I’m with real experts. How is it that you can see a small, well-camouflaged bird sitting on a dead stick peeping above a sea of long grasses 500 metres away? Then identify it from the most minutiae detail. I’m in awe. Really. They, the birders, name themselves as an odd breed of people, but after…

It was a couple of enthusiastic birdwatchers (thank you, Jool) who made me aware of Lesvos. Still, it wasn’t until I cheekily invited myself to join my brother Mick, for a week away with a couple of his keen birdwatching mates, that I ended up visiting the island. Well, I never. What an overdue trip…

Whenever I travel between Turkey and Greece, my mind strays to the relationship between these two great historic nations. One that we are told, namely by politicians, is a fractured one and yet this has never been visible to me. This relationship is ever more pertinent when you ferry between Ayvalik on the Turkish Aegean…