Birdwatch

Not all birders

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I think we can all agree that 2020 was a bad year. However, Adrian Halliday’s letter pointing out that some birders/twitchers are bad is (in my opinion) stating ‘the bleeding obvious’ (Birdwatch 343: 60).

Birders and twitchers are no different from the rest of the population: some are selfish, while others are racist, ageist, sexist and frankly not very nice. I don’t think that suggesting that we’re not all perfect is helpful.

I believe that most of us are pretty decent human beings, as are most of the population, but highlighti­ng a minority of idiots/bigots in the birding fraternity is the opposite of what we should be doing.

Instead, we should concentrat­e on the good that birding does. There are always going to be things that we disagree with, but unless they break any laws so we can officially complain to the right authoritie­s, we should not just regurgitat­e examples of bad behaviour.

Adrian concludes that “birding is at an all-time low” when in fact the opposite is true; it is just that there are more birders now and so logic suggests that there are more bad birders, too. But to repeat my earlier point: the majority of us are decent people who would help any other birder improve their enjoyment of our wonderful hobby.

Richard, via email

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