Welcome to The Widerscope Website!
So who the heck are we?
We are Nick 'Chelsea Boy' Bond, Danny 'The Pirate' Cooper, Seth 'The Gibster' Gibson and Dog aka...er...'Dog'. This site tells of our individual and joint adventures across Britain and beyond in search of high jinks and adventure in the world of nature...plus maybe a few beers and drunken parties along the way...and recently come into the fold is Sami Webster, Seth's better half - or so she claims!
In brief, we're a bunch of birders from South London who, a few years ago, became a bit jaded with our local bird club. They couldn't offer us what we wanted. They weren't hardcore enough for us. They wouldn't kip in a car each night for three months (actually, only Seth did that.) They couldn't do overnight drives to Scotland for Masked Shrikes and White-tailed Plovers. They wouldn't twitch The Gower AND Anglesey in the same day (and who in their right mind would?) They couldn't twitch Scilly for the day.
We bloody well could though!!!
Some colourful characters from The Surbiton & District Birdwatching Society, our old hangout....
2-Hats Muriel (RIP), Little Gary Caine and Big Bad Glen...3 damn good reasons for us to quit the SDBWS!!!
And here's the Head Honcho flanked by two of the more senior members. We love you all guys!!!
And not just birds either...
We look at butterflies (our latest goodies include Indian Red Admirals in Tenerife, Glanville Fritillaries in Hampshire, Morphos in Nicaragua), moths (Six-belted Clearwing in Rotherhithe, Scarlet Tigers in Winchester, Oak Eggar in Scotland), Dragonflies (Vagrant Emperor in Tenerife, Small Red Damselfly in Surrey), Mammals (Short-finned Pilot Whales in Tenerife, Wildcat, Mountain Hares and Otters in Scotland, Lynx and Moose in Estonia, Howler Monkeys and Peccaries in Nicaragua), Reptiles (American Crocodiles and Iguanas in Nicaragua), Amphibians, Fish (like touching a Blue Shark in the Western Approaches!), Plants (Danny has discovered Western Clover on Tean, the first record for the island!!), Jellyfish, tidal pools (Blue-rayed Limpets, they rock!!!) - in fact, pretty much anything... hence our name. We look at a Wider Scope of nature than most.
***** BREAKING NEWS *****
Nick and Seth are just back from a week on Scilly with Danny The Pirate...the scattering of 'decent' birds that gave themselves up for the masses were moderately ok. Some folks were better than last year (and others were much worse). The handful of keen birders present on the islands were mostly too busy hiding from the numerous small gangs of highly unmotivated, extremely talkative muppets - consequently October 2009 (thus far) ranks right alongside 1992 in terms of sheer crapness. C'mon the Teachers...we need you to help restore Scilly's ailing reputation!!!
We welcome Sami Webster as the 4th member of Widerscope, she has her own page now so have a quick perusal!
Nick has added his fantastic trip report for Estonia. Everybody should read this thrilling account of five days birding in the snow !! His Hawk Owl photo was so good it made it into May's edition of Dutch Birding, Birding World AND Birdwatch ( page 74)!!!!
Seth and Sam are back from their month long expedition to rural NICARAGUA. You know the write-up is going to be a great read!!! Selected highlights include Frigatebirds, Motmots, Toucanets, Hummingbirds, Pauraques, Trogons, Antshrikes, Manakins, Tityras, Tanagers, Orioles, Bellbirds and Oropendolas from the bed, getting pissed on by an irate Howler Monkey, Peccaries so close we could smell them, American Crocodiles in mangrove swamps and innumerable butterflies...oh yeah, and Army Ants going through the bedroom one night...
On the Scillies Danny has self-found his 'Best Bird So Far' of 2009, a Subalpine Warbler on The Garrison, St Marys. Sure beats Iggy the tame, mealworm-eating Cattle Egret!!! Plus saving stranded dolphins and seal pups and catching sharks by accident, discovering rare sponges and corals on the sandflats and even meeting the PM at Downing Street! When Dan gets going there's absolutely no stopping him (unless a pub happens to be in his way!!!) Check out Isles of Scilly 09 for full details.
Quotes from our Guestbook:
"Excellent site! I particularly approve of the pictures of Caper poo."
"Still the best satirical birding blog in my opinion!"
"Great site. Birding is too serious nowadays so it is nice to see a proper birding website."
"I saw you for the second time on page three of the Daily Mail..."
"Thought it was about time I informed you of how utterly shite your site is!!"
"Great site, we need more like you."
"Glad to see you are all as mad as ever."
"Danny was quite cool on TV the other day, wouldn't have recognised him without the pirate gear and minus a beer. He was almost an upstanding member of the human race. That's scary!"
"Good on honest banter. Cheers."
Latest updates -
We've revamped the layout a little, following various comments from Scilly Birders during our October 2008 trip. Hopefully everything now meets with your approval! The Member's Page has gone, we've decided instead to add extra material to our own individual Blog Pages. There are more photos on Caption That Pic, we've consolidated our various picture collections into a completely new photo albums, a whole new Quiz Page and, of course, the Daily Blog updates from Nick and Seth. Nick has added his 2008 Round-up. Danny has begun to regularly update his Scilly 2009 reports. Another exciting and brand new page gives an account of a few of more ludicrously successful rarity chases. Read about them on Our Twitches.
Thus far during November (9th) we have been visited by people from across much of Britain as well as from the USA, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Slovakia, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Bahrain and Pakistan. Thank you all, folks. We really do hope you enjoyed your visit and remember to check back soon!!!
***Calling all Facebooker's*** we have a Widerscope Group on the site...Please join and say hello!!......click here
Please enter and enjoy our mad little world...
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