BirdGuides

Show me a city and I will show you birds. It may seem a boastful claim but it’s the truth. Birds are everywhere, if you open your eyes and your mind – even in the heart of a busy city, anywhere in the world. If you can look beyond the steel, concrete, cars, urban hubbub and the hordes of people and instead visualise the urban terrain as a range of bird-friendly habitats, then you are on your way to becoming an urban birder. Believing that birds are everywhere, regardless of location, has always been my mantra. I was born and bred in London and had an inbuilt interest in natural history from the word go. I was originally interested in invertebrates but soon after I discovered that birds existed, and my destiny was sealed. However, nobody around me shared my interest: not my family, friends, or their friends. On my own with a growing passion and no mentor, I decided to teach myself. By the age of eight I was a virtual walking encyclopedia on the birds of Britain, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. I knew almost everything about around 1,200 species plus, I had a good working knowledge of North America’s birds. I was so grateful to my initial field guide that I had loaned from the library that I decided to keep hold of it. Naughty I know, but that book has remained in my possession ever since. Just step outside and look up As a child, I was continually told that birds were not to be found in urban areas but only in the deepest countryside far away from prying eyes and more crushingly, away from my inquisitive young eyes. So, I spent a lot of my childhood, languishing (or so I thought) in an urban desert potentially missing out on the ‘real’ birds that I thought only existed in abundance outside London’s limits. This situation was not helped when I joined the Young Ornithologists’ Club and started to receive their membership magazine, Bird Life. Thumbing through the pages did little to quell the misconception that most birds occurred only outside cities. I stared longingly at the monotone images of marsh harriers, avocets and great grey shrikes wishing for an opportunity to see any one of them for real. I felt trapped, like the Silver Surfer, the Marvel comic superhero imprisoned on Earth by an invisible forcefield that repelled his attempts to burst through and roam the greater expanses of space. With no-one willing to take me out to the hallowed countryside, I BIRDING BEGINS By DAVID LINDO, THE URBAN BIRDER felt forever condemned to a city life with just house sparrows and feral pigeons to keep me company. Then, I saw the light. I realised that many of the birds that I believed were solely rural denizens were turning up in my garden or at least flying over. I was regularly seeing lapwings overhead and, in my garden, I recorded the likes of lesser spotted woodpecker, common redstart and reed bunting. You really can see almost anything anywhere. But it wasn’t all plain sailing. It has taken me years to get to grips with the idea of urban birding. To start with, I had to convince myself of its merits before contending with disbelieving fellow birders who were still slavishly attached to the thought that birding in a city was the equivalent of ornithological suicide. You must really believe that you will find birds. As a teenager, I got sucked into the mindset of religiously spending my weekends in Norfolk or chasing rarities around the country. Yet despite that, I still got the biggest buzz from urban birding. My work as The Urban Birder centres on engaging city folk with nature and the environment but through the medium of birds. I believe that people are put off by the notion of having to travel to the middle of nowhere to experience. In reality, nature is accessible to everyone and it starts from your doorstep. Just step outside and look up … DAVID LINDO, The Urban Birder – His latest book, The Extraordinary World of Birds, is out now! AT HOME Common redstart Reed bunting Images by David Lindo Lapwings by David Lindo G LOBAL B IRDFAIR 2022 j 23