Nick Pope

Nick has had an interest in natural history, and especially birds, as far as he can remember, spending his formative years at Pagham Harbour, before moving away from the south coast to south London in the early 70s. Beddington Sewage Farm and Bough Beech Reservoir then became his local patches as well as regularly venturing further afield to the Kent and Sussex coasts, plus Norfolk and Suffolk. The Isles of Scilly also became a regular autumn destination, including a 5-week stay in 1984. As well as travelling widely in the UK, quite often in the pursuit of the odd rarity or two, after completing a degree in Property Management, Nick travelled extensively abroad, initially to continental Europe. This soon morphed into venturing further afield to the Middle East and North America on a number of occasions, plus Central and South America, North and West Africa, the former providing the chance to see the last recorded year of the of the over- wintering slender-billed curlew in Morocco. Other destinations involved a number of trips to south and south east Asia, as well as Australia, and latterly Vietnam and Cyprus.

 

A career break in the early 90s enabled Nick to guide parties of visiting birders from North America around the UK, focusing on East Anglia, though with the arrival of children, full time employment in the property sector kept him busy, until he was able to retire in 2023.

Returning to his Sussex roots in 2001, Nick moved with his family to Seaford and rapidly adopted Seaford Head and Cuckmere Haven as his local patch, as well as joining the regular sea-watchers each spring at Splash Point. This also provided the opportunity of finding some local and national rarities, culminating in finding Sussex’s first white-crowned sparrow in 2023.

 

Since retirement, Nick has led a number of day trips for Naturetrek to the Beachy Head area, plus a four-day tour exploring the bird migration of East Sussex.