Britain is birding mad. No other nation tackles the observation of birds like an Olympic event. But perhaps that's not the best way to describe it, as for many a twitcher, the self-proclaimed mission of observing their flighty friends stretches long beyond a 2 week event every 4 years. For those to whom the RSPB bird guide is gospel, the arrival of an off course migrant to our shores can mean the delay of a wedding or a journey of hundreds of miles, and weekends are usually booked up with ornithological observations. I am known to fix binoculars to my eyes to take in a grouse, gull or gannet, and this weekend even missed Andy Murray's Gold to visit the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust HQ. But I tip my hat to those to whom a bird-list becomes a passion, making them members of a community based on an unwavering devotion to the natural world.
The extent of it's influence on British culture, aside from the political weight of organisations such as RSPB and WWT, is the list of collective nouns for bird groups, of which I leave you with my favorites. A Charm of Goldfinch, An Exaltation of Larks, A Tiding of Magpies, A Watch of Nightingales, A Parliament of Owls, A Bevy of Quail, An Unkindness of Ravens, A Murmuration of Starlings.
The extent of it's influence on British culture, aside from the political weight of organisations such as RSPB and WWT, is the list of collective nouns for bird groups, of which I leave you with my favorites. A Charm of Goldfinch, An Exaltation of Larks, A Tiding of Magpies, A Watch of Nightingales, A Parliament of Owls, A Bevy of Quail, An Unkindness of Ravens, A Murmuration of Starlings.
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