Biking Birder I January 13th 2010 Police Problems and Promises Broken.

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 . . .

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Biking-Birder-2016-Quest-Adventures-ebook/dp/B07969N4HH/ref=sr_1_1?crid=160HH8C6QW2FE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mQRNwTgcNDeiXGtnGsJlhRSKzJTKu58i-kbCTU4OLutxf70H3CZ1PILpZIy8O0dt1COhHCJUAxEhOxzCESBmS3lk1wAlyZDiJ1kYbFJyCF1d9kc_xEBnv5ELK4GIHAm3.ibGDiYsnvX4frsj_DSkKP8jFPfK6wxYOgHmBqITFiuo&dib_tag=se&keywords=biking+birder+2016&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1736756129&sprefix=biking+birder+2016%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-1

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!

13^th January                                      Feed the birds, tuppence a bag                                         Mary Poppins

               I was woken up by the Bells of St Paul’s deafeningly ringing out at 6 o’clock and I had a breakfast of Horlicks, gingerbread biscuits and nuts. Youth hostel clientele these days are so different to those I recall from staying in them in the distant past of my youth. A soldier at another table was engaged in an intense conversation with an American. There was Dave, the boy from Birmingham, opposite a lady of literary tastes sitting reading DH Lawrence, The Rainbow, together with a man in his forties digesting The Times with his muesli. No youngsters, no youth but all young at heart and travelling. Heavy snow was falling outside and if it was heavy snow here in the centre of London, what was the rest of the Southeast like?

The news was on a large TV attached to the wall at one end of the dining area. The news told of a huge earthquake in Haiti, seven on the Richter scale and the strongest there since 1770, with hundreds dead, possibly thousands.

               Dressed for the bitterly cold weather, looking more like a campouflaged Michelin Man, I left the hostel and made my way to Trafalgar Square, then through Admiralty Arch and into the beautiful, snow deep landscape of St James’ Park. Beneath a canopy of brilliant white hoar frost covered branches, I walked down to the waterside of the large, long lake. What birds could I count on my Green Year list? Feeding the birds using uneaten toast from the breakfast room, I thought that maybe the Greylags [77] may be wilder than the Mallards present. The other duck species present, well I had already seen them all at Barnes WWT reserve.

              I read the notice board beside a closed for the winter café that detailed the history of the park; how it had started as a pig farm centuries ago and had been the site of a leper colony. The area had been bought by Henry VIII as a place for him to hunt deer and then James I. had built a duck decoy.

              More avian connections continued with huge White Pelicans being sent here centuries ago as a gift from a Russian ambassador for Charles II, with an aviary built later. More recently the pelicans of St James’ Park have achieved notoriety for their penchant for eating the local pigeons. I well remember the whole of a front page of a horrible tabloid newspaper, the disgusting and pernicious Sun newspaper, being taken up by a photograph of a forlorn looking pigeon looking out from a pelican’s pouch. Going, going, gone ran the headline with a series of photographs showing the swallowing of and the slow demise of the pigeon.

             Today a reedbed has been added with Water Rails resident and Sedge Warblers in the summer but I had to content myself with geese, ducks and gulls; Lesser Black-backed, Herring, Common and Black-headed, and a Goldcrest. House Sparrow numbers were well down on what I remember from visits in the early 1990s, when they used to come on your hand to feed if one presented them with bird seed.

              Now it was a good job that I had written all of this down in my notebook for as I sat at the table on the balcony of the closed café, two police officers asked me to go around to the building’s side, lean against it and proceeded to search me and ask questions as to what I was up to.

               Obvious to me now but back then I was dressed for the weather and carrying my lunch, a tin of mackerel, jar of pate and some bread. Feed the birds, tuppence a bag. PC Alan and PC Darren had been alerted to a suspicious person carrying binoculars and writing notes by an old couple. Well, I was wearing camouflage clothes and there were bulges in places due to the thermals and extra jumpers that could have been anything. I was also practically equidistant between Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. For fifteen minutes or so they frisked me, searched all of my pockets and examined my notebook, wrote down details and made phone calls. By the end we were all laughing, them with relief I suppose and me at my embarrassment. The ‘off you go’ was friendly but they did not keep their promise of sponsorship; no promised donations for the charities I was supporting were forthcoming. I walked a hundred yards onward and was approached by three more officers of the law. I just pointed to Alan and Darren still in view and said I had already been processed.

              Great! Less than two weeks into the trip and I had almost broken the bike beyond repair and had almost been arrested for looking like a terrorist. What would the rest of the year bring?

              London looked so beautiful with a covering of a few inches of snow and after my escapade with the law I was in high spirits as I made my chastened way past Buckingham Palace and along to Hyde Park Corner. Here I went into the Wellington Arch, which is the one with the hugely impressive statue of Boudicca riding her chariot on top. Inside there were lifts and stairways with exhibitions detailing London traffic; stated upon which was the fact that traffic moved no quicker now around Hyde Park Corner than it did when it was all horse and carts. At least nowadays London traffic does not produce a thousand tonnes of horse manure a day, like it did back then. I wonder what they did with it all.

              Up on the balcony I looked over the high wall into the extensive gardens of Buckingham Palace and threw snowballs on snowballing students far below. A bit cowardly of me actually as there was no way they could get their revenge. Back on ground level, I went over to the poignant Australian War Memorial, which listed the names of the 99,000 Australians killed in the two World Wars, with 23,844 Australian place names inscribed where families grieved for lost family members.

              War memorials always affect me deeply, maybe due to the fact that my grandfather, my father’s father Charles, had been in the First World War as a soldier in one of the ‘Pals’ regiments; the 14^th Battalion of the Warwickshire’s. My Dad's dad, Grandad Prescott had been wounded three times and as all who lived through the war, carried his scars, mental and physical, to his grave.

              Three years previous, 2007, I had spent the summer school holiday weeks travelling around France and had visited the Somme Memorial at Thiepval. There, on the first stanchion of the four that supported this huge monument to the thousands of the dead, was the name of a Prescott. Was he a relative? I did not know.

              From the Australian War Memorial I crossed the busy road and went into the London town house residency of the old Duke of Wellington, Apsley House. The most impressive room was called the ‘Plate Room,’ which displayed the famous Serres Egyptian Dessert service. This comprised of a long Egyptian model made of porcelain and had originally been a divorce present from Napoleon to the Empress Josephine. Strangely enough Josephine did not want it. “Not tonight, Josephine!” At least she did not throw this beautiful item back at him. Instead in 1818, it was given to the Duke of Wellington by King Louise XVIII. It really was a thing of beauty, being over six metres long depicting the temples of Karnak, Dendera and Philae.

              Around the same room, displayed in ornate cabinets were dozens of gold bordered plates depicting Spanish cities, with six dinner services given by William III of Prussia to the Duke for his role in the defeat of Napoleon.

              Outside of this impressive room, at the base of a long stairway, was a less than subtle huge, four-metre-high, marble statue of a naked Napoleon. The sculptor Canova had modelled Napoleon on the God, Mars. Anyway Napoleon had not liked it so he had it consigned to the basement of the Louvre until it was bought for 66,000 Francs by King George VI and given to the Duke. Maybe the discreet fig leaf was ‘trop petit’ for the diminutive Napoleon.

             The rest of the house had large oil painting portraits hanging everywhere there was space and various mirrors taken from the Palais de Versailles. Indeed many oil painting 'photographs' of the main characters from the Battle of Waterloo, incidentally which was fought on my birthday, the 18th of June, adorned the house. I say photographs because it shows their role at the time. These were invariably huge canvases to suit the ego of the person I suppose. One in particular painting caught my eye; a more subtle work entitled 'Lovers with Woman Listening' by Nicholas Maes. Delightful. A cheeky-faced eavesdropper hiding behind a door as a couple sat holding hands whispering sweet nothings in the next room. Jennifer, one of the attendants showed me the hidden Versailles windows and was a charming guide to the house. English Heritage should give her a raise.

              Outside again, there was still snow on the ground as I made my way past the Royal Albert Hall and down the road to the Science Museum in South Kensington. Once inside, and checked Alan and Darren style, I went through to my favourite part of the museum, the space artefacts. Here they have a full-size lunar module, all gold and silver with the famous steps down one side, steps I could stare at and imagine that most wonderful of events when Neil descended them back in 1969. Within the large concourse there was also the actual command module from Apollo 9. Unlike the Lunar Module, this had actually been into space.

 

                The command module’s large heat shield scorched streaks were testimony to the engineer’s skills. Through the open hatch I could see the instrumentation and the three seats. Three astronauts had occupied those three seats: McDivvitt, Scott and Schweikcart. Whilst in orbit around the Earth, they had spacewalked, had docked with the Lunar Module and had tested all the manoeuvres and procedures that would be vital to going to the Moon.

               Maybe it is one of those ‘I remember where I was’ moments in history, like where one was when Kennedy got shot, or John Lennon murdered or when Princess Diane died. I remember all too well where I was when Neil Armstrong said those unforgettable words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for Mankind.’ I was twelve years old and in Paris. My Mum and Dad had swapped me for three weeks for a French boy named Christian Nolot. Well swapped maybe too dramatically put but for three weeks I stayed with him and his family in Colombes, North Paris and after that Christian came to live with my family, on our family home for three weeks, then in Redditch, Worcestershire. I remember being extremely shy and embarrassed by the French greeting custom of kissing beautiful French girls on the cheek and how I used the thrust my British hand forward to deflect their proffered lips. I remember how I really did not like the arrogant Christian and got on better with his younger brother but most of all I remember the night of the Moon landing. My bed was on a sofa settee in the lounge and as the Moon walk approached, I was suffering from a bad asthma attack at the time and Christian’s stepmother was looking after me. The fact that her negligee was see through did not help! A doctor was called for and I wheezed my way through the black and white pictures that eventually showed Neil hazily descending the Eagle’s steps. A moment of history that still brings sentimental tears to my eyes.

              I wonder what the 'I remember where I was' moments are for a younger generation. 9 -11 I suppose stands out of course.

              Away from the space travel hall, I marvelled at the Rocket, an ironic name really for the first steam train. This magnificent machine was present amongst various cars, planes and trains. Next, I visited an exhibition about the Copenhagen Convention on Climate Change, with details of that and Kyoto. “Copenhagen is not a failure …… if we agree to meet again and deal with issues that are still pending.” So spoke the Brazilian Climate Change ambassador at the talks. Reading the text presented, it seemed to amount to little more than massive procrastination to me. Five hundred billion tonnes of carbon added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began and yet Climate Change cynics would have you believe that this has had no effect on the Earth’s climate.

               One could leave comments, placing on record what you thought about the climate change issue. Having left my thoughts I was approached by a young Spanish girl from Barcelona, Maria. She wanted help in translating what she wanted to put into English and after some time we typed that 'the World will still be here after humans are extinct because of their self-induced Climate Change.'

              Next, I went into an empty IMAX theatre to watch the film about the International Space Station, the ISS. Now I love IMAX films, well most of the ones I have seen anyway. I do remember the 3D Tyrannosaurus rex film, which started brightly but ended with the scientist’s daughter giving a female T- rex her stolen eggs back! Eating the girl would have been more realistic, just as in the toilet scene in the film Jurassic Park. I have only once been in an IMAX with an audience of more than twenty people in it. That was at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida whilst waiting with my wife, Karen and our children for a space shuttle take off. Otherwise they have always been almost empty. Surely free tickets for school parties would be advantageous to them. Maybe this form of theatre will be more popular once they start to show mainstream movies as well as those of a documentary nature.

              Anyway, back to the moment and the 3D film, the lift off of the Russian rocket carrying the first piece of the ISS jigsaw was spectacular and the lift off the US Space Shuttle likewise. With fabulous views of the Earth in all of its radiance throughout the film, I enjoyed it all as space walks were shown on the immense screen and, of course, there was time to show what fun astro/cosmonauts have when in the weightless environment of the space station.

              Later I noticed that the Science Museum was taking part in the 10:10 initiative, where it was trying to reduce its energy usage by 10% over 2010. I had first seen this amongst the literature that accompanied the superb film DVD Age of Stupid and knew that this year I would be achieving that target. It should be an ongoing target for everyone. No it should be an increasing target, doubling of efforts every ten years! Twenty percent carbon reduction by 2020, 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2040; that way the ‘carbon free’ society would be guaranteed to be happening before 2050 and our futures, and more importantly our children’s’ futures would be more secure. Climate Change, this lies behind everything I would be doing in my almost fossil fuel free Big Year.

              Back outside once more and back to walking through the snow again, I went past the V & A museum, Harrods, Hyde Park Corner and walked on towards Piccadilly. I did not repeat Billy Connolly’s famous naked streak for Comic Relief around Anteros, no, not Eros – look it up. Instead I continued on my way to the same internet café as the day before to do the blog and answer emails.                                                                                    

Biking Birder I January 12th 2010 More Snow So Walking the Streets of London

12^th January                                              Pictures at an Exhibition                              Mussorgsky and ELP

               With each bunk bed being occupied in the St Paul’s Youth Hostel dormitory, my sleep was erratic due to the range of snores emitting from each one. The nearby cacophonous cathedral bells went off every quarter of an hour adding to the orchestra. Big Ben might as well have been in the room!

I got up early, startled by the sound of my neighbour’s alarm clock. His name was Dave, a musician from Birmingham, (Good lad!) who was on his way to New Zealand. Now that is what I love about hostelling; you get to meet people from all over the world. This is especially the case because of the dormitory arrangements with L-shaped bunk beds, close together but not too claustrophobic. You definitely get to hear all of the night-time sounds of people sleeping and . . .  well I am sure you get the picture.

Tim, an American from Detroit, who conversed with me over breakfast, was on his way to Cairo but had been delayed due to flight problems. Tim talked about opera and of his fondness of cigars. Indeed he was thrilled to be in London as he had just met Billy Connolly the previous day in a famous cigar emporium near to St James’ Palace. This shop had been the same place where Winston Churchill had got his cigars from; Berry Brothers & Rudd, so Tim told me. I must look that up to see what truth there is in his tale. Was it Winston's cigar that fell out of his two fingers that left him giving the famous V for Victory salute to Hitler?

Now talking of breakfast, YHA breakfasts are great! Full English, with coffee on tap or tea or fruit juice from various fruits, followed or proceeded by cereal, toast, cheese and ham. All that is required by a cycling man.

Right! Call me mean! Call me frugal or obstinate but £12.50 to go into a place of worship is a little steep. Turnstiles to go into a church! French security guards. I complained and whined that I had not the cash. I claimed that the famous Barnaby Bear I was carrying, one of the cuddly toys accompanying me on the bike, wanted to see inside but I still ended up in the Chapter House of St Paul's Cathedral to register an opinion.

In fact to give the Archbishop of Canterbury his due, for it was to him that I emailed my complaint to, he did reply a few days later. Well the response was from his secretary actually. The secretary's name was Andrew Nunn. Just ponder that name for a moment, will you please? Andrew stated that the Bishop was aware of my concerns and quoted historical precedents. A polite and long missal, and therefore dismissal of my request for a membership scheme similar to the National Trust or English Heritage. He stated that the church had a long-standing history of charging pilgrims for entry. Business is business but I could not help feeling closer to God later in the day when walking through the free ‘Sacred in Art’ exhibition at the National Gallery. One thought in St Paul’s favour though is that when they had a voluntary donation scheme, the average donation was 8p per visitor.

Another long stroll along the Strand got me to Trafalgar Square and into The National Gallery. Now you may be wondering why I was spending the day in the city instead of cycling through it. Well the weather, the heavy snow, had affected my itinerary and having already decided that I could visit Wallasea Island RSPB reserve in December on my return to the area, instead of now, I had got a couple of days spare.

Therefore I spent the time visiting my favourite places in London, including spending hours in the National Gallery looking at the famous artworks. Those art works by ‘you name them, they’ve got some paintings by them,’ included Degas, Picasso, Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers, Cezanne, Monet and Manet, Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin and Child) Goya and Turner. To see Turner’s Fighting Temeraire, a huge, tall ship from the Battle of Trafalgar, on its way to destruction as a setting sun sets over the Thames, was thrilling. The paint on closer inspection had a 3D quality to it, that one will never get to see other than when standing before the original, with the paint standing out from the canvas. An interesting large piece entitled 'Hoerengracht' by Keinholz was extremely different, depicting Amsterdam's prostitutes in cookie tin hats. I wondered what old masterpieces would look like without cracked oil paint.

A school party from St James's School, Pettswood, Bromley in Kent were having a guide explain Titian's Bacchus & Ariadne. On first seeing the piece I wondered why there were a few stars were in the top right corner. By the end of standing to the side of the children and listening in I knew. It was a reward for Ariadne marrying the God Bacchus. Ariadne would become a constellation. The children were so well behaved. Their teachers and parents could be rightly proud of them. The children's answers to the Gallery staff's questions were succinct and intelligent. As a teacher myself, when not galivanting around the country, it was a pleasure to observe and learn.

Lunch, provided by me but taken in the Gallery café, was pleasant with conversation about cricket and teaching provided by two lovely people, Bernard & Ursula McCarthy. Bernard was a retired Head, Ursula was a retired 'chalk face' Primary school teacher.

               Into the National Portrait Gallery next door, I stopped to look at the Tudor portraits, so famous as either stamps or as photographs in many a history textbook for schools. Here was Henry VIII with all of his wives together in the only way they could be, lined up on a wall. A procession of beautiful ladies, their eyes followed me forlornly, each now aware of their fate.

 Divorced, beheaded and died.

Divorced, beheaded, survived.

There was also  a painting of Elizabeth the First with Cranmer, so many photographs and paintings of the famous, yet it was a poignant photograph of an eyeless boy from Vietnam that I will always remember the most. A boy with no eyes, born that way with just skin where eyes would have been and all as a result of the chemical weapons used in the Vietnam War.

 I spent the rest of the day walking around London, finally ending up in an internet café on the Tottenham Court Road. With my blog done, bikingbirder2010.blogspot.com, and emails answered, no way was I going to use carbon transport. Therefore I walked along The Strand and explored the area around the Monument. This tall, golden ball topped column had been erected to commemorate the Great Fire of London back in 1666. From there it was a short walk back at the youth hostel for an early night.

Biking Birder I January 11th 2010 WWT LONDON

 

11^th January                                             Streets of London                                                                     Ralph McTell

                An easy cycle road along the streets of London soon had me reaching the Thames at Kew Bridge; no time to visit the famous Kew Gardens though. My last visit had been a treat when I was a science teacher in Wolverhampton in the 1980’s. Every year the science department teachers, all six of us and all of us men, used to take all of the Year Seven pupils to London for the day. Three fifty-seat coaches were required to take all of us. Our itinerary varied a little from year to year but it always started at the Natural History and Science Museums in South Kensington. The variety was in where we went for the afternoon, either Whipsnade or London Zoo, or Kew Gardens. One year I remember, Kew Gardens was alerted about the presence of one hundred and fifty Wolverhampton council estate teenagers. In fact I think we only visited Kew on one occasion. Perhaps there had been trouble, I do not remember, which prevented us from going again. Maybe it was the collection of rare cacti that appeared next day in my very tidy science laboratory. Joke! As for my classroom of eleven wonderful years at Coppice High School, was it tidy? The nickname the students gave me, one of many, Stig will give you a clue.

One science department school trip I do remember was when a young boy named Howard decided that he did not want to see the museums. What he wanted to see was Buckingham Palace. Fair enough you might think but at the age of eleven, sneaking off in the opposite direction to the rest of us. when in the Underground tunnel that runs parallel to the Science Museum, sneaking onto an Underground train in order to travel to see the Palace and causing two teachers to spend the night in the capital with the police before being found, should not have been on his itinerary that day. I have more cause to remember his brother though, Vincent, name Vinnie by his friends, than Howard. During a break-dancing session, taking place in one of my more creative biology lessons, I turned my back on Vinnie’s performance. On turning back around I was whacked in the chest by his foot during a fast head-spinning movement. One broken sternum was the result of the impact and this was to cause me pain for many years. Two brothers I remember well! Howard, I also remember, had a crush on my second wife Jane, who worked at that time at the same school as me. Howard used to send parcels and letters professing his true love to her!

Interestingly their sister, Paulette became an international hurdling athlete of some renown. A truly lovely family, one of many I had the privilege to get to know during my teaching time at Coppice High School, Wolverhampton.

Back to Kew Bridge, the Thames had a sizeable number of ducks on it, a couple of hundred or so Tufted Duck and Pochard mostly. A little way more and there I was cycling towards Barnes. What an evocative name for me now but more about that later, especially when I get to my Fair Isle days but that is a long way ahead. I was to reach Fair Isle in October in fact, so do not expect me to write about why Barnes is special to me anytime soon. I soon found the entrance to the amazing and wonderful London Wildfowl and Wetland Trust Reserve at Barnes. What a brilliant reserve to visit and in the centre of London too! Its bird list proudly boasts regular Bitterns. Indeed four of them had been seen the day before I arrived, so the large visitor’s centre’s noticeboard declared.

I was greeted at the desk by Brenda, Evey, a half French girl with no French language ability and John, who was to kindly show me around the reserve after taking me for coffee upstairs. It was a lovely welcome and very much appreciated. There was a present for me too, a lovely thick and warm WWT fleece. With such freezing weather, ice everywhere and still some snow on the ground, the extra clothing was very much appreciated.

The reserve itself was totally frozen with the large lakes mostly ice-bound, therefore bird life was down in numbers on the usual amount to be found at this superb reserve. Now some years ago I had a fantastic girlfriend named Diane, who back in 1990 lived in nearby Putney. This was a few years before I met my beautiful wife, Karen. Well, Diane and I used to come to a pub near to here for the occasional evening out. Back then Barnes was a huge concrete basin of a reservoir. What it had become now is little short of a miracle as well as outstanding. Instead of brick-lined walls and very deep water, there was now a professionally landscaped panorama of reedbeds and scrapes, lakes and hides and a fabulous visitors’ centre.     

John and I went into a hide which gave a view over the only piece of unfrozen water. This small area of ice-free water had a Little Grebe, Great Black Backed Gull on it and a Cetti’s Warbler did a Mozart phrase from deep in some bankside vegetation. [72-4] A couple of Ring-necked Parakeets [75] flew overhead. There was more of the reserve to see and enjoy. Then an interview with the local newspaper had been pre-arranged. The photographer arrived, found John and I and asked me to stand in one of the reedbeds and pretend I was looking at a bird! He even had me climb a tree at one point.

Once alone after the interview, with John having to go back to his office desk, it was time for me to explore the reserve. I went into some hides and had fabulous views of two Bitterns. One of them had a metre-wide piece of ice-free water next to a reedbed, from which to extract his meal, which he did, expertly catching what looked like small Rudd. On the way back to the centre to say goodbye and profuse thanks, a Chiff Chaff [76] was flitting around some bushes.

Into the cafe and a delightful meeting with a lovely lady who has been following my adventure, Yvone Simmonds. 

I left Barnes and went along beside Barnes Common before I reached the Thames again and crossed over Putney Bridge. Now twenty years ago, 1990, high as a kite after dancing all evening at a huge Rolling Stones concert at Wembley Stadium, the Urban Jungle Tour I believe, I had walked over this bridge carrying a number of large Rolling Stones concert posters, taken from off the roadside crash barriers. I was singing my head off despite the late hour; well, early morning hour and on my way to meet up with a nurse I had only met a few days before in Wolverhampton, that fabulous girlfriend to be, Diane. I had been walking to the main railway station there after a day at East Park Junior School, Wolverhampton; this being after a day of teaching a Year Six class. One of my pupil’s parents picked me up. She, Sylvia was sitting in the front passenger seat and she introduced me to the driver, Diane. Diane said that she was nurse in London and with time limited as they kindly took me to the station, I told Diane that I was coming to London that very weekend to see the Rolling Stones.

Diane insisted that I stayed at her flat in Putney after the show. So at 1:30 a.m. or thereabouts, sticky with sweat after leaping about in my usual manic way at a concert and carrying the afore-mentioned posters, I banged on Diane’s flat door. Unbelievably she actually let me in! The rest of the night was spent talking and boy, could Diane talk!

Diane was more than a nurse. Diane, one of the most fabulous women I have ever met, was a Senior Sister no less at the prestigious and expensive Portland Hospital in Central London. She had travelled a lot and her talk was of life in Saudi Arabia, where her passion was for PADI night diving in the Red Sea. Diane also talked about some horribly unpleasant incidents in Nigeria.

Come the morning, her car would not start so what could I do but try to fix it. By some miracle I actually got it going and as a reward, Diane took me for a meal at a restaurant in nearby Putney Centre. Two weeks later we were together again, at a Rolling Stones concert, this time at Maine Road; Manchester City’s old football ground. We were so close to the stage I swear we could have made out Keith Richard’s nose hairs! Brilliant!

              Sorry. I digress. Must be the Gemini in me, me being born on June the 18^th. 18, three sixes, the sign of the fallen one, yet now you know my birthday, you can all from now on be so kind as to send me a birthday card.

OK, I was once more on the bike and back in 2010. I had crossed the bridge in a better condition than on the evening of the Rolling Stones concert twenty years previous. I rode my bike over the River Thames, over Putney Bridge before I turned up the Fulham Road. An hour or so later, I had cycled past Buckingham Palace, past the Houses of Parliament, past an area where I could see the Millennium Wheel on the opposite side of the river and cycled along The Embankment to reach St Paul’s Cathedral. This was not for me to go into that famous landmark but to in order for me to get to the Youth Hostel across the road from there. I had stayed in this Youth Hostel before, back in 1981, the night before the wedding of Princess Diana to Charles. That had been when I was accompanied by my first wife, Joy. We had just been to Hyde Park to see the Royal Wedding firework display and Joy wanted to see the wedding itself. Well where could be closer (and cheaper!) than St Paul’s Youth Hostel? Answer came there none so there we were. Up early on the wedding day, we were just across the road from the steps and had a splendid view of the event. Now it may seem odd to some but my favourite memory was of Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan who arrived by a taxi that stopped just in front of us. Meeting them was far more of a highlight than seeing the Royal couple!

After the Royal Wedding, and once we had collected our heavily laden rucksacks, we went to Charing Cross Station and within a couple of days we were in Monte Carlo; an Interrail month was ahead of us both. Interrail was a wonderful cheap way for under twenty-six years olds to travel around Europe back then, 1980. For ninety pounds one could travel on any train in Western Europe. Joy and I went straight through France, explored the major sites of Italy and Greece before we headed back through what was then former Yugoslavia. Then we visited Venice before heading back north through Switzerland, Germany and Belgium.

The Youth Hostel on this cold January evening of 2010 did not seem to have changed much, though thirty-odd years had passed. (and my family know how odd those thirty-odd years have been for me!) It still had the extremely high ceilinged living rooms and a large dining area downstairs. What had changed though was the quality of the food. Yet that was not to be until the following morning.

                                        So how can you tell me you're lonely

                                             And say for you that the sun don't shine?

                                  Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
                                                                   I’ll show you something to make you change your mind

 Tonight it was time to for me to walk into town and explore the Leicester Square area after walking down The Strand. I ended up seeing a new 3D film, Avatar. Now how many times does one go to the cinema and have the audience on its feet clapping like mad at the end? Not often I would say but it everyone did just that at the end of Avatar. Simple story: boy meets girl after changing species, falls in love, saves girl’s species, everyone is happy. Nature against machines and technology, Socialism against Capitalism, cooperation and community against corruption and greed; take your pick of film analysis. Anyway it was a visual treat and really to me the 3D element did not add much to the cinematic experience. Oh, it did during the scenes with the Roger Dean-style floating mountains of Pandora. 

26.18 miles                                                                                                  592 feet elevation up   628 feet down

Biking Birder I - January 10th 2010 At Last! A RSPB Reserve visited in the Snow and Sledging!

10^th January               James Bond Theme from ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service                              John Barry  

              Out at 9.00 a.m. after breakfast in bed and morning TV news, I was two days behind my schedule and off to Church Wood RSPB Reserve in Hedgerley. I had had to take a long route to get there but it had had to be done. Weather today was not as bitterly cold as recently and the roads here were cyclable with care. Soon I was off the main road and I reached the famous Pinewood Studios, hence the music chosen for this day. It is still my favourite Bond movie.

              Not so long ago on a family holiday to Switzerland, Karen, my beautiful raven-haired, jade- eyed wife, our four children, Rebecca, Claire, Joshua and Sarah and I went up to the summit named Piz Gloria via a couple of cable cars. I can remember the children feeding Alpine Choughs from their hands with fruit cake and seeing Ptarmigan from the balcony. I hoped the Cairngorms' Ptarmigan would be so obliging later in the year. 

I also remember that it was on that holiday that I saw an ambition bird from the viewpoint of Meringen Waterfall. Beside a plaque stating that this was indeed the spot where Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty fell to their deaths. Don’t people realise that these are fictional characters? I waited for an hour or two, waiting and watching the water cascade down a huge waterfall. Suddenly a spot on the huge cliff moved. It then took off and was joined by another spot, both revealing that they had spectacularly pinkish coloured wings. Together they ascended just beyond the waterfalls’ spray, spinning around each other in a lovers’ display, until they were quite close. My first view of the fabulous bird, Wallcreepers and what a spectacular setting to see them in. 

What I especially loved about the James Bond movie was the theme music as Bond and his girl, Diana Rigg, my teenage heart throb, were skiing down a Swiss mountain side being pursued by the villains. I loved that music so much that as a naïve young teenager I went into a local record store in Redditch, where I lived at the time and asked if they had a single of it. Younger readers, you will have to ask an oldie like me what a single was. Snootily the shop attendant told me that I had no chance of that and that I would have to buy the whole James Bond album. I did not have enough money to buy a whole album, around thirty shillings, nowadays £1.50 and I had to wait thirty years before YouTube helped me out. Diana Rigg was fabulously gorgeous in that film. What a shame she ended up on the front seat of James Bond’s car with a bullet through her forehead just after their wedding! “
It's all right. It's quite all right, really, she's having a rest. We'll be going on soon. There's no hurry, you see. We have all the time in the world.”

Actually when one looks back at other Bond films it is such a disgrace that so many of them contain gratuitous violence towards women. How often does one see James slap a woman? I suggest far too many times and I hope that times have changed for the better.

The security man at the gate to the studios was an Afghan from Kabul, who had been in the UK for three years. He took my photograph as I stood in front of the entrance and on bidding him thanks and goodbye, I continued towards Fulmar. Strange that the name of a small village was also that of a favourite white and grey seabird. A type of albatross despite its small size, whose fame is due to showering anyone who comes too close to a nesting bird with foul smelling yellow oil; something that I was to experience when up on the very northeastern tip of Bonnie Scotland.

I saw a road sign for Slough, home of Ricky Gervais’ sitcom, The Office. I never could see what people liked about The Office but then again, I have never worked in an office. I will stick to Pete and Dud, Morecambe & Wise and Monty Python for my favourite TV comedic moments, with Stuart Lee for face-aching moments. As for sitcoms, you cannot beat Porridge and Blackadder in my book but the lesser well known Early Doors comes close. Films? Well it has to be Ghostbusters and Mel Brooks’ The Producers.

On reaching Hedgerley I had to find the house of a kind couple who had offered me accommodation on the night that I should have arrived in the village, Doug and Jean. I wanted to say thank you to them both and explain what had happened. The lane in which they lived was still ice and snow covered when I got there and so I left the bike at a corner house and walked briskly yet carefully along it. On seeing a man walking his dog I called out, “are you Doug?” Indeed it was Doug, out walking with his energetic dog named Sidney, a cross between a poodle and a spaniel; a spoodle no less! Sidney, what a fabulous name for a pet. Why am I so enthusiastic for the name you may ask? Well, every pet I have ever owned I have named Sid. It started as a tribute to Sid James of Carry On movie fame. Actually the only pet I still have, after a succession of goldfish, cats and various insects, is a rock. Sid is a large rock that called to me one day as I was sitting adjacent to the base of Europe's highest waterfall at Gavarnie in the French Pyrenees. «Aidez-moi », he cried out. " J’en ai marre de cette eau frapper ma tête tout le temps ! "

Luckily, I speak a little French and so I rescued Sid and I carried him the four miles back to the car. Sid came home with me after I had dried him out. He has been my companion ever since but was not on this journey with me on this occasion. He preferred to stay at home.

In 2009 I went back to Gavarnie in order to look for his wife and children. They are now with him at my little caravan in Worcestershire. And with these words your thought that I am a little eccentric is now confirmed.

Doug invited me inside their magnificent residence where I was given coffee and the use of their computer to catch up on emails and the blog. From their back-patio windows I watched as Red Kites, eighteen of them, flew along the ridge close by and a covey of five Red-legged Partridges shuffled around in the snow covered field. Then a year tick; a Stock Dove [71] flew over towards the ridge. It was then time for a meal at the local pub with them both. The public house was so popular that they had had a large marquee type area attached to the back of the old building to accommodate the extra people. A meal of chips and sandwiches was eaten with Doug, an IT person of some note and his wife, Jean and Sidney, their dog that is, not my rock.

               Thanks and goodbyes spoken to this lovely couple and Sid of course, I then enjoyed a session of sledging with a few families on the hills adjacent to the reserve before walking around the woodland footpath of the reserve itself. Not many people had done the same as the deep snow was still pristine and lacking human footprints. Yet a female Roe Deer showed herself and Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Green Woodpeckers, titmice and Red Kites were seen but no Lesser Redpolls Lee!

 The afternoon was getting on so I cycled back to the same Bed and Breakfast in Uxbridge as I had been in the night before. I first stopped though, to visit a chemist in the town centre because I had had severe toothache during the day; a crowned molar was causing me some gip.

18.95 miles                                                                                                                735 feet elevation up and down

Biking Birder I - January 9th 2010 Escape from Hemel Hempstead!

 

9^th January                                                              Escape                                                                    Craig Armstrong

               I ate porridge laden with bananas whilst planning the escape from Hemel Hempstead in the morning. The plan being to push the bike along the local canal's snow-covered tow path south to reach Uxbridge. Just get me out of here.

              At 9.30 a.m. Richie, Maddy and I set off. The roads were, as on previous days, very slushy with traffic moving very slowly along bumper to bumper. To cycle on such roads would have been extremely hazardous. One slip and I would be beneath the wheel of a car and there was also a less selfish consideration. My cycling on such roads would have caused the traffic to move even slower.

Despite the slushy roads it was a beautiful, sunny, calm day and the scenery along the canal tow path was lovely with the trees crusted with hoar frost and deep snow on the ground. Birds at last were seen as I pushed the bike along through the deep snow. There were ducks, swans and geese on the canal, with Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, titmice, Robins and thrushes; Redwing and Fieldfare in good numbers seen also. The occasional Cormorant and a number of gulls were using the canal as a flightpath, occasionally coming down to land at the gravel pits that we passed. On one a group of Common Gulls [69] were standing on the ice amongst other species of gulls.

Birds, particularly the listing of them, had been on my mind for the holder of the record I was trying to beat, the Green Year list record, Chris Mills, had started his own Green Year list on this day back in 2005. By the end of the ninth of January 2005 Chris had been on sixty-two, after he had spent a day cycling around his home county of Norfolk. I was ahead but not by that many. Chris had created a British Green Year List record, known in the USA as a BIGBY, a Big Green Big Year, whilst in competition with Simon Woolley from Hampshire. Both of these lads are very fit, athletic-even cyclists, unlike me an old doddering bike rider; both of them with a huge passion for birding.

In 2005 they competed against each other by Green Birding in their home counties, Norfolk for Chris and Hampshire for Simon, with Chris eventually coming out as the winner. Simon did his Big Green Big Year as a fund-raising exercise for the terrible tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and other nearby countries killing many thousands back in 2004. Simon and his girlfriend had been out there when the tsunami struck and had witnessed first-hand the devastation it caused. His Green Birding year is detailed in a book named Birding by Bike – The Hampshire Big Year 2005 and is available for £5, all of which is donated to charity. There is also a blog of his BIGBY at zootherapy.blogspot.com.

Chris has also authored a book although I will be honest and say I am not sure whether he ever published it officially, called Birder on a Bike. 

How many variations on a theme can one create with the words birding, birds, biking and bike?

Their books and lists were with me as I cycled on my own BIGBY, giving me constant motivation, inspirational texts.

Some parts of the towpath were easier to push the bike along than others. Those were parts that had been walked along the most by other people enjoying the day. The trampled impacted snow being easier to push through than the deep, hardly stepped upon areas.

Richie and Maddy took a route away from the canal after a few miles, so we said our goodbyes and promised to stay connected. To this day I have heard from Ritchie. I think he blames me for his incredible cycling journeys in so many parts of the world. On Facebook Ritchie is now known as Tash Rider. I have no idea why this name. I will have to ask time next time we meet up but his travels are far more extensive than mine. For the detail on these please visit his blog – Batman to Robben.

Looking up Ritchie/Tash's latest postings on the blog, the last post made back in 2015 details thoughts of him riding around Morocco on a donkey!

Take a look and see the list of countries visited. Amazing!

https://batmantorobben.wordpress.com/ 

I continued pushing along the towpath and by 1.00 p.m. had reached Rickmansworth. Here I met Tim, an Aqualung-looking (Jethro Tull album from the 1970s), grey-bearded older gentleman standing beside his iced-in barge. Inviting me onto this lovely old barge to warm me up, I was soon in the smoke-filled warm interior sitting on a chair being mobbed by his three affectionate dogs. The kind gentleman, Tim was of Irish origins, having come over here from Cork many years ago. He gave me a warming mug of Bovril and pieces of delicious wholemeal toast before insisting I take the Bovril jar with me. His wife, Amber, was on the mobile phone berating someone quite aggressively over some family matter as two parakeets squawked loudly from their cage. What a racket! Fabulous.

Onward, I then came across a group of teenage lads enjoying a rope swing. Filled with memories of enjoying such ropey swings as a child, I had to have a go and survived swinging over a frozen stream. Great fun!

               Once when I was a spotty young teenage kid, at my Nan and Grandad's house in Birmingham, there was a long-roped swing over a dried up and filled in derelict canal. From the bridge I put the stick on the end of the rope between my legs and leapt off only to find that the rope was indeed too long and I dragged my legs along the gravel canal floor, taking the skin off my knees and shins in doing so. The exposed legs, lads wore shorts in those days, were shredded. I can still remember having the grit removed from the bloody wounds.

People walking along the same towpath occasionally stopped me to ask why I was so mad as to be pushing such a heavily laden bike along. This led to some kind donations for the RSPB Robin collection box on the front of the bike and a few photographs. So thanks to Stuart and Rowan and to Iver, who later sent an email with a photo of me with his German girlfriend attached. To the other kind donors whose names I did not jot down, thanks and apologies.

Later I came across another barge with someone atop and hence another chat. This barge had a naughty sign offering the good advice, ‘slow down for duck’s sake’ painted on the back. The barge, or narrowboat as I was corrected to call it, was moored in an area of ice-free water and here a number of Tufted Duck were diving down to feed.

By now the Sun was setting and after coming across a long, straight length of snow free towpath, where I could actually cycle along for a bit, I saw a Barn Owl [70] quartering a field adjacent to the canal, just before the place where the canal goes beneath the M40. This large, white moth-like creature was the best bird seen so far on my trip and came close as I watched it searching for its evening meal. This bird had come at a suitable time as I was feeling quite exhausted having pushed and cycled along the canal side for around seven hours.

Dark now, I reached Uxbridge and found the Police Station. My thinking being that they would know the area and would know of a local Bed & Breakfast or offer me a night in the cells. By this time I was so tired I would not have minded being put up for the night under Her Majesty’s care. The officer at the desk heard my plea and gave me a photocopied, pre-prepared sheet of such accommodation and someone in the queue even put a fiver into the collection box.

17.47 miles                                                                                             181 feet elevation up   298 feet down