Phil Brown interviews Steve Abbott
Meet Steve Abbott Biographical notes: Steve is now retired from teaching, married with an extremely understanding wife and one son, also a naturalist, now at university. Suffolk born and bred, Steve worked mainly in Surrey, Norfolk and London, visiting his home county regularly to maintain his list before returning ten years ago to live permanently in Melton, near Woodbridge. Steve describes himself as an all round naturalist and comes in many guises – twitcher, wildlife inspector, birder, bird racer, ringer, field biologist, naturalist, illustrator and lecturer!
When did you start bird watching? According to my mother, when I was 6 months old! Apparently she regularly found me in my pram staring at the birds in the sky above me! Key influences? There have been many. First off there was the countryside I was brought up in and around Mendlesham in mid Suffolk. Unlike children today, I spent much of my time roaming the countryside exploring and watching wildlife and there’s no question that the bird nesting I did then1 and my collecting of feathers and memorising of bird songs provided me with the bedrock for my present birding knowledge and skills. Perhaps my chief formative influence was my local primary school (it’s still there today) and in particular the headmaster who nurtured my interest in nature. My earliest patch records date back to that time. Next came the development of a Long-eared Owl roost close to Mendlesham. I was able to
view the roost closely and duly submitted my records to the Suffolk Recorder of the day – the famed Bill Paine. I was starting to get onto the radar of Suffolk birding and this improved still further when I was invited to attend a weekend ringing with David Pearson and Grenville Clark, followed by an introduction to seawatching. Now I was on the slippery slope to becoming a serious bird watcher! As a teenager I puttered all over Suffolk on my Vespa 150 Sprint! That was how I came to venture out of mid Suffolk to discover the coast and Shingle Street, where its Little Terns became particularly special for me. That Vespa then led me to the Sandlings and finally the Suffolk marshlands – all areas I’m still captivated by today. The result of this wide range of influences was to create the all-round naturalist you see today – while I’m principally known for my birding, basically I’m passionate about every aspect of the natural world. Then in the nineteen seventies you went up to London University and subsequently became a teacher? Yes, I took a degree in Zoology and Botany. It
Editor: It was interesting as I wrote this interview up (6 November) to hear Chris Packham on Radio 4’s Today programme say much the same thing about himself while he was bemoaning the lack of young people becoming engaged with Nature nowadays.
1
20
THE HARRIER – December 2012
