Young Birders

ONE TO WATCH...
ALEX RHODES, 19
BW: What first got you
interested in birds and
wildlife?
AR: I’m confident that my
parents’ decision to move out
of the city when I was just a year old led to my love
for the great outdoors. Pinpointing my interest for
birds is more difficult. It may have been as simple as
picking up a book and thinking “hey these look far
more interesting” than, say, a bunch of plants, but
you also need to consider as a kid, with a short
attention span, the fact birds are so visible and easy
to encounter meant they were more captivating
than any other creature.
BW: Which bird surveys/conservation projects
are you involved in?
AR: I am a C-permit bird ringer under the BTO and
send in sightings via the BirdTrack app. I’m
passionate about communicating the natural world
through the use of media, such as film and
photography, and am currently working on a project
looking at this very subject; young naturalists.
Could your passion for birds lead to a career that
takes you to places such as St Kilda?
St Kilda has one of
the world’s largest
Gannet colonies
Nicola Boulton
Nicola Boulton
BW: What has been your most memorable
birding moment?
AR: During my gap year, I was
employed as assistant warden at
Falsterbo Bird Observatory,
Sweden, during autumn migration. I’d
heard about the site’s historic migration counts of
hundreds of thousands of raptors, and even read
about records of more than a million Chaffinches in
a day. But I was not expecting to see the mass
migration – yes, migration – of Blue Tits. Flocks of
them, reminiscent of a swarm of locusts, all uttering
their pe-pee-ing calls in a cacophony, like something
out of The Birds. There were days we’d have the
mist-nets open from 6am and not stop ringing
1st-year females until dusk!
BW: What’s the one piece of advice you’d give
to other young birders?
AR: Get a T-permit and learn to ring birds! Not only
will you gain the satisfaction that you are providing
valuable scientific data, but you’ll start to notice
subtle features in birds that never would have caught
your eye-previously. Not only that, but you will
experience a whole new level of mentorship from
your trainer/ringing group members.
Nicola Boulton
Nicola now guides groups
of birders on boat trips
BW: If you could make one change to the UK’s
environmental policies, what would it be?
AR: The Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP. The
whole system needs an overhaul and simplification
with more focus on its conservation elements than
the current watered-down, blanket subsidies, which
have very little benefit for our wildlife.
@Alex_RhodesUK
birdwatching.co.uk 13