It has taken me some time to sit down and write this, but I had some terrible news last week that my friend Pete (POD) had passed away in his sleep. Pete has been one of my mates for donkey's years and one of the first people I ever met at Marbury Country Park when I moved to Northwich in 2002. Pete's life was birds, and you could always find him birding at Marbury Country Park over the years. He has found loads of good birds, including the Black-winged Stilts that bred at Neumann's Flash, which everybody enjoyed seeing. Pete was also twitching mad and loved seeing new birds that showed up in Britain. Every bird he had seen, he had a story for, and if he hadn't seen it, it wasn't one! Pete was the finder of Britain's first Little Whimbrel, which he was very proud of. He loved listing and had a list for everything. It amazed me how many lists he had for birds he had seen. He was a regular on the Scillies for years, and he had come to Shetland numerous times with me on a week's holiday birding. Pete was great fun to be around, the life and soul of a party and was a great birder who I will truly miss. I have so many memories of Pete, I could sit here for hours writing, and I am sure people who are reading this will have to. Pete is such a massive loss both to the birding community as a whole and such a close friend to so many. My thoughts are with Debbie and his family at this sad time. Rest in peace, my friend.
Pod on the ferry to twitch the Black billed cuckoo with me this year.
