Product Description

These days the RSPB (the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) has over a million active members. Watching birds is one of the most popular of all leisure pursuits. For many people it offers a tranquil day out at a picturesque nature reserve with a nice tea shop; for many more - the fabled 'twitchers' beloved of media jokes - it is a fiercely competitive sport that requires a pager, a fast car and enormous stamina. It is a hobby that has spawned a big and lucrative industry, to supply anything from birding holidays in South America to state-of-the-art telescopes and even bird-call ringtones for a mobile phone. Kenneth Clarke is a birdwatcher, so, apparently, is Jarvis Cocker. Why, and how, have people watched birds through the ages? Stephen Moss's book is the first to trace the history and development of this singular pastime, on both sides of the Atlantic, all the way from Gilbert White, the country parson who wrote The Natural History of Selborne in the eighteenth century, through the British servicemen who studied black redstarts from their German prisoner-of-war camp, to today's driven 'life-listers' and twisters who think nothing of hurtling the length of the UK by planes, automobiles and even boats in pursuit of a Grey-Tailed Tattler temporarily landfallen in the Shetland Isles. Both authoritative and readable, and directed at the general reader just as much as the dedicated birder, What Makes Us Tick is written by an author with extensive media contacts in television, radio, newspapers and the birding press.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #224160 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Val Hennessy, Daily Mail, Critic's Choice 30 July 2004
Wonderful... beautifully told. He packs his pages with fascinating, often hilarious anecdotes and information. A surprise and a delight.

John Carey, Sunday Times, 15 August 2004
Eye-opening... An affectionate, enterprising book, which proves that birdwatchers can be as instructive to watch as birds.

About the Author
Stephen Moss is the producer of BBC2's Birding with Bill Oddie and Bill Oddie Goes Wild. He also writes the Birdwatch column in the Guardian, and writes regularly for BBC Wildlife and Birdwatching magazines. His other books include How to Birdwatch, Gardening for Birds and Blokes and Birds. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

More than just a bird in the bush
The ground covered in this surprisingly entertaining book ranges from the first collectors (with a "if it moves we can kill it" type of approach) through to the technology rich experience of the modern twitcher. But this book covers so much more than just birdwatching.
The first half could be viewed as a study of changing attitudes to our relationship with the environment, viewed through the lens of birdwatching, with the changes in the way we studied birds either reflecting the view of nature or in some cases driving change. The second half of the book concentrates on the last 20 or so years, the rise of "twitching" and the impact of technology.
The changes that have occurred in our ability to watch birds are charted through changes in field guides, optics, transport, deposable income and eventually technology. A recurring theme in the book has been the change from the relative isolation of the early birders (not that the term existed at the time) to the more connected and fashionable pursuit of today. (Although I admit that "fashionable" may be over stating the case!) This is a really good book - and for those who have come to birding more recently it is an illuminating read as to the way things were.
I don't think it's really possible to have a good understanding of some of the debates that occur within the birding world without a decent grasp of the history of birding - and this book seems to give a balanced and readable account of that history.