Arise, Sir Birder...

This is for the Bluetail, soldier

Jono Lethbridge recently touched on the subject of arrogance in birding - (you can be teased by the promise of a rant here). Now...

One of the 'givens' in this birding game is that it is a substitute activity in lieu of us not going out and being 'hunter-gatherers'. OK, some of us do work and earn money to fulfil this role in life, but the primal experience of hunting down and killing your food is missing. In the evolution of man this is still a recent loss to the day-to-day activity of a human being.

Thus, going out into the field, armed not with a bow-and-arrow but a pair of binoculars, is the modern version of hunting (at least for some of us). And because of this, whether you believe it or not, birding defines your prowess as a man (or a woman if you are one of the 0.009% of birders that is not a man). If you go out into the field and not find a good bird, you are WEAK. If you cannot identify species properly, you are WEAK. If your fellow birders do not rate you as a birder - yes, you are WEAK. This is where stringing, boasting and arrogance come in. Because to be seen as weak in our society is not welcomed, and those who feel as if they need to do a bit of self-promotion to boost their profile will start to massage the truth, manipulate the facts and ensure that everyone else who birds is aware at any small successes that come their way.

Think about it - you find out that there has been a rarity at a local site and the first question you will ask will most probably be "Who found it?". You need to know because we (maybe without realising it), attach importance to this fact. And when we do find a good bird ourselves, think about the smug satisfaction involved as you greet the other birders as they turn up to see it (and you feign indifference as they offer you their congratulations). When a bird report is published who doesn't turn straight to the systematic list to look for their initials against a rare bird, high count or early/late migrant.

If they gave out medals for birding prowess, we'd wear them in the field without a moments hesitation.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Kwowww"

On Tuesday evening, at 20.05hrs, I was taking out the rubbish, when I heard a call from south-west of the house. I froze, knowing what it was at once, but scarcely believing it. I had listened to this call on Xeno-Canto many times, getting ready for such a moment but not really considering it something that I would hear over the back garden. After 15 seconds the call came again from the blackness, now directly over head. Yes, there was no mistaking it! Another 20 seconds it called a third time - now further away to the north-east... "Kwowww" A lazy drawl, part bark, part yelp. A Bittern. Nocturnal flight-call. I went back inside and played the call on Xeno Canto just to make sure that I had remembered everything correctly. I had. Bloody hell, a Bittern over suburban Banstead! And only a week after an Arctic Skua had blessed me just a mile or so away. Sometimes the birding Gods do smile on you. To some birders these two species are just small fry, mere starters to the main cou
Read more

Mike Netherwood

Image
I first met Mike Netherwood at Beddington Sewage Farm in early 1975, me being an ultra-keen and ultra-green 16-year old birder, he some 20 years my senior. Mike, together with Ken Parsley, were the remnants of a once much larger ringing group which carried out the trapping and ringing of birds across the open expanse of the sewage farm. Whenever I bumped into them, which I often did, they would both tolerate my many questions about what they had seen and trapped and listen to me waxing lyrical about my own observations. Over the coming months they showed me how they caught the birds, allowed me to witness the ringing and measuring of them and, if I were very lucky, allow me to help them out by holding mist-net poles, carrying bird bags or writing down (scribing) the data that they were collecting into notebooks. By the summer of 1976 I had joined them, proudly in possession of my trainee ringer's permit. For the next three years (until I 'defected' to Dungeness) I spent man
Read more

To tell it like it is, or not...

Image
I am grateful to Gavin Haig (Not Quite Scilly) who drew my attention to an opinion piece, penned by Matt Phelps, which appeared in the November issue of 'Birdwatch' magazine, entitled 'Positive Approach', which I have now read. In it, he suggests that there is too much negativity being posted on social media regarding the state of our birding world, which is then acting as a deterrent towards a younger generation in adopting conservation and wildlife study. He also suggests that a lot of this negativity is being generated by older birders, and that these old timers keep banging on about the 'good old days' which isn't helpful in encouraging the youth to pick up a pair of binoculars and get out into the field. Does he have a point? Now, I am undeniably an older birder, and I am also guilty of having posted, blogged, written and spoken about the slump in bird and invertebrate numbers. I also like nothing better than to revisit my notebooks and share in the hi
Read more