My own personal theory (having been brought up in the UK and lived in the
US, where birding is also "big") is that in the UK and US people are
actively encouraged to feed wild birds - indeed in the US it is big business
with shops selling nothing but feeders and seed. So people grow up being
very familiar with birds.
Here we tend to actively discourage people from feeding birds - for very
good reasons - so there is probably less familiarity at an early age and
thus less people becoming birders?
On 17/02/07, Mike Simpson <> wrote:
Another thing to remember when comparing the UK with Australia is that a
much larger percentage of the population in the UK lives in the
countryside
in small villages and country towns than that in Australia where some 98
pct
of the population is urbanised.
I was brought up in a small village in the north of England and
subsequently
lived in other small towns. Many people while not active birders could
still
name all of the local species and soon noticed if something 'strange'
appeared in the area.
Here in OZ, anything black is a crow, black/white is a magpie and anything
else is a cockatoo...
Regards - Mike Simpson
Penrith, NSW, Australia
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