What Bird Got You Interested in Birding? (1 Viewer)

[Riviman]

A Chaffinch

The bird that got me interested was a female chaffinch. Many years ago my wife and I went on holiday to Guernsey and visiting the near by island of Herm we noticed what we thought were :bounce: :bounce: sparrows with white bits on their wings. We decided to buy a cheap local bird guide to find out what they were - and we were hooked !!!!!

 

[GDC]

I got interested when I was in the woods and heard a pileated woodpecker pounding. Finally got to see one and it sparked my interest.

 

[retep d]

For me it was watching a Pied Kingfisher hovering over a water storage tank in Bengal with my mother. I was six or seven at the time and that sight has stayed with me to this day, 50+ years!

 

[baillieswells]

At what age did you first take an interest in birds or birding? What initially got you interested. Why and at what point did you become totally hooked?

During the war when I was about eight and we had to leave London when our house was bombed, and went to live on a farm in the country. At that age I collected everything,as did all my friends, stamps, butterflies, marbles, cigarette cards. Dare I admit it, but my grandfather gave me a book as a birthdy present "A Pocket Book of British Bird's Eggs and Nest" by C.A.Hall., so I added collecting bird's eggs to my collecting hobbies. This continued up into my teens, as I went to a school in the country. (It was perectly legal then, and I still remember blowing my first egg, a Song Thrush's). The school had a Natural History Society, run by the biology master who was a keen ornithologist. He would arrange field trips, and that is when my birds' egg collecting changed to recording the birds I had seen. I still remember going up into the Surrey hills in the late evening to watch Nightjars.

 

[Norfolk Coot]

I was walking along the shingle ridge at Cley with a friend and we sat down to talk and saw the marsh harriers. Hooked!! This was 3 years ago and it's a bit embarrasing as i've lived in Norfolk all my life and didn't really know how wonderful the wildlife was. It was a real eye opener and a life changing moment

 

[CTYankee]

Colin

I go birding because........... (complete in no more than 30 words)

In three words: Because I can.

 

[robbie_d_e]

the ospreys near porthmadog got me going, thay have realy generated a lot of interest localy!

 

[martin kitching]

My mentor when I was very young was my grandad who took a great interest in everything around him and, when we visited, was the one relative who could cope with my incessant questioning. He inspired me to take notice of whatever is around, wherever I am. In 1971 when I was age 5 I saw my first Waxwings on the dog rose in our small back garden and my dad explained where they had come from (four or five turned up every winter for the next six years so I didn't really have any concept of just how scarce they can be). Almost continuous observation of the garden also produced Bullfinch and Long-tailed Tit (still my two favourite passerines). The school playing field hosted Redwings every winter and the school gardener, Mr Barnes, pointed out these and a Kestrel. Now this was special - seems to live alone, hovers and kills other birds. And those five species have led to a lifetime obsession.

martin

 

[dendroica_john]

Simple - Peregrine Falcon

Mark b

I agree. The peregrine falcon caught my imagination long before I saw one or even started birding.

 

[Julian Bell]

I was born into birding and as such don't have any particular species that got me into it. However, the changes in the numbers of waders along the beach as I walked home from school is what got me seriously started.

If I was pushed I would say Manx or Sooty shearwater - I was always on the lookout for these wonderful birds.

 

[aythya_hybrid]

I had various odd interests as a kid (including geology and astronomy), most of which were very short-lived. When I was 9 I got the Usborne Spotter's Guide to Birds and it grew from there. First proper birding trip was to the Eden Estuary in Fife in Dec 1991, where I recall being particularly impressed with some Snipe, as well as good numbers of waders more generally.

 

[London Birder]

In the flesh it was a male Bullfinch in the snow, it bowled me over ... a bit of a cliche maybe, but also very true

In the books it was sum plum RN Phal and Hoopoe ... just looked so unreal (mind you Raymond Harris Ching was the artist!)

 

[neilmc]

When the kids were young we moved to Blackburn and began noting birds as we pushed baby buggies around Queen's Park ... then we wrote a list ... then we got some cheap binoculars ... then we got a bird book. It had a Goldfinch on the front. "What a lovely bird," I thought, "must be rare!" But then I saw one! You know the rest.

 

[Ian Bell]

I was only 8 years old when my Headmaster told the story of the Ospreys returning to Loch Garten.The story must have fascinated me.For the next 7 years in a row,my poor Parents had to take me up to Strathspey for the 1st week of their holidays to let me see the birds.35 years on and I still have a passion for the species and thankfully,I dont have to travel so far to see them now.As they nest nearer to Aberdeen.On one visit to Loch Garten,I saw my first Redstart and that was me "hooked".

 

[Home Bird]

As a child, I loved the chickadees, mourning doves and cardinals in my Western Massachusetts backyard. But the bird that really caught my imagination was the kildeer. My dad and I were walking at my grandparents' farm in Michigan and happened to come close to a nest on the ground. Mama kildeer went into her broken wing routine to try to lure us away from the nest. My dad knew exactly what she was doing and the more frantic she got, the closer he knew we were. We didn't go right up to the nest, just stayed a few yards back and looked, and left quickly so mama could relax. But what a show she put on, and the babies were amazing. Been hooked ever since!

Home Bird
www.homebirdnotes.com

 

[Jane P]

Since being a very small child I have loved birds and always fed them but my interest did not lead me to being very knowledgeable about them. However, one incident, about 18 years ago did really increase my interest in their welfare.

We were sitting at home one day (at the time we lived in North Staffordshire) and looking out of the windows at the distant hills. There had been a few days of storms and significant winds. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something flutter to the ground and being the RESPONSIBLE owner of 4 rescued cats (I am sure that has really blotted my copy book!) I ran into the garden to rescue whatever had landed.

I found a small black and white bird that I had never seen before and I was suprised to find it had webbed feet.

An elderly neighbour was a very active member of our local RSPB group and I took the bird to him. He was amazed and very excited by my find. He told me it was a Little Auk, apparently rarely seen inland, but, he said, most probably blown in on the very strong winds which had been coming in from the fierce storms being experienced out at sea.

We took the bird to a local reservoir, where we knew there were fish, and released it. It stayed and rested for a few days and many local bird watchers heard about it and 'flocked' (no pun intended) to the site to see it.

The day after that incident, I bought a book on birds and keep it (and several more bought along the years) in the window in the hope that I will see something unusual again one day.

 

[Wild Bill]

The bird that first caught my imagination was the Common Starling. I was about 4 or 5 years old and clearly remember the dense flocks of Starlings swirling around in the sky getting ready to roost for the night in the now long gone Elm trees. It fascinated me that the thousands of birds appeared to move as one, twisting and turning in the clear sky.

The bird table in the back garden always seemed to have a large number of Starlings intimidating other species for the food. The plumage I found quite mesmerising, so many colours. The vocal range of the bird also astounded me as a youngster. I well remember one bird sounding just like the trim phone ring that was all the rage at the time. Sadly along with a lot of other birds they are not as common as they used to be. We were lucky enough to have Starlings nest in our previous house in the roof above the bathroom.
Not very exciting , but its true.

 

[Avillage]

When I was about 7, my parents started taking me out birding. We went 3 or 4 times before I was ''hooked''. It was one day in mid-april that did it. Short-eared owl, Killdeer, American Kestrel, BW Teal, and Belted Kingfisher. They were all so beautiful!

 

[Larry Lade]

Just 'bumping' this up as I thought some of the newer members might be interested in viewing and perhaps adding their thoughts.

 

[lockbreeze926]

I always thought of birds (and wildlife in general) as something that happened somewhere else, since I grew up in a large industrial city, where nobody had any experience or knowledge of anything beyond the most common garden birds. A Robin was quite a sight, and a (Song) Thrush a scarce visitor. Anything more exotic was a matter for TV and exotic foreign lands.

So, it was when I moved from Scotland that I first realised that some of these creatures actually did live on the same island as me, when I first set eyes upon that strange alien creature - the Magpie.