Post 498 - A review and a thank you

Hey everyone, this is one of those posts that is a little overdue, a post where I want to thank someone for lots of support since my very early days of blogging and for a lovely gift.

There are lots of people I've met through my blog, virtually and some in real life, and it is very hard to say just how much everyone has inspired and supported me over the years. All the little comments on the blog or on twitter, little snippets of encouragement have meant so much to me. Some people have been very generous with their knowledge as I've been growing my own understanding of the natural world.

Birdwatching London will be in my bag when I
visit the capital!

One of these people who I've yet to meet is David Darrell-Lambert and today I want to thank him.

David has been very supportive as long as I can remember. Lots of nice comments and tweets and always willing to help with a bird ID if I've been struggling. We've tried to arrange meets ups a few times but somehow our paths have never quite crossed.

Recently, well in honestly a little while ago now, I got a DM from David offering to send me a copy of his book - Birdwatching London. Well, I'm from Yorkshire so it's hard to turn down "owt for nowt" so I gladly accepted his generous offer.

What a lovely book. It's almost pocket sized so it's easy to take on a trip and I'll be making sure I have it whenever I head down to London. In the book David covers 38 sites around the capital where you can do some good bird watching. I don't get to London that often so it's really useful for someone like me to know where I can go to escape the hustle and bustle and get a bit of a nature fix. Through this book I've learnt there's even a little nearby space to visit if I've a bit of time to spare when I'm waiting for a train - though I have to wait until next year now as they're building a new visitor centre at LWT - Camley Street Natural Park.

This is the Landmark London Bird for me -
always like to see these exotic beauties when I visit.

The main part of the book is a description of 37 different sites across London and one easily accessed coastal site from the capital at Southend-on-sea. It's published in association with the London Wildlife Trust and it's got all the information you need to be able to find the sites. I like that it doesn't provide Grid References and the best places to park like my Yorkshire Wildlife Trust guide does for its reserve, instead it tells you the nearest tube stations. That just underlined a couple of differences between home and London to me, the difference in scale and public transport!  David describes each site, a little about its history, and what you can see where at each site covering seasonal changes too.

In between the site write-ups are features on Landmark London Birds, species such as Peregrine Falcon, King Fisher, Ring Necked Parakeet. These little added inclusions are lovely and tell you a bit about each species, a bit about their history in the capital,  sometimes a bit about David's personal experience of that species or how best to find them.

Thanks David - and I'm sure I will!

The book has lots of wonderful photos by David too including species I never thought you'd see in London such as Bittern and Avocet.

So thank you David for all your kind words and support whilst I've been blogging and discovering nature. Thank you too for the wonderful book which I will enjoy and will make sure I use when I visit London.

If you'd like to do the same you can pick up a copy here - https://www.nhbs.com/birdwatching-london-book

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.