Welcome to the North East Birder web site. I have been birdwatching in Northumberland, the ‘real’ county as far as I am concerned, between the rivers Tyne and Tweed since the amazingly cold winter of 1962/63 when I was but a teenage schoolboy. Occasionally, I make forays further afield, even  ‘south of the border’ into Co. Durham, Norfolk or Cornwall. Northwards, Fair Isle in Shetland is another favourite destination. Travel abroad has taken me to a number of countries in Europe and North Africa, and others like Goa, Jordan, Canada and Trinidad & Tobago. During all of this I have always had an interest in photography, lugging 35mm SLRs and telephoto lens all over the place producing slides which now gather dust. I gave this up a few years ago. The advent of digital photography prompted me to become interested again and I now use digi-scoping techniques to try and obtain what I would call record shots of the birds I see. The places I visit and other wildlife get similar treatment! This gives me the opportunity to share these online. I hope you find them interesting and perhaps useful.

In the summer of 2005 I developed a mini-obsession with Moths, something I had thought about taking up many years ago but never did. My advice is beware, unless you have plenty of spare time in late evenings and early mornings, it can become compulsive! I run a small moth trap in my suburban garden and occasionally other sites and need to photograph many (very many!) of the moths I catch in order to try and identify them correctly.

                                                                                                                                                            MIKE S. HODGSON