Bird Stories - Bird Watching Vs Bird Photography

Earlier during the week on a birding walk, my son asked me a question - Papa do you like bird watching or photography? I didn't know why he asked this out of the blue, so I answered - not sure Aadit, let me think. I wasn't sure so, I posted this question on my twitter account (@BirdsAroundMe) to get views from fellow birders and photographers. It has helped to shape my answer. On the next walk last Friday, I asked Aadit - why did he ask? And his answer left me a bit emotional and gave me a different perspective - a simple, innocent, child's perspective. I asked him to write it for me and Aadit(12) did it today. Sharing with you all. Please do read and feedback.

Ashutosh Jhureley

@BirdsAroundMe

Bird Watching Vs Bird Photography

Some people like bird photography and some like bird watching.  Personally, I   like watching, most of the time when you’re watching you think, “wow that was stunning” and when you are photographing often it is “missed it again”.

When you’re taking a photo, you only focus on getting a good photo, and if you don’t get a photo, it tends to ruin your day and mood. Yesterday was a perfect example as Papa was watching birds in our garden while sipping his tea. He saw some amazing bird action. In our garden lives a baby starling and when it’s hungry, it waits for sparrows to spill the food underneath the bird feeder. When sparrows arrive, they would spill some food for the baby starling, and you could see starling hopping with joy. It was awesome to see the bond between the two very different birds. But if papa was taking a picture, he would have never noticed and definitely not called me to witness the spectacle. So, what I’m implying is, that when you’re watching you’re aware of what’s going on around you,   but when you’re taking photos,   you’re focused and zoomed in to one thing.

Also, with watching, you look at nature or other aspects like insects, rodents, and other wildlife or surroundings in general. Another example was, that when we went on a walk couple of weeks back, we saw a woodpecker and it was feeding the baby. Papa took some photos but we were curious to see what they were doing. He explained to me that we shouldn't stay here for long as woodpecker might stop feeding the baby and baby might remain hungry today. We left the place within 15 minutes. Once again if he was staring through his lens the whole time, he would be completely unaware of where the woodpecker was or what it was doing or there were 3 more Woodpecker around us.

When you’re watching, you look with a wider eye, ears alert, and sensitive to even slightest of movements. But through a camera lens, it’s zoomed in to one subject and one sense. So you could be missing out on Bittern literally next to you like it happened with us once. And if you want a photo you can sometimes do anything for it, get wet, get dirty, and the one I experience all the time is getting "shooshed". Papa is always telling me to be quiet (not in a rude way) when trying to get a good photo, so sometimes it is quite annoying. But when watching, you are free to talk, you are relaxing, and enjoying the time out in the wild. You can explain what is going around or look out for e.g. features, behavior, habits, etc of a bird. It makes you feel good about everything and you don’t lose anything because you aren't collecting anything but memories.  I like watching for all of these reasons, but the most important is, that I find it fun spending time with Papa and my little friends. So, if a bird flies away, I think, ”well that’s nature" and not "oh no not again".

Thank you for reading.

Aadit Jhureley