Friday, May 29, 2015

Tony Gough

On a sad note,
Veteran B.O.G. (Bradford Ornithological Group) birder Tony Gough sadly passed away last night never recovering from the stroke he suffered a few days ago. Tony would be known to a few Calderdale birders who valued both his friendship and his expertise on the birding front. We offer our condolences to Tony's family and friends at this sad time.
See Brian Sumner's blog for today - the link to West Yorkshire Birding for a tribute from Brian.

6 comments:

heavy birder said...

A sad loss, Tony was a great raptor expert, I for one learnt a lot from his wide knowledge of birds of prey. I often rang him up or sent him photos of raptors for his opinion. He will be greatly missed, rip mate.

ChrisJB said...

Sorry to hear this. I didn't know him well, but my dad and his mates did. I have good memories of my dad's stag weekend up to the Cairngorms (2002) which Tony attended. I enjoyed his company that weekend and as I recall, he gave me some great information on butterfly sites in Silverdale.

Nick Carter said...

Tony was one of birding's true characters with an enormous depth of knowledge and a cracking sense of humour to boot.
Chris, did that 2002 trip include a visit to Loch Garten? I once bumped into him up there in the hide overlooking the Osprey nest, he was on a stag do then, he had us laughing almost immediately. Great guy gone, so sad.

ChrisJB said...

Yes, we did do Loch Garten Nick. Small world eh?! We had a great weekend, I saw my first (and only) Capercaille on that trip. Good memories and a good bloke.

ChrisJB said...

Incidentally, I believe Tony kept immaculate hand-written nature journals. I would love to think that these would somehow be kept by interested parties/organisations. Someone once told me they were like works of art.

Mark D said...

Howdo, Myself and Andy Jowett are now custodians on Tony's note books. Will be attempting find a suitable home for them once we've published some extracts!