Seeing your own words in print
It's always exciting, that moment when you first open the magazine and see the finished article, complete with your own name underneath as the author. We've been serialised in Birdwatching magazine, and been lucky enough to have written for the American Birding Association's member's magazine, a Finnish book on twitching, and even a magazine in China, though sadly we never did receive a copy of the actual magazine. Just lately, we've been fortunate enough to have some more of our writing included in two of the UK's top birding journals, which have just landed on the doormat.The original finders, Andy Cook and Julian Torino, weren't able to provide material on their exciting discovery of the Lesser Kestrel at Minsmere, Suffolk on 28th March, but we were asked by Steve Gantlett, the editor of Birding World, if we'd be interested in writing a piece on the bird instead. Of course we were! As the first two people to technically twitch the Lesser Kestrel we were more than happy to write an article about this stunning litle raptor. It was great to be able to recreate our thrill at the serendipity of just happening to be in the right place at the right time to be on hand to confirm the ID and twitch the bird. Being first on the scene, we enjoyed close up views of this obliging kestrel as it repeatedly hovered, fed on the ground and returned to a fence post just feet from where we stood amongst the trees. With our fairly limited camera, even we were able to get some pretty good shots of the Lesser Kestrel, one of it on the ground being included in Birding World.Now, Alan's already a regular contributor to Birdwatch magazine as he writes the monthly round up of birds seen in Wales. But when we were asked if we'd write a piece on where to look for raptors in mid and North Wales, Ruth stepped up to the plate and wrote an article on the best of raptor hotspots in the area. Of course we had to include the incredible spectacle of the Red Kite Feeding Station at Gigrin Farm near Rhayader, but perhaps new to readers were other sites including the Garreg-ddu reservoir in the Elan Valley for Goshawk and more Red Kite, the two osprey projects on the Dyfi and Glaslyn estuaries respectively, and the Peregrines on the cliffs at South Stack, Anglesey.It won't be long before our forthcoming book, The Biggest Twitch, is published. We've both separately written books on where to go birding in Wales - a series site guide on Alan's part, and a rather more lighthearted guide on birding, walking and eating cake by Ruth, but nothing that we've put quite so much heart and soul into as the story of The Biggest Twitch 2008. We can't wait to see the finished book, and hope that everyone has as much fun reading it as much as we did writing it.