Your initial instinct might be that there’s not much in common between gravel riding and bird watching, but an early morning bike-powered visit to a local bird hide could be just the thing you need to kick start your day. We head out with slow adventure fan Abi Fisher and discover a hidden world just out of sight of our local gravel trails.
“It’s very common to see Red Kites circling overhead here” said Abi Fisher, as she looked out of the rectangular window cut into the side of the Far Pasture observation hide “But typically today there aren’t any.” Sitting, peering out of the window of a wildlife hide might not sound that exciting, or that relevant to gravel riders, but it turns out there’s way more in common between the two pastimes than you might think. “When you’re gravel riding you need to focus and external worries seem to disappear. Bird watching and wildlife spotting is all about being present. It’s very peaceful and almost meditative. Arriving here by bike just adds to the experience."
We ask Abi how she first got into bird watching? “I got interested during the first Covid19 lockdown. The rules in the UK about how much exercise you could do were quite restrictive, but it was possible to access some bird hides still. I started using my daily exercise ‘allowance’ to visit a bird hide on my bike and everything just grew from there. Once we were allowed to socialise again I started to run small group rides which finished at a local bird hide and they proved to be really popular. After the pandemic was over I had quite a few requests from people interested in joining more organised rides and I’ve been putting them on ever since.”
Although having a bit of an interest in wildlife will undoubtedly make your visit to a bird hide or a nature reserve a more rewarding experience, you don’t need to be an expert to still enjoy the experience. “When I first started running these rides, my knowledge of bird life was quite limited” Abi told us “But I learned from some of the participants on the rides and there are a few really good smart phone apps like Merlin which is brilliant for helping to identify what you can hear.” The hide that we visited, Far Pastures, had lots of wildlife identification charts pinned to the walls, so even if you go with zero pre-existing knowledge you should be able to have a decent game of I-Spy if nothing else…..
We asked Abi what the makeup was of a typical group that she leads – were they die-hard gravel riders or über-keen wildlife spotting aficionados? “We get a real mix of people signing up. In the Venn diagram of participants, you obviously do get some people who are more into gravel riding than wildlife spotting and vice versa, but there’s a good chunk of people in the middle who enjoy both. None of my group rides are about gnarly gravel riding though – they’re more about using a bike to access the wildlife hides. The routes are a mix of shared-use cycle paths, traffic-free trails and bits of quiet tarmac where it's necessary. I’ve had lots of comments from ride participants who were almost as amazed by the network of trails that they didn’t know about as they were by the wildlife spotting itself!”
The route that we followed to the Far Pasture hide matched this description perfectly. We made the most of the extensive network of former railways now turned into shared-use trails that can be found around Newcastle & Gateshead and the vast majority of our route was traffic-free. Abi’s route knowledge was impressive and we flitted from one trail to another, picking up different sections and diving in and out of urbanville. What was amazing was how much wildlife we spotted on the ride itself. Starting early in the morning undoubtedly helped, but beautiful birdsong followed us everywhere, turning our ride into a full sensory experience. At one point a couple of startled deer appeared on the trail and numerous other creatures could be heard rustling about in the trailside undergrowth.
The mainly traffic-free nature of the ride meant we could worry less about our safety and spend more time focussing on what was happening around us from a wildlife and nature perspective. Abi said that this aspect of the ride was one of the big appeals to many of the participants who signed up, but also made her life a ride leader much easier. “I don’t need to worry so much about the safety of the riders and can focus on giving them all a good experience. It makes everything more relaxing and means the rides are suitably for less-experienced riders as well as those who are already enthusiasts.”
If we had to sum up the experience of riding with Abi and doing some early morning wildlife spotting, it would be relaxing. If you’re after an adrenaline surging, endorphin pumping few hours then one of Abi’s rides are not for you. But if you’d like to start your day in a gentle, mindful way where you will hopefully improve your knowledge as well as exercise your legs, then one of her rides should be just the thing!
Abi runs rides all over the country and you can find all the details of forthcoming rides on her Insta page.