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How to be a Bad Birdwatcher: To the Greater Glory of Life
Look out of the window. See a bird. Enjoy it. Congratulations. You are now a bad birdwatcher. Anyone who has ever gazed up at the sky or stared out of the window knows something about birds. In this funny, inspiring, eye-opening book, Simon Barnes paints a riveting picture of how bird-watching has framed his life and can help us all to a better understanding
of our place on this planet.
How to be a bad birdwatcher shows why birdwatching is not the preserve of twitchers, but one of the simplest, cheapest and most rewarding pastimes around. Mostly, they like fast-flowing streams with plenty of rocks, because they are odd little birds, like big fat wrens, except they have the unnerving habit of flying straight into waterfalls. And, if you go to the right sort of stream, you are almost certain to see a dipper, and if you walk along it for a way, you will see several. Find your stream, and you have found your dipper. And the hobby was unmissable, unmistakable: a great black (I saw him only in silhouette) force. It wasn't necessary to identify the bird, to know it by name; it was enough to witness a fierce and terrible drama.
Any bad birdwatcher would know it was a bird of prey, and any human being would have known it was something dreadful. It was exciting because it was a thrilling bird in a thrilling moment. For it is tits that are famous for peanuts. Their name, by the way, is short for titmouse, which is a mixture of the mose, the Old English name for these birds, and the Middle English tit, a term for any small creature. Wrens have been called "titty wrens", and in Devon, apparently, "titty todgers". Some birdwatchers call great tits "Dolly Partons", ho ho ho. And by golly there it is: long-tailed tit, and you always thought they were fabulously rare. "Unique, tiny, ball and stick shape," says Rob in his jizz book. And you watch them, and next time you see a group of bouncing, cheeping, pinkish balland- stick birds in a treetop you will say: "Ahal Long-tailed tits."
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