Birdwatcher Quotes

“Sometimes I think that the point of birdwatching is not the actual seeing of the birds, but the cultivation of patience. Of course, each time we set out, there's a certain amount of expectation we'll see something, maybe even a species we've never seen before, and that it will fill us with light. But even if we don't see anything remarkable - and sometimes that happens - we come home filled with light anyway.”
― Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Mother's Memoir

“There are approximately ten thousand species of birds on the planet and no single individual has seen them all.”
― Bernd Brunner

“To be a birder is to fall in love. Obsessively, irrevocably and, perhaps, foolishly. This love, it creeps up on you. A wedge-tailed eagle slices through the sky. A magpie’s liquid song pierces the dawn. A snowy owl gazes unblinking across the tundra. So, here’s to the birdwatchers, those optimistic, slightly eccentric custodians of wonder and joy and passion and love. Because sometimes it is as simple as opening your eyes, stepping outside and looking upon the world around you.”
― Natalie Kyriacou, Nature's Last Dance: Tales of Wonder in an Age of Extinction

“The sharp thrill of seeing them [killdeer birds] reminded me of childhood happiness, gifts under the Christmas tree, perhaps, a kind of euphoria we adults manage to shut out most of the time. This is why I bird-watch, to recapture what it's like to live in this moment, right now.”
― Lynn Thomson, Birding with Yeats: A Mother's Memoir