Birding Hell to which you've subjected non-birders (1 Viewer)

[LowellMills]

What's your story of the time you put a non-birder friend or family through birding hell?

Mine is probably the time my gf and I suggested my whole family and extended family (over for xmas) should go up to a Northumbrian beach on xmas eve to 'see some shore larks'.

It was a fair drive up and then it turned out the burn (creek) mouth where the birds were frequenting was way up the beach and upwind through blasting sand in our faces. The whole family made the whole journey through it, wincing but never complaining. When we got there the birds were present with some sanderling, which my gf, dad and I watched happily for a while. My aunt and cousin in particular stood braced and silent a short distance away hunched against the sandstorm before we all headed back. Whenever we suggest a walk now you can read palpable anxiety in their faces, trying to gauge the likelihood they are going to end up trapped on some ridiculous mission again.

 

[Georgebirds]

I took my mum on a walk from Snettisham woods, through Wild Ken Hill, out onto the beach. Nice nature-walk, I said, lovely day for it, I said - she can enjoy the general scenery while I bird. Anyone who knows that meadowy bit of Ken Hill, where it lays wet in winter and you can't get through without thigh-length boots or a flat-bottomed boat? That was unexpectedly still flooded, in late spring, when there hadn't been rain to speak of for ages!
My mum decided it was fine, she'd go through the water and just get wet feet, my wellies were just long enough to make it through dry, and after getting through the extraordinarily stinky bit of bog-mud toward the end, we had a bit of a laugh about taking her on such a terrible walk! But all was well as we set out along the banks toward the sea...

Until I heard an 'oh!' from behind me, turned round, and she'd fallen over and rolled downhill, after randomly deciding to navigate directly down the steep bit of the bank, rather than using the ramp designed for the purpose, about six feet to her left. After a short exchange which was her saying 'I'm ok' and me saying 'but WHY, there is a ramp right there!' back and forth, she decided she was ok to carry on - only to find she couldn't use one leg properly cos of severe muscle cramp and nerve pain, where she'd tweaked something in the fall. I had to make her a crutch from a tree branch, and we had to go alllll the way back through the flooded meadow and the smelly mud and the woodland hill to the car, taking it so slowly and with so many stops, that it got dark.

Next time I suggested she come birding with me, she said 'Not if it's somewhere all flooded and slippery', haha!

 

[Prestdj]

i once took my wife to spurn in autumn after a drive of 4 hours she just said 'its shit' and i couldnt blame her spurns clicky

 

[Mono]

Nothing birdy springs to mind but I have stretched friendships by taking people on a couple of cetacean trips.

 

[Richard D]

Downwind of the local sewage farm watching hirundines

 

[Southern Viking]

My Mum can still smell the Rainham tip from the early 90s when I mention it to her!

 

[Jinac]

It isn't was me but story of a friend which love birds and spent a night with an spend a night with an ornithologist friend. He propose to go to see cranes early (early early) next morning. She was enthousiastic ! So they waked up before dawn, ate breakfast, got dressed and set off on foot for a 15 min walk. He slow down and says "just after the bend, silence, they are often there, on the left".
My friend reaches the bend very carefully, and turn left her head...for see a construction site and indeed...several cranes!