Towards the end of last year, Kevin Thornton got in touch with us to discuss an idea he had for introducing the birding community and newcomers to birding to low carbon birding. Kevin is very much a rail travel advocate, combining walking, cycling, trains and buses for many of his own journeys.

Kevin was concerned at how birders can rack up CO2 emissions by rushing around in their cars, chasing after the latest “must see”. Aside from the emissions created Kevin also felt the fear of missing out was leading them to miss out, so focused on notifications on their devices that they weren’t seeing the birdlife around them. 

Kevin had put together a talk “Rails of north and east Kent – the train as a local birding transport alternative” which he presented to two local RSPB birding groups. Within the talk he covered birds that could be seen in the area at sites easily reached from stations, how to use railcards and groupsave to make things more affordable, and how some of the railways little secrets, like flexible tickets that allow you to break your journey, can make it easy to visit multiple sites along a line in a single day.