ornithologists

"The massed flocks of wild s appealed as a ready food supply and were easily seen by incoming vessels in the harbors. Land birds, on the other hand, were shy and silent, and at the approach of man slipped without sound deeper into the forest."

"The has the distinction of being the smallest British bird; it is also one of the most widely distributed, being found throughout the United Kingdom. Furthermore, it is a resident throughout the year, is nowhere scarce, and in many places is very abundant. Yet it is well known only to those who are close observers of bird life. The gold crest is not a familiar figure, owing to its smallness and restlessness, which exceed that of all the other members of this restless family of birds, and make it difficult for the observer to see it well. Again, it is nearly always concealed from sight by the foliage, and in winter it keeps mostly among the evergreens, and at all times haunts by preference pine, fir, and yew trees. In the pale light of a winter day, more especially in cloudy weather, it is hard to see the greenish, restless little creature in his deep green bush or tree. Standing under, or close to, a wide-spreading old yew, half a dozen gold crests flitting incessantly about among the foliage in the gloomy interior of the trees look less like what they are than the small flitting shadows of birds."

"From the distance at intervals came the piercing cries of the ... sounding like bursts of hysterical laughter. ... This bird, which is about as large as a , selects a low thorny bush with stout wide-spreading branches, and in the center of it builds a domed nest of sticks, perfectly spherical and four or five feet deep. The opening is at the side near the top, and leading to it there is a narrow arched gallery resting on a horizontal branch, and about fourteen inches long. So compactly made is this enormous nest that I have found it hard to break one up. I have also stood upright on the dome and stamped on it with my boots without injuring it at all."

"... it is impossible for us not to love whatever is lovely, and of all living things birds were made most beautiful."

"One can only hope … that the countryman will say to the townsman, Go on making your laws and systems of education for your own children, who will live as you do indoors; while I shall devise a different one for mine, one which will give them hard muscles and teach them to raise the and pork and cultivate the potatoes and cabbages on which we all feed."

"… A friend once confessed to me that he was always profoundly unhappy at sea during long voyages, and the reason was that his sustaining belief in a superintending Power and in immortality left him when he was on that waste of waters, which have no human associations. The feeling, so intense in his case, is known to most if not all of us; but we feel it faintly as a disquieting element in nature of which we may be but vaguely conscious."

"July 2nd 1902 DEAR GARNETT Thanks for writing—also for " envying " me. I'm in a cloud of by day in the woods, and the result is I smart and burn and tingle and itch all night. Are these the " delights " you would like to have! But I mix myself up in the private affairs of weasels, s, squirrels, s, s, s, s, &c. &c. and I get my pleasures that way and it more than compensates me for the pain. ..."

"... the fruit-growers remind us in each recurring spring that it would be an immense advantage to the country if the village children were given one or two holidays each in March and April, and sent out to hunt and destroy s, every wasp brought in to be paid for by a bun at the public cost. That the wasp, an eater of ripe fruit, is also for six months every year a greedy devourer of caterpillars and flies injurious to plant live, is a fact the fruit-grower ignores."

"... The gardener is usually attended by a friendly robin, and when he turns up the soil the bird will come down close to his feet to pick up the small grubs and worms. Is it not probable that the tameness of the tame young robin so frequently met with is, like that of the robin who keeps company with the gardener or woodman, an acquired habit; that the young bird has made the discovery that when a person is moving about among the plants, picking fruit perhaps, lurking insects are disturbed at the roots and small spiders and s shaken from the leaves? We are to the robin what the cow is to the and the sheep to the —a food finder."

"The churchyard, even more than the church itself, had its secular and popular uses, which came down from ancient time. The fairs, the markets, the sports and the wrestlings ... which took place within its enclosing walls, and of which we obtain faint intimations, were but the survival of the festivals sanctioned by the early church, when the wake, or fair of the was kept. This again, with its bull-baiting, its rude sports and its temporary stalls, may be linked on to the earlier rites of heathen times, when beasts were brought to the Temple for sacrifice, and when the people built booths about it, in which to hold a three days' feast. The annual or biennial fair, and even the Sunday market, were quite usual in the churchyard, before the boroughs obtained a special privilege for them."

"The limestone cliff of , surrounded by sandbanks and shallows, is not so favoured by breeding birds, but the jackdaw and dove—doubtless the stock-dove—are busy about its niches in nesting time. And in autumn and winter the mud-flats of the estuaries and the sands of the bays are busy with bird life. Besides troops of gulls and oyster-catchers, and curlews, and redshanks, and dunlins, there are far-coming whimbrels, and sanderlings, and knots, as well as more rarely seen species. There are geese on the flows, and sea-duck, scaup, common scoter, wigeon and others on the tide."

"The visitor to Oxford goes to see, amongst the wonders of that historic but by no means old-looking city, the college established there by in 1274. It boast several attractions. Besides the chapel, pre-eminent for the beauty of its Decorated English architecture, there is the founder's treasure-house, with its ashlar roof, the ancient ironwork of the hall door, and the wondrous old library in the Mob Quadrangle, where Duns Scotus succeeded in that dangerous and hazardous feat of raising the devil."

"None of the locals I met could understand why I hadn’t immediately built on the land, the mentality being that if you weren’t putting your land to any discernible economic use then it was wasted land. Forget about aesthetics, forget about environmental values, unless you were running something on it, ploughing something into it or extracting something from it, then it was just a waste of space."

"Saying I was taking a year off to make a documentary seemed easier than saying I was spending a year birdwatching. In this society being a wanker is socially unacceptable. Filming yourself while being a wanker, however, seems perfectly legitimate."

"The Twitcher’s list is very democratic. Each bird counts as one tick. There are no extra points for beauty or rarity."

"Cool people don’t bother becoming dictators; they’re too busy getting laid."

"Actually, I think that is part of the appeal of birdwatching for me – you come away from an encounter with a bird with absolutely nothing tangible to show for it other than the memory of the experience and maybe a tick in your notebook. You indulge in the experience merely for the nature of the experience. It is conquering without violence, hunting without the kill."

"Birding gave me the excuse to get out into the bush, to lose my self in the wider world of nature, detox my mind of everything that was going on. Without birdwatching who knows what sort of basket case I might have ended up? My God, I could even have become a lawyer."

"I was stained with a stigma that would take me the rest of school to shake for this was Homophobe High, where any difference was immediately stomped upon by that most conservative of bodies – the teenage peer group."

"There are a million ways to occupy your time on this planet. They are all pretty much absurd if you analyse them too closely. I chose twitching, one of the more outwardly absurd of them all I suppose but really no more ridiculous than anything else, yet that year of absurdity has had a profound effect on my life since."

"The countdown clock tipped through to midnight and as the fireworks exploded, people erupted in a frenzy of cheering and drunken pashing. The Big Twitch was over. I was back in the real world. Looking around this world that I had turned my back on for a year, seeing the manic desperation of those around me to have a good time no matter what, suddenly my quest didn’t seem so absurd. In fact it seem to make more sense than any of the human behaviour I saw around me."

"Everything seemed to be falling into place perfectly. That had to be a worry."

"On one side of the retaining wall were the dank, wonderful mangroves teaming with life; on the other side, sitting on landfill, were modern houses and manicured lawns. Why is it that building the Great Aussie Dream Home invariably involves destroying other creatures’ homes?"

"The wildlife follows the water."

"That was a pivotal moment in our relationship; that adolescent catharsis when you realise your parents cannot sustain you as they once did – the moment you leave the nest."

"As I settled into the sleeping bag in the back seat of the car, I revelled in the glorious stillness of the country at night. The first night away from the city you can feel the tension almost physically draining out of you as you gaze at the achingly beautiful sky and greedily inhale the invigorating fresh scent of the country."

"I remembered why I liked hanging out with the top rate twitchers – they might be freaks but they were awesomely brilliant freaks."

"I could see the same look of incomprehension on her face that my parents often wore: ‘this person cannot possibly be related to me.’"

"When I hear of someone suffering a mental illness that causes them to be ridden with anxiety, socially isolated and prone to feelings of paranoia, I think, ‘yep, sounds like a twitcher to me.’"

"For months the Muslim minority throughout India was safe from molestation. The R.S.S., by destroying the Mahatma, had given the country the shock it needed. Those who had been angrily criticising him now saw the tragic consequences of their own short sighted anger. They knew that he had been right."

"There is a special joy in watching an actual Scarlet Tanager instead of looking at a virtual red bird, however spectacular, on a phone screen."

"That the culmination of my yearlong world tour, into which I invested all my creativity and resources, was embodied in this obscure gray bird on a nameless hillside in a remote province of India seemed perfectly appropriate. Birding is about appreciating life’s infinite details—and if subtlety is beauty, then a birder will never run short of wonder. That number 6,000 did not seem like a conquest—it felt like a fresh beginning."

"I couldn’t keep up with the virtual world while living so large in the real world."

"“Don’t worry about the weather!” Kalu replied. “We can’t control it, and these days we can’t even predict it. For the past few years, the wet season has been very strange; nobody knows when the rains will come. The climate is changing here.” I had heard versions of this story in an unsettling number of places this year, and many of the birders who accompanied me had complained about unpredictable seasons. It was difficult to tease out other effects, like deforestation and overharvesting, but my view of global climate change had shifted lately after hearing enough local people talk about it. It wasn’t just something for academics and politicians to argue about; these changes were already affecting those who depended on the land and environment."

"For birds, Ecuador offers nothing short of a tropical paradise. Virtually every habitat is represented, from coastal deserts to snow-capped peaks to the Amazon basin, and more than 1,700 species have been recorded—16 percent of the worlds birds on less than 0.0006 percent of its land surface. For birders conditions are just as alluring: unlike neighboring Peru or Colombia, Ecuador has a long history of conservation, is relatively stable and safe, has a well-developed infrastructure, and is small enough to cover efficiently. If you want to see the most species of birds in the shortest amount of time, Ecuador is without a doubt the best place to do it. The importance of natural diversity in this tiny nation cannot be overstated. It’s even written in the constitution: Ecuador is the only country in the world to recognize “Rights of Nature”—the idea that ecosystems have inalienable rights, just like people do—at the highest legal level. “Nature, or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence,” states Article 71 of the country’s constitution, in accordance with the Ecuadorian concept of Buen Vivir, which emphasizes harmony with other people and nature above material development."

"Culturally speaking, we millennials are significantly different from the baby boomers or even Generation X: we are more progressive, less religious, more educated, less family-oriented, more urban, less political, more narcissistic, less environmentally minded, and, above all, more technologically dependent. For better or worse, my generation lives on computers and smartphones; we are children of the Internet."

"I learned from reading bird books that nothing happens outside of historical context. In birding as in everything, personalities and events unfold over time, one thing leads to another, and pretty soon you wake up to discover that you are part of the stream."

"And by setting their sights on the freest creatures in the world, birders have a unique perspective about how their subjects stitch together even the furthest parts of our globe. Birds teach us that borders are just lines drawn on a map—a lesson we can all take to heart."

"The worlds most frequent flyers don’t have platinum status, free upgrades, or even passports. Every hour, millions of these undocumented immigrants pour across major political borders, and nobody thinks of building walls to keep them out. It would be impossible to anyway. Birds are true global citizens, free to come and go as they please."

"Black-necked Cranes on the Tibetan plateau were my last of this family and left me with some unexpectedly ambivalent feelings—triumph at having finally seen them all, yet sadness that there were now no more left to look for."

"Phoebe’s legacy in the world of birding is larger than life. She possessed a hard-earned, near encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s birds. Her drive to observe, and observe well, as much of the world’s avifauna as possible, with a special emphasis on its diversity, is well-known, clear from her writing, and, in some circles, the stuff of legends."

"Phoebe did not hesitate for a second as she plunged off the trail and down into the thick undergrowth that filled the steep ravine. I hustled after her, and we swiftly picked our way into the darkness and unknown. In the end, the bird did not call again, and the fog was too thick, so the partridge eluded Phoebe that night. Regardless, I will never forget the wonderful time we shared. The sight of her disappearing down the ravine after the Long-billed Partridge sums up Phoebe for me—committed, fearless, and never looking back."

"Phoebe was a legend among the professional bird guides who guided her around the world. A non-birder may imagine that high-level birding is just like regular birding except more expensive. In reality, birding at Phoebe’s level requires an Olympian’s level of concentration, dedication, and effort, along with a level of risk-taking that no non-birder could ever understand. She had some horrific experiences along the way, but the non-fatal ones never stopped her."

"Of course, as my husband points out, this game never really ends. It’s simply a matter of perspective; as I see it, one of the wonderful aspects of birding is that it is endless. There’s always, as long as one lives, some new place to go, some exciting new thing to find. No one knowledgeable will ever say, “I’ve done it all – now what?”"

"There were indeed human hazards in this country—but not to go there at all because of the possibility of encountering them? Unthinkable! It has become ever more clear to me that if I had spent my life avoiding any and all potential risks, I would have missed doing most of the things that have comprised of the best years of my life."

"Emotion and personal desire really do reign in all passionate endeavors, not objectivity and reason. And sometimes we’re just plain lucky enough to get away with it."

"I hadn’t done much traveling in Arab countries, and it’s certainly not my favorite culture (a common enough viewpoint among emancipated western women), but both geographically and ornithologically I found it fascinating."

"Chances are, if I can feel a lump, there has already been some spread to internal organs, in which case my time of health is probably limited to a few months. Now may well be my final opportunity to go birding on a foreign trip, and I can’t just throw that away. If it’s my last trip, so be it—but I’m going to make it a good one and go down binoculars in hand!"

"I desperately wanted to continue running my own life, because I was healthy and, physically, felt just fine. I accepted the fact that my life wasn’t going to last long, but I very quickly came to the conclusion that I preferred a short span of quality living under my control, followed by a quick death, to a longer life protracted by various all-consuming medical treatments and their effects, probably followed by a lingering death."

"“How can they ever get food into those fuzzy chicks without stabbing them to death with their bills?” Watching those creatures do what they had been doing successfully for millions of years, without any help from us, finally let me learn not to judge everything by human standards."