Bill Oddie article about RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch
26/01/2011 23:09 GMT

Posted by lisa

This article by Bill comes from the Guardian's website at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2011/jan/26/birders-rspb-big-garden-birdwatch (Note that webpage also includes links to page with Big Garden Birdwatch 2010 data & photographs)
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Fellow birders unite for the RSPB Big Garden BirdwatchWhether you consider yourself a birder, ornithologist, or simply a bird lover, the Big Garden Birdwatch needs you this weekend

Whether you consider yourself a birder, ornithologist, or simply a bird lover, the Big Garden Birdwatch needs you this weekend

The hobby that dare not speak its name. Well, that's how it used to be. By the time I was seven, I knew I was a birdwatcher. I didn't admit it until I was 10. The response of my peers was puzzlement and mockery. "Birdwatching!? How soppy! Why can't you go scrumping apples and pulling girls' pigtails like us normal schoolboys?"

Adults were just as indifferent, but men could rarely resist coming out with that most tedious of "bird jokes": "Oh yes. I'm a bit of a birdwatcher too! Two-legged kind, eh? Eh?" I endured that several hundred times, before I discovered the deserved riposte, which is: "All birds have two legs. Unless they've been in an accident and lost one, in which case it's very distasteful to laugh at disabled creatures."


The "I'm a bit of a birdwatcher too" quip, pathetically, is still going strong, but the joyous truth these days is that many people really are watching birds. "What, the feathered kind?" Yes. Indeed, things have changed so much since I was a lad that, instead of being an minority activity, birdwatching is one of the fastest growing leisure pursuits in the world. Well, that's what I read in the business section of an American Airlines magazine about five years ago. It has probably been overtaken since by ballroom dancing but nevertheless it is undeniable that birdwatchers are no longer alone. We are out – outdoors that is – and proud. No longer are little lads and lasses teased about their hobby. Parents encourage them and many join in.


Birdwatchers are not one harmonious band, but that is no bad thing. One of the delights of birds is that they can be enjoyed in so many ways. Some people draw and paint them. Others photograph and film them. Some record their songs. Others "twitch". "Twitcher" is not simply a synonym for "birdwatcher". In the same way that a sprinter is an athlete, but an athlete is not necessarily a sprinter, a twitcher is a birdwatcher, but a birdwatcher is not necessarily a twitcher. Twitching is the often rather frantic pursuit of rare birds. We've all been on an occasional twitch, but a serious, knowledgeable birdwatcher who is not obsessed with his or her "list" would prefer to be called "a birder". I am a birder.


I am not a "bird spotter", an expression that belongs in pre-war Boy Scout manuals and I-Spy books. Nor would I claim to be an "ornithologist", a title which implies scientific knowledge, a capacity for protracted study, an understanding of graphs, figures and statistics, and possibly a doctorate. Finally, at the opposite – but not bottom – end of the birdwatcher's league are people who put out bird food in their gardens, may not even be able to identify all the species, but simply enjoy having them there. Let's just call them "bird lovers".


Bird watchers, twitchers, ornithologists, birders, even bird spotters (if they are not extinct) and bird lovers – we need you all this weekend.


• Bill Oddie is a council member of the RSPB. This weekend is the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch