reg, one warm Autumnal day he invites the students (there werent that many of us) to his garden to see some ringing in action. I had no idea what was about to happen to my life....!
The first thing that happened to my life...was Reg's home brew!! Now being an 'old boy', all village and no big towns thank you, he had, over the years, become quite an expert brewer of wine. He had this storage area for the house, I suppose in the old days maybe a boiler room (Victorian/Edwardian house), which he had converted with a few shelves on which sat many demi-johns fizzing, bubbling. That sunny afternoon, relaxing in comfortable chairs in his garden, three students got tipsy on 'try this one' wine.
The other thing that happened is this....I saw a Blackbird. Maybe for the first time in my life I actually saw a Blackbird. Sure, I had seen plenty before then....but I hadnt SEEN one, taken notice of.
Its bright yellowy-orange bill was stonking, fabulous glossy black plummage. And the one thing that got me in to ringing was....the outstanding yellow eye ring worn by an adult male Blabi.
Reg gave me a phone number of a friend of his, Graeme, who was the nearest ringer to where I lived at the time.
Now...its not often you go out at very early o'cock in the morning, in the dark to meet up with someone, a stranger you have never met before though talked to briefly on the phone. It seemed like a good idea to me at least.
So, there I was, in the middle of nowhere, though quite near Arlington Stadium actually, with a torch in my hand having a conversation with this Graeme bloke who I have never met. He has a head torch on - which is beaming in to my eyes so I cant even see anyone in the gloom.
And then something truly magic happened. A Nightingale sang. This brown bird, LBJ (Little Brown Job - see Wild at 54 blog) became an icon to me. THE icon of all birds. And every year I wait in Spring to hear the Nightingale sing.
So I got to see loads of different birds in the hand....then I learnt to do it all myself....and now I ring them myself (though I still ring with Graeme when I can).
So if anyone asks why I bird ring I give them an edited version of this story. If anyone asks why is bird ringing done I give them an edited version of this:
http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/ringing/ringing-scheme
The British Trust for Ornithology run everything ringing. Visit the website and have a read. It might make your birding in to ringing!!
.JPG)
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