Following on from Emily's blog, she's right there are many names here I already recognise, but also some that I don't.
So to get things going some stuff about me.....
I'm a 34yr old father of four, living in damp south wales in the boundaries of Europe's largest urban forest :)
I've had a passion for wildlife since I was a small child, that lay dormant for a while but has re lit with avengeance.
I am also a member of a local bird group and conduct BTO surveys.
My favourite birds if I have to pick some are Jay's and Goshawk, but I love all corvids.
The origins of the username :), the kp is from my surname, the mpie is an abbreviation of magpie (started as magpie is always taken on the internet)in honour of the fledgling I raised and released a few years back
It's both what you do and the way that you do it!
You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren. William Henry Hudson (1841 - 1922)
Oops just realised I can't count - it's 67!
God gave us two ears and one mouth for a very good reason!
Well its lovely to hear a wee bit more about folk!!
So Hi. Never been very active in the voluntary world but hope to have a wee bit more time in the next while as tiny is growing up!!
I've been married for 15yrs + I'm currently a stay at home (olderish) Mum to 4 boys,. Kingfisher 12, Egret 9, Oystercatcher 6 + Skylark 2 1/4. Used to work in residential child care for kids with EBDifficulties. Do lots of running around for all the diff activities my lot do. We love getting out + about, although not as quietly as I might like!!
I've been into birds + wildlife for forever. Used to go to a evening class with my Gran when around 10 + was the youngest by 50-60yrs!! Landed on the Bass for my 10th birthday party!! Did a summer project for the YOC comparing Coot + Moorhen (got a runners up prize)!! LOL At art college birds + the wild world were always turning up in my work. My familiar patch is east of Edin (much the same as Blackbird) + the Borders, now getting to know N.Northumberland.
At the moment I tend to be in the garden, with the children, the birds there are great. I also love to be down the beach, children in the sea, sand castles, etc, as I sea watch. Orup the hills near a burn.
Have offered to help both the schools the children go to + the nursery get envolved in the Big School Bird Watch, unfortunately been was met by resistance + deaf ears :-(
Not sure what will be happening here but will do what I can to help.
My name well its a bird that has 'followed' me around, from summers visiting Aviemor area as a kid, to watching them soar over my house, fish the local river, then join us for a walk round Ythan estuary, when in Aberdeenshire. Friends in the police in Kent referred to me as osprey after hearing me rant. So now whenever travelling we always refere to 'osprey' landing in Kent!!
'In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks' John Muir.
Excuse wobbily dyslexic spelling!
Hi Jenni
Great to hear all about your 'wildlife' history, and it sounds a fabulous way to live your live.
Taking time to work for a voluntary purpose with birds has to be admired. Well done you having the heart and soul to do that with your time. The ashy faced Owls sound really interesting as a species to find out about.
The place that you stay sounds like something out of a film-set, and all the wildlife that you are lucky to see on a daily basis too... a bit like ring of Bright Water.
Never seen Choughs yet but we live in hope. I am sure that they are very intelligent as they are members of the Corvid family and are a bright as a button.
Great to know another genuine Edinburgh person here, and I look forward to lots more chats with yourself now and in the future on here
Hey.... you are what you are and well done with all the things that are doing with your life - it makes you the happy contented person that you are that is the main thing. I admire people with all that get up and go in them and it makes a person interesting to know anyday.
Speak again.
Regards
Kathy and Dave
Unknown said: Hi everyone, I'm afraid I couldn't think of a good profile name so I just stuck with me! I am 66years old and was told that my interest in birds started as soon as I could sit up so I don't remember not watching them or helping with ducks and hens etc. on our neighbour's farm and now volunteering at a bird sanctuary in North Wales where we specialise in owls and other BoPs. We care for injured and sick wild birds but also offer homes to unwanted captive born birds. We are involved in education and conservation - especially a project to protect the endemic owls of the island of Hispaniola. The Ashy Faced Barn Owl is the one we are working with mainly at the moment. We need to do field surveys and also develop education programmes to try to end the persecution of owls on the island. In the meantime we are setting up a breeding colony at the zoo in Santo Domingo with a view to an eventual release programme. I live in an old cottage in a clearing in an oak wood in North Wales. There is a waterfall about 30 feet from the side of the house. Our 4 acres of land is on a steep south facing hillside and includes a little bit of garden but is largely uncultivated. We just prevent invasive species like braken and bramble from taking over. There is a big variety of habitat - old trees, bushes and scrub, rock faces, water, young treesand dry stone walls. Over the 20 years we have been here, I think I have seen 63 species of bird in or flying over our land. Also present from time to time are 350 Common Pipistrelles and about 40 Soprano Pips, Pole Cats, Pine Marten, Otter, Feral Goats, Stoat, Common Lizard, Slow Worm, and it goes on !!! How could I not be interested? I volunteer at Llechwedd when the choughs are nesting, at our new site at Portmeirion and am doing my first stint on the Puffin Cruises later this month. I am not really into photography - I think because I am always memorising what I see with my mind's eye. I draw and paint birds and when I do take photos it is for reference for later drawings so they are not necessarily interesting to others! Though living in Wales I am actually Scottish having spent my childhood in Galloway and Edinburgh. My husband was in general practice for a while in Perthshire just as the ospreys came to the Loch of the Lowes so we would watch the first pair fishing while sitting on the side of the loch. Now the Glaslyn ospreys are just down the road! Since the beginning of this year I have been doing an hour's slot on our local community radio with my colleague Pam every week when we try to encourage an interest in wildlife. It's great fun and I have enjoyed learning how to be a presenter and DJ and how to operate a radio studio! You are never too old to start a new career! Jenni
Hi everyone,
I'm afraid I couldn't think of a good profile name so I just stuck with me!
I am 66years old and was told that my interest in birds started as soon as I could sit up so I don't remember not watching them or helping with ducks and hens etc. on our neighbour's farm and now volunteering at a bird sanctuary in North Wales where we specialise in owls and other BoPs. We care for injured and sick wild birds but also offer homes to unwanted captive born birds.
We are involved in education and conservation - especially a project to protect the endemic owls of the island of Hispaniola. The Ashy Faced Barn Owl is the one we are working with mainly at the moment. We need to do field surveys and also develop education programmes to try to end the persecution of owls on the island. In the meantime we are setting up a breeding colony at the zoo in Santo Domingo with a view to an eventual release programme.
I live in an old cottage in a clearing in an oak wood in North Wales. There is a waterfall about 30 feet from the side of the house. Our 4 acres of land is on a steep south facing hillside and includes a little bit of garden but is largely uncultivated. We just prevent invasive species like braken and bramble from taking over. There is a big variety of habitat - old trees, bushes and scrub, rock faces, water, young treesand dry stone walls. Over the 20 years we have been here, I think I have seen 63 species of bird in or flying over our land. Also present from time to time are 350 Common Pipistrelles and about 40 Soprano Pips, Pole Cats, Pine Marten, Otter, Feral Goats, Stoat, Common Lizard, Slow Worm, and it goes on !!! How could I not be interested?
I volunteer at Llechwedd when the choughs are nesting, at our new site at Portmeirion and am doing my first stint on the Puffin Cruises later this month.
I am not really into photography - I think because I am always memorising what I see with my mind's eye. I draw and paint birds and when I do take photos it is for reference for later drawings so they are not necessarily interesting to others!
Though living in Wales I am actually Scottish having spent my childhood in Galloway and Edinburgh. My husband was in general practice for a while in Perthshire just as the ospreys came to the Loch of the Lowes so we would watch the first pair fishing while sitting on the side of the loch.
Now the Glaslyn ospreys are just down the road!
Since the beginning of this year I have been doing an hour's slot on our local community radio with my colleague Pam every week when we try to encourage an interest in wildlife. It's great fun and I have enjoyed learning how to be a presenter and DJ and how to operate a radio studio! You are never too old to start a new career!
Jenni
Hi Kathy (and Dave),
It's great to hear from an Edinburgh lass! I have been away from the best city on earth since 1969 and have pretty well lost touch with most of the folks I knew. Used to live just over the wall from Arthur's Seat so even in my city days I had a good stretch of countryside to explore! I remember being fascinated when I found tiny leeches in Dunsapie Loch! Other great haunts in Edinburgh were the zoo, the Hermitage and Blackford Hill and I spent long days in the summer in the Pentlands.
Just thinking about what I have just written and realising that this was all in my teens I am amazed at the freedom we had in the fifties! You could buy a bus ticket for a few pence that enabled you to travel around the city all day and my brother and I spent weekends doing just that. Now you would never let youngsters wander the way we did miles from home with no mobile phones (four pennies for a call box in your pocket!) and the only rule that we had to be back by tea time!. Such a pity as I know my daughter and now my granddaughter will never have that experience of being a part of the natural world.
I love living here in Wales but still have a wee dream of going back home!
My user name was given me at birth (no, that's wrong, my mother always called me Robert). Brought up on the edge of the Severn estuary and the Forest of Dean, I started birding simply by being able to walk about and see what was there. I moved to North Wiltshire when I joined the police and shortly afterwards became a committee member of the Swindon RSPB group (which sadly ceased to exist last year) and at one time was a Council member of the local Wildlife Trust.
My main change came in the 1980s when I was appointed as the Wildlife Liaison Officer for Wiltshire Police (although I noticed they didn't take any work away). I was lucky then to be involved in the development of the national Partnership against Wildlife Crime and chaired one of the sub groups for a while.
I have retired from the police for about 11 years.
Shortly after I retired I was elected as a Trustee of the RSPB and although my 5 years on the Council ended some time ago my wifeand I still volunteer at Dates with Nature in this area; although there isn't a lot of opportunity here, with no public RSPB presence in or near the Cotswold Water Park at the moment (although I am still pushing, hint!).
The Cotswold Water park sightings website
My Flicker page
Hi everyone :-)
My name's Paul, I'm 33 years old and live in a small North Lanarkshire village near Glasgow. My interest in and passion for birds and wildlife is a relatively new thing. For the majority of 2007 I worked in a garden centre, where they sold bird tables, nest boxes etc. So although I dealt with plants, I'd occasionally get chatting to people about birds. I guess that must've sparked a dormant interest in my brain. Soon after being made redundant near the end of 2007, I found myself on the RSPB website and decided to join, after reading about the decline of some of our most common birds. I try to take part in as many campaigns as I can and am a Collecting Box Host, so basically if you stick your hand down any chairs in our living room, you won't find and money. It's all gone to a good cause :-)
As well as being an RSPB member, I'm also a member of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and the BTO. As for my username. Well it's basically my family name, with the year of my birth tagged on the end.
Paul.
Warning! This post contains atrocious spelling, and terrible grammar. Approach with extreme edginess.
Hi Everyone,
My user name is simply the first letter of my name - Hayden,
About me.... Right I'm 32 Originally from North Lincolnshire I now live in North Somerset, I've been interested in all aspects of wildlife from a very early age, started birdwatching (listing!) properly a few years ago and this led to an even greater importance of conservation, my Girlfriend and I are now members of the RSPB and WWT and joining the Wildlife Trust shortly.
I dabble in photography in all forms, and really should show a few on here for you all to laugh at...lol)
My other interests are Railways, pretty much every aspect of them(used to sit with a pen and paper but that got too easy! now it's photography and riding as many different ones as possible), everyone as a child loves a steam train, well for me it was diesels most grow up and out of it, but there are a few of us lurking amongst the "normals" at such hotspots as Crewe and Clapham Junction, some of us can be spotted (no pun intended!) and others covertly going about their business! I like to think of myself as the latter although my girlfrend thinks i'm obsessed!
I also like aircraft, particularly photography.
I have recently become a Volunteer Information Warden at my local RSPB reserve to show people what what the RSPB is doing to cater for wildlife and chat about the reserve as well as point out a few things and answer questions, as well as try to enthuse people to go outdoors (or stay indoors and look out the window) and to generally notice that the birds are out there and they all need our help.
H
Hi everyone
Very interesting thread of everyones likes and loves of their lives
Great insight folks and a great way to get to really know people
{Thumbs up}
I am a 45 year old and have been interested in birds since my grandad gave me a pair of bins at the age of 10. I am a member of the RSPB, do the garden birdwatch every year, in fact I am obsessive about the birds in my garden and can spend hours watching them from my bedroom window. Just had a family of blue tits taught how to feed on sunflower seeds by two harrassed parents last week - kept me amused for hours!
I live in East Sussex, not the greatest place for exciting birds but you'd be surprised what turns up! Although for me the joy of birdwatching is watching the lives of birds pan out in my garden or local patch and getting close to the birds in my garden, I can nearly get the blackbirds to feed from my hand!
I like wildlife photography of general wildlife but birds, butterflies and flowers in particular although my partner is getting me interested in dragonflies at the moment.
I am a prolific campaign letter writer, signer of petitions etc for the RSPB and general wildlife issues, work in an AONB Unit and support conservation in as many ways as I can!
Kerry
Hi Lolly,
I must have gone past your house and over the Forth Rail Bridge a few times 3 weeks ago on various trains between Kirkaldy / Markinch and Edinburgh! nearly got off at Dalmany or North Queensferry for a photo of the big red (continuously being painted) thing!