I felt a little less inadequate as a birdwatcher after reading the review of Simon Barns book How to be a (Bad) Birdwacher in the Sept-Oct issue of Audubon. A bad birdwacher bungles through. Does not sweat the technical stuff. And just looks and has fun. I think I'll read the book and just maybe, instead of feeling a little less inadequate as a birdwatcher, I'll feel a little more adequate.
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Yipee for me. I,m a (bad) birdwatcher. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter ehrodz
- Start date
Pied Kingfisher
Active member
I would like to join the group and I must be bad enough by having bought and placed so many bird guides on my bookshelves.
Bad Birdwatcher
I also think the book is excellent and agree with his definition of a bad birdwatcher, I most surely am one even though I will occassionally twitch a rarity. I absolutely love watching birds, give me a saltmarsh with thousands of waders, a wood with a feeding flock of lbj's or a decent cliff for seawatching and I am in heaven. No matter that I still have problems deciding where the tertials are, or if thats a supercilium or not I'm having fun.
The world would be a much better place with more men of Simon Barnes outlook in high places.
Keith
I also think the book is excellent and agree with his definition of a bad birdwatcher, I most surely am one even though I will occassionally twitch a rarity. I absolutely love watching birds, give me a saltmarsh with thousands of waders, a wood with a feeding flock of lbj's or a decent cliff for seawatching and I am in heaven. No matter that I still have problems deciding where the tertials are, or if thats a supercilium or not I'm having fun.
The world would be a much better place with more men of Simon Barnes outlook in high places.
Keith
ehrodz said:
Keith
you have given me an idea - why dont we arrange a field trip - in the northeast for us average birdwatchers?
we can go out with or field guides and try to help each other make sense of the lbj's , gulls , and non-descript waders, and not feel inadequate beng with our peers.
Maybe one or two experts could come along from the forum to help us along - a sort of teach in.
Please post here if you fancy it - it cant be that hard to arrange !
Im willing to try to organise it if I can get some names.
cheers Nigel
you have given me an idea - why dont we arrange a field trip - in the northeast for us average birdwatchers?
we can go out with or field guides and try to help each other make sense of the lbj's , gulls , and non-descript waders, and not feel inadequate beng with our peers.
Maybe one or two experts could come along from the forum to help us along - a sort of teach in.
Please post here if you fancy it - it cant be that hard to arrange !
Im willing to try to organise it if I can get some names.
cheers Nigel
Keith Reeder
Watch the birdie...
Sounds like a great idea, Russkie.
Funnily enough I was thinking along the same lines as the gist of this thread when I was at St Mary's (Whitley Bay) today.
I was in the middle of a small blizzard of goldcrests - probably a small fall really, but magical to me - when another birder mentioned that there was a paddyfield warbler further up county, and I realised that it would be wasted on me because I wouldn't know a paddyfield warbler if it stood up in my soup.
But I didn't care, because I was up to my knees in goldies - and that was good enough for me, "common" or not.
Funnily enough I was thinking along the same lines as the gist of this thread when I was at St Mary's (Whitley Bay) today.
I was in the middle of a small blizzard of goldcrests - probably a small fall really, but magical to me - when another birder mentioned that there was a paddyfield warbler further up county, and I realised that it would be wasted on me because I wouldn't know a paddyfield warbler if it stood up in my soup.
But I didn't care, because I was up to my knees in goldies - and that was good enough for me, "common" or not.
