Beter birding through technology - really?
Birding, bird watching, nature watching. All very talked of and done at the moment.
But what does it really mean? I have been mulling over this for several years now and feel I am only just now able to use my experience to answer though probably ask more questions!
It is obvious to anyone who has been aware of new media/technology over the past five years that we have become more and more interested in watching nature than ever before. In the old days of monochrome, where bird watchers were few and far between and quite an odd band of people – some from the ‘ecologist’ world others from a fishing/shooting background. If you were interested in the wild you just went out and did it. Mostly alone, however occasionally after a long bus ride or on a motorcycle or even bike you may have met up with some pals or even, if you were lucky, come across a handful of like minded people at a café (remember Nancy’s at Cley? – that dates me.) . As conservation organisations have become more and more dominant, whilst opening doors for many, others have become sidelined. Technology has enabled a new world of nature watching/birding and maybe estranged others.
In the past leading lights such as Peter Scott founder of WWT, E M Nicholson who used science as a means of protecting birds and even earlier Brian Vesey- Fitzgerald, another wildfowler and scientist, brought an interest to those of us that were young enough to be inspired and take the long view.. Their teaching and scholarship set various standards and led to many studies, PHD students and a greater awareness of ornithology as we know it today. Based mainly on hours upon hours of being ‘in the field’ Things, also, have changed hugely since artists such as Thornburn in the 1900’s interpreted wonderful views and images. So what does this mean to today’s birding/nature watching activities? Without the past we have no future and are we now going down the line of observing from afar or even, maybe more worryingly, remotely? Birding on the web, television, or magazine seems as popular, if not more so than the real thing! How many hours per month/week/day do we actually bird compared to virtual birding?
What is the connection between all of this and why examine it in such a way? As you are probably reading this on a screen you will realise how much things have changed.
Notebooks are becoming redundant; records are now in digital cameras, not sketch books, information can be handled in the field not by a field guide but rather an iPOD.
Reliance on technology means we can even allow others to do our birding for us. Pick up the sightings on your phone by text, or a laptop.
Why bother going birding at all? Why indeed? What do we get from it apart from a wet/cold/too hot/too windy/ icy/frosty/too early/too late an experience? I am sure we all have answers to that, however there is a slightly worrying trait I have noticed that we seem to be more reliant on other people experiencing the reality so that we can re-live it via a wide screen television, computer or film – not mark you, relive it – unless we did it in the first place!
So do we want become reliant on technology? PDA field guides, laptops in a Landrover, heated hides, bird news after the event, even digital photography. Do we look as carefully as before? Or listen or try and search a bit harder using our ancient honed skills of past experiences. On the other hand maybe we do not need to go out birding anymore – perhaps we can do it remotely – thus taking all the doubts out of it completely. The computer will find the correct habitat, match the species and identify it for us – even giving us choices that we can then Google to cross check.
Maybe this does enhance our birding experience; maybe organisations can use it to get us to give a little more to our favourite reserve or save some rare spiny chicken mite or whatever the latest endangered species is. But most of all when you are out and you do see that extraordinary happening, that once in a lifetime food pass, that rare ‘blow in’, the passing of a migrating flock, the arrival of geese, roaring of Red Deer, or just the first spring bud, then maybe something happens to us deep down that cannot be created on any screen – however large! However when I take hold of my book of Wild Goose Winter and I can place myself where James MacCallum painted, feel the coldness/magical/wonder/re kindle my own experience of migrating geese. It is helped with a single malt and warm fire too!
Call me a luddite but despite technology being great and having it’s place, (obviously there are many plus points and benefits to us all) but it sure as hell does not beat the real thing!
j hastings, islay, nov 2007
 This article has been written by Jeremy Hastings who runs birding and bushcraft courses on the Isle of Islay. Visit www.islaybirding.co.uk.
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