Inspiration...

I was lucky enough to grow up just down the road from the headquarters of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge, the charity founded by Sir Peter Scott in 1948. Wandering around here during my childhood, and subsequently volunteering, is probably the reason I now work as a research ecologist.

But the one thing that's always stuck with me, is the number of other things that Sir Scott (knighted in 1973 for services to conservation) excelled at during his life...

While Scotts father famously wrote in his last letter to Scott's mother "make the boy interested in natural history if you can; it is better than games", Scott went on to win an olympic bronze medal for single-handed dinghy sailing in the 1936 Berlin games, and become British Gliding Champion in 1963.

Oh, and he also found time to co-found the World Wide Fund for Nature, design its panda logo and paint a bit too...