On 9 May 1992 across the country, Birders and twitchers were likely to be spotted behaving in a frantic manner racing around trying to notch up as many species as possible. It was the day of the nationwide “County Bird Race” sponsored by “In Focus”. The idea was that teams of four Birders attempted to find and identify as many species as possible in 24 hours within their county. That year, two members of AEA Technology, Group member Peter Pool and Paul Chandler were competing in the event. Peter was a design draughtsman at Culham and was a veteran of the event whilst for Paul the computer consultant with ETSU it was to be his first time. Both were experienced birdwatchers, Peter had been very involved with the RSPB for a long time and Paul was a self-confessed twitcher also very much into ‘green’ issues. With two other team members, Peter and Paul were to compete against three other teams in Oxfordshire. The goal was to find 100 species. The current county record was 99 species. The main aim of the event was to raise money for two charities, the county’s wildlife trust BBONT, and the International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP)’s Spanish Steppes Appeal (to save the Great Bustard). The previous year, 100 teams took part and raised £10,000 in cash for the ICBP.
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