Remember the Urban Spaceman?
I’m the urban spaceman, baby; I’ve got speed
I’ve got everything I need
I’m the urban spaceman, baby; I can fly
I’m a supersonic guy.
It was number five in 1968 and is the only thing I can remember by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. That is a digression. A friend sent me The Urban Birder by David Lindo and now I know I’m an urban birder too. He was brought up in Wembley in the 1960s and, when he was eight, badgered his mother into buying him a pair of 10 x 50 binoculars. They cost £14.99 and she had to buy them on the never-never. Now almost fifty years later Jessops are selling a pair of similar bins for £24.99. I guess that manufacturers in Asia are able to make them profitably at this ridiculously low price.
I was somewhat older when I became an urban birder. In 1989 my office was on the 28th floor of the Standard Chartered building in Singapore with a fine view out to sea and my desk was by the window. Equipped with binoculars and Birds of South-East Asia I saw White-bellied Sea Eagles riding the thermals.
I left the book behind for my successor when I returned to London but I have an eclectic selection of bird books.
A neighbour’s cat is a persistent hunter. She killed a pigeon a few years ago and this month had another success. Unsurprisingly no birds nest in the back garden.Why do cats have the right to roam? I couldn’t put a dog, if I had one, in my neighbour’s garden.
Cats are hugely destructive to the song bird population, probably far more so than (Chris Packham’s) corvids but at least the one pictured is helping with your mouse problem! The Packhamites are the equivalent of the lack of attention that fishing attracts in the UK compared to shooting and hunting.