GENERATION GAME

Despite his father’s obsession, comedian Alex Horne wasn’t a budding birdwatcher growing up. “It was something I railed against. Every car journey we’d stop, he’d roll down the window, bang on the windscreen, get the binoculars out. They were all just birds in my head, and I could never see them. They were miles away, and he had the only binoculars.”

That changed in 2009. Horne, then 30, finally had a garden, and kids were on the way. “I thought, I need to know what things are.” Horne challenged his father to a duel, of sorts: who could spot the most species in a year, with the results detailed in his book, Birdwatchingwatching. Spoiler alert: “I think he won.”

On tour, Horne found birdwatching the ideal way to spend the day. “I was very bad at it, but it was genuinely enjoyable, seeing birds, meeting people year round. I met lots of characters, one who lost an eye in a scrape with a bird.”

His favourite spots for birdwatching are in Sussex, where his father is an RSPB volunteer. “Around Chichester Cathedral there are peregrine falcons – they are amazing.” He also loves Pulborough Harbour.

While not a regular birdwatcher since then (his three children are “not interested, there’s millions of red kites where we live, they even take them for granted”), Horne set up a wildlife camera in the garden during lockdown. “It was so exciting checking the footage. We saw muntjacs, deer, foxes, quite a lot of birds, and badgers. The kids really liked it,” he says, pleased to have inspired them.