Sharing knowledge

Great tit and bullfinch

My Mom is currently visiting us from South Africa. She's a keen birder and what she calls a 'citizen scientist', participating in conservation efforts and so forth. One of the primary reasons for the timing of this visit is to see puffins with their fancy beaks on. I, on the other hand, am an embarrassment when it comes to matters ornithological. We'd be in the garden and my Mom would say, "Ooh! What's that?" referring to the call of some common garden bird, because her significant knowledge doesn't include the birds of the UK. Or she would point at a small speck on a fence post and ask "Is that a great tit or a blue tit?"

And I wouldn't know the answer.

Shameful.

So I went to a social forum called Streetlife - where local people can post questions or recommendations - and put out the call for a local birder to come and spend a couple of hours with my Mom, identifying the calls of the local birds.

Today, a lady called Barbara (also my Mom's name) came and spent two hours with us at the local Summer Leys Nature Reserve, identifying the calls of all the birds we heard, and providing the names of those we saw. We saw fewer than we heard because the full summer foliage hides them, and because they're busy with important things like raising chicks, not sitting out on branches in plain sight.

Blow me down if, after that, she didn't send us a list of all the birds we had seen and heard, as well as a list of others we hadn't seen but might yet see at this time of year.

And she did this all out of the goodness of her heart. Because she is a keen, committed birder, who wanted to help someone else who shares her passion.

I love that attitude!