Everybody has a hobby, some have more than one. I am one of them. When i was a kid i used to collect stamps, duhh. I also used to do other interesting stuffs like what other kids were doing like going fishing, swimming and diving in the river, played war games, played soccer, badminton, camping, card games and building tree house. Well, what do you expect, we did not have a computer back then, Bill Gates was propably still a kid back then, the only window that we knew then was the one with glass panels. There were no laptop, tablets, Nintendo, Gameboy or whatever, it was in the 70s for God's sake! There were only me, my brains and creativity. We made do with what pocket money we had and whatever lying around the house. We made our own toys, not like nowadays where there is Toys R Us to supply you whatever toys you want if you have the money.
What i remember enjoying so much after school everyday was to climb the big tree in front of my house and sit on my treehouse platform for hours observing birds. I did not use a binocular then because i could not afford one. Besides, the birds would come within 10-15feet that i did not need a binocular to observe them. I also used to take care about 20 plus rock pigeons which were free to come and go whenever they liked. My brother and me built a cage in the shape of a house which was big enough for us to go inside an stand upright inside so we could feed them and clean the inside. The best part was they would eat right from our palms. Sadly, one day they flew away and never came back. Only a few left. Eventually, they all flew away.
So now you propably could figure out where this deep lying interest of birding came from. It was always there in me. I have always appreciated the beauty of birds, their colors, shapes, behaviors and the best of all is that they can fly unlike us human.
Nowadays, people who are close to me could not understand why i like to go away to search for birds and take their photographs. They could not understand why i would spend so much money on cameras, lens, tripods, accessories, bags and clothing, especially when there is no monetary returns.
Why the obsession with birds?
Well, in life it is not all about money. It is about what makes you happy. Some people are happy when they make millions, some when they are millionaires they are still not happy until they become billionaires. There are a lot of billionaires around in this world, are they happy? Is Bill Gates happy with his USD75 billion in his account? Is the owner of AliBaba.Com happy with his bank balance? Does he or the other billionaires happy with their lives or do they have time to spend all that money and do little things in life that make them happy? They propably are, but i bet they wished they got the luxury of freedom, to be anonymous when doing things they love like playing golf in the country, a simple walk in the park, fishing with their grandchildren or going birding? A lot of successful people love bird watching, not full time but they still enjoy it.
Me, it is an escape, a sort of exploration mixed with the joy of discovery of species in person which before i only see them in books, field guides, National Geographic or Discovery channels and magazines.
When i go birding it is just me, nature and the birds (except when my wife and kids tagged along, annoying!). I can shut out my mind from work related issues, life in the big city and the annoying people in it completely, and just focus on searching, identifying and taking photographs of the birds i come across. It is an escape for me, stress reducing activity which is good for my well being, and maybe a longer and peaceful life? It is also a vacation for me because i love the forest, hills and mountains, streams and waterfalls. You know my wife is the only one who can tell the symptoms when i have not gone birding for a while. I would appear bored, uninterested, stressed, easily irritated, and played with my gears a lot at night (a common illness among birders?).
I love it when i get to photograph a new species and add to my yet to see list. It is like a new discovery to me even though the species has already been discovered and recorded by scientists before. It is a discovery in person which is interesting, and it is more satisfying to me when i can share the photos with others across the globe through my blog. There is no money in it as i do it for the love of it. But who knows if one day free blog and website administrators start to impose hefty fees to own a blog, i might have to think a source of revenue to pay for it to keep it running, unless of course there are billionaires out there who love birding and like to donate to keep it running..ha..ha..hello Bill, you like birding?
The only part that i do not like about photographing birds is the post editing because it is tedious and time consuming. Since i shoot mostly in RAW, i have to convert some of the shots i like into JPEGs. Even though i do not do much editing using Lightroom except for cropping, exposure adjustments, sharpness and noise reductions, it still takes a lot of time to go through hundreds of images per trip. Lucky, i do not even use Photoshop because i am not good at it.
I do not feel that i must have perfect photos free of noise, with completely blurred background and tack sharp image that can win a best photo contest, before i put it on my blog because that is not the intention in the first place. The intention is to enjoy and share the beauty of birds, also to increase the appreciation of nature and the lifers with the world. When you appreciate something you tend to protect them so they can go on living for future generations. People only appreciate something or someone when they are gone, which is sad really. I feel so sad when i see some part of the forest were totally burnt due to the hot weather in the Fraser's Hill trip lately. When this happens, the habitat of the birds is gone and they would fly away to some other places we cannot access.
Fraser's Hill is my favorite birding spot because i can do birding in a comfortable weather, cool and fresh air. However, the success of Fraser's Hill as a birding and tourist spot is directly related to the forest and the birds. When the forest is getting less and less, the temperature will rise and the birds habitats will slowly disappear. When the the weather is getting hotter and less birds appear the tourists will soon disappear too, eventually Fraser's Hill will become a ghost town. Lets hope it does not come to that.
Finally, i start to feel itching to go birding again to the Fraser's Hill after a month since the last time i was there, however the Shahzan Inn(my favorite) is now fully booked. Looks like i have to make a day trip there or go somewhere else, maybe look for shore birds.
Till next time, happy birding guys!
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