Guernsey birds and moths

My name is Mark Lawlor and I am a keen birder living on the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, where I also trap moths. On this website I will put my personal wildlife sightings, info about Guernsey wildlife, plus any other nonsense I find or think up.

I first became interested in wildlife through watching David Attenborough's 'Life on Earth' TV series when I was a boy in Leeds. During weekend visits to my Grandma's house I used to read my Dad's old copy of the classic 'Observer's Book of Birds' cover to cover more or less weekly until I knew it almost by heart. Birdwatching when I was a schoolboy was mainly a casual pastime with a trip every month or so with my dad to a nature reserve, as my main interest was playing football.

I was about 16 when I gave up playing regular football and I was able to spend more time looking at birds. It was mostly common birds around my home town of Garforth, East of Leeds, but at least once a week I visited Swillington Ings, my first local patch, where I learnt how to be a proper birder. My dad started taking me further afield and we also started going abroad on holiday, which meant I saw more and more birds.

When I was 18 I went to study at Bristol University where I met a few other young birders, and we created the legendary 'BUBO'. With regular bus trips with the lads to Chew Valley Lake plus the odd longer-distance trip, I saw lots and lots of new birds and some cracking rarities. At the end of the three years, I didn't want this birding frenzy to end so I spent most of the next year carrying out migration surveys in Israel. Upon returning to Leeds, I trained as a teacher and got a job. I did plenty of birding around the country during this time and saw lots of rare birds, and even had a pager for a while.

in ironic retro-style clothing and haircut, aged 3  -  seawatching, aged 9  -  a little bit of bird ringing at Eilat, 1994 

By this time I had met Rosie, who came from Guernsey, and after getting married we moved to the island. I found living and birding in Guernsey suited me fine. Being an island, Guernsey gets regular rarities, but unlike the UK, you don't have to share them with huge crowds and the probability of finding a good bird yourself is much higher. After a few years here I became the Guernsey Bird Recorder and have had an excellent ten years birding, despite not having a great deal of time to spend out in the field as we now have 3 young children - Abigail, Aidan and Anais - or Lesser, Least and Pygmy Lawlors as I like to call them.

I soon discovered that Guernsey is very quiet bird-wise in mid-Summer and so I developed my interest in Lepidoptera but I only really run my moth trap regularly outside bird migration seasons. Being so far South, Guernsey is in an excellent place to find rare moths and there is so much more for an amateur to discover than there is in birds.

My other passion is still football and I have recently started playing again, despite being quite past-it at 37. I play for the Guernsey Police Football team and last season we won our league and were promoted to the first division. I also play 5-a-side once a week, so I am trying to keep fit. I support Leeds United (which is a rollercoaster ride to say the least) and I love reading about and watching football from all over the world. The 'Lalarinho' in the web address is my nickname due to my Brazilian football skills - more usually shortened to 'Lala'.

hardcore birding mode, Golan Heights, 1993  -  three-fifths of BUBO  -  showing my athleticism on the football field