Dressed for a very cold night's sleep in a hide somewhere during the very cold winter of 2010!
Hello Sunshine Person!
Welcome to my Biking Birder blog.
My name is Gary Brian Prescott and I am known
as The Biking Birder.
Since my first Biking Birder adventure back
in 2010, the story of which I am currently telling, I have had five other
Biking Birder adventures.
From I to VI, here goes . . .
BBI – 2010 A whole year cycle around the
United Kingdom visiting every RSPB, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds,
nature reserve and W&WT, Wildfowl & Wetland Trust visitor’s centre.
(251 bird species seen)
BBII – 2015 A repeat of 2010 but with more
RSPB reserves to visit and a change of route in order to add some of the summer
migrant bird species missed in 2010.
BBIII – 2016 Just continued cycling with the
aim of trying to beat The European BIGBY record. Big Green Big Year, Ponc Feliu
Latorre of Catalonia, Spain held the record having seen 304 bird species by
cycling in NE Spain/Catalonia.
The story of my BIGBY is in a book available
on Amazon . . .
BBIV – 2018 A six month Peruvian adventure, I
cycled from Lima to The Manu National Park, three months of cycling over The
Andes. In the Manu, having given the bike away, I used an Alpaca packraft to
paddle down an Amazon tributary called the Madre de Dios.
BBV – 2019. Well the aim was to cycle back
from the Ebro Delta Bird Festival in Spain/Catalonia. Unfortunately the bike’s
back wheel had other ideas as I cycled in the Pyrenean foothills!
BBVI – 2022 No fossil fuel transport of any
kind being allowed for a ‘clean’ BIGBY, I spent the whole year cycling on the
British mainland, most time spent along the east coast, trying once more to
break Ponc’s European BIGBY record.
So there you have it.
More Biking Birder adventures to come!
Back to 2010 . . .
8th February 2010
I'm late, I'm late for a very important Date 😱
Alice in Wonderland - Disney
I awoke in a panic, not too unusually. Usually do. Where am I? What day is it? Who am I?
Where was Oakwood School?
The first Eco-schools visit of the day and I did not know where the school was. I ran to a nearby Tesco Express and with a little help, every little helps, and a phone call of 'where are you?' "not far from Chichester," I found the address. (How much easier it is nowadays with google maps on a Smartphone. Back in 2010 I only had torn out pages from a road atlas to help me plan a route or find a reserve.)
After a cycle ride of a couple
of miles I eventually found the school entrance; only the drive down to the
actual school seemed longer than the ride had been to the entrance! Oakwood Prep School, was in the middle of some lovely, wooded parkland, set
around a large Georgian house.
Bird feeders were outside classrooms and with
Eco projects everywhere, the school was well on its way to a Green Flag,
probably got their third Green Flag by now. I do so hope so. Let me explain.
Eco Schools, run by the Keep Britain Tidy group, is an environmental scheme for
schools to adopt with rewards incrementally given according to progress all the
way up to the prestigious Green Flag. Mighty are the schools, in the Eco
education stakes, that achieve such status.
I was given a coffee and I waited outside counting the birds; Great-spotted Woodpeckers, two Green Woodpeckers, one Long-tailed Tit, seven Nuthatch and a number of the commoner titmice.
It
was then time for me to give an assembly to lovely, enthusiastic children. As
usual the Albatross flight caused hilarity, especially when I had all the
teachers do the Albatross dance. Try it yourselves, arms out straight, imagine
a la la la waltz, sung cheerily by Joyce Grenfell and Norman Wisdom and sway as
you move around. Great fun, no?
Another coffee in the library after the fun, was appreciated before I left for Jessie Young Husband Primary School, not too far away. Another assembly of similar content as before and then a tour of a totally different school, a wonderful mainstream Primary school. My preferred sort of school being multicultural and open to all, the school reminded me of my years teaching at an amazing Primary School in Wolverhampton, Merridale Primary back in the 1990s.
The children here were extremely proud of their Eco Schools work, bubbling over with enthusiasm as they showed me around and why not? They had got a smashing
sensory garden with a maze, composting and bird feeding areas and as detailed
on their website, they were at the time of my visit, collecting plastic bottles
to make a greenhouse. I have seen since that my assembly and visit are
mentioned on the school's website and unfortunately, a photo has been added.
The rest of the day, after I dragged myself away from this marvelous school, from their proud and hard-working staff and their friendly children, all of whom had been desperate to tell me of their and the school's achievements, was spent visiting the nearby Chichester Cathedral.
5.50 miles
126 feet elevation up and down
😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀
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