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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ColinD" data-source="post: 1569739" data-attributes="member: 55409">It's not an easy question to answer because it means all kinds of different things to me, depending on what mood I'm in and my current circumstances, and some of the things I enjoy about it may seem contradictory. I enjoy the escapism, the wild lonely places and the beautiful countryside but I also enjoy the thrill of the chase. Birding for me is a Peter Scott painting. I don't just enjoy the way in which the birds fit in with the rest of nature, I  enjoy the way they fit in with the landscape, the seascape and the sky. But equally and totally unashamedly I enjoy the thrill of driving miles, with fingers crossed, adrenalin pumping, hoping that some tired vagrant will stay / survive long enough for me to see it. Birding brings me excitement!For these reasons, I tend to enjoy flocks of birds rather than single individuals, and I enjoy birding on my own - though I love being in a crowd watching a single bird if it's a twitch..... I told you this might get a bit contradictory.Birding for me definately does not mean being with the family, because they're the very last people I want intruding on my time, making non-birding demands, and it definately does not include the study of the behaviour of individual birds, which leaves me completely cold. For example, I love to see a movement of passerines at a migration hotspot, but I have no interest in watching an individual preening and then singing (unless it's a twitch of course <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" />)</blockquote>

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