Your letters and photos
Bad behaviour and mystery birds of prey have you writing in this month.
2020 is for me when birding (and twitching) showed its some of its most selfish and unsavoury underside.
We heard from young Sorrel Lyall (Birdwatch 341: 62) – a truespirited soul, just the sort who should be encouraged as the next generation of birder and custodian of all things good in the green and natural world – who feels ostracised and unwelcomed by bigoted people of my generation. Truly demoralising and wholly repugnant. Personally, I get huge pleasure from seeing the eager youth enjoying all that the countryside and wildlife has to offer with effervescence and exploration.
Some of the same brigade have not covered themselves in glory this year. There was the episode in north Norfolk where some villagers expressed their concerns over ‘intimidation’ by poor driving and terrible, inconsiderate parking at the Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin twitch in Stiffkey.
There was ‘graveyard gate’ in southern Ireland, where some twitchers disrespected the deceased by allegedly standing on graves to view a rare tern. I also heard the teaching fraternity in Bedfordshire were very upset by Hoopoe twitchers pointing optics toward a school, as well as parking and behaving very badly.
Many selfish folks still travelled huge distances, flouting COVID-19 guidelines and discharging toxic emissions purely to see one bird.
I read somewhere my views, expressed back in the summer in Birdwatch (338: 59), were “hate mail”. Very dramatic and incorrect. I am merely pointing out that in my opinion birding has hit an all-time low and birders should not be at all surprised if much more ‘suppression’ were to occur in the future. Many of these instances deserve just that.
In 50 years’ time birders will probably look back at 2020 with horror and disbelief, as we do at those who shot rarities early in the last century! Adrian Halliday, via email