It is with great sadness to report the death of Royston Wilkins, a well known character to everyone on the Cornish birding scene.
Royston, 78, passed away on the 8th April 2026. It was known that he suffered respiratory problems. Despite this, his determination to see everything available was a testament to his personality and character. Even in the week leading to his death, he managed to twitch the Killdeer at Chapel Amble.
Royston was a true Cornishman, intensely proud of his heritage and accent. He was a clay country boy, from Foxhole. He served his apprenticeship as a carpenter, life skills of which he turned to fitting windows and setting up his successful long term business with his son Leon. He self-built his own family home.
Royston, or “meddy” to his mates, started birding in the mid ‘80’s. A relatively late starter, he soon became addicted to the hobby. It wasn’t long before he found his first Bee-eater on the Lizard followed by a Red-footed Falcon at Croft Pascoe. One of his best finds was a Bufflehead at Stithians. Never shy of using technology, “meddy” armed himself with a birder’s pager and the best optics. His list grew rapidly to well over 400 species in Cornwall alone, an achievement only matched by a handful of other birders.
It wasn’t long before his mind wandered further afield. Birding trips to Scilly, Norfolk, New Forest, Scotland and Wales soon followed. Nowhere was out of bounds. Naturally, world birding was the next venture and the NatureTrek 990 tours suited Royston perfectly. Balancing self employment with his hobby, the ten day tours were perfect. He was by now a serious world traveller, visiting Sri Lanka, Israel, Russia, Gambia, Senegal, Pakistan, Vietnam, Africa and South America. The list is endless.
Royston was an integral part of the famous Scillonian lll Pelagics. He took the lead role in sourcing and transporting the chum from St Ives to the Penzance quayside. It was a stinking, horrible task but “meddy” took great delight in organising this task and the army of chummers.
Staying with the Scillies, who can forget being picked up in his white van and dropped off in the middle of a twitch on St Mary’s? Royston was a familiar sight on Scilly every Autumn, making new friends and contacts while fitting his windows.
Royston was also a passionate football supporter and season ticket holder. Every Saturday afternoon would be spent at Truro City, Treyew Road and latterly at Langarth. Despite the exposed, bitterly cold location, he made every effort to watch his team. He took great delight when Truro won the FA Vase in 2007 and achieved promotion to the National League last year. He travelled to Charlton Athletic when Truro reached the First Round proper. Occasional away games and cup runs posed no hurdles. Royston would also visit his home village team, the Foxhole Allstars, as well as away games to Liverpool with his son Warren.
One can now appreciate the determined character that he was. He loved his friends and would often argue a point if he felt he was right. He worked hard and played hard, pretty much to the very end. It’s fair to say some had their ups and downs with him, but he was intensely loyal and dedicated to friends. And none more so than his beloved family, who he often talked about with great pride. His absence will leave a gaping hole in every walk of his full life.
Royston leaves his loyal wife Truda, always devoted and by his side, three children, Leon, Warren and Lucie and four grandchildren.
You will be sorely missed. More than you know. Rest in Peace my friend.
Steve Rogers
Kester Wilson, John Chapple, Brian Mellow, Royston Wilkins, Peter Walsh, Steve Rogers, Steve Kolodzieski, Stephen Jackson. Norfolk May 1998.
I cannot recall when I first met Roger but it was probably when my birding was in its infancy and I was taken on various CBWPS field meetings by the late Harry Deal
I suspect that it was on one of the annual winter meets for Spoonbill at Antony House which were then led by the late Brian Evenden.
It was immediately apparent that Roger was an experienced and knowledgeable birdwatcher.
I quickly learned that he was a highly respected birder whose pals included such luminaries at Steve Madge, Ted Griffiths, Vic Tucker, Rod Belringer, John Nicholls, Roger Andrew and Ray Gould to name just a few.
Over the ensuing few years I occasionally saw Roger at various locations in East Cornwall.
He was one of life’s friendly and engaging characters who seemingly had time for everyone.
We were also in regular telephone contact, usually swapping stories on a Sunday evening.
When I took over responsibility as Bird Recorder for Cornwall in 1982, Roger, due to his meticulous note-keeping, was the obvious choice to act as my assistant. He was a tireless and loyal ally for many years, only retiring from the post because of his increasing work commitments.
He was an extremely careful and erudite watcher of birds, and it was his devotion to the Rame Head area that led him to discover the first Wilson’s Warbler for the Western Palearctic on 13th October 1985.
Later, on 3rd June 1999 he was to find a Spectacled Warbler at Roborough Downs, Devon – only the third UK record at the time.
He was heavily immersed in recording the birds of Dartmoor and was instrumental in setting up the Dartmoor Bird Group in 1991. He religiously organised surveys of wintering birds such as Goosander, Hen Harrier and European Nightjar. He also collated and disseminated bird records which formed the basis of the Dartmoor Bird Report, which he produced.
His devotion to the task ultimately led to him being invited to write a book on Dartmoor birds.
Published in 2005, his book, surprisingly entitled ‘The Birds of Dartmoor’ has become the seminal work on the subject. This is now a highly sought after title.
He was also a regular contributor to British Birds magazine and a several observational notes are credited to him.
Roger was well known for his somewhat tardy response to news of rare birds and was renowned for turning up a day late and after the bird had flown. This earned him the nickname ‘The Big Dipper’ and to his house being addressed as ‘Cinclus cinclus’ (and for those who do now know, that is the scientific name for Dipper!
Roger and his wife Aileen were annual spring visitors to my part of Cornwall, always staying in the Padstow area which was handy for him visiting my patch at Trevose Head.
No other birder has left such an indelible mark on my birding development and very few have been held in such high esteem as Roger.
I will miss his good humour and friendly banter.
He had been a member of Cornwall Birdwatching and Preservation Society for at least fifty years and was still submitting sightings up to the time of his demise.
He leaves his wife Aileen and his sons Matthew and Adam and their families.
The birding world is certainly poorer without him.
Stanley Christophers
In January, West Cornwall Ringing Group lost one of its founder members, Terry Cooper, after an all-too short battle with cancer. Terry started ringing in 2010 and was there at the inaugural ringing group session at Ponsanooth Sewage Works in 2013 (on the far right). Whilst Terry never mastered the fine art of mist-netting, what he did to make up for that was truly inspiring, turning his creative, practical hands to making traps to use in his St Austell garden: potter traps, spring traps, chardonneret traps, feeder traps, sparrow traps. Over the years, Terry consistently ringed more birds than anyone else in the group, including several hundred Starling and Goldfinch. Where full-time students at the University of Exeter failed to catch Herring Gulls as part of their research, Terry couldn’t stop catching them, so the students would decamp to St Austell to see how it was done. His garden even featured in more than one ringing conference presentation of novel catching techniques.
Terry was also a prolific maker of Barn Owl nestboxes, supporting the early years of the ringing group project installing new boxes across the county, a legacy that will live on for many years. Not only were these produced in quantity, but also quality, with no one yet managing to match that, including myself.
On top of all that, Terry ran a long-term ‘Retrapping Adults for Survival’ project, colour-ringing and resighting Jackdaws at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, and was a regular on the Looe Island gull-ringing trips. Above all though, Terry never had a cross word, more an ability to consistently bring a smile to the face of us all on group ringing sessions. For this he’ll very much be missed.
Mark Grantham
It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Mark Worden, a much-loved and widely respected member of Cornwall’s birding community, who passed away in July. Mark’s warmth, generosity and boundless enthusiasm touched all who knew him and his absence leaves a space that will be felt deeply across Cornwall and beyond.
Mark devoted an enormous amount of his time and energy to Cornwall Birds (CBWPS), most notably during his six years as warden of Maer Lake Nature Reserve. Welcoming visitors with a friendly smile and an eagerness to share his local knowledge, he worked tirelessly to keep the reserve a thriving haven for wildlife. His dedication and care ensured that Maer Lake remained a special place for both birds and people.
A familiar and much-loved figure at local birding sites such as Davidstow Airfield and Bude, Mark’s passion for birdwatching was infectious. Whether scanning the skies on a windswept airfield or sharing the joy of a new discovery with friends, his enthusiasm never wavered. He relished the excitement of a rare find and the camaraderie of the chase, travelling far and wide in pursuit of scarce species. Yet it was often the shared moments, a lively conversation in the field, a piece of local birding news or a story told with his characteristic humour that made birding with Mark so memorable.
His interest extended beyond watching birds to actively contributing to their study and conservation. As a keen participant in the BTO’s ringing scheme, Mark helped deepen our understanding of bird populations locally and nationally, adding another layer to his already significant contribution to ornithology.
Above all, Mark will be remembered for the way he brought people together through a shared love of birds and the natural world. He had a rare gift for making everyone feel welcome, for turning a shared sighting into a shared experience and for reminding us all of the joy that birds and birdwatching bring.
All of us at Cornwall Birds are profoundly grateful for Mark’s friendship, his passion and his many contributions over the years. He leaves behind a lasting legacy in the landscapes he loved, in the reserves he helped care for, and in the countless people whose lives he enriched. Mark will be deeply missed in the hides and along the hedgerows, at Maer Lake and in so many places that will forever hold memories of his presence. Yet he will be remembered always with deep affection, heartfelt gratitude and enduring respect for the joy and kindness he brought to everyone around him.
Pete Roseveare
Stephen Charles Madge was born in Torpoint on 15th January 1948. From a young age he was fascinated by the natural history which surrounded him and encouraged by a neighbour, Mr Leonard, he explored the local area, accompanied by his lifelong friend Stuart Eddy.
Steve’s birding circle soon increased, and together with Stuart, Vic Tucker, Ted Griffiths, Viv Stratton, Bob Burridge and Peter Harrison, Steve began to explore other areas in Devon and Cornwall. Viv Stratton, who lived in St Ives, tells of how the group would travel down by train, and whenever the wind was favourable at St Ives, would often stay on the floor of Mrs Stratton’s house. Vic Tucker remembers that even at such a young age it was obvious that Steve was a talented birder. He recalls a time when the group were watching gulls at Hayle, when one juvenile bird landed on the estuary and Steve immediately identified it as a juvenile Mediterranean Gull, a species which was a BBRC rarity at the time, and which none of them had seen before. When they asked him how he knew he replied that it was the only species which had black legs in that plumage! A particularly memorable day the group enjoyed together was described by Steve himself in the book ‘Best Days with British Birds’ when, after a particularly soggy night at Porthgwarra, they found a couple of shrikes, a Hoopoe, an Olivaceous Warbler, and a mystery bird which years later he realised must have been a Thick-billed Warbler!
On leaving school Steve took up a regular job as a wages clerk at the Post Office, but following a birding trip to Turkey and Iran he decided the 9-5 wasn’t really for him and, together with his close friends Stuart Eddy and Vic Tucker, he signed up as a member on a six month Oxford University expedition to Afghanistan and Kashmir to study bird migration. This trip proved to be a great success, with new migration routes mapped for many species. It was not without danger however, as evidenced by a short spell for the group in Kabul jail following a mix-up over an Eagle Owl purchased from a local. Thankfully the situation was resolved quickly because they had been giving a lift to the daughter of the British High Commissioner to Pakistan at the time, and her forceful protestations ensured that the full might of the diplomatic service intervened to set them free.
On returning to Britain Steve took up a job as a road sweeper in Torpoint, mainly he said because the route took in St John’s Lake and he could continue birding as he worked. This could only be temporary for Steve, and he began a series of seasonal jobs wardening around the country, beginning with the Calf of Man and taking in the Ouse Washes, the Inner Sea in Wales (where his accommodation was a shed with a rubber dinghy as a bed!) and Bempton Cliffs. In 1975 he became the first permanent warden at Fairburn Ings in Yorkshire, a series of lakes, scrapes and marshes created by the collapse of old mine workings. The job required all of Steve’s well known diplomatic skills, affability and genial nature, as he negotiated between the needs of the RSPB, the National Coal Board who still worked the area, and local farmers whose land had disappeared under water. It surely says something about his success there that 40 years later Fairburn Ings and the Aire Valley is one of the most important and most visited RSPB reserves in the country, hosting breeding Spoonbill, Bittern and Bearded Tit. During his time at Fairburn Steve became a TV star when the local regional television company, Yorkshire TV made a documentary of his work as part of their ‘Lifestyle’ TV series. A memorable scene involved someone bringing an “injured” Black-headed Gull to Steve who assures them he will look after it. In reality the bird had been dead for some considerable time and was by this time beginning to smell rather bad. It was whilst at Fairburn that Steve met his wife Penny, and for an unforgettable first date, Steve decided to cook something special – a swan that had died when it crashed into some electricity pylons! Unfortunately for Steve he forgot to ask if Penny was vegetarian! He must have made an impression however as Steve and Penny were married in 1979 in Selby North Yorkshire, wearing matching duffle coats!
At around this time Steve was invited to join the BBRC, helped no doubt by some of the memorable birds he found at Fairburn during his tenure, including Collared Pratincole, Black Duck and Lesser Kestrel.
Foreign travel had always been one of Steve’s passions, and following on from his earlier expedition he was keen to explore new birding areas away from the tried and tested western European sites. In 1979 this led to him leaving his job with the RSPB and establishing the bird tour company ‘Birdquest’ with Mark Beaman. Birdquest specialised in tours to countries and places ignored by others. Israel, Siberia, Ethiopia and China were amongst the places visited. These may seem commonplace on tour schedules today, but in the 1980s the Soviet Union and China weren’t generally open to westerners, Ethiopia was a place better known for the devastating famines, and Israel was a dangerous place surrounded by hostile countries. Birdquest became hugely successful and Steve spent much of his time abroad where his genial manner, exceptional birding skills and tact when dealing with officialdom endeared him to his clients as well as the local guides, hoteliers and the staff he got to know over his many visits. Spending time in many varied and out of the way places didn’t come without its dangers, and over the course of his career Steve was caught in an earthquake in Egypt, missed death by minutes in Central America when a small plane he was due to be on crashed in the jungle, and most famously, he got lost in the Australian Outback for fully 36 hours. He eventually found his way back to civilisation by following the calls of crows he knew to be nesting where the group he was leading were camping.
By now Steve and Penny had moved back to Cornwall, and the family had grown with the birth of his daughters Bryony in 1983 and Elysia in 1988. Steve was asked by the Workers Education Association (WEA) to lead courses in bird identification at night classes, and for many years his winter evenings were spent passing on his knowledge to eager students. He would take them out on field trips, and on one occasion he managed to find a Semi-palmated Sandpiper at St John’s Lake when attempting to show the group Dunlin.
Throughout his time with the RSPB and Birdquest, Steve had been producing pioneering identification papers in British Birds separating tricky species pairs such as Common/Spotted Sandpiper and Yellow-browed/Hume’s Warbler, mostly from first-hand knowledge of the species in the field. In China, he was the first to realise that a local race of Pallas’s Warbler was in fact likely to be a completely new species – today known as Chinese Leaf Warbler. In the early 1980s, Steve, together with Mark Beaman was commissioned by Christopher Helm to produce a Handbook to Bird Identification. This was long before the internet and the vast array of bird identification material available to modern birders. Most were making do with their old copies of Peterson, Mountfort and Hollom, or the new Shell Guide, and a comprehensive, authoritative guide was sorely needed. The Handbook took seven years to complete, and was eagerly awaited, but publication was delayed until 1998, by which time, even Steve agreed that the book had missed its target market. The book contained all the information anyone could need to identify birds in the Western Palearctic, and both text and illustrations were sublime, but the book was too large and cumbersome to take into the field, and the ground-breaking. Collins Guide was just around the corner. However it is perhaps a measure of just how good the book is that even today illustrations are still being used in other Bird Identification guides.
Wildfowl, published in 1988, the third in the new series of identification guides from Helm fared much better and won the British Birds Bird Book of the Year. The launch party was held at Slimbridge in the presence of Sir Peter Scott, and the foreword was by none-other than the legendary Roger Tory Peterson. Wildfowl was followed by identification guides to Crows and Jays (1992) and Pheasants, Partridges and Grouse (2002) In 1997 Steve and his friend Chris Kightley produced a small pocket identification guide to the Birds of Britain and North-West Europe. This was again published by Helm on behalf of the British Trust for Ornithology. Its aim was to describe only those species likely to be found in the region, and so dispensed with vagrants, accidentals and everything east of Albania. The text was also written to appeal to beginner/novice birders in a non-patronising manner. The book was revised and reprinted in 2002, but again it was eclipsed by the juggernaut that was the Collins Guide. Flicking through the pages today it is still possibly the single best identification guide to those just starting out in birding who may be overwhelmed by the detail in the Collins guide.
In Cornwall, together with friends such as Tony Aston, Mike Frost and Adrian Spalding, Steve founded the Caradon Field and Natural History Society in 1985 with the aim of recording all the wildlife of the Caradon (South-east) area of Cornwall. A comprehensive report was published each year until 2011 when the club folded. Occasional publications produced by the club included The Tamar Avocets, Butterflies of South East Cornwall, and an Atlas of the Hoverflies of Caradon.
In 1993 Steve was asked to become President of CBWPS, a position he regarded as a great honour, and one in which he was active in attending as many meetings as he could, until his illness made it difficult for him to travel. He relinquished the post in 2017 but was proud to have served.
In the mid 1990’s Steve left Birdquest and joined Chris Kightley at Limosa, offering the same high quality bird tours to exotic destinations. Steve estimated that he had been to India alone at least 45 times! One of his favourite trips with Limosa involved chartering a boat to sail around the northern isles in Britain to celebrate the company’s anniversary. Luckily it coincided with the return of Albert, the Black-browed Albatross on Sula Sgeir, but his favourite bird of the trip was his one and only female Grey Phalarope in breeding plumage seen at close range as he cruised along in a RIB.
Steve’s last years were plagued by Parkinson’s disease. He was diagnosed in the 1990s but he didn’t let it affect him and he carried on birding and watching wildlife for as long as he could. As recently as 2017 he made a trip to Rwanda determined to see Mountain Gorilla. This he achieved by being carried up the mountain on his bed to a site where he could see them
Aside from birds Steve had a deep and enduring love of music and during the early 70’s was a regular attendee at the Guildhall, and the famous Van Dike Club in Plymouth where he saw early performances from, amongst others, Deep Purple, Genesis, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull. He even hitch-hiked from Plymouth to Leeds to see Led Zeppelin! His musical tastes were esoteric, and birding trips would often be accompanied by CDs of Captain Beefheart, Can, or Frank Zappa, and on one memorable occasion by a recording of Mongolian throat singers!
Everyone loved Steve – that is not an exaggeration. To know him, and to be able to say “I know Steve Madge” was an honour. In company he was friendly to all, polite and tactful. The messages of condolence on social media following the news of his death attest to the esteem in which he was held, and perhaps none summed up the feelings of those he met better than Hadoram Shirihai, who ended his message to Steve’s family with these words:
“What a man, what a birder and what a friend to remember…”
Darrell Clegg
