My interest in birds began as a child in the countryside around my home and I was encouraged by the gift of the three volumes of The Ladybird Book of Birds which made such birds as Chaffinch, Bullfinch, Willow Warbler, Blackcap, Redwing and Fieldfare all identifiable.

At preparatory school I was most fortunate to be taught Natural History twice a week by Susan Taylor, and at the tender age of eight or nine was shown bird ringing for the first time which I found enthralling. She it was who sowed the seed. However, it was not until my late teens that I resumed my interest. I began colour ringing birds in our vicarage garden and joined the British Trust for Ornithology, yet somehow I remained totally isolated from any other birdwatchers.

When I went to work in the University of Cambridge my interest in birds became known and I was given an introduction to Chris Thorne who lifted the level of my interest almost overnight. He took me to the Cambridge Bird Club, where I remember feeling utterly overawed, and he also gave me tuition in the art of bird ringing so that within a few months of this meeting I found myself in a room full of people I did not know, discussing the formation of a ringing group to be centred on Wicken Fen.