Gary Howard's birds and wildlife

I’ve had an interest in wildlife, primarily birds, since I was a boy. It began with watching birds in the garden, then recording species seen on my paper-round, on family days-out and holiday’s and before too long I was hooked!
I started watching a “patch” – Ruxley Gravel Pit’s in Kent, then travelling out into Kent to explore places like the North Kent Marshes, Dungeness and Bough Beech Reservoir. Soon I was seeking out specific more localised species and then started twitching in the early 1980’s. In the mid 1980’s I did some ringing but never qualified and reverted to birding and twitching.
I began foreign birding in my teens and continue to this day. I’ve been on a wide variety of birding holidays from fly-drives to cruises, commercial expeditions and tours and even glorified twitches. I have been to every continent in search of birds though now, as I have a family of my own to consider, some holidays involve keeping the kids happy whilst trying to engineer a tick of two !