young birders

many years ago i was a kid lister and only in the last few years i lost my title of 'youngest birder in halifax' which i thought was a shame seeing as though im 38!!

the trouble with being a kid lister is no one believes anything thing you find! as i used to find to their loss.though the bradford group despite at the time trying to incorporate most of the british isles into their recording area, did never doubt my sightings, i used to ring tony gough my sightings from elland gp, and never once did i get a sceptical comment off him, though after finding the grey headed wagtail at elland in 1990 which i admit i phoned out as a blue headed wagtail! though in my defence i did only see it in flight!

Before i was 18 i had done some fairly decent birding finding good birds eg the grey headed wagtail,little gull,little tern and breeding lesser spotted woodpeckers locally along with a laughing gull at hipperholme which got rejected by the BBRC, id found my own yellow browed warbler at spurn,id twitched the double crested cormorant at billingham and the snowy owl at wainfleet,visited fair isle and scilly.

i could of been a contender

but alas like nearly all 'kid listers' i succumbed to beer and women! their comes a time in 'kid listers' life when beer tastes better than stale coffee from a flask and getting a feel of tit is better than seeing a beared tit.

once you have tasted the beer and decided that a quick juvenile shag in the alley outside the nightclub is better than birding your fucked! birding takes a back seat for a year or 4!

so my advice to 'kid listers' is leave the women alone and stick to coffee, and if your a 'kid lister' from devon id lay off kicking the american bittern around!