A Birder's Journey to the Big 300+

Dr Terence Wells is a life-long birder and former director in IT & Business Services, having gained a DIC and PhD in Biochemistry from Imperial College, and an MBA from the Open University. Terry lives in Wiltshire with his two sons Harry, Oliver, and partner Mary, but grew up in Tottenham, London in the 1960s. As a boy Terry was an amateur boxer and excelled at sports, but was most at home exploring the wildlife of Haringey Marshes and reservoirs. | Moving to Gloucester, aged 14, Terry met new characters that would ignite and shape his passion for birds - twitching them across the country, sharing cars, sleeping rough. A successful career and overseas appointments constrained this until in 2017, aged 57, frustrated by work-politics and ill health Terry quit his job to begin a new chapter. Having been inspired in the 1980s by books like Richard Millington's 'A Twitcher's Diary', and Bill Oddie and David Tomlinson's 'The Big Bird Race', Terry was in no doubt that his first retirement challenge would be to see as many birds as possible in Britain in one year! 300 birds was the benchmark for Britain's top birders and so the goal was set.