David Lindo’s talk was the best attended of the London Bird Club talks I have attended. We ran out of chairs and latecomers had to stand at the back and there was a worry we may have to turn people away. Lindo was at his best, a talk blending ornithology and autobiography, how an eight year old stumbled across birding and never looked back. Today the eight year old is an urban birding evangelist, exhorting us to wear our bins in public in crowded cities and to look up. Lindo’s talks are aimed at enthusing us about birds and reminding us about why birds are important for us, for wider environmental reasons as well as for our sanity. His talks are not to dazzle with scientific facts and pie charts and line graphs but for us to embrace wildlife and make it a part of our lives even if our wild patch is a little balcony with a few native plants and a bee hotel.