How my interest in nature began

I was brought up in a country rectory in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, surrounded by fields and meadows.  I vividly remember the wildlife walks my mother took me and my siblings on from a very early age, going out regardless of the weather.  As we set out in our wellies my Mum would let us choose between the Observer Book of Birds, Flowers or Trees.  I didn't often choose the tree book which is probably why I've never been particularly good at identifying them. Walks along country lanes, over meadows, along primrose banks, through marshes awash with ragged robin and summers in harvested fields listening to corncrakes and willow warblers were the norm.

​In my late teens when I moved to Belfast for my studies I still felt drawn to the wilds of Tyrone at weekends so that I could get next to nature and when I moved to London in my early 20s I gravitated towards Wandsworth Common, Wimbledon Common and most especially Richmond Park for my camera walks nearly always going at dawn. When I moved to south east London for a few years I would drive out of London to explore the 'garden of England' and the Surrey Hills.

​After over 10 years in London I moved to Berkshire where I nurture my love of nature with easy access to the beauties of my own county and the bordering counties of Hampshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire.