Birding FC
You might not automatically think that a packed football stadium would be the ideal place to watch birds, but those of us with a passion for both the beautiful game and our avian overlords might beg to differ. During my own 21 year stretch as a season ticket holder at St James’ Park, the home of Newcastle United, I’ve had a few unlikely sightings, including a grey wagtail sine-waving around the lower stands and a bamboozled woodcock that ditched onto the turf during an evening Premier League match against Reading in 2006. The crowd reacted to the grounded bird and booed to stop play, and the exhausted mud-poker was gently rescued by our striker, the back-flipping cult hero Obafemi Martins, who scored his first league goal for the club that night shortly afterwards.
