The Bird Observatory - has it got a future?
Having just returned from a weeks residency at Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory and Field Centre, my thoughts have turned to what role such places can play in 2011. Firstly, I must declare a love affair for bird observatories that stretches back to my first stay at Dungeness in 1976. I have spent over 600 visitor nights at that particular observatory, from sudden one-night residencies through to a four month stint in 1979. I have put up with thin mattresses, fug-fumed bedrooms full of large hairy men, kitchens where the dirty crockery has hidden every kitchen surface and, in the early days, the lack of a shower or bath. And I loved every single minute of it... I have stayed at Spurn, graced the lighthouse at Portland Bill and turned up with a rucksack at Sandwich Bay. A sea-change occurred for me in the late 1990s when I realised that I no longer could put up with unhygenic conditions, did not want to share a room with farting strangers and I increasingly enjoyed the pleasures of a ...