Read the first chapter of Purposeful Birdwatching by Rob Hume.
With its mix of memoir, gentle advice and enthusiastic advocacy, this book sets out a case for purposeful birdwatching. Along the way, it explains how to make your birding more enjoyable, fulfilling and worthwhile. Using ideas and techniques from his five decades of experience, Rob Hume reveals how an ever-enquiring approach to observation of the natural world can yield unexpected treasures – whether this be something rare or simply new details concealed in the apparently everyday. From the basics of equipment and methods, through the mysteries of seawatching, to special insights on the likes of honey-buzzards and goshawks, and a focus of some iconic sites, his breadth of knowledge ensures there is something for every curious birder.
Illuminatingly illustrated throughout with the author’s sketches and fieldnotes, at its heart this is a call to appreciate birds for themselves, as individuals and as species, and not merely as numbers on a list.
