Dream job showed me the nightmare our world is facing

WHEN I was a student, journalism was high on my list of career options. This wasn’t for noble motives. I just thought it would be fun. Had I known that as a reporter I would be paid to go birdwatching around the world I would have celebrated for a month at my favourite pub.

John Ingham

I’ve been lucky enough to report from every continent including Antarctica. Stories on the environment have taken me from melting glaciers in Alaska to tigers in India, from plastic pollution in the High Arctic to islands swallowed by rising sea levels in the South Pacific.

Along the way I’ve found time to watch wandering albatrosses, bald eagles, Andean condors and Tasmanian devils.

I’ve loved it. Nature, and birds in particular, has always been one of my passions.

I have shared this over many years with you. In turn, you have repeatedly displayed your own love of nature in letters and emails. I’ve lost count of the great photos I’ve received, with Rose Habberley’s shots of rare turtle doves in Scarborough among the stand-outs.

Whenever possible, I included readers’ stories in my Ingham’s World column, which was always a dialogue with readers.

NATURE and I have been close pals since I was five years old and living in Leeds. My mum tamed a house sparrow who we called Billy and he came into the kitchen every day for titbits.