Portland Bill and a podcast
I have just spent a quite marvellous hour listening to a podcast created by Charlie Moores at 'The Sound Approach' in which he chats to Portland Bill Bird Observatory's affable warden, Martin Cade. It is a delight. The chat - this is no formal interview - is full of anecdote and insight into the good work of PBO down the years, their current plans and what it is that makes this particular warden tick. You can hear the podcast for yourself by clicking here. Portland Bill BO is one of those places that I have always enjoyed visiting but have not visited often enough. My first visit was in September 1977, when a Balearic Shearwater sailed onto my British list (there was also a sick Leach's Petrel in a cardboard box). This was followed by encounters with a Yellow-billed Cuckoo (1979) and an Ivory Gull (1980). I didn't actually stay at the observatory until 1982, a late-April sojourn that was characterised by snow and a raging hangover. Since then it has been a place...