Editor: Here’s another portrait of a SORC council member
Phil Brown interviews Lee Gregory
Meet Lee Gregory Biographical note: Lee is 43, single, a specialist
welder by trade and lives in Thetford. Currently he is actively seeking a career change and is considering a range of options in the Natural History field.
Lee Gregory re-joined the Suffolk Ornithological Records Committee in 2013. His recommendation was based on his consistent track record for submitting records - a substantial one that continuously grows as he chases rare birds on his home patch and around the county (as well as across the country and around the globe).
heightened my interest. In between them and the Barnham jaunts, I read my father’s small library of bird books cover-to-cover and absorbed as much as I could. But it was Richard Millington’s book, ‘A Twitcher’s Diary’, that opened my eyes to the excitement of finding rarities and it was this pursuit that, to be frank, led to my becoming a “bird obsessive”. But it wasn’t just a case of birding. At 14, while at school, I became a volunteer at East Wretham Heath and began surveying on the CBC (Common Bird Census), as it was then called. During this period I also made an effort to learn as many bird songs and calls as I could - a great effort at the time that today really pays dividends. Then, at about 17, I became involved in serious conservation work with the legendary Ron Hoblyn of the Forestry Commission and the RSPB at Santon Downham, who were jointly protecting the last Breckland breeding Red-backed Shrike and Goshawks.
Intrepid Italian birding - wading the Brabbia Marsh for a Vinous-throated Parrotbill
How’d you first get into birding? My passion for birds started early. As a nipper of five or six I used to follow my father around his local patch - Barnham Cross Common to the south of Thetford. My dad was a fairly keen birdwatcher and, once a year, he also took me on an annual birding pilgrimage, either to Cley on the north coast of Norfolk or Minsmere. I really looked forward to these trips and they certainly
So where’d you do your birding? I left school at 16 and took up a welding apprenticeship with a local company. While this work initially curbed the time available for birding, the wages did let me finance a moped that allowed me to considerably enlarge my birding area. While I roamed most of the East of England, I tended to concentrate my efforts on north Norfolk, quickly compiling a list of 375 species.
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