amelia1730
Well-known member
I am fairly new to birding (4 years or so......) and find it a most frustrating hobby. I have long term neck & balance problems and my husband says, quite rightly, I couldn't have found a more unsuitable hobby for my condition!! That aside, there are so many frustrations. Here are a few, but I'm sure you can add to them. How many times do you hear a bird but can't see it, see a bird (not too clearly) but can't hear it! How many times do you get your 'scope & camera set up..........damn, too late!
Being able to name most British birds pictured in my field guide, photos in magazines or shots on TV is all well and good, but give me a bird in dappled sunlight or at 8pm on a summers evening and I'm completely foxed. They just look so different in real life........
Last summer I watched a very pretty pinky buff coloured bird picking insects off leaves in a scrubby orchard area near our home for a full half hour, only a few feet away and I still don't know what it was!! Many's the time I've come home from a walk with hubby having left the field guide at home (silly girl!) and seen a new bird. Got a good mental picture of it but it doesn't match anything in the books.............arghh!! So frustrating! I know I have a lot to learn, which is quite an exciting prospect (imagine knowing everything about birds?!) but sometimes I wish I had taken up stamp collecting!
Being able to name most British birds pictured in my field guide, photos in magazines or shots on TV is all well and good, but give me a bird in dappled sunlight or at 8pm on a summers evening and I'm completely foxed. They just look so different in real life........
Last summer I watched a very pretty pinky buff coloured bird picking insects off leaves in a scrubby orchard area near our home for a full half hour, only a few feet away and I still don't know what it was!! Many's the time I've come home from a walk with hubby having left the field guide at home (silly girl!) and seen a new bird. Got a good mental picture of it but it doesn't match anything in the books.............arghh!! So frustrating! I know I have a lot to learn, which is quite an exciting prospect (imagine knowing everything about birds?!) but sometimes I wish I had taken up stamp collecting!
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