• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Birdwatching Magazine (1 Viewer)

SimonC

Still listing - I'll capsize one day
Hello
This is likely to be a very short lived thread as it can be answered in one reply!

Decided to give Birdwatching Magazine another try, as I'm growing a bit tired of the "elitism" that seems to my mind to be creeping more & more into Birdwatch (not sure I'll be renewing my subscription this year!)

So, who's going to be the first to tell me what date the February issue goes on sale? ;) (the Jan issue not in my local WHSmith)

(I'm having a bet with myself as to who it'll be, I'll let you know if I win :bounce: )

Cheers
 
According to the magazine the Feb. edition is in the shops from Jan 30th. If you subscribe it comes about five days earlier.
Ivan
 
Steve said:
About The 28th
Did you ask why Jan Issue Not In Smiths?


And you lost your Bet;)

Cheers Steve!
Smiths had sold out (they never have that many copies in unfortunately - probably not much call for it round here........Not much call!?....it's the single most popular chSTOP THAT!! not the time or place for Monty Python!)
& yes, I did lose my bet!
 
Hi Simon,
'Decided to give Birdwatching Magazine another try, as I'm growing a bit tired of the "elitism" that seems to my mind to be creeping more & more into Birdwatch (not sure I'll be renewing my subscription this year!)'
Elitism??Wouldn't have thought so.Aimed towards 'serious' birders/twitchers a bit,perhaps,but does that constitute elitism?
Usually get neither: if I had the money,I'd get Birding World and British Birds....;)
Each to their own,however!
Harry H
 
Horses for courses I like Birdwatching & Birdwatch, both have their uses.
I enjoy Birding world because it is up to date.

CJ
 
Harry Hussey said:
Hi Simon,
'Decided to give Birdwatching Magazine another try, as I'm growing a bit tired of the "elitism" that seems to my mind to be creeping more & more into Birdwatch (not sure I'll be renewing my subscription this year!)'
Elitism??Wouldn't have thought so.Aimed towards 'serious' birders/twitchers a bit,perhaps,but does that constitute elitism?
Usually get neither: if I had the money,I'd get Birding World and British Birds....;)
Each to their own,however!
Harry H


Won't answer that, as you answered it yourself in your second sentence! ;)
Sorry, third sentence, forgot to count "elitism??" as a one word sentence
 
Last edited:
Birdwatching tends to seem a bit "recycled" to me....alot of the articles seem to have the flavour of being information thats available in books or in other magazines before.
 
Hi Simon,
I wasn't aware that targetting a magazine at more 'serious' birders and/or twitchers meant that it was being elitist?One could suggest that Birdwatching was being elitist by excluding these people....;)
Harry H
 
Harry Hussey said:
Hi Simon,
I wasn't aware that targetting a magazine at more 'serious' birders and/or twitchers meant that it was being elitist?One could suggest that Birdwatching was being elitist by excluding these people....;)
Harry H

OK so maybe "Elitism" was the wrong word to choose!

It's the fact that is targetted to any one end of the "spectrum" at all that is irksome to me! (plus they got rid of all three of the best bits!)
It may be that Birdwatching Magazine turns out to still be too "twee" for me ;)
in which case I shall just have to read more bird forums won't I? :news:

BTW, if there is such a thing as a serious birder, does that mean there's also such a thing as a Frivolous one :p

(Don't know which category people would want to put me into, but as there are people that feel the need to pigeon-hole things then I'll plump for the one marked "person with more than a passing interest in birds but not so obsessive as to have no life!" ;) )

Anyway, let's stop this now, it's too difficult to try and convey the tongue-in-cheek nature of my replies without a suitable smiley!
 
Hi Simon,
It's the fact that is targetted to any one end of the "spectrum" at all that is irksome to me! (plus they got rid of all three of the best bits!)

And Birdwatching isn't?;)

It may be that Birdwatching Magazine turns out to still be too "twee" for me ;)
in which case I shall just have to read more bird forums won't I? :news:

You could do a lot worse....

BTW, if there is such a thing as a serious birder, does that mean there's also such a thing as a Frivolous one :p

I am a serious birder,but can,at times,be very frivolous(like in this post)!

(Don't know which category people would want to put me into, but as there are people that feel the need to pigeon-hole things then I'll plump for the one marked "person with more than a passing interest in birds but not so obsessive as to have no life!" ;) )

I'm a self-confessed 'birding anorak',and proud of it!Do sometimes think about things other than birding,however(the shame!)....

Anyway, let's stop this now, it's too difficult to try and convey the tongue-in-cheek nature of my replies without a suitable smiley!

That was my main fear in my initial response....;)
Harry H
 
seems to me a lot of twitchers now think they're the 'serious birders' and a large part of birdwatch is geared to these types - witness the Evans and Adrian Webb debacle and endless ID rehashes and pages of reports of stuff that's you didn't see last month....

BB is still top dog and features the type of article none of the others would touch with a barge pole
 
I take BB, Birding World, Birdwatch and Dutch Birding and I have to say I frequently find BB extremely dry and boring....I don`t care if that disqualifies me from being a serious birder...when I get home from work at night and crash out is "Seabird Control & Fisheries Protection 1900 -1950" or "Monitoring the diets of farmland seed-eaters through raptor pellet analysis" what I really want to read (unless i`m struggling to get to sleep!!) There`s more than enough dry, pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-scientific, poorly analysed rubbish around at work that I can get paid for reading.....The annual rare bird report is about all that I pay my subscription for...the Rare Breeding Birds report is always worth a chuckle too....now if only one of the other Bird Mags could outbid BB for the right to publish the Rare Bird Report....
 
Hi Tim and Jason,
Agree that Birdwatch sometimes seems to give exaggerated prominence to the likes of the Evans/Webb debate: no disrespect to the magazine(after all,I hope to get a few articles published again,and may approach them at some stage!),but it seems to have lost its way a little,becoming a pale tabloid shadow of what it once was(back in the early/mid 90's it was a great magazine)
Birding World,while also being geared towards the 'serious' birder/twitcher,carries a bit more authority,and often has ground-breaking ID articles(Svensson's magnum opus on the two 'olivaceous' species,Sykes' and Booted springs to mind).
British Birds does have some 'ultra-serious' articles such as those described my Jason,and I must confess that I usually have little interest in them.There are,however,excellent articles on taxonomy/identification/distribution etc,not to mention the 'mystery bird' competition.
While I only get BW at the moment,I must subscribe to BB this year as well.Other than that,the others could be bought if there were good articles(like a forthcoming paper in Dutch Birding on the ID of ADULT smithsonianus)
Harry H
 
I agree with Jason. Got BB for the first time last year and wasn't that impressed to say the least. Found it better to just read the abstracts - rest of the acticle just waffled mainly in order to sound scientific. I'd say about 1/5 of the articles actually interesting throughout - not a lot considering it costs a fair bit. As a young birder, I'd say the number of people my age who would actually find most BB articles readable would be very, very few. It should cut the b******** and that way it could fit more stuff in.
 
Hi Brendan,
Checked your profile when you mentioned being young: ouch,I feel old!;)
I'd say that a few of your age group could read those articles,you'd be surprised!Keep at it,and they will pay off!
Of course,it helps that I took a few units in biology in my first year of university....
Harry H
 
I cannot believe this attack on BB - another sign of the times I guess!

Plenty of birding mags do carry as you put it 'pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-scientific, poorly analysed rubbish' but BB sure aint one of them. And it's not 'waffle to sound scientific' - it mostly IS scientific

BB shouldn't be cut to entertain people - people should educate themselves a bit so they can get something out of it perhaps. It's not lowest common denominator time in Britain yet!

Britain is becoming an anti-intellectual country.....not exactly a good thing. May be you boys should stick to listers weekly or whatever it's called ;)

plus it is by far the best value for content - you dont get 10 pages of last months birds in there!
 
I have flirted with many journals...but I only subscribed to one long trm.BB 79 to current...and Dutch Birding. The rest all seemed like comics...
 
Hi Tim,
While there is no shame as such in someone not being able to understand articles in BB,it shouldn't be seen as something to boast about!
What really gets my goat(sorry about a rant off topic here)is when pseuo-intellectuals excuse acts of vandalism by people from working class areas as being a representation of their culture.What a crock of male bovine excrement!I myself was born and bred in a working class area of Cork,but most certainly wouldn't excuse this behaviour.Anyone can educate themselves to a degree,even if their formal schooling was limited.
Don't mind me,though: I was called a 'swot' at school!
Harry H
 
Birds inspired me to pack in an okay job in a factory and go to Uni. Also had a fair time on dole. It was hard in a mining area in late 80s!

never looked backed and I'm so grateful of that day I told em to shove it! I had a chuckle about it in the rainforests of Peru watching macaws
 
Warning! This thread is more than 20 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top