So, the ‘Ghosts..’ exhibition opened in Liverpool and yours truly couldn’t make it. Aaaagh. Ceri and the guys have been keeping me informed and these pics show them setting things up on Wednesday. More pics and news to follow over the next few days.

The diary of the making of a film and an on going fascination with birds and their accompanying cast of human characters. By Ceri Levy.

April 27th 2011

To be truthful this year has been a shockingly bad one for me in so many ways. I was taken really ill in January and am only just recovering three months later. Thankfully I have had things to work on while recuperating and one of those things is about to make its public appearance. We are staging an exhibition entitled Ghosts of Gone Birds, an exhibition highlighting the dangers of bird extinction to raise awareness as well as money for BirdLife International’s Preventing Extinctions Programme.

By creating a work that represents a particular extinct species, over 60 contemporary artists have brought back to life a bird that has been lost, and the exhibition asks the question why should we lose any more? The natural rate of bird extinction is probably about one bird per century, but in the last thirty years alone 21 bird species have disappeared.

Artists include Rob Ryan, Ralph Steadman, Sir Peter Blake, Jamie Hewlett, Billy Childish, Desmond Morris, Olly and Suzi, Marcus Coates, D*Face, Holly Johnson, Peter Scott’s daughter Dafila and many others, with names continually joining the list.

The show will make its first appearance in Liverpool on May 19th and 20th as a two day festival of art, music, words and birds, with artists, writers and musicians contributing to the proceedings through talks, lectures and readings, with surprise performances and appearances being planned. The venue is the Liverpool School of Art and Design.

It is then intended to bring the show to London in November and we are just finalising details on the venue as I write. Getting to this point has taken the best part of two years and it has proved to be hard work just to get here. No one said it would be easy but I think we are nearly there, so let’s drift back in time and see how we got here.

May 5th 2009

Some time ago, Jackie, my wife, wanted to introduce me to someone that she thought may be interesting for me to work with and that was Chris Aldhous, from the creative agency Good Pilot. How right she would prove to be. My work on The Bird Effect has led me to explore the world of conservation as a strand for the film and I have felt that BirdLife International’s Preventing Extinctions programme was the right vehicle to use. Exploring the programme, which is run by my good friend and birding mentor, Jim Lawrence, has led me to the conclusion that I want to do something more than just include it in the film. Although featuring it in the film is an important enough thing to do, I feel that I could promote BirdLife’s programme in another way as well but have not been sure what that could be. Hence the meeting with Chris was arranged, in case he had some thoughts that may be useful.

Today we met and got on really well and I felt completely enthused talking to someone who is so obviously bursting with thoughts, ideas and creativity. I really feel that we could end up working together in some way. My gut instinct seems to be working overtime today, and let’s hope it’s proven to be right. Amongst other things, we talked about the possibility of staging an exhibition utilising the artists, musicians and writers that we both know and Chris went away to have a think about it. I liked him a lot. Let’s see what, if anything, develops.

May 29th 2009

I got a call today from Chris and I am going back for a meeting with him and his partners, Pierre Humeau and Pete Hodgson, at their offices next week. Being called Good Pilot, I hope they can steer us to somewhere interesting.

June 4th 2009

The more I have been thinking about it the more appealing an exhibition seems to me. Jackie and I venture to GP’s offices and are presented with a great idea. We are hooked the moment Chris unveils the potential title of the show.

Ghosts of Gone Birds.

It sounds like a show that you should know, a show you have already heard about, a show you have already seen. The idea as we discuss it, is to create a memorial to all the bird species that we have lost as a symbol to highlight the danger, sadness and incredible loss that goes hand in hand with extinction. We will get contemporary artists to pick an extinct species to represent and to breathe life back into that bird for Ghosts. One of the main aims is to appeal to a different audience than usual and we think we can do this by approaching a diverse selection of artists from different genres and sections of the art world.

November 2nd 2009

Our first meeting with Jim Lawrence at BirdLife’s offices in Cambridge goes well as we explain our ideas for Ghosts to Jim as well as John Fanshawe, who is involved with the arts and culture agenda within BirdLife International and who has the official title of Senior Strategy Advisor. Also present are Ade Long and Martin Fowlie, from the communications office. I really get the feeling that it will be good working with these guys.

December 18th 2009

This is the day for us to present Ghosts to Dr. Marco Lambertini, the Chief Executive of BirdLife, which ends up cancelled due to the snow that has stopped the world from working. It is so frustrating trying to get things done in this country. We can’t handle any change of weather. Why not!?

January 8th 2010

Finally we get to present to BirdLife and all goes really well. Marco and the other members of BirdLife that we present the idea to are really supportive of Ghosts. They totally get our idea of wanting to appeal to a different demographic than BirdLife reaches out to normally, and to engage with a new audience that perhaps don’t realise the problems that there are in the world for birds. For the first time since conception Good Pilot and myself feel that Ghosts is a living entity and that it truly exists. Level 1 complete.

Today – April 27th 2011

Time since that cold January day has been spent honing the idea and one of the most important developments for Ghosts is that we decided that the show should have two areas within it. The first area containing the Ghosts of Gone Birds, i.e. the extinct birds, and in the second area, we have today’s critically endangered birds, the ones that are on the verge of extinction right now. These are the Ghosts of Nearly Gone Birds. The message of the show is don’t let what’s happened to the birds in area one happen to the birds in area two, and that there is still something we can do to help save today’s birds from extinction. This area offers hope, for without hope we are surely lost.

Ghosts is all about blurring artistic boundaries. I abhor the way that art is so readily compartmentalised into categories, especially in this country. There is a feeling that artists from different genres shouldn’t mix, and I detest this notion. Ghosts, because of its strong theme can cut through this issue, as the subjects themselves are so incredibly diverse that it allows a mix of artists and styles to co-exist happily alongside each other. An urban artist’s bird can and will sit next to a wildlife artist’s piece, while an abstracted painting hangs perfectly next to a photorealist painting. Ghosts is about tearing down man made divisions within art and will appeal to a diverse audience purely by the nature of the far ranging choice of artists and the birds that they depict.

Since last year we have been contacting artists to get them on board the ghost ship and we now have an amazing selection of painters, sculptors, writers and musicians working away on their respective birds. I am staggered by the response we have had from everyone we have approached and the quality of work that has been pouring in is quite simply, humbling. I really feel that it is going to be a unique and beautiful show and with luck we will, between us all, create something magnificent.

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http://twitter.com/#!/gonebirds

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A lot of birders use walkie-talkies on Scilly to keep up with the latest news, and in my footage, when the first tentative reports of the Sociable Lapwing come over the airwaves, there is a wonderful exchange of disbelief and disparaging remarks as at first, people doubt the actuality of a Sociable Lapwing being on Scilly, and then as the reality of the situation dawns upon them, a new urgency leads everyone on a march up coastal path, down hillocks and into ever increasing gloom and wet weather, to get to the rarity situated at Saint Mary’s small airfield. It is a great moment when hundreds of birders arrive before night sets in to find the displaced visitor waiting for them. I am also with my friend Jim Lawrence, who is responsible for BirdLife’s Preventing Extinctions programme, which has under its remit, the Sociable Lapwing, a critically endangered species.

Copyright Tom Tams – Sociable Lapwing on Scilly October 2008

As my friendship with Jim has grown, I have seen the work that BirdLife is involved in, working tirelessly on behalf of the world’s endangered birds. I realised that if I were going to explore the conservation world in action, then Jim’s Preventing Extinctions programme, in particular, would be a perfect vehicle for that. We started talking about BirdLife projects I could explore to represent the work that they do within the film. I always knew that this was the arena and the organisation for me after I heard Margaret Atwood talk at Birdfair a few years ago when I first learnt through her and her husband, Graeme Gibson, of the problems there were for birds in the world and the work of BirdLife. It was just a matter of finding the right project.

Once I started cutting the Sociable Lapwing sequence together I finally realised that the answer was staring me in the face. This bird could be the film’s figurehead and motif that I had been looking for. It suddenly all made sense. I had filmed the bird from the birders’ point of view and as I was looking for a bird supported by the Preventing Extinctions programme to highlight the work of BirdLife and their partners, and wanting to end the film with a conservation aspect, why not utilise the very same bird, the Sociable Lapwing and its story, as the bookends for the film. Ending the film on its breeding grounds of Kazakhstan exploring the Sociable Lapwing Project would show my filmic journey from birdwatcher to potential conservationist. It provoked a moment of clarity for me and excited me as I have never been to Kazakhstan and love the prospect of immersing myself in a new culture. Follow the bird and there’s often a surprise ahead.

The Sociable Lapwing Project has been running since 2004 when it became apparent that the species was in major decline and in 2005 The Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity in Kazakhstan was joined by the RSPB in the efforts to discover the reasons for the decline and to address whatever problems would be discovered. It had been estimated that the Sociable Lapwing’s numbers had inexplicably crashed by 90% within the previous 15 years and work was needed to find out the causes of these events and the project has been expanding ever since. There were theories as to why the bird was in trouble including loss of habitat and other problems en route to and in its wintering grounds. One of the main problems was that little was known about where the birds flew to in the winter and what their routes were. Often it is migratory species that are the most threatened birds as they pass through many territories and numerous problems can occur along the way. To find out the problems for the birds it was important to ascertain where they go. A tracking system was devised and hi-tech, low-weight transmitters were attached to a number of birds, which are proving invaluable in providing information over the course of the project.

Perhaps because of this use of technology, as well as wanting to be involved with BirdLife’s Preventing Extinctions programme, Swarovski Optik, who make top quality binoculars and telescopes and are involved in high-end technological optical development, have become a Species Champion, in partnership with the RSPB, for the Sociable Lapwing. Being a Species Champion, means financially supporting a Critically Endangered bird and helping to pay for the project. It is no mean undertaking and Champions really are what they say they are on the tin. Champions.

Thanks to the technology being used, routes are starting to become understood as the birds fly south on a broad front and end up in various places for their winter break as far apart as Sudan and India. Flocks have been discovered stopping off in Turkey and Iraq that were hitherto unknown ports of call. The project has grown exponentially and now involves researchers and conservationists in Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, Syria, Sudan, India, Iraq and Iran. BirdLife coordinates the activities in what has become a huge international conservation alliance.

Data has flooded in from the transmitters attached to the birds to provide enough information to suggest that hunting is the most likely cause of the devastation of the population. Efforts are now being made to appeal to hunters and falconers in Syria, Iraq and Iran to desist from hunting Sociable Lapwings as they pass through these regions during the spring and autumn migration. Hunters in these regions used to hunt Houbara Bustards and Sand Grouse but they have been over hunted and have become all but wiped out. Saker Falcons are often used and when flown into flocks of birds have a success rate of 100%. They are frighteningly successful killing machines. The hope is that the appeal will mean a change of target from the hunters and the Lapwing can be spared. Already measures have been taken and conservationists in Syria and Iraq have successfully changed hunters’ targets. To really make this work it is important to know where the birds are and when. This is crucial to keep up pressure upon the hunters. These transmitters are doing this job and doing it well although the more transmitters the more information can be accrued. I have had an idea and have found out that these transmitters are approximately £2000 a piece. I would love to sponsor a bird as it would be great for the film to, in effect, adopt a bird and film it being tagged in Kazakhstan. It is a gamble considering that out of nine birds tagged last year only 4 seem to have survived but I would take my bird aside and give him a few tips on survival and the like. They just need a decent manager with some words of wisdom.

BirdLife has created a site, which documents all of the work that is going into saving the Sociable Lapwing. It is called The Amazing Journey and is a nerve centre for the project with easy access to a feast of knowledge and info about the ongoing work. It also contains a real time map which tracks the Sociable Lapwings they have tagged with transmitters as they headed south for the winter from Kazakhstan and who are now just beginning to make their spring journeys back north.

Copyright Tom Tams – Sociable Lapwing on Scilly October 2008

The need for bird conservation has struck me hard, and whilst I have learnt a great deal about birds and have enjoyed their company and where they have taken me in my wanderings, I have begun to feel that because of this joy that they have brought to me that I should personally find some form of payback for the birds. I find it frightening that there are so many species in danger in our modern world and want to find a way that I can help in their plight.

The Bird Effect tells an array of stories and introduces characters that have shown me the love, affinity and passion that birds engender within us, and I want to do something for the birds as well as making the film. In some way or another I want to involve people that I know from the worlds of art, music and literature as well as the various scientists, conservationists and birders I have met and create a forum within which these voices could help raise awareness about the problems that face the world’s bird population today. But what would the premise be? That is my thought for bedtime. I think I need some help with this one.

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Monday 13th September
I keep an eye on what’s going on in London’s bird sightings by looking at The London Bird Club’s website.
And tonight there was a brilliant sighting recorded by Michael Mac. It reads as follows, “ Sainsbury’s Nine Elms: Feral Pigeon trapped in the supermarket flying above the checkouts at 1pm.” I tell you these guys don’t miss a trick.

Wednesday 15th September

Blue-Headed Pitta. Photo Courtesy of Chris Gooddie/www.pittasworld.com

I have had plenty of time to immerse myself in books recently and one of my favourite reads has been The Jewel Hunter by Chris Gooddie. In it he describes his attempt to see all of the world’s 32 Pitta Birds in one year. These birds are extraordinarily hard to see, not least because many of them are endangered, and deeply rewarding when finally seen as they are amazingly beautiful creatures. This book is an account of his version of a big year.

So what is a big year, I hear you ask. Well, a big year is 365 days of competitive bird watching, which starts on January 1st and lasts through until December 31st. Birders try to see and tick off on their bird lists as many birds as they can in one calendar year. It is the marathon of birdwatching and is a challenge, which necessitates great commitment, and demands that the bird hunter gives up everything to do with his previously normal life and dedicate the whole year to the single purpose of travelling and finding as many birds as possible.

Over the years, there has been a lineage of big year bird books, which document the challenges of these undertakings and the best of these bird seekers continually search for a unique slant to create a variation on a theme. Possibly the most famous of these books and certainly the one that set the trend of carrying out a big year and then documenting it, is Wild America, written by two legends of the bird world, the American ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson and the UK’s very own naturalist James Fisher. It was an account of their 1953 journey as they birded around the coastline of America, which they did for research and for pleasure. They also ended up smashing the record for the number of different birds seen in one year in America. In the book, you can even pinpoint the moment that the bird world changed, when under an asterisked footnote, Peterson wrote, “Incidental information. My year’s list at the end of 1953 was 572 species.” This aside created a new movement, which wanted to get out there and see birds for themselves, keeping lists, documenting their finds and travelling in search of birds. This unknowingly became the call to arms for the modern listing birder. This led to people a) attempting to break their record and b) to keep accounts of their big years.

There have since been many takes on this story including Kenn Kaufmann’s coming of age book ‘Kingbird Highway’, Stephen Riley’s life changing journey, ‘Arrivals and Rivals’, and Sean Dooley’s entertaining, ‘The Big Twitch.’ All are thoroughly recommended and worth taking the time to hunt down. But Mark Obmascik’s ‘The Big Year’ – which travels with three participants in 1998, as they vie for the number one slot for birds seen that year – could prove to become the most fruitful book of them all, as the rights have been bought by Ben Stiller and is in production with Steve Martin playing a part alongside Jack Black and Owen Wilson. Will birding become a Hollywood phenomenon? Or will it be yet another Steve Martin horror-show? How can a man who made such films as The Jerk or Dirty Rotten Scoundrels have become such a disastrously unfunny man? I digress.

The Jewel Hunter is firstly a welcome addition to the big year family, and secondly is an engaging, passionate and warmly told account of how Chris fared on his big year. I really love the opening pages of the book, which start with Chris wanting to escape his everyday work routine and to embark on his own personal pitta bird odyssey. It is a moment that many people would term a mid life crisis. He burns his bridges by walking out of his job and decides to attempt his mission impossible and search for the all of the world’s pittas in his allotted twelve months. Personally, I have never understood why an act like this should be termed as a crisis. For me, his action is a mid life epiphany to be applauded. What he did was a brave and wonderful act. Life is too short to miss the chance to escape the mundane and routine and we should all seek adventure wherever possible. I hope Chris’ actions and this book will inspire some readers to do something similar.

His journey takes us to far flung places, from Vietnam to the Solomon Islands, and Assam to Borneo. The excitement and the fear which pervades his writing as he waits to uncover each jewel is palpable and, much like a thriller, we root for him to find his next, little piece of treasure. The book crackles with life and is as much travelogue as bird book. We journey deep into jungles, sweating in unbearable humidity, crawl through undergrowth and try and avoid some of the nastier elements of the tropical world. He brings to life the tension of the hunt as he tracks each bird and one imagines being behind his shoulder the whole way and wanting to reach for his near customary, celebratory, rum and coke, or local equivalent, on each new discovery. This is an adventure yarn and should be happily read by people other than birders, as it is a great story of following your heart and making a vision become a realitydare. The message is clear; we should all dare to dream.

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Thursday 28th October
This entry is a way to apologise for the sporadic appearances of the diaries over the last few months but there has been a reason and the diary entry attached to this one should explain why and what to made this an odd period of life for me.

Wednesday April 7th
I set off on the Central Line to Liverpool Street as I am filming David Lindo’s Tower 42 project on top of said building. The aim for the project is to study birds and their spring migration over London from the top of the tallest building in the City. If all goes well, David has plans to roll the project out in other major cities around the globe. David is The Urban Birder, and his website is all about birds in the city.
I am travelling burdened by camera bags and too much clobber and I am feeling weighed down, too hot and oddly exhausted on the Tube. I get to the Tower and David introduces me to all those who are helping out for the day. We get the lift up as far as it goes, and then have to pass through various corridors, up several stairwells and then to a wall ladder, which we have to ascend to get onto the roof. I huff and puff up the ladders with what feels like the weight of the world upon my back and rip the camera bags from me when I flounder onto the roof itself. It is a realisation that I really must lose weight. I feel a tingling in my arms and put this down to a loss of circulation. I set up my camera and start shooting but the tingly sensation does not dissipate. I shake my arms trying to get blood back into my veins. I am also sweating heavily. Then I get a wave of dizziness, which is really odd and completely disorientating. It can’t be vertigo as I was up here happily enjoying the height last week. I put my camera down and start to take deep breaths. I sit down and then I find myself lying on the floor with someone looking over me asking if I am ok. I have grazed my nose and cheek on the ground. Apparently I just keeled over. I stay on the ground for a while and someone brings me a cuppa. It all seems so surreal as I chat away normally but I am feeling so odd and just want to sleep. I am left to my own devices as I insist I just need to rest awhile. “It’s probably vertigo.” I hear from behind me. All I want to do is just rest and nuzzle into this warm black space that has opened up for me, it fits me perfectly and snugly. I lie down on the rooftop and phase in and out of the here and now. “Sparrowhawk!” someone shouts. I remember thinking how much I would like to see that bird as I lie foetal like, my eyes blinking as I stare at a puddle on the ground that rocks in and out of focus inches from my face.

People appear now and then to see how I’m doing and I finally admit, “Not good.” At this point my instinct kicks in and tells me that I have got to get off of this roof, that things are all wrong and I’m getting no better. My thought is that maybe I have concussed myself. I know it is imperative to get back down into the building. But I know that it is not easy to do this, especially whilst I keep disappearing into a fluffy black world. One of the guys from the Tower has been keeping an eye on me and obviously they are working out how to get me down. He helps get me upright and I feel the lack of control over my limbs but we know we have to press on. The roof feels like the Titanic, swaying mercilessly in the storm of my derangement. Picking out possible seats along the way we lurch from stopping point to stopping point. My breathing is heavy and unnatural. I keep fading to black every time I sit down. But I know I have to keep going as the only way off the roof is a helicopter and that would prove to be a really difficult feat as well as acutely embarrassing if it turns out that all I’ve got is a case of vertigo or a delayed reaction to something else.

I know I am not functioning correctly but I do know that I have to find a way to climb down the ladders immediately. We finally get to the first ladder and one person goes down in front of me and one waits behind me. I remember telling someone what goes in what bag and to make sure not to lose that small bag over there. Still bossy and still thinking of my camera even though I feel there is something altogether different that I should be concerning myself with. I step through the space to climb down onto the ladder. This is so hard as my internal life switch keeps flicking on and off. I remember standing on a hand on the ladder rail and try to apologise but I am brilliantly shepherded down the ladder. We carefully make our way back down to the security area with me pausing every few moments to sit and black out. The trouble is that every time I shut my eyes it is such a beautiful sensation. The guys keep me from dropping off and finally I am sat in a chair with a warm cup of tea. People keep talking to me and I keep replying but I feel as though I am watching this scenario rather than being in the middle of it. I find myself slipping back into the beautiful black calm that takes me into its warmth. And then there are ambulance men and women, who strap devices to me and one of them jokes to me, that he is grateful to me for making my own way down as he has a fear of heights.

Then I am told that I am having a heart attack and that I need to get to a hospital now to be sorted out. The ambulance man is brilliant at breaking the news and I am intrigued by his discovery that my heart rate is down to 36 and that is why I am blacking out all the time. Basically my body is shutting down and saying sayonara. He sprays something under my tongue, which hopefully will keep me going until we get to the hospital. I am calm. Let them do their job is all I can think. I am sure today is not the day I am meant to die. All these years working with musicians and various dangerous characters, embracing a bon-viveur lifestyle and it’s possibly filming with birds that’s going to kill me? I don’t think so. My survival instinct is strong.

I am strapped into a chair and I am wheeled through the building. This, I have to say, is embarrassing. Everyone looks at you. Heads turn and you see pity in the eyes that fix on you. We find ourselves at the building’s entrance and a city man is on his phone busily arguing in a high-pitched moneyed whine and does not move out of the way. Everyone shouts for him to get out of the way but he does not move. As we get closer to him all of my frustrations surge through me in one moment of anger and as we get in striking range I manage to get a leg free and boot him in the back of his legs, really hard. He turns to abuse whoever has done this to him, sees the situation and blusters an apology and moves out of the way. Note to self, you can get away with so much when in a wheelchair.

I am placed in the ambulance and as we tear away from Tower 42 there is a crunching sound as we hit a car on our way out. Judging by the shouts we have taken off a wing mirror in our hasty exit. There is an argument and the ambulance driver tells the person how to claim compensation. Then we are off. The crew look after me and tell me what is happening to me. They are calm and considered and help me over this mental milestone that I am in big trouble. There is a probable blockage in my arteries that is causing the problem, but they tell me that we are near The London Chest Hospital, which specialises in cases like mine. They also ask me about next of kin. We hear that term so much, but it’s only in situations like this that we understand the true meaning of it. Who do we deal with if you die, is what they are asking of me. I tell them that Jackie is my wife and that she works near by. They say if we can get hold of her they could pick her up on route. Unfortunately we can’t get hold of her. The drugs they have given me have perked me up a bit and I feel quite chatty. I also don’t quite believe what is happening to me and I can feel the shock of the new coursing through me.

We arrive at the London Chest Hospital and I am wheeled in and met by a team of people, all demanding replies to urgent questions. I answer with all the information I can give and finally I am asked if I would like to take part in a study to look at how the heart repairs itself after a heart attack.

I ask, “I’m having a heart attack now, correct?” “Yes, you are,” replies the doctor. “Well, could we wait and see if I survive it?” “ Yes, of course,” comes the sheepish reply.

I am then wheeled into the operating room they call The Lab and I have clothes removed, anatomy shaved, injections prepped and finally I am on the slab ready for surgery. The drugs kick in and I enjoy the mental swim through the super strong narcotics. I still feel the first push of the two dyno-rods they insert into my groin’s artery. The first is a camera to view the offending blocked pathways to my heart, and the second is to clear said blockage. I ask for more drugs as I can feel some pain and my request is granted. It gets a little fluffier. I lie back and drift off to semi-consciousness.

Then I am suddenly returned to awareness as I see a couple of high fives go up. The surgeon talks to me and I ask how it all went. “Good, would you like to see what we did?” And then like Match of The Day I get an action replay of all that happened to me. He nonchalantly flicks a large flat TV screen around to face me and he shows me the before and after of my heart. I see how the artery was completely blocked, I watch slow motion replays as the camera travelled through my arteries and then I am shown the last images of the now, fully cleared routes to my beating heart and I feel saved. I also feel surprisingly good. I am wheeled out of The Lab and taken to an intensive care unit. A cup of tea is brought to me. “Having a traumatic event? Then have a cuppa. It always works. I rest but feel ok. Surprised, shocked and realising there are calls to make, namely to Jackie, my wife, and I know it is going to be one of the hardest calls I am ever going to make. I am passed my phone and I dial her. “Hey,” I say, ” Today has not gone entirely to plan…”

Thursday April 8th
Feeling weak, I want to read a little and I unpack the book from my bag. I laugh when I see what I am reading. Any Human Heart by William Boyd.

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Tuesday January 5th

Today I am off to Liverpool to meet Clem Fisher. She is the Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the Liverpool World Museum and looks after the collection of bird skins that they own. I met her at the Bird Symposium in Oxford in December and she invited me along to view their birds as I was interested in exploring the world of extinction and they had several extinct species in their collections. All through the Xmas period I had said to myself that I wanted to start the year with a bang and get on with filming and meeting people and here I am in the first week of January on the train up north. This is how it’s got to be this year, non-stop and full steam ahead for The Bird Effect.

It’s a grey, cold day as we set off from London and the weather seems to deteriorate the further north we go. Soon it becomes a snowscape outside and we are surrounded by a blizzard. The train creeps into Liverpool Lime Street and as I get off the train I decide to go to the taxi rank where I discover that no one else is waiting for a taxi. For a brief moment I think to myself that maybe this is my lucky day. A porter walks past me, looks me up and down as if I’m an imbecile and decides to let me in on the secret that there are no taxis and there have been no taxis in three hours. As they say, when things look too good to be true they usually are.

I look at a map and work out where my hotel is. It’s quite a way especially with all my equipment. I head outside to a scene of apocalyptic proportions. Traffic is gridlocked in every direction. The pavement is sheer ice. People are falling over. Shops are closed. Shopping bags lie spilled upon the glaciers of Liverpool, their ready meals strewn across this snowy wasteland. Men and women are crying on street corners. The shop shutters have been pulled down in all directions. What have I walked into?

I phone Clem, who is stuck at home. She is waiting for a hip operation and is concerned about the state of the sudden iciness that surrounds her home. I tell her not to even think about coming out and suggest we see how the weather is tomorrow. She feels bad but I say it’s just not worth the trouble as the conditions are treacherous. I head down the hill towards the hopeful sanctity of my hotel at the docks and I have to concentrate to keep from slipping and falling like so many do on this public ice rink. It takes the best part of an hour to slide to my hotel. Where are the huskies when you need them? Once inside my hotel room I look outside my window to watch the unmoving snake of un-charmed traffic. I meet a friend of mine who has appeared at the hotel and we decide to go for a drink. It is five in the afternoon but the majority of pubs are shut or shutting at 6 so the staff can find a way home. We are booted out of the pub at 5.50. It feels like the war and even the beer is being rationed. I suggest to my friend that he should get back home as he has to get a train and the last one to his neck of the woods is in half an hour. I slither with him to the station and wish him Godspeed! The city has come to a complete standstill. I return to the hotel and I notice outside my window that the traffic I looked at an hour or so ago has moved possibly three yards. Welcome to Liverpool. It’s closed.

Wednesday January 6th
Quietness abounds around town this morning as I head to the World Museum. It is still icy under foot and Stephen Guy, the Press Officer for the Museum, has come to meet me as Clem is now definitely snowed in and wisely staying at home. He has defied the weather and walked several miles to get in to see me and to make sure I haven’t had a wasted journey. On a day like this I really appreciate his generous spirit. He takes me to meet Tony Parker from the zoology department, who takes me round the collection in lieu of Clem and I am staggered by what I see. This makes the trip totally worthwhile, although I know that I will be coming back soon as I also really want to chat on camera with Clem. But no matter, as Tony is a great host and I learn so much from him as he guides me through the collection. I see drawer after drawer of birds, which are impaled on sticks so they can be picked up and examined without damaging their feathers, and they make me think that they are akin to bird lollipops. I look at trays full of hummingbirds, finches, birds of prey and a collection of the sadly extinct Passenger Pigeon. I am shown a Great Auk egg, which is spectacularly beautiful and huge. It is splattered in black like a Jackson Pollock action-painted egg. I admire gigantic seabirds, which were collected over a hundred years old and there is an acrid stench of the sea and oil, which is nothing less than distinctly unpleasant. The intervening century of life for these birds in their cabinets and drawers has been unable to clear the fetid sickening aroma from their bodies.
Passenger Pigeon Lollipop
Jackson Pollock’s Auk Egg

I also admire the Liverpool Pigeon, a.k.a. The Spotted Green Pigeon, which is the only specimen of its type in the world and of course is not from Liverpool at all. No one knows where it came from although the general feeling is that perhaps it was from one of the Pacific Islands. It is a beautiful mystery bird.
The Liverpool Pigeon A.K.A. The Green Spotted Pigeon.

Stephen takes me for lunch when we’ve finished our tour behind the scenes, and I can recommend eating the great homemade food in their cafe. Stephen proves to be a wonderfully entertaining host and I discover he is a Liverpool historian of great repute. I tell him that I recently discovered that I have much more family history than I realised in Liverpool itself. My father always told me that our family had come from Russia to escape the Jewish persecution in the 1870’s and that they had bought tickets on a boat bound for the promised land of New York. One day on board the ship they were told that they had arrived in The United States and had made pretty good time. They marched off the boat and as it sailed away from the quay they discovered that they were actually in the slightly less glamorous surroundings of Swansea! In a moment of boredom last year, while my wife, Jackie, was researching her family tree on ancestry.co.uk I decided to have a quick look at my family’s history as I never really knew much about my heritage. Within a few quick inquiries I was captivated and had learnt more about my ancestors than I had in my entire time on this planet. I also discovered that my father’s family was not dropped in Wales but Liverpool instead, where they stayed for the next thirty years or so and only then had moved to Swansea. I also discovered that the family were hawkers of pictures, ie art dealers, with a frame maker, and a glazier also in the family and all in the same house. I found out they lived in Mountfichet Street in Liverpool and Stephen told me that was an area surrounded by merchants houses and so it would seem clear that my family were selling art to the wealthy. As a way of funding my films I buy and sell art and had no idea of my family’s business acumen and here I am one hundred and forty years later doing exactly the same thing. We always like to think we are unique but here I am carrying on a family tradition I knew nothing about, although my father sold art, as well as being an art critic and writer, so it’s obviously in the genes, and I have discovered that I am a Scouser, and a mongrel one at that. So I’m a Scouse, Welsh, Jewish, Russian! No wonder I’ve got short legs.

As I slide my way to the station I see a rare sight as a taxi approaches with it’s light on. I hail it immediately and he pulls up beside me and I get in. Once inside, the driver and I start talking about the chaos and how the world as we know it has ground to a halt. He says, “ That Hitler couldn’t have been too clever. All he had to do during the war was chuck snowballs at us and not bombs and we’d have been defeated! We’d all be Germans now if he’d had the nous to do that!”

At the train station no one at Virgin can help the queues of people wanting to get to London and no one knows if there are any trains. I know that mine is not meant to leave for a few more hours but as the staff think the trains won’t be running by that time anyway, they stamp my ticket, which allows me to get on any train that may or may not appear from now on, although it is unlikely to be for at least another hour and they urge everyone to clear the ticket office and to come back later. The people dissipate from the area in a resigned manner and I decide to go for a pint. As I leave the office I see a train pull in. It’s from London and I ask one of the staff on the train if it’s going to London. He says yes but that the train is turning around immediately. I jump onboard and within minutes we are off heading slowly but surely towards London. I wonder how many of the throng that were told to come back later have got onboard. I feel lucky as we leave the snow wreckage behind. Above me the sun bursts through the melting snow upon the glass roof like a constructivist painting. I have escaped.

read Ceri’s earlier diary entries HERE.

Wednesday 2nd December

“Whatever path your life takes, make it useful and strive to achieve progress, however modest it may seem in your chosen field. In this way you will add to the general well-being.”
Gustave Eiffel.

Wednesday 9th December

Sometimes I get confused as to whether I am making a film, writing diaries or giving talks and then it dawns on me that these are all facets of TBE. I just have to do everything and more. But I do get lax at times and have not filmed anything in anger for way too long. But I am still coming to terms with how I want things to develop and I am ok as long as ideas keep unfolding and knowledge is forthcoming. I continually learn things and that in turn, means my course keeps changing. I did think this morning that I could not remember the last idea I had which was worrying. I hope the Symposium on Friday will energise and inspire me.

Friday 11th December

An early morning start at Paddington to get out to Oxford for the Birds, Culture and Conservation Symposium at the School of Geography. It has been organised by Paul Jepson from the School of Geography and the Environment and Mark Cocker, he of Crow Country fame, and I have been invited to give a talk about The Bird Effect and my journey through the avian world. I am going down with Jeff Barrett from CBTR and another mate, Chris Aldhous, a creative director with a company called Good Pilot, who has been getting involved with TBE. I get a cardboard sandwich at the station purporting to be something to do with breakfast and chuck most of it away before it has a chance to assault my stomach. Onto the train and we’re away.

I’m a little apprehensive about my talk as I know that I will be standing in front of a bird hardened audience and I hope that I am going to prove a worthwhile addition to their symposium. Some of my favourite writers will be there as well as Mark Cocker, including Stephen Moss, a BBC wildlife programme producer, whose book A Bird in the Bush, along with Mark’s book, Birders, really set me on my journey all those months ago. Also speaking is Jeremy Mynott, whose cerebral book, Birdscapes, I reviewed some months back and whom I saw on Scilly recently. I am mixing with some illustrious people and I really hope I don’t let myself down. Jim Lawrence from Birdlife has turned up as well and it’s good to have some more support.

I have been moved into the morning session, which means I won’t be agitating expectantly over my pork pie at lunchtime. In fact, my talk comes and goes quite quickly and lunchtime is an enjoyable experience as the talk seems to have gone down well and now I can enjoy chatting freely with various people. I am thinking that I would love to do something like this again. I think I survived.

The whole day has been a pleasurable experience and I have listened to some enlightening talks and met some really wonderful people. I think the highlight of the talks for me was Tim Birkhead, whose book The Wisdom of Birds is a great read. His talk is extraordinary and entertaining. He showed us the most wonderful video clip of a man teaching a bullfinch to sing. The bird is uncaged, perched on a branch of a tree in front of his tutor and as the song is learnt, man and bird seem to sway and dance together as they whistle their way through a duet. It is perfect, enchanting and magnificent.

Tim goes on to talk about aquatic warblers and the size of their testicles, which are huge compared to the size of the bird. He then relates bird ball size to infidelity, i.e. the larger the balls the smaller the fidelity. I look around the room and wonder if this angle works with humans and who may be the human aquatic warbler amongst us. Bird talks really can be brilliant.

After a day of taking in so much new knowledge, we reach the end of the proceedings and a chat with some of the participants ensues over a pint in the Students Union, before having to race back for my designated train back to London. I have enjoyed it all so much and my one major thought is that this would have been great if it had been open to the public, as it was engagingly educational and neither too stuffy nor too academic. This sort of event needs to be out in the public domain. Days like these could prove to be a great success. The time is now for nature. I feel invigorated.

Thursday 17th December

I am really intrigued by The Great Bustard Group and their efforts in trying to re-introduce this bird back into the British landscape. I first learnt about them at this year’s Birdfair where I enjoyed a talk about their work. The man behind the project is David Waters and the GBG has been going since 1997. Using a piece of land next to the M.O.D.’s firing range on Salisbury Plain, the aim has been to establish a self-sustaining population of Great Bustards in the UK. In fact, this year the first chicks in the programme were born. They were the first wild Bustard chicks in this country for 177 years. Two have sadly died but one has survived and is doing well. It is an ambitious project, which relies on private donations and has no help from the government due to the fact that the Bustard is no longer considered a British bird, but an alien species as it has been gone from our shores since the 1840’s, when it was hunted out of existence. Support is always needed for the project as it costs £150,000 per annum just to maintain the running of the operation.

I am interested in including the Group in TBE and as they were holding a fund raising evening and charity auction at the Royal Geographic Society, the Group’s Project Officer, Al Dawes, invited me along to see what they were up to and to chat about possibly filming the project over the coming months. What appeals to me the most for TBE, is how much David has personally put into the project and how it is one man’s obsession with a favourite bird from his youth, which drives the enterprise forward. I really admire his tenacity and gusto and hope to get that across in TBE. It may be a folly to attempt to bring back the Bustard but I really feel I want to support his and the Group’s efforts. His is a perfect example of the bird effect.

I turned up just as the cold snap had started in London and I was immediately bowled over by the fact that the Group has its own beer specifically brewed for them by Stonehenge Ales. Believe me I can vouch for it’s worth. And I like the shape of the bottle. So obviously it makes it on to my beer tips of the month. I believe that any bird group, which has its very own beer, has to be doing something right. And should be supported.

The auction was an eclectic mix of donated holidays, trips out with the GBG and bustard related items, but the oddest item up for grabs and the highlight of the evening for me had to be the donation of a vasectomy. Yes, that’s right a vasectomy, which apparently retailed at over £1000. It was bought by a young man, as a present for his father at a cost of only £320. (And no gags about it being a mere snip at that price.) I can’t help but wonder if he wasn’t an only child who was thinking about protecting his inheritance prospects. Wise kid.

I also met Charlie Moores, who is one of the head honchos of the website, 10,000 Birds, which is an informative and well-written site about birds, nature and conservation, covering everything from sightings and bird news to reviews of books and music. Coincidentally, 10,000 Birds is also the first ever blog site to be a Species Champion for Birdlife’s Preventing Extinction programme.

I talked to Charlie about the fact that more birders should really be involved in an active way in conservation programmes. I wholeheartedly agree with him and the site is a fine example for other people, who are interested in birds, to follow. I hope I catch up with him again soon.

As I head out into the night, I suddenly feel like Nanook of the North as I am swallowed up by thick Arctic snow and a fierce, driving wind. This is made even harder as I am laden with pockets full of Bustard beer. I find that there is not a taxi in sight as a blizzard engulfs me and with a couple of miles to skate home, I try not to fall on this treacherous surface, knowing that a slip could leave me with busted Bustard beer bottles. I plod and slide towards home, excruciatingly slowly and uncertainly, through the worst wintry conditions I can remember for years and finally arrive home frozen to the core, thankful I have a decent unbroken drink at hand. Cheers to you Great Bustard Group.

I realise that Xmas is just around the corner and I have the whole festive period to organise the early part of next year for interviews and filming. Tonight I have just added several people to my list and for that I am grateful. Bring on 2010. I want to hit the ground running.

read Ceri’s earlier diary entries HERE.

hi jeff
ive got a host of new ‘charmed from the trees’ wooden birds up on my site (www.mattsewell.co.uk). the pic attached is new addition kingfisher, he will be the prize for the drawing comp at Port Eliot.
matt

Matt Sewell and Ceri Levy have come up with a couple of prize winning activities for Port Eliot next weekend. Get yourself a ‘Spotting & Jotting’ checklist (they can be found inside the programme or at the Rough Trade record stall), spot as many of the species as you can and return the sheet to Matt’s bird-hide (beside the Caught by the River stage) to win a prize. The wooden kingfisher above is the star prize in the other competition – open to under 8s & over 8s – to draw either real or imagined birds. Again, go to Matt’s hide for the painting materials. There will also be prizes of the new Collins Bird Guide (generously donated by Myles Archibald at Harper Collins) for the runners up.