Carrying field guides into the field

["Tony Russel" <>]

Alistair I think this must be just a bit of pommie only birding culture ( poms always looking for something to be derisive about in others ) I recently read the same book - funny ending though, just stops without warning.

 Most birders I know always have a field guide close to hand, ie, in the car, and many carry them in their multipocketed jackets. We  find it most useful and it saves us the pretense of being good enough to identify everything we come across.  Better to make immediate comparisons using field guides while the bird is still in view than to pretend to be good enough to note all characteristics for later reference.

Personally I don't carry one on my person, but one or two do live permanently in my car along with my scope, tripod, GPS, spotlight, and a folding chair for lunch breaks.  This is mainly because I hate lugging any weights around , my own weight being quite sufficient thank you. I often marvel at the way friends burden themselves down with cameras, scopes, tripods, bins, and a back pack !   They often remind me of camels. For me that would detract from the pleasure of birding to the point of not bothering to go.  Bugger Bill Oddie I say.

For me binoculars are impediment enough, but only then because one just has to have them.  I do also sometimes succumb to carrying a microcassette, provided It's a cool day and I'm wearing something with adequate pockets.

 

I don't believe anyone should feel at all guilty about not complying with the dictates of a foreign culture.

After, they're only poms aren't they !

 

Tony.

 

Sorry Peter, don't tell your dad I said all this.

 

 

 

 

Subject: [BIRDING-AUS] Carrying field guides into the field

> I have nearly finished reading Mark Cockers' book 'Birders: Tales of
a
> Tribe' about the twitching phenomenon in the UK. It has been a 
very
> enjoyable read but a comment in this book which was similar to a
statement
> made in Bill Oddie's autobiography had let me to believe that
I continue to
> make an enormous faux pas everytime I go birding. Both
books allude to the
> fact that it is poor form to take a field guide out
in the field and one
> must make notes and diagrams of what one sees. In
taking my copy of Slater
> with me into the filed, have I committed a
cardinal sin of birding, or is
> this a particularly English
peculiarity?
> 
> Cheers
> Alastair
> PS Presumably
those that take chairs into the field do so, so they can
> accommodate the
larger field guides or even HANZAB on their lap.
> 
> 
>
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