Let's make movies!

It's been a hectic few days punctuated by the hours I spent deliberating over my Readers Digest piece and the article on urban birding in Prague that I was crafting for Bird Watching Magazine. Both took a lot longer to complete than what I originally imagined.

Also, I've been doing a lot of plotting and planning for the future when it comes to The Urban Birder brand. 2009 should be an interesting year. I have managed to get myself invited to the Natural History Unit Christmas Party in Bristol next Tuesday night and have also got a meeting with a Bristol based production company, who make exceptional wildlife programmes. The idea is that I will be touting some of the programme ideas that I have had to see what they make of them.

Speaking of production companies, I am forming one myself in the New Year with a camera woman that I have met recently. Every couple of weeks we go out and shoot short birding films, some of which will either appear on my site or utube at some point in the near future.

Sunday morning saw me stalking The Scrubs in search of any birdlife. Well, apart from a lone Great Black-backed Gull, the usual pair of Stonechats, some Fieldfare and a solitary Jackdaw flying over, the place was dead.

Tonight I was at the London Natural History Society's AGM at the Linnean Society's Rooms in Piccadilly. I must say that I had a pleasant surprise. Instead of a stuffy, boring meeting discussing the distribution of paper clips, we were treated to a silent movie with live commentary on the birds of the London area c1959. It was great to see London as it was then; the old Routemaster buses, people feeding the birds in the Royal Parks, images of breeding Red-backed Shrike (long gone now), people's attire at the time and tons of House Sparrows.

It was a lovely little film.