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What Brought You To Be a Birder? (1 Viewer)

dave598

dave598

Registered User
United States
Okay I do not know if this is the right forum spot to stat this thread (Mods if this is the wrong spot please move it to where the proper place for it). But here goes......

We all get into a hobby for different reasons for me it is health and the need to keep my blood pressure under control. I have always had the love of animals and photography so I decided to combine the two. I love nothing more than to head out at 5 am, with a thermos full of coffee and several frozen bottles of water, my camera, and pack of smokes and go find a quiet place to sit and watch the beautiful nature around me, drink a couple cups of coffee and just relax.

Since I started doing this in January and February of this year my blood pressure if finally under control and my wife says I am a calmer and different man. So what drives you to be a bird watcher and lover of birds and other wildlife?
 
Giving up smoking would help your BP and improve your health. ;)

Watching a TV programme many years ago set me off down the path of bird watching.
 
I've always been a bird/nature lover, sitting on the back porch and watching the world wake up while sipping coffee is one of the best ways to wake up yourself. However work always got in the way of enjoying it more and left even less time to head out with a camera. Now that I'm retired it's nice to be able to wake up early because I want to, coffee and camera in hand and I am able to appreciate it more as well as go out in search of birds that I wouldn't otherwise see just sitting out back.
 
I've been interested in birdwatching since I was 5 years old, when my father got me interested in birdwatching in the countryside and he bought me the observer book of British Birds and I'm now just turned 64 years of age. I've been a member of the RSPB since the early 1970's and about 4 years ago I became a life member of the RSPB and 3 years ago joined my local RSPB Group and after buying numerous bird books over the years, I now have the Colling book of British and European Birds, like many birdwatchers have.
Ian.
 
I grew up in some fairly rural and coastal parts of Scotland, so from being a young child, I think I always had an appreciation of the wildlife around me, as well as the natural beauty of the landscape, the weather and the seasons.

I think my earliest bird-related memories are from when I lived in North Berwick in the early '80s. These included sitting on the harbour wall watching gannets (from the Bass Rock colony) diving for fish or puffins paddling around.

As I got older, I got more into hillwalking and climbing, with only a passing interest in the wildlife around me. However, after graduating from university in Glasgow, I was unemployed and living back with my parents in Oxfordshire for several months. In November '94, after seeing a reintroduced Red Kite soaring over the Chiltern Hills, I was bitten by the bug and started actively birding the local woodland and reservoirs. This rapidly became my stress relief as I continued to search for a job (unsuccessfully for many months).

Over 20 years later, birding is still an important part of my life, even though I don't get out doing it anywhere near as much as I would like due to the combined pressures of work and family life. Despite that, it's only when birding that my mind is truly at ease and I feel centred and relaxed.

Simon
 
Khaetra said:
I've always been a bird/nature lover, sitting on the back porch and watching the world wake up while sipping coffee is one of the best ways to wake up yourself. However work always got in the way of enjoying it more and left even less time to head out with a camera. Now that I'm retired it's nice to be able to wake up early because I want to, coffee and camera in hand and I am able to appreciate it more as well as go out in search of birds that I wouldn't otherwise see just sitting out back.
Click to expand...
You are very right. The apartment complex that I work and live in has a lot birds that call us home and I get up around 4 am everyday and I love to sit with a hot cup of coffee and watch them come alive.
 
My brother and I restocking the County of Staten Island, New York with Ring-necked pheasants that had gone extinct in the County from hunting.

Our mother was ready to kill us ;)
 
KC Foggin said:
My brother and I restocking the County of Staten Island, New York with Ring-necked pheasants that had gone extinct in the County from hunting.

Our mother was ready to kill us ;)
Click to expand...

How many did you guys release? I know Great Kills has a few, but I haven't been there in a while.

One of my teachers got me into birding a few years back. He even established a club at my school and got many others into it as well. Pretty cool guy!
 
Husband bought me a bird table for the garden. I watched them, decided I needed to know what species they were (I only knew the obvious ones at the time - robin, blackbird etc.) Then decided I needed to know what ALL the other species were everywhere else :) Now he spends a lot of time watching me watch birds and kind of regrets the purchase...
 
One of the commoner routes I suspect.
The scene: As a child I see a bird. "Dad (or Mum) what's that?" "A Blackbird." "Dad (or Mum) what's that?" "It's a Robin." "Dad (or Mum) what's that?" (Exasperated parents). "Look, we'll buy you a bird book for your birthday."
 
Dancat said:
How many did you guys release? I know Great Kills has a few, but I haven't been there in a while.

One of my teachers got me into birding a few years back. He even established a club at my school and got many others into it as well. Pretty cool guy!
Click to expand...

We raised about 150 chicks in the basement and then moved them out to a pen in the yard and then transported them a dozen or so at a time down to Travis.
 
I started really watching after being laid up following an opperation when all I could do was look out the window for weeks and months. Some best buy bins were followed by a field guide and an increasing recovery led me out in to the field and better health. That must have been ten years or so ago.....I was given three years. I beat that and never looked back thanks in large part to birding.
 
I went to Portugal for rest and relaxation at Frank McClintock's place in the Alentejo. I spent 3 weeks just reading books and did nothing to do with birds. During my second trip out there, Frank said "You can't keep coming here and not do any birding, come out for a morning walk." Most of it went over my head but I decided to arrange a full day birding for my next trip out.

It was just myself and Frank out on the plains and I must have asked about 20 times, "What's that bird?" and every answer was Corn Bunting. I just assumed that all birds looked the same and probably why now I am partial to buntings. 3 months later, I sent an email to him saying the birds I had seen in Japan. After listing what I had seen, I realised how much I had learned in 3 months as I would not have been able to do this before then.

That was 3 years ago and I have been hooked ever since. It is amazing how much you see once you are looking, as I spent 2 months in Kenya in 1998, and I can not remember seeing one bird (not even a common one) but they were obviously there.
 
Kibet said:
I went to Portugal for rest and relaxation at Frank McClintock's place in the Alentejo. I spent 3 weeks just reading books and did nothing to do with birds. During my second trip out there, Frank said "You can't keep coming here and not do any birding, come out for a morning walk." Most of it went over my head but I decided to arrange a full day birding for my next trip out.

It was just myself and Frank out on the plains and I must have asked about 20 times, "What's that bird?" and every answer was Corn Bunting. I just assumed that all birds looked the same and probably why now I am partial to buntings. 3 months later, I sent an email to him saying the birds I had seen in Japan. After listing what I had seen, I realised how much I had learned in 3 months as I would not have been able to do this before then.

That was 3 years ago and I have been hooked ever since. It is amazing how much you see once you are looking, as I spent 2 months in Kenya in 1998, and I can not remember seeing one bird (not even a common one) but they were obviously there.
Click to expand...


You know birding is like fire buffing once it gets you your hooked. I know that is the way it is for me
 
Despite occasional prods in the direction from Raven nests in Cumbria on fell-walking holidays, Spoonbills on Breydon Water during Norfolk Broads boating holidays and Mum listing garden birds, I wasn't that bothered (too busy plane-spotting) until I got a place reading Zoology at Manchester and thought I'd better take an extra-curricular interest in some aspect of the business.

I read Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, thought it funny but clearly exaggerated (how wrong can you be) and also succumbed to the best pitch of fresher's week from the MU Bird Club: we do look at some birds but basically its an excuse to get out of the city, have a walk and go to the pub.

Off I went.....

John
 
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