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...