Hobbies / Books   (Gardening, walking, books, films, theatre etc.)

Remember donkeys years ago as a young member of the YOC dreaming of seeing a Peregrine or an Avocet. I think the only bird that I have not seen from my distant dreams is the Andean Cock of the Rock which was one of the birds in the Brooke Bond album that first got me interested in birds. Also recall being in the Conway Valley as a kid and my mum pointing to a Hawk with a swallow-tail, I realised that it was a Red Kite through hours of browsing through my Observer Book of Birds. Never saw another for eons and yet travelling along the M40 last Sunday, must have seen at least a dozen. How times change