Just a few hours of birdwatching is a meditation. One's concentration is focused, and there is little room for mundane thought.
Birding has encouraged me to the coast on cold winter mornings, through woods, fresh with the greens of spring, and across grassland and lowland heath alive with stridulation... In short, birds have, and continue to provide me with hours of pleasure. I enjoy the challenge of identification, and the satisfaction of a positive ID from just a snatch of song, or glimpse of 'jizz'. There is always the chance that one might see something unusual, or something common doing something unusual. Why shouldn't a bird brighten, or even make your day? At times, being easily pleased is not to be underestimated.
My birding has not always been informal. I have been employed by the Game Conservancy Trust as a research assistant at Loddington on the Allerton Project (GCT Allerton Project enewsletter) and since 2000 I have annually surveyed for the RSPB's Volunteer and Farmer Alliance programme.
I've never really been into cobbling together lists and I am happy to just watch our native birds rather than trek to see a rarity blown off course. However, I have had the good fortune to get the binoculars into action in Africa, Asia and North America and I admit to making a bit of a list in India, spread between Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Bharatpur in Rajasthan.
Black-crowned night heron, Kashmir.