Are our fellow European birders better than UK birders. (3 Viewers)

[rokermartin]

Jos is right in that he says that being surrounded by other birders helps with development as a birder.

Killian Mullarney and Anthony McGeehan are outstanding birders and are probably the kind of people who would have developed into outstanding birders regardless of input from others. I doubt if they needed much help to develop their interest. There are young kids I've heard of in developing countries who are promising birders, and are *into* birding, regardless of what their communities think.

Understanding relatives go a long way to helping young people, especially, develop. Even if they can't help them with birding knowledge they can help them in other ways with encouragement and understanding. I am not a particularly great birder myself, but I doubt that I'd be much of a birder at all if it weren't for my aunt and late grandmother's encouragement. However, I daresay I would have developed more as a birder a lot earlier if I'd been able to mix with like-minded souls - we have a fairly active birding scene on the Isle of Wight these days but it wasn't always so.

My two pennies worth,
VB

My Dad started taking me into the countryside when i was young going on wildlife rambles,he was very interested in nature and he taught me a great deal about the birds and animals,So that is how i became interested in wildlife and birding.Also two of my mates were keen on birds and nature.So i had a few people around me when i was growing up with the same interests.I also joined the local bird club and the RSPB, i gained a lot of information and id tips from other birders in the local bird club, but also learnt great deal for myself just going out birding looking at birds and listerning to their calls,songs and watching how they behaved and reading bird books.When i first started birding we did'nt have DVDs and bird song tapes birders had to develope their id skills and fieldcraft themselfs.Still think birding is made a little to easy these days with all this new techology at hand, birders should try and id birds for themselfs and get to know the bird calls and songs when there are out birding and develope their fieldcraft.As i said before there is nothing wrong with using Dvds and bird tapes but birders should'nt rely on them to much.