We shared many birdwatching adventures. To instance just two. I particularly recall our six-week stay on Fair Isle during the autumn of 1970. It was Alison’s first school experience and together with Nicola, they increased the class size to eight pupils. You organised a birthday party at Setter for them and the island children; the cake arrived from Shetland at the last minute. While there, I can also see the look on that birdwatcher’s face when, from his dialect you were able to tell him that he was from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, your native area and where you were born at nearby Lane End, just five miles from Wycombe. I also remember that we travelled to Winspit, Dorset, on seven occasions between late January and late February 1971, before you caught up with that wintering Wallcreeper. You were a keen amateur archaeologist, with a particular interest in salt-production in all its forms over time. You studied the Keyhaven/Lymington salt industry, at its height there during the first half of the nineteenth century and visited saltworks in southwest France. Your favourite bird was the Long-tailed Tit, and you enjoyed assisting me with our Keyhaven surveys, especially the gulls and terns’ breeding population counts, the Winter Farmland Bird Survey and the Breeding Bird Survey. Thank you for 52 wonderful years as my constant companion and mother to our three daughters. Ed
