John Cantelo
Well-known member
This is something that's been rattling around in my addled brain for some time, but is so shocking that I've been loathe to voice it. The truth is I am birding less and less in the UK and wonder if I'm on the brink of giving up ....
If pressed I would say that I started birdwatching in the winter of 1962/63 although family mythology has it that I was interested in wildlife at least 6 years earlier. However, 1962/63 marked the time I first set out (sans family) on a ‘proper’ birdwatching expedition (probably to Titchfield Haven or Farlington Marsh), got together with like minds at secondary school and soon thereafter joined my local NHS. So I’ve had an interest in birdwatching for a shocking 50 years and yet I now find myself less and less inclined to go out birding in the UK – despite living in a prime position in the UK to do so. Stealing Darwin’s famous words seems the only way to convey the guilt associated with the heretical notion of giving it up.
The truth is, unless showing people birds (from which I continue to get huge enjoyment), I find myself enjoying a day in the field here in the UK less and less. The reasons aren’t hard to fathom. Walking around my local marsh I now struggle to see a Yellow Wagtail – indeed I only saw one there this spring - whereas previously small flocks were the norm. The throbbing drumming of Snipe is now scarcely to be heard and certainly not in previous numbers. Yet the reserve is well managed, the habitat better than ever and the marsh certainly looks superb. But here, as elsewhere, birds like Turtle Dove and Cuckoo are now to be found in a shadow of their former abundance. I’ve only had a single Willow Warbler which, despite my self confessed lethargy, is appalling. On a recent visit an ex-pat and expert birding friend (one of that band from school) was aghast that he didn’t see a single Song Thrush during his three week stay. Finding birds like Marsh Tit, Willow Tit, Nuthatch, Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, Grasshopper Warbler and Redstart - once not too difficult locally - is now impossible or a matter of ‘twitching’ the sad remnant that still persists. Birds that were once abundant and everyday – Yellowhammer for example – now have to be sought out. Just look at the successive atlas maps for my home county to be found at http://www.kentos.org.uk/atlas/ to gain a picture of the avian Armageddon which has taken place in the last half century. Yes there are compensations in the form of Cetti’s Warbler, Little Egret, Marsh Harriers, etc., but the dearth of birds in any numbers (where are the winter murmurations of Starlings?) makes for melancholy. Twitching the occasional rarity scarcely makes up for the bone achingly depressing absence of so many old friends from hedgerow, wood, marsh, field or shoreline. The awfulness of doing atlas work and finding myself walking through a wheat fields for 25 minutes without seeing or hearing a single bird still haunts me.
Drop me down somewhere else that still has birds in numbers, or at least unfamiliar birds in numbers, and the old habits kick back in. I rush about, I look, I enjoy and I enthuse. The instincts are still there and the interest is still thriving (witness my obsessive interest in SW Spain), but in the UK this passion is no longer fed such as to sustain it past those days when birds seem unnaturally thin on the ground. Abstract notions about birds and birding still fascinate (it's an ingrained habit), but actually going out and doing it locally has less attraction than at any point in my life. So who else is willing to admit to pseudo-homicide and confess that birding in the UK (as distinct from the adrenalin rush of twitching) no longer has the allure that it once held?
Deep breath, now press that 'Submit New Thread' box, confess all and for ever damage my credibility on BF!
If pressed I would say that I started birdwatching in the winter of 1962/63 although family mythology has it that I was interested in wildlife at least 6 years earlier. However, 1962/63 marked the time I first set out (sans family) on a ‘proper’ birdwatching expedition (probably to Titchfield Haven or Farlington Marsh), got together with like minds at secondary school and soon thereafter joined my local NHS. So I’ve had an interest in birdwatching for a shocking 50 years and yet I now find myself less and less inclined to go out birding in the UK – despite living in a prime position in the UK to do so. Stealing Darwin’s famous words seems the only way to convey the guilt associated with the heretical notion of giving it up.
The truth is, unless showing people birds (from which I continue to get huge enjoyment), I find myself enjoying a day in the field here in the UK less and less. The reasons aren’t hard to fathom. Walking around my local marsh I now struggle to see a Yellow Wagtail – indeed I only saw one there this spring - whereas previously small flocks were the norm. The throbbing drumming of Snipe is now scarcely to be heard and certainly not in previous numbers. Yet the reserve is well managed, the habitat better than ever and the marsh certainly looks superb. But here, as elsewhere, birds like Turtle Dove and Cuckoo are now to be found in a shadow of their former abundance. I’ve only had a single Willow Warbler which, despite my self confessed lethargy, is appalling. On a recent visit an ex-pat and expert birding friend (one of that band from school) was aghast that he didn’t see a single Song Thrush during his three week stay. Finding birds like Marsh Tit, Willow Tit, Nuthatch, Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, Grasshopper Warbler and Redstart - once not too difficult locally - is now impossible or a matter of ‘twitching’ the sad remnant that still persists. Birds that were once abundant and everyday – Yellowhammer for example – now have to be sought out. Just look at the successive atlas maps for my home county to be found at http://www.kentos.org.uk/atlas/ to gain a picture of the avian Armageddon which has taken place in the last half century. Yes there are compensations in the form of Cetti’s Warbler, Little Egret, Marsh Harriers, etc., but the dearth of birds in any numbers (where are the winter murmurations of Starlings?) makes for melancholy. Twitching the occasional rarity scarcely makes up for the bone achingly depressing absence of so many old friends from hedgerow, wood, marsh, field or shoreline. The awfulness of doing atlas work and finding myself walking through a wheat fields for 25 minutes without seeing or hearing a single bird still haunts me.
Drop me down somewhere else that still has birds in numbers, or at least unfamiliar birds in numbers, and the old habits kick back in. I rush about, I look, I enjoy and I enthuse. The instincts are still there and the interest is still thriving (witness my obsessive interest in SW Spain), but in the UK this passion is no longer fed such as to sustain it past those days when birds seem unnaturally thin on the ground. Abstract notions about birds and birding still fascinate (it's an ingrained habit), but actually going out and doing it locally has less attraction than at any point in my life. So who else is willing to admit to pseudo-homicide and confess that birding in the UK (as distinct from the adrenalin rush of twitching) no longer has the allure that it once held?
Deep breath, now press that 'Submit New Thread' box, confess all and for ever damage my credibility on BF!
.
