Grumpy Old Birder
Hand drawn bird guides or actual photographs? Bo Beolens knows which one he prefers…
Bo Beolens likes nothing more than a drawing by hand when identifying birds
I’ve lately been updating fatbirder.com with fabulous photos of wonderful birds taken by a growing number of fantastic photographers. They range from just terrific to truly remarkable. Things have completely changed since my youth. Half a century ago, a small band of dedicated photographers sat interminably in hides or hung about aviaries. I can barely remember decent pictures of birds in the likes of the National Geographic magazine; the only highly colourful feathers were in headdresses at tribal ceremonies. Popular bird books rarely had photos and those few were strictly monochrome. Fieldguides were illustrated with linedrawings or watercolours. Most weren’t up to much either. In 1954 a revolution began. Peterson et al produced a Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe that combined depth of knowledge, eye for detail and pure artistry. At about the same time, Tunnicliffe was painting for journal covers and most influential of all, a series of collectible cards in tea packets. Scratch a crumbly old British birder and out will spill a tale of how they were turned on to birding by tea-cards lovingly pasted into tea-stained albums. Then, just before the birth of the noughties, Lars Svensson’s Collins Bird Guide gave us what I believe is the pinnacle of drawn fieldguides, which, together with the subsequent app, reset the benchmark. Two strands remain, that which engages our internal artist (I don’t think you can better Tunnicliffe) and that which really helps you tell the difference between difficult ducks or hard-to-tell-apart tits. Keeping fatbirder.com up to date over 20 years has meant having contact with hundreds of photographers and an acute awareness of how improving equipment and affordability has meant hundreds of thousands of birders becoming good photographers and photographers growing even more aware of nature’s photo opportunities. The range of incredible quality has stretched beyond belief. Since the late Laurence Poh ‘invented’ digiscoping in Malaysia, a whole generation of acolytes have embraced its possibilities, too. Our coffee tables now creek under the weight of eye-watering, photo-based avian artworks and our TV choices include moving bird images in depth and detail, not even dreamed of in the 20th Century. On the back of better photography and a massive expansion in available bird photographs have come attempts to create photo-based fieldguides. Two things, in my view, hold back photo bird guides from reaching the summits scaled by pen and paint. Firstly, reducing photos to a pocket book size often leads to loss of sharp detail and that is further eroded by the quality of print. Secondly, half the use of a fieldguide is as an aid to splitting difficult species. To do that, one needs to look for and find the key differences. In drawn guides these clinchers can be pointed out and the images posed identically. Photographing every parrot or pipit in poses exactly like its fellows, in the same light and against the same background is virtually impossible. In fact, I doubt we will ever reach that particular apex. My work leads me to feast my eyes on wonderful bird photos, but whether preparing for an overseas trip or checking my ID when building my year list, I need those drawn and painted images at hand.
Reducing photos to a pocket book size often leads to loss of sharp detail