This Birding Life

Stephen Moss is a television producer, writer and broadcaster, who has written the monthly Birdwatch column in the
Guardian
since 1993. He works at the world-famous BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, where his award-winning TV series include
Birding with Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie Goes Wild
and
Springwatch
. He is also a regular voice on BBC radio. His other books for Aurum include
A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching
and
A Sky Full of Starlings: A Diary of the Birding Year
. He lives in Somerset with his wife Suzanne and five children.

The Best of the
Guardians
Birdwatch

STEPHEN MOSS

For my late mother, Kay Moss, with fond memories of walking across a golf course on the Isles of Scilly, during a howling gale, to see Buff-breasted Sandpipers.

And for my wife Suzanne, who has not yet had that pleasure.

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

1 Growing up: 1963–1982

2 Spreading my wings: 1983–1997

3 My local patch: 1994–1997

4 Birding Britain: 1998–2005

5 Birding abroad: 1994–2005

6 Birds, places and people

7 Back home: 2001—present

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

COPYRIGHT

O
nce in a while, I try to picture what my life would have been like if I had never become interested in birds. Yet birds form such a central part of my existence, and have influenced the course of so many aspects of my life, that the idea that I might not be totally fascinated by them is, quite simply, unimaginable.

That doesn't mean that I am some sad obsessive whose every waking hour is spent thinking about, pursuing or watching birds. I have many other interests, a loving family and a wide circle of friends, most of whom are not birders themselves. But birds are always ‘there' — something I can't help noticing, watching and thinking about.

Moreover, I am one of those very lucky people for whom my consuming passion is also my work: both in my job as a producer at the BBC Natural History Unit and as the author of various articles and books on birds. But for the first decade or so of my working life things were very different. The catalyst that led to the convergence of my hobby and my career came in the early 1990s, when I was working for the BBC's now defunct Continuing Education Department in London.

I had produced a now long-forgotten television series on the British weather and, together with my friend and colleague Paul Simons, had written a book to accompany it. As a result, we both began contributing short articles on the weather to the
Guardian
, commissioned by Tim Radford. A year or so later, I suggested to Tim's colleague Celia Locks that the time might be right to launch a column on birdwatching. My first ‘Birdwatch' column was published in January 1993, and since then I have delivered more than 150 monthly missives, totalling over 80,000 words.

This volume contains a selection of those pieces, rearranged into chapters with common themes. I have edited them as lightly as possible, removing the odd error (mine), the occasional misprint (the
Guardian's
), and at my editor's behest, pruned the text of clichés. But otherwise they stand more or less as they were written.

They cover a wide range of subjects: from nostalgic trips down memory lane, to memorable people, places and, of course, birding experiences – both at home and abroad. What they have in common is a consistent approach to birds and birding: a philosophy, if you like, by which I incorporate the pastime into my daily life. Like so many people, I find enjoyment, solace and quite literally ‘re-creation' in the experience of watching birds, whether in my back garden or the most exotic foreign location.

If I have conveyed even a little of the enormous pleasure, joy and fulfilment watching birds has brought to my life, I shall have succeeded. If you are not a birder, and these pieces persuade you to give it a go, I promise you won't regret it!

JUNE 1998

I
t's over 35 years since I began watching birds. OK, so I was only a toddler when I started, but in biblical terms, that's more than half a lifetime.

In
Fever Pitch
, Nick Hornby's celebrated book about supporting Arsenal Football Club, he wonders how many childhood pastimes you're still enjoying when you reach middle age. Playing with Lego? Only when the kids absolutely insist. Wearing short trousers? Only when I travel abroad and really let my hair down. Making up complicated fantasy games and losing myself in another world? Not as often as I'd like.

So why do I still pick up a pair of binoculars and a book of coloured pictures, and go out into the countryside to watch small, feathered creatures? It's not as if I don't have better things to do: piles of urgent tasks at work and home, and the whole multitude of distractions and entertainments available to late twentieth-century man.

Perhaps that's why I enjoy watching birds. In an ever-changing
world, it provides a stability and continuity hard to find elsewhere. Indeed, it occurred to me recently that when I'm watching a particular bird, it often brings to mind the many other times I've seen that species.

For example, a lone Jackdaw just flew past my window. Seeing that bird reminded me of one afternoon a few years ago, in Galilee, in the north of Israel. I stood in the gathering dusk, in the heart of the Hula Valley, waiting for a spectacular roost of more than 20,000 cranes to pass overhead. Suddenly, I heard a familiar call: a harsh ‘chack', multiplied many times. The sound came from a flock of almost a thousand Jackdaws, feeding in a lush, irrigated field. Until that moment, I didn't even know this species lived in Israel, let alone gathered there in such vast numbers.

Closing my eyes, I remembered all the other times and places I'd heard Jackdaws call, or watched as ragged black silhouettes swept across the sky. A Gloucestershire village on New Year's Day, when it was the very first bird I saw that year. The tower of an ancient Norfolk church, with a flock of Jackdaws angrily mobbing a passing Osprey. And a service station on the M4, where Rooks and Jackdaws gathered to scavenge morsels of food dropped by passing motorists.

I have a photograph of me as a toddler, aged 18 months or so, my hand outstretched to a bird. It was a tame Jackdaw, and I remember my mother telling me that it had turned up in our garden sometime back in late 1961. For a few months, it hung around to be fed, and then disappeared. Later on she showed me the photograph, and the image stuck in my mind.

Looking back, I suppose this Jackdaw was the first bird I ever looked at. Did this chance encounter, together with a child's curiosity, lead to a lifetime's all-consuming obsession with birds? Or did I throw it a piece of bread, turn away, and go off to play with my toys? I don't know. But I do know that whenever I see a Jackdaw, half a lifetime's worth of memories rise to the surface.

1963–1982

T
he pieces in this chapter are a selection of my childhood birding experiences. Starting in the south-west London suburbs – in those days known as Middlesex – they cover the two places that really got me hooked on birds: the gravel-pits at Shepperton and the reservoirs at Staines.

They continue through family summer holidays, and my first tentative trips as a teenager – made with Daniel, my schoolmate, dear friend and birding companion for the past four decades. The chapter ends with a memorable trip I made to the Shetland Isles after leaving university – a trip which, looking back a quarter of a century on, I now realise convinced me to continue birding into my adult life.

Reading them again, I am struck first by the many discomforts we
went through to see birds: we certainly suffered for our pleasures back in the 1970s. But they also evoke a time of innocence, when life was really much simpler: we wanted to see birds, so we got on our bikes and looked for them. In doing so we went to wonderful places and met some extraordinary people; and this combination of birds, places and people is, in essence, what birding is all about.