Friday, January 03, 2014

Adventure...

No proper birding today but still added a few common species to the list - Fulmar, Turnstone, Redshank and Oystercatcher while walking Bunty.

A visit to Barter Books in Alnwick to cash in some unwatched DVDs resulted in me coming away with this -

  

'Portrait of a River' by Guy Mountfort describes an expedition to the River Danube in Bulgaria to record and photograph the wildlife. Not a bad buy for a tenner....The 'crew' or 'posse' or whatever the group was called in the day, included such bird stalwarts as Eric Hosking and James Ferguson Lees. I read a little bit about the trip as a kid when I read Hosking's 'An Eye for a Bird' and I liked their style. 

Ages ago Barter' had a copy of 'Portrait of a Desert' about their visit, by special request of the king, to Jordan but I didn't buy it. I should have...

I much prefer reading these old tales of derring -do, when a birding trip to Eastern Europe was a real boundary pushing adventure, rather than looking at the latest gull i.d papers and the like. No wonder I still haven't seen a Caspian Gull in the UK...I will though, one day.    

2 comments:

Shirley-Ann said...

Stewart, am I ever glad that you left a comment on my blog! (and a very kind one at that - thank you :)
I love LOVE LOVE your blog. What a great resource of British wildlife. It is so wonderful to see your passion for our beautiful natural heritage.
And happy birthday! My husband reached his half-century last year - it's a big deal!

Stewart said...

Hi Shirley thank you for the comment, I hope I can keep to your expectations :)