The talk was great and summarised his book well. To anyone who hasn't got it yet it is his autobiography and covers his early years, growing up in urban London and his passion for birds and wildlife despite living in a busy city centre with what is wrongly considered by the general public a 'lack of birds'!
The book mirrors my life in terms of the same fascination with wanting to learn more about the birds around me and both growing up in London. We also both 'borrowed' bird books from the library for rather long periods of time and memorised each page. I think we both still have some of those early books!
I first met David while walking around the Brent reservoir birding and then in later years we started birding at Wormwood Scrubs. We started to realise its true potential as a migrant stop-over point when we found Pied Flycatchers, Tree pipits etc
David has gone on to find a long list of scarce migrants there with Wryneck (which I got to see), Richard's Pipits, Little Bunting, the first UK wintering Redstart (which we named Rudolph) etc etc
His passion for showing young people in cities the wealth of wildlife they can see if they just look up is to be commended .. and his enthusiasm for birds and wildlife can clearly be seen on his Television appearances
I must admit that when I am feeling down about the lack of birds on Blakeney Point the text updates from the Scrubs sent to me by David keep me going. If he can keep going when it is hard work finding anything, then so can I !
Keep up the good work David!
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