My name is Tristan and I live in north Cumbria (UK). I’m a former zoo keeper, nature reserve warden and avian ecologist. I am now a writer and blogger. Birding and twitching has been a huge part of my life since 1986, when I was just eleven years old. I spent the next thirty years at the more extreme end of the hobby, twitching and occasional finder of rare birds. all around the UK and Ireland as well as taking birding trips into Europe and western Asia.

Steller’s Eider

n years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar and subsequently complex post traumatic stress disorder. I felt I had to stop birding and twitching because some aspects of the hobby was triggering my bipolar symptoms quite severely. Having spent the last ten years trying to better manage my mental illnesses, Having found myself on the right cocktail of psychiatric medications and I am seemingly managing my bipolar symptoms better than I have been before.

I really missed birding for the community, the birds and the identification challenges and of course the rates. So I am tentatively dipping my toe back into the water and start back into birding.

This website follows my journey as I ease back into birding whilst trying to best manage my bipolar and cPSTD symptoms.