Chris Durdin lives in Norwich, the next suburb along from me, he’s almost a neighbour. I’ve known him since the early 1980s when he was the RSPB liaison officer for the Young Ornithologists’ Club (YOC) I was running with my friend John Butcher. Chris is one of those level headed, pragmatic characters I admire. Articulate, knowledgeable, interested and therefore interesting. He now runs Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays, which is everything such a entity should be; eco-friendly, conservation focussed and diverse, i.e. it’s not just about the birds. If you’re thinking of entering into the world of wildlife holidays, look no further. Chris has engineered Honeyguide into an ideal choice; friendly, relaxed and great fun. I’ve always felt it’s like being part of a family. What’s more they deliver. Chris is colourful, over to the man himself……
I am the driving force behind Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays, running holidays since 1991. For many years I combined this with my work for the RSPB in Eastern England, often the Society’s spokesman, but I’ve been concentrating on Honeyguide full-time since 2009. I am the co-author of a book about Norfolk’s cranes and I lead regular walks on my local wildlife trust nature reserve, Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Thorpe Marshes. I am also a barbershop singer and am enjoying my first year for a long time not organising youth football. As a naturalist, I consider myself an all rounder.
What event triggered your interest in the natural world?
My father was – and is – interested in birds and other wildlife, flowers more from a gardener’s perspective. My interests grew and broadened from there. The tricky question is how to inspire interest in wildlife in my own boys! The answer, no doubt, is that we are all different: they are both keen on sport, which is also good. I was involved for more than a decade in youth soccer with Hillside Rovers FC and St Andrews FC.
Give a sketch of a typical day in your life
This question comes during the coronavirus lockdown, which adds an odd dimension to it. Right now I should be with a Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays group on Crete. There we’d have a pre-breakfast birdwatching for probably a minority of the group, a relaxed breakfast followed by a day out looking at birds, flowers, butterflies and the lovely Cretan spring landscape. We would be back at base late afternoon in good time for a shower, stroll or bit of shopping before a taverna evening meal.
In lockdown, I check emails first thing, but holiday work is essentially on hold, apart from organising refunds for cancellations. So days are quiet now: often the best thing is a daily walk or cycle, the walk often around my local patch of Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Thorpe Marshes nature reserve. Then gardening, decorating, reading, bits of clearing out – the same as everyone else.
You have spent time working with the RSPB and now run a successful wildlife holiday company. What would you consider to be the most rewarding aspect of that work?
I like sharing my interest in wildlife with others and seeing the pleasure that can bring is something I’d rate highly. That’s behind the monthly guided walks at NWT Thorpe Marshes though they have stopped, of course, during the coronavirus epidemic.
What do you consider the greatest challenges facing wildlife today?
Habitat destruction and climate change, both fuelled by human population growth.
What do you consider to be your greatest success?
A typical answer to this type of question is a single action or achievement, but I’d prefer to look at long periods of steady and, I hope, competent activity. That applies to 30 years working for the RSPB and now three decades of running a business, namely wildlife holidays. Posterity though might overlook these things and having a co-written a book, The Norfolk Cranes’ Story (John Buxton and Chris Durdin) remains a solid achievement on any CV!
What would you consider to be your deepest regret?
“Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.” Perhaps too long a period with too little music in my life, but that’s over as I have gone back to singing barbershop with Norwich’s Fine City Chorus and, since late last year, I’m in a quartet, called Mustard, which has started well.
What advice would you give to a budding naturalist?
Enjoy what you do and follow up whatever is most fun. And be confident it’s a good thing to do: ignore any hints that it isn’t cool. They’ll realise they were wrong and catch up with you, eventually.
What advice would you give your 16-year-old self?
Not a lot. A popular question for interviewers. Maybe I’d say: if ever you take up giving interviews, don’t be surprised if there isn’t much of an answer to “What advice would you give your 16-year-old self?”!
If you could be anywhere in the world at this moment where would it be and why?
Crete, with the planned Honeyguide group. The flowers are amazing, especially the range of orchids at ‘Spili Bumps’. Birds are always good, though much hinges on how much migration activity there is, which brings surprises like a sudden flock of migrating herons (often purple herons). One recent year we found a semi-collared flycatcher, which was a good record for the island.
What is your favourite or most admired animal and why?
I am a great fan of the lammergeier, also called the bearded vulture. They are very scarce and threatened, of course, but they do look amazing: such a presence when one appears in the sky. The price of every Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays includes a £40 conservation contribution, earmarked for a local conservation project via the Honeyguide Charitable Trust. We’ve donated £136,412 since Honeyguide started in 1991, and the very first donation was supporting lammergeier protection in the Spanish Pyrenees. Since then we’ve also helped to fund lammergeier protection in the French Pyrenees and Crete, so it’s a longstanding connection.
Who or what are your heroes/heroines/greatest inspirations?
Sir David Attenborough remains, after all these years, the greatest communicator about nature in the English-speaking world.
Recall your most exciting or memorable wildlife spotting encounter.
Cranes have an ability to inspire: it’s something about the bugling call that tugs at the heart strings. A Honeyguide group in Extremadura (Spain), co-led by me and Martin Kelsey, were on a road across a plain south of Trujillo in the third week of February. That’s the time that the 100,000+ wintering cranes in Extremadura leave, heading north to Scandinavia and eastern Europe.
We could hear distant bugling. Then one flock of cranes, soon followed by others, glided, spiralled, glided, spiralled and glided again, constantly calling as they passed over us heading slowly north.
Can you say what it is about the natural world that continues to inspire you?
Change is what keeps all of us interested. The seasonal nature of wildlife in the UK means every day can bring a surprise. Right now, it’s the arrival of sedge warblers at NWT Thorpe Marshes, singing energetically everywhere on the marsh. Later, in summer, it’ll be all the dragonflies.
What new aspects of conservation excite you?
The basis of most nature conservation remains consistent: the priority is protecting wildlife-rich habitats, be that through legal protection (in the UK SSSIs etc), the planning process or nature reserves. In the UK, the biggest change in recent years is in creative conservation, sometimes on a large scale. Examples in the eastern counties include the RSPB’s Wallasea Island wetland creation in Essex; the huge reedbed being created as sand & gravel is excavated at Needingworth in Cambridgeshire; and Potter Heigham Marshes in Norfolk, freshwater habitat creation to offset what is lost to coastal change. These vary in design, engineering, objectives and wildlife outcomes, depending on circumstances: there’s no simple formula. What I’d love to see is a big ‘wilding’ project in Norfolk, akin to the Knepp Estate in Sussex, where nature returns with a modest helping hand from us, such as providing grazing mammals.
What are your hobbies/interests outside of wildlife?
Barbershop singing and other music. If there’s a guitar to hand I know a few chords and there’s sometimes a little singalong on a Honeyguide holiday.
What makes you happy?
Knowing that this questionnaire is almost finished …. and that there is no question 17! So I’ve added my own. (I should explain this was totally my fault with numbering the questions – good answer though! BM)
Read any good books lately?
I am working my way through “The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series by Alexander McCall Smith … I’m on book 8.
What makes you sad?
The Everly Brothers song “So Sad”.
We used to have good times together
But now I feel them slip away
It makes me cry to see love die
So sad to watch good love go bad
Remember how you used to feel dear?
You said nothing could change your mind
It breaks my heart to see us part
So sad to watch good love go bad
Is it any wonder
That I feel so blue
When I know for certain
That I’m losing you
Remember how you used to feel dear?
You said nothing could change your mind
It breaks my heart to see us part
So sad to watch good love go bad
Name 3 things on your ‘bucket list’
You might expect various wildlife spectacles from around the world here, and of course there are many things I’d love to see, but it’s tricky to pull out examples.
- Being in a gold medal barbershop quartet (highly unlikely!)
- Finding a scarce chaser dragonfly at NWT Thorpe Marshes. The reserve list for odonata (dragonflies & damselflies is 21 species) and the one species ‘missing’ – it’s as near as RSPB Strumpshaw Fen – is scarce chaser.
- Winning at ‘Popmaster’ on the Ken Bruce show (I’ve just been listening!).
Another day might produce a very different list!
What would you most like to accomplish and/or be remembered for?
Right now that’s fixing a curtain rail and that it doesn’t fall down!
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