Well now, what's all this then? Starting a blog is a huge leap into the unknown for me but we'll give it a go.

My blog will mainly be about me, my photographs and almost entirely about my life where it has touched on birds - which is most of it! I'm a birder and have been for close on sixty years - my Mum says I used to be fascinated by birds in my pram and I evidently used to watch their movements whilst flat on my back. I still do this, but generally now in the upright position.

I've been lucky - born and brought up in Scotland I moved to Africa in 1975 - specifically Rhodesia, and I stayed there for thirty years, through war, independence, the good times, gradually falling into decay, corruption and violence under Mugabe until, after a horrendous night when we were attacked in our home, a fabulous country suddenly lost it's charm and we returned to Scotland. I went out to Africa with one husband, Duncan, but that was not to last, and came back to Scotland with another, Barry, to whom I've been married for 15 years.

We were lucky to live out in the bush, just outside Harare, and a regular daily bird list of about 50 species in the garden and surrounds was lovely. We put in a lot of visits to the Zambezi valley at Chirundu, the Eastern Highlands at Troutbeck and Nyanga.

We came back to Scotland in 2005 to live in Kincardine-on-Forth in the central belt and I was so lucky to get a job with the British Trust for Ornithology at their Scottish office based at Stirling University. I participate in several BTO bird surveys - the Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS), the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and I regularly put my records into BirdTrack, the online bird recording facility. I have also been training as a bird ringer and gained my 'C' permit in January 2012.

So, that's my potted life history so let's see how this blog goes