Bill Oddie...

 I was so sad to hear of the passing of Bill Oddie the other day. Are there any long time birders who didnt meet him at one place or another? The thing about Bill is that, unlike the other celeb bandwagon jumpers, he was a real, life long birder. And a top one too. You would see the small bumbling figure of a comic on TV, larking around on a Trandem ? or Triplet as I think its known, totally unaware of his skill and expertise in the field of natural history. 

One of the things that drew me to the great man was his link to Northumberland. You will have read on more than one occasion, if you frequent this blog, of my art hero Eric Ennion and his time as director of Monks House Bird Observatory at Seahouses. Well, not only did Bill know of him, he actually knew him and stayed at the observatory with Eric and his wife! What an era that time must have been.

As with many other birder of a certain age, Mr Oddie's and my own paths crossed a couple of times in the field.

I think the first time was when I was a ringer at Hauxley Ringing Station. It was a quiet early autumn day with a golden glow to the sun as I extracted a small warbler from a 60 ft mist net in from of 'A' Trap on the south edge of the gardens. I felt the presence of a person over my right shoulder and turned to see Bill standing there watching. We exchanged a few pleasantries by the net pole about the recent birding, though I cant remember the details, and off he went, birding.

Not long after, Northumbria Ringing Group was holding its annual members weekend on Holy Island in October. Bill was invited to the soiree to give us a talk on his birding travels. About 20 of us were crammed into the back room of the Lindisfarne Hotel on the Island where we had a great evening chatting to and listening to Bill's tales. At one point he put up a slide of a juvenile  (then) Dendroica warbler and asked us if we could identify it? In days before the internet and great digital images, these things weren't easy, but I recognised this one straight away even though Id never been further west than Wales. It was a Chestnut sided Warbler. Bill was most impressed!

From there, the evening descended into a booze fuelled early hours lock-in, but as the drink took its toll, Bill took the sensible option and vanished to his room.

Next day, I can feel the hangover now typing this, with the wind from the west, migrants were sparse. Head pounding, with a greenish-grey pallor and a bottle of milk in my top pocket, to ease the stomach,  we bumped into Bill along the Crooked Lonnen where he had very little in the way of birds.

I didn't meet him again, but did read his write up of that weekend in Birdwatch and subsequently in his book 'Gripping Yarns'. His phrase, 'there was more bonhomie and booze than birds' summed it up brilliantly.

Rest in peace Bill, you were an inspiration...

20 years of Blogging!

 On 15th July 2006 this blog began as Boulmer Birder. At the time we lived in Longhoughton and every dog walk was down to the Boulmer headland less than 2 miles away. Back then a Corn Bunting singing on wires was one of the last of his kind with only one other record since. When I watched Boulmer in the 90s we had around 18 singing males on the headland in areas where the main agriculture was the growing of vegetables such as cabbages and turnips. We would walk the quiet WW2 runways and the coast often not meeting a sole. Now the area is a cordoned off no go area with Private Keep out signs on every single 5 bar gate so the burgeoning population of visitors, tourists and caravanners are corralled onto a 50 mtrs wide coast strip.

When I set the blog up I was mostly inspired by Graeme Catley's Peewit blog and his amazing photographs and his prolific birding output and Alan Tilmouth's Grocer blog ( now defunct so no link). I was never going to keep up with that but small steps followed. Since my first full year in 2007 when I made over 250 entries, the blog has slowly declined down to its lowest output of 26 posts in 2025, a mere 10% of the starting figure! The main reason for that, I'd say, is the increase in Social Media usage and the now ubiquitous use of Smart Phones rather than sitting down at a PC. But, I still enjoy the blog, so a couple of posts a month will still be forced upon you, dear readers! I wonder how many readers out of the 3.5 million hits are still visiting since the start? By the way, don't take any notice of the hit counter going forward, its just a sea of 'bot' hits, another feature we didn't see at the start or even a year ago!  

Here in July 2026, those old posts seem so dated. The blog has seen a few changes over the years from Boulmer Birder to From the Notebook and on to Stewchat. We now live a couple of miles further north where I watch the patch around our village but still make visits to Boulmer mainly during migration seasons and it still turns up some good birds. Its not just birds either ( though it was never just birds really) that grace the output. You are as likely to see an insect or plant as a bird but one thing remains constant. The blog is mostly about the wildlife of Northumberland and always will be, other than a couple of weeks holiday a year to break things up for a change.

What next? For me, retirement is not far away, all being well, when I intend to put a lot more time into the things I actually enjoy doing. There will be more time for art, more time for walks for wildlife, more gardening and who knows what else, maybe a bit of fishing again? One thing is certain, you will read about some of it on here.

Thank you all for visiting and making comments on my posts, they are all very welcome. Thanks to all of the virtual friends I have made through blogging, Dean Stables, Steve Gale, Mark Skevington, Gavin Haig, the late and sadly missed Dylan Wrathall, Seth Gibson, David Bryant, Simon Thompson, Alastair Forsyth et al the list is endless! The role these individuals play should not be underestimated. Most I have never met, but I hang on to their words of inspiration as if they were old school mates.

So that's all folks here's to the future and keep blogging!

Corn Bunting, this one a bit clearer and closer from North Uist in 2014...

  

  

     

New.

 Its been a good spell this week for the garden mothing with several new species recorded. Im always amazed how the list just continues onwards and upwards after 17 years regular trapping here.

I find the main cause is weather. After a week long heatwave of record breaking temperatures down south in June I'm sure moths disperse widely. On a local level this occurs too. If we get a warm day inland with a westerly breeze, I think it lifts moorland moths higher into the air and they drift out towards the coast where my trap is waiting.

Here are the new additions other than the Scarlet Tiger - 

Wood Sage Plume Capperia britanniodactylus

Wood Sage Plume only has one other Northumberland record when 30 larvae were found in the Cheviot Hills in 2024.

Isotrias rectifasciana

Monochroa lucidella 2 of these.

Epinotia abbreviana, an elm feeder. We have a small elm I planted beside the trap that is now 7 feet tall, maybe that has pulled it in?