17 January 05

How To Be A Birdwatcher

From the Guardian Unlimited’s The digested read (“The must-read books in just 400 words”) comes a summary of How to be a Bad Birdwatcher, by Simon Barnes.

Sample paragraph:

Birdwatching is not at all like trainspotting. That’s an activity for dull geeks. Birdwatching is for very exciting geeks who like clamping a pair of binoculars to their forehead for hours on end on the off chance a dodo will come back from the dead. Birds are alive. Now I know dogs are alive, too, but dogwatching isn’t much fun.

Posted by at 08:22 PM in Nature and Place | Link |

  1. Um, isn’t this between you and Pica, now, really?



    — Jarrett    17. January 2005, 22:05    Link
  2. Jarrett, I was wondering the same thing. (Haha.)

    There’s no mention about travelling hundreds and thousands of MILES to clamp a pair of binoculars to one’s forehead… to interesting and unusual places like the Brownsville dump for the Tamaulipas crow.

    One day I’m going to figure a cost-per-bird if I can find a tame economist to help me. I used to work for one, maybe I can send him an email.

    — Pica    18. January 2005, 04:51    Link
  3. I beg to differ. Dog watching is also fun. Potentially more interactive too.

    — Coup de Vent    23. January 2005, 09:57    Link
  4. I like both dog watching and bird watching.
    Christmas gifts to me: “The Big Year, A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession” and “A Dog Year”

    — susurra    25. January 2005, 12:30    Link

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