How did I become a birdwatcher? or rather, how did I become an
all-round nature-nut?
I owe everything to my mother, or an awful lot anyway. She was a
science graduate (zoology and geology) and her interest in living
things never failed. Dad contributed a lot of lore from a country
childhood too. How lucky we were, to be allowed to raise tadpoles in
the back veranda, or keep Emperor Gum and other caterpillars on their
foodplants in a vase, or collect interesting bones and feathers on the
bedroom window-sill. We were encouraged to turn over stones and logs in
the bush to see what lived beneath, and to put stone or log back again
carefully. The same manoeuvre was carried out on beaches, and in fact
marine life was my first love, enjoyed at Sorrento and other beaches -
back before squid and abalone were valued for anything but bait! We
always watched birds in the suburban backyard and at the birdbath at
Sorrento, and one of the best birthday presents ever was "What Bird is
That?"
When I moved to Ivanhoe 40+ years ago, no more marine life but lots
of birds everywhere - Redrumped Parrots on the nature strip and, hooray,
Shrike-tits
in the big Red Gum down the back. A kind friend said we HAD to join the
Bird Observers. This made me feel a lot less isolated - early days
walking about solo with binocs could be quite embarrassing, I was
frequently shouted at by golfers and (incorrectly) accused of
trespassing. I think these days birdwatchers are much more accepted by
the general public.
About 12 years ago we went on a tag-along 4WD trip to the Top
End. It was not really arranged as a nature tour, and a couple of chaps
thought I was fair game for teasing about birds. I didn't bite and
answered them back cheerfully. By Kakadu they were telling me all about
the wonderful Sea-Eagle they'd seen feeding its young at the nest, and
describing the beautiful Forest Kingfishers they'd seen while fishing.
They had actually been quite interested in natural things all along, but
it wasn't an interest they'd admit to strangers.
Anthea Fleming
Tom and Mandy Wilson wrote:
Hi all
I've been following this thread for a while - I've actually found in my work
place that, once my colleagues get over their initial surprise and I hear
all the old jokes again, I am then approached fairly regularly by several
asking about for ID on birds that they have seen. The work force as my
employer is, on the whole, young.
The latent interest is there, even if it is only sparked sporadically.
On a wider point, a lot of the commentary about the growth of birding in the
UK and US has been covered in "A Bird in the Bush" by Stephen Moss, which
(believe it or not) is actually a book about the social history of bird
watching from Gilbert White in Selborne onwards.
Cheers
Tom Wilson
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
