by Sparrowhawk | Oct 4, 2016 | Diary |
The Hawk and Owl Trust, of which I am proud to be a Vice-President, is assisting in parts of a six-point plan initiated by the government to restore the population of English Hen Harriers which are close to extinction as a breeding species. The Hen Harrier is an...
by Sparrowhawk | Oct 4, 2016 | Diary |
Lloyd Buck is the most well known and sought after trainer of birds for Television and Film in this country, particularly for BBC tv’s Springwatch and Autumnwatch. He’s become a household name by showing his tame starlings on television and allowing them to fly...
by Sparrowhawk | Jul 7, 2016 | Diary |
Chris Packham’s book is a brave book, a very honest book, about growing up in the suburbs around Southampton. It must have been painful to write, excoriating. He was a loner, an outsider. He didn’t fit in at school. It was his burgeoning interest in wildlife that was...
by Sparrowhawk | Jun 11, 2016 | Diary |
I have been lucky to enjoy many red letter days out bird watching. Two of them stand out way above the others. Twelve years ago on April 30th 2004 I took part in a Birdathon to raise funds for the Hawk and Owl Trust’s new reserve at Sculthorpe Moor in Norfolk. There...
by Sparrowhawk | May 10, 2016 | Diary |
The other night I watched an episode of “The Durrells,” a new TV adaptation by Simon Nye of Gerald Durrell’s much loved book “My Family and other Animals” and very good it was too. Watching it brought back many happy memories of working with Gerry. Initially, it was a...
by Sparrowhawk | Apr 25, 2016 | Diary |
I remember that, shortly after the Hawk and Owl reserve at Sculthorpe Moor had been opened, Roger Clarke, who was our Scientific Officer and accountant, made an appeal for volunteers to help monitor Hen Harriers that were roosting on Roydon Common from October through...
by Sparrowhawk | Mar 17, 2016 | Diary |
The story of the Norwich Cathedral Peregrine Falcons began in November 2009 when Nigel Middleton and I responded to a telephone call from an eagle-eyed bird watcher in a building nearby. He’d seen a peregrine perched on the spire. It was a frosty day as we peered...
by Sparrowhawk | Mar 17, 2016 | Diary |
My love of birds of prey was kindled early in my life when I was staying with my grandparents. I was about four years old and my younger brother, Richard, had just entered the world. I was put to bed early as there was a party to celebrate his safe arrival. To pacify...
by Sparrowhawk | Feb 9, 2016 | Diary |
A long time ago I made a film for the BBC based on a short story by Jack London called “To Build Fire.” It was set during the days of the Gold Rush to the Klondyke at the end of the nineteenth century. It’s a very simple story about an inexperienced newcomer and his...
by Sparrowhawk | Nov 3, 2015 | Diary, Sparrowhawk |
1. The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson This amazing book tells the story of how life on earth became so diverse and stresses our obligations to conserve ecosystems and not just single species. He writes: “Now the value of the little things in the natural world...
by Sparrowhawk | Sep 25, 2015 | Diary |
When I embarked on the biggest task of my film making career in bringing Henry Williamson’s classic tale of an otter, “Tarka the Otter,” to the cinema screen one of the pleasant tasks I had to put in motion was to find a design for our letterhead logo. Charles...
by Sparrowhawk | Sep 25, 2015 | Diary, Sparrowhawk |
On 22nd August, Liza and I went to the Bird Fair at Rutland Water. I was there to give a talk at the Authors Forum on an update of my book “A Sparrowhawk’s Lament” which was published last year. With me were Nigel Middleton, the Hawk and Owl Trusts Conservation...
by Sparrowhawk | Jul 26, 2015 | Diary, Sparrowhawk |
I love all birds of prey. Their position in the natural world is a precarious one. Persecuted for taking game birds from rearing pens and decimated in the fifties and sixties by the effects of agricultural pesticides every bird of prey I see fills me with joy....
by Sparrowhawk | Jul 6, 2015 | Diary |
My alarm wakes me at 6.29 each day and I’m out of the kitchen door having a look round half an hour later. I am immediately greeted by our Song Thrush. He’s got a fine vantage point looking down on our garden from the top of an Acacia tree and he is singing his heart...
by Sparrowhawk | Jun 4, 2015 | Diary |
“Woof!” was a big success, it was re-commissioned year after year. Pippin and Judy were the original dogs used but after we had completed four or five series they were replaced by Punch. Here is Punch with my wife, Liza Goddard, who was Punch’s co-star. He was quite...
by Sparrowhawk | Jun 4, 2015 | Diary |
My dog of the moment is a splendid black Labrador called Donald. He’s a rescue dog. My previous dog, a wonderful big black Labrador called Scoter, of whom I was inordinately fond, had died under very sad circumstances. Anna, one of my best friends, who lives in London...
by Sparrowhawk | May 6, 2015 | Diary |
The Hawk and Owl Trust installed a nest platform in 2010 for the Peregrine Falcons which appeared on Norwich Cathedral in 2009. They have nested successfully each year. Two cameras transmit images of the day-to-day activities of the pair of falcons as they raise their...
by Sparrowhawk | May 1, 2015 | Diary |
The two Swallows that nested in our potting shed last summer are back. They arrived at day break on 21st April. They spent the morning resting on the uppermost branches of the middle Sycamore. If they had wintered in southern Africa it could mean a return journey of...
by Sparrowhawk | Apr 24, 2015 | Diary, Sparrowhawk |
Dr Roger Clarke was a world expert on the analysis of the pellets of birds of prey. They are the undigested items of prey – fur, feathers and bones – which are regurgitated before the bird goes hunting again. I can see him now taking a pellet from where it has been...
by Sparrowhawk | Mar 30, 2015 | Diary |
Looking out of my study window on this bright, frosty morning, beyond our big boundary hedge, are three or four Blackthorn bushes, covered in white blossom, sparkling in the sun. Our Blackbird nesting in the clematis to the right of the kitchen window is sitting...
by Sparrowhawk | Mar 21, 2015 | Diary |
The hen Blackbird, whose territory is at the front of our house, has been busy gathering material for the nest she’s building in the clematis that covers the wall to the right of the kitchen window. She always nests there. Luckily we’d just spread a load of compost on...
by Sparrowhawk | Mar 14, 2015 | Diary |
In my opinion The Peregrine written by J.A.Baker is the best book ever written about a bird. For years I tried to get the Natural History Unit at BBC Bristol to finance my attempt to film it. In 2008 the project nearly got off the ground but was cancelled at the last...
by Sparrowhawk | Mar 10, 2015 | Diary |
I recently received an email from a fan in The Netherlands who wanted to know where the hollow tree was in the New Forest where I’d made a children’s television drama series based on “BB’s” famous book Brendon Chase. It was a story of three boys who’d run away from an...
by Sparrowhawk | Mar 4, 2015 | Diary |
I’d seen the pictures of the Norwich murmuration of starlings on Twitter and decided I must view it at first hand. On 27th February Liza and I settled down to wait in the Assembly Rooms car park. It was cold and I had worked out that this would be a comfortable watch...
by Sparrowhawk | Feb 25, 2015 | Diary |
There were two stories that the late Gerald Durrell told me about animals being driven to extinction. They both occurred in America during the early nineteenth century. The first was set in the Great Plains where huge herds of Buffalo roamed. When the first railroads...
by Sparrowhawk | Feb 19, 2015 | Diary |
Another frosty morning and I’m at the kitchen window watching the birds feeding. First to arrive are the Wood Pigeons, Stock Doves and Collared Doves. They jostle and flap on the trough feeder stuffing themselves with black sunflower seed. Below them, waiting their...
by Sparrowhawk | Feb 6, 2015 | Diary |
With below freezing temperatures most nights recently it has been a battle to keep our patio at the back of the house ice free. Liza has endeavoured with the aid of sprinklings of rock salt to keep it safe and her “ice grippers” have vanished just when they were most...
by Sparrowhawk | Jan 31, 2015 | Diary |
My wife Liza and I live in deepest Norfolk. The view from the kitchen window, which is where I do a lot of my bird watching, looks out on to the garden. There’s an orchard we’ve planted – apples, pears, plums, a quince and a nut tree – and at the bottom of the garden...
by Sparrowhawk | Jan 26, 2015 | Diary, Events, Sparrowhawk |
Last Thursday I went to Heffers bookshop in Cambridge for a book signing of my book, A Sparrowhawk’s Lament. Sharing this event with me was Helen Macdonald who has written a cracking good best seller, H is for Hawk. About a hundred people had braved the arctic blast...
