Look out of the window. See a bird. Enjoy it. Congratulations. You are now a bad birdwatcher. Anyone who has ever gazed up at the sky or stared out of the window knows something about birds. In this funny, inspiring, eye-opening book, Simon Barnes paints a riveting picture of how bird-watching has framed his life and can help us all to a better understanding of our place on this planet. How to be a bad birdwatcher shows why birdwatching is not the preserve of twitchers, but one of the simplest, cheapest and most rewarding pastimes around.
""Do you have any binoculars?" "No." "Waterproofs?" "No." "Wellingtons?" "No." It is an inauspicious start to my plan of spending a day birdwatching with Simon Barnes, but – I hasten to point out – it will at least give him the chance to test out the thesis of his new book: How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher. In it he claims that everybody has the capacity to recognise their local feathered friends and that by learning simply to look out of the window from time to time, we can all have our lives enriched by a little avian appreciation."
- Lucy Mangan, The Guardian, 27/09/2004