9:35am Monday 24th November 2008
By Iris Clapp
Dr Simon Cox is a laid-back, patient man.
There was the time he and his wife, Pat, were stranded on an ice floe in Arctic Siberia after one of the blades on their helicopter gave out.
The couple and the helicopter pilot were at least a 100 miles from the next human being. Did they wonder if they would get out alive?
The look on Dr Cox’s face showed not. Even though it was six hours before rescue arrived, there was no panic. Instead, they took out their binoculars and went to watch a group of buzzards which were nesting not too far away.
Because that is what the Coxes do. They travel across the world – and across the UK – looking for birds. This is Dr Cox’s passion; Pat Cox enjoys birdwatching, too, but only after she caught her husband’s enthusiasm. He has been hooked since he was 12. He is now 66, and in those 50-plus years he has seen about 5,000 of the world’s 10,000 species of birds.
“It’s not bad,” he smiled, “but there is still some way to go.”
Dr Cox was born in Clacton, went to Little Clacton Primary School. His father was headmaster and – apart from Colchester Royal Grammar School and studying medicine at King’s College Hospital, London – he has never really left Clacton.
From 1968 to 2002 he was a GP at one of the town’s practices. He was also a police surgeon and, in 2000, president of the Colchester Medical Society. He and Pat, a physiotherapist, have two children and four grandchildren. None, though, really share his grand passion.
“It isn’t something you can make people do,” he pointed out. “You either like it or you don’t.”
There is no in-between. Certainly, there wasn’t when he was struck.
“I had gone with a couple of lads on a school outing in a boat along the Norfolk Broads,” he said. “One of them was John Sparks, who later became head of the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, so I was in good company.
“That day was the trigger. I began watching the birds on the Broads and was fascinated. I wanted to take it further – much further.”
He began cycling to all the bird hotspots in north Essex – Abberton Reservoir, Lexden Park, Holland Haven Country Park, Weeley Hall Woods, Colne Point, the Naze area at Walton and the Colne and Blackwater estuaries.
By the time he went to university, he had added the griffon vultures of southern Spain to his species list. Even his honeymoon didn’t prevent a spot of birdwatching.
“We spent three or four days in Paris, then went to the Camargue, in the south of France, to bird watch,” he said. “Pat didn’t mind – she enjoyed it. At least I think she did – you will have to ask her.”
That they returned to the Camargue for a spot more birdwatching 21 years later showed the memories were good. And, yes, she did enjoy the Camargue. Both times.
Since then, they have visited more than 40 countries and all for the same reason – looking for birds. Their next stop, Chile.
“I expect we will see between 70 to 80 species which I have not seen before,” he revealed. “The bird I am looking forward most to seeing? The diademed sandpiper plover.”
You have to push Dr Cox hard to discover his favourite birds. But he eventually concedes that Essex can’t do better than the tiny firecrest – there are fewer than ten pairs in the county – 3.54 inches (nine cm) long, 5.5-inch (14 cm) wingspan and a weight of 0.21 ounces (six grams). As for the rest of the world, he shows me photographs of the king bird of paradise, which he saw in Papua New Guinea.
“Birds of paradise are the most spectacular bird family. There are 23 different species, but I think the king bird of paradise stands out because of its brilliant scarlet plumage and those long tail streamers.”
Those tail streamers are nearly three times as long as the bird. Does this make for the most stunning sight he has seen?
“No – actually that happened not all that far away at Minsmere, the RSPB reserve in Suffolk. It was a couple of years ago in late afternoon. Suddenly, tens of thousands of starlings took to the sky and began to circle. It was quite a sight.”
So were the vultures eating carcasses outside an abattoir in Delhi and flocks of wading birds in our estuaries, and in Africa as they rise.
“There is so much diversity in wildlife,” he mused, “and I believe we have a serious moral responsibilty to look after wildlife throughout the world.”
Which is why he is currently president of the Essex Birdwatching Society, has helped edit the Essex Bird Report since 1971 and has held a British Trust for Ornithology ringing licence for more than 40 years.
“There are many species which are under threat – the World Wildlife Trust’s list includes the New Zealand storm-petrel and America’s ivory billed woodpecker – and there is overwhelming evidence that we are partly to blame because we have helped accelerate global warming.”
This could just be where Dr Cox forgets he is a laid-back, patient man.
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