Bill Oddie’s How to Watch Wildlife

Weight: Whether or not this bothers you may depend on how long you plan to carry them, and how far.

Specification: For general wildlife watching you need an all-purpose pair of bins that will give you a reasonable-sized image, a good field of view, and be able to cope with reduced light conditions at dawn and dusk. For this reason it’s usually best to buy a pair with 8x magnification (10x if you do all your wildlife watching in the open or at a long distance); and an objective lens measuring between 32 and 42 millimetres: i.e. an ‘8 x 32’, ‘8 x 40’ or ‘8 x 42’ specification. This will provide a good, bright image.

Optical quality: This really is the key factor – make sure that the image is sharp, bright in low light and reproduces colours faithfully.

Design, handling and build: Design is very much a matter of personal taste. Some people prefer the more traditional look, others something more modern. More important are whether or not they are waterproof (vital if you plan to go out in the rain or in areas of high humidity), and the general build quality. But if you are only using them to watch the birds from your back window, then ruggedness isn’t all that important.

Other factors: If you want to watch butterflies or dragonflies, then choose a model with the closest focus available. Make sure you buy your binoculars from a specialist shop, not from one of the high street outlets. You’ll get much better advice and the prices are generally more competitive. Allow plenty of time, too, to try out different types and styles – ideally by watching real wildlife out in the field. If you get the chance, try out a couple of pairs belonging to your friends before you buy.

Other equipment

There are all sorts of items of specialist equipment you will need if you are taking an interest in a particular group of creatures, such as small mammals, moths or bats (see Advanced Equipment on page 176). In the meantime, there are a few things that are always worth having:

A good-quality magnifying glass: essential if you want to get close-up views of wild flowers, insects and other small creatures.

Storage tubs, tanks, etc.: especially if you plan to collect insects, pond life or rock pool creatures to take a closer look.

A point-and-shoot camera: great for taking habitat shots or close-ups of wild flowers or other creatures to help you identify them later when you get home. Digital models are getting cheaper all the time and are ideal for wildlife watching as they allow you to snap away without worrying about the cost of developing and printing.

Bill's top tip

_ Ultimately, the best advice is to get the best binoculars you can afford – and possibly even pay slightly more. Remember that, as with most things, with binoculars you get what you pay for and the best don’t come cheap. A good pair will never wear out and, with care, can last you a lifetime. A portable digital camera is a real asset when out in the field.

Clothing

If you’re new to watching wildlife, you may not realise there is a dress code! Birdwatchers often have a woolly hat, dark green jacket and walking boots. If that’s what you like to wear, this is good, practical kit, and if it isn’t, ignore it. The two important things you need to consider is how you will keep yourself comfortable in bad weather, and also that bright colours might scare off wildlife.

Wearing layers such as a T-shirt and fleece with a waterproof or light coat on top is a good combination. Windproof fleeces are excellent – some are even showerproof so you can wear them as a top layer in most weather conditions. Wellingtons are the cheapest waterproof footwear, but can be quite heavy if you are going for a longer walk, and can cause blisters. Don’t forget that you lose about one-fifth of your body heat through your head, so wear a hat!

Waterproof walking shoes or boots don’t come cheap, with a good pair costing around £80, but they will last you a very long time. Like binoculars, you get what you pay for. Waterproof overtrousers are also essential in wet weather.

If you’re going out for more than a couple of hours, think about how the weather might change. You might want to shed some layers so, if this is necessary, can you tie them round you? Or do you have enough room in a rucksack to store them? It can really take the fun out of a walk if you end up carrying more items of clothing than you are wearing.

In terms of what not to wear, then the rules are quite simple: avoid very bright colours, fabrics that rustle (especially if you want to get close to mammals or birds), and anything that is uncomfortable or makes you look like a fashion victim. If in doubt, go to a reputable outdoor clothing centre and ask their advice.

Bill's top tips

_ It’s best to avoid cotton shirts and T-shirts as they tend to trap sweat and get clammy, whereas new synthetic fibres draw or ‘wick’ the moisture away and keep you much more comfortable.

_ Open yourself up to learning from children’s guides or pamphlets – they are often very well laid out, simple and yet with enough detail for you to pick things up, but not so much it becomes overwhelming.

Field guides

Many wildlife experts, especially birders, are sceptical about using field guides. They claim, with some justification, that you end up spending more time looking at the picture in the book than at the creature you are trying to identify!

In the ‘good old days’, every birder carried a notebook and made field notes as they were looking at the bird, then used these to identify it at leisure afterwards. You may not have the patience (or skill at note-taking or drawing) to do this, but it’s worth giving it a try.

The other problem with field guides is that they can lead you down all sorts of false alleys, often making people believe they have seen something that they haven’t. Others cover far too large an area. For the beginner, avoid anything that has the word ‘Europe’ on the cover – with birds, this more than doubles the number of species included, while for other groups such as mammals, butterflies and dragonflies you’ll find that around nine out of ten species included are not found in Britain!

The other dilemma is whether you choose a guide with photographs or illustrations. Most experienced naturalists prefer illustrated guides, as photographs can, paradoxically, be much more misleading due to differences in light quality and colour reproduction, whereas artwork is more consistent.

With some groups of wildlife, a shortcut is to use one of the laminated sheets produced by bodies such as the Field Studies Council. These usually include only the species you are likely to see, and are well illustrated and designed for use in the field: they’re waterproof!

Site guides

Once you’ve been watching wildlife for a while, you may want to explore sites a little further afield, or even plan a longer trip or holiday. At this stage, site guides (or ‘where to watch’ guides, as they are often known) can be very useful.

Site guides are usually written by local experts who can point you to the best places to watch wildlife in a particular part of the country. They also contain maps to help you find the place you’re looking for, along with practical information on access.

Site guides began back in the 1960s, with a famous volume called Where to Watch Birds in Britain. Today there are birding guides to every part of Britain, most of which are both comprehensive and excellent. Unfortunately, there are not so many guides to watching other forms of wildlife, though some groups (notably dragonflies) are covered (see Reading List, page 186).

The perils of using a site guide are that you may become convinced that you will see every species mentioned in the entry for a site, then turn up and find that there is nothing there. And sometimes it is best just to go out and see what you can find, without too many preconceptions.

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Basic fieldcraft

When you start watching wildlife, the time of year, the weather, or what time of day you set out may not seem all that relevant. But the more you spend time out in the field, the more you’ll come to appreciate the little tricks of the trade that experienced naturalists call ‘fieldcraft’.

Essentially, fieldcraft comes down to the art of knowing how to behave, what to do, and when and where to go in order to maximise your chances of finding, watching and enjoying a particular creature or wildlife experience.

Fieldcraft covers a multitude of things: some obvious, like not making a noise or a sudden movement when you’re watching a shy animal; others less so, such as standing downwind from a mammal to prevent detection.

It also includes timing (time of year, time of day and tide times); aspects of the weather, including wind direction, temperature and rainfall; where you are looking; and the many and varied clues that animals and plants leave behind, which tell you how to find what you are looking for.

Finally, knowing the best place to find wildlife – its favourite habitat – is also part of fieldcraft.

Timing

It’s often said that the secret of great comedy is … yes, you’ve guessed it – timing! But the same could just as easily be said about watching wildlife. If you go to the right place at the wrong time – or the wrong place at the right time – you risk missing out on what might be a truly memorable experience. Worse still, you may end up seeing virtually nothing at all. So, timing affects wildlife and wildlife watchers in lots of different ways:

Time of year: If you go searching for swallows in November or dragonflies in March, then prepare to be disappointed. Many creatures follow a regular annual cycle, and during part of the year cannot be seen – either because they are hiding, hibernating or have migrated far away from our shores. So swallows arrive back in Britain from Africa in April, and depart south again in September. Not all migrants are summer visitors: wild swans and geese breed in the Arctic before heading south to Britain in September or October, to take advantage of our mild climate and plenty of food for the winter (see The Wildlife Year: January, page 36).

Season: Some creatures are here all year round, but are much easier to see at certain seasons. So look out for bees and butterflies between spring and autumn; in winter a few may still be present, but they will be hidden away from view. Frogs and toads come out of hibernation in February or March and are usually easier to see at this time than the rest of the year as they are actively mating in garden ponds. Songbirds like blue tits are here all year round, but in late summer they moult, and can be hard to find.

Time of day: Most groups of wildlife are easier to see (or hear) at a particular time of day. Everyone knows the dawn chorus, but from late winter to early summer birds have a dusk chorus as well – not quite so intense, but just as enjoyable (and you don’t need to get up early to experience it). For birds and mammals, dawn and dusk are times of greatest activity; though many mammals are nocturnal, so ‘dusk to dawn’ would be a more appropriate description. Insects and wild flowers are usually at their best in the middle of the day, with dragonflies appearing at pub opening time – from late morning onwards on calm, sunny days.

Tide times: These are critical for several aspects of wildlife watching. Rock pools are covered up at high tide, so the two hours either side of low tide is the best time. It’s well worth investing in a set of tide tables – available at the local newsagent or post office in coastal areas, or on the internet – as these will help you time your visit to perfection. If you want to witness a spectacular roost of wading birds, then you need to visit either side of the high tide; while if you prefer to watch them feeding, then you will need to take a boat trip at low tide. Plan your visit to coincide with the ‘spring’ tides, where the difference between high and low water is at its greatest.

Bill's top tip

_ With fieldcraft, the more you know, the more you discover you don’t know! If you find this frustrating, try to see it as a challenge instead of a problem. In that way, you’ll enjoy wildlife watching even more.

Weather

Whole books have been written about the effect of the weather on plants and animals – and in these days of global climate change it is a subject far too large to do full justice here. Nevertheless, there are a few tips worth remembering before you go out to look for wildlife.

Temperature: This makes a big difference to what wildlife is doing, and where to find it. A mild day in late winter or early spring will bring out all sorts of creatures, including small mammals, frogs and toads and singing birds. If the weather stays fine, we may even see the first returning migrants such as house martins, and spring flowers like primroses. But a cold snap, especially with ice and snow, will cover up any signs of spring. The upside is that cold weather often makes birds easier to approach, as they are too busy feeding to bother about you. A hot summer’s day will encourage insects and wild flowers, but discourage most other activity.