A meeting with R.A.Richardson. Artist and birdwatcher.

        It is difficult to say when I actually first started bird watching but I must have been very young indeed. My earliest memories are stalking around the local woods of Buxton with my elder brother David, clutching my Observers’ Book of Birds (which I still have) and an old pair of opera glasses. As I grew older I soon met like-minded friends and our circle of study grew wider: at first local dales in the Peak, local moors and woodlands and then lakes and reservoirs in neighbouring Staffordshire and Cheshire.

      It was in the early 70’s that I gained my first opportunity to travel to North Norfolk, Cley Marshes in particular. At this point in time Cley-next-the-Sea was the centre of the universe for us bird watchers, and here we were; as we entered the village the sun glinted off the cluster of flint cottages. After a well earned meal in Nancy Gull’s café and a look at the Bird Log to see ‘what’s about’, we made for the marsh, the East Bank to be precise. Just strolling down the East Bank I added bearded tits, marsh harrier and a ‘booming’ bittern to my life list: this was indeed paradise. Reaching the bottom end of the bank we came across a group of birders lounging on the grassy bank over-looking Arnold’s Marsh. In their centre sat a man wearing a denim jacket and sporting a black berry with two Norfolk terriers, one sat either side of him. We all greeted each other, my more experienced and older friends seeming to know the man who appeared to be the centre of attention and joined the throng on the grassy bank.

      I was soon to realise  the man in the black berry was none other than the famous birder and artist R. A. Richardson, the illustrator of the ‘The Pocket Guide to British Birds’, text by R.S.R. Fitter. I was very soon to find out also, how he had earned his reputation as such a great birder. Although R.A.R. owned a pair of binoculars, and I noticed an old brass telescope under his jacket, he needed no such aids: bird calls (no matter how fleeting) and the (jizz) the way the birds flew were enough for his identification skills. Sometimes he never even opened his eyes. Yet there was nothing egotistical about how R.A.R. used his profound knowledge, quite the contrary, he appeared to take great pleasure in helping the lesser experienced birders, putting them at their ease, treating everyone with great respect and equal enthusiasm. Before the afternoon came to a close I had notched up black godwit, avocet, spoonbill, grey plover and spotted sandpiper mainly due to R.A.R’s effortless observations.

      I met R.A.R on one further occasion a few weeks later, this time on a leafy lane between Salthouse Heath and the village of Salthouse. This time we were gathered to watch a stunning red-backed shrike deep in a hedgerow. It wasn’t long before R.A.R was busy sketching in a note book. This was followed by my first nightingale up on Salthouse Heath and to end the day, before heading back to hills of the Peak District, a fine male hobby chasing dragonflies over Salthouse Marsh.

      It was a great honour to meet Richard A. Richardson and I still look at his books with fondness, often sliding them out from the bookshelf to leaf through his wonderful illustrations, many of which can be found in Moss Taylor’s moving biography of R. A. Richardson, ‘Guardian Spirit of the East Bank.’