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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Winterdune" data-source="post: 1302310" data-attributes="member: 7142">This is a great thread and I am so pleased that there are so many reflective and honest birders around.  I can't agree more about the therapeutic value of getting out birding and am lucky enough to live by the sea in Norfolk.  When I lived in the Yorkshire Dales, despite the incredible beauty of the landscape, I still felt somewhat "landlocked", and my birding was somehow less of a release from pressures - I have concluded that being near the coast, and so seeing the miracle of migration much more clearly, and having the chance to find scarcer birds, is really actually very important to me on an emotional level.  Before we had kids I did most of my birding abroad, and I had really phased with UK birding, but kids stopped all that until very recently, so moving to Norfolk was actually a very important emotional move for me - an attempt to rekindle my interest in British birds which I had lost when I began world birding, because I recognised that without rainforests and overseas trips I had lost something vital to me.  It's worked and now I'm a bit obsessed with my patch.  But now I often feel a bit guilty about birding - we have two little kids and I often think that I am being unfair to them if I go out birding when I get home from work, for example.  I don't think I'm very good at allowing myself my own time (though my wife would probably say I seem to manage quite well!).  How do others balance the demands of others with their own need to go birding?  Do you think birding IS a "need" or is that a way of justifying getting out?  Does anyone else have trouble balancing commitments to kids with birding?Sean</blockquote>

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