BirdSoc Blog

By Sorrel Lyall There is a lack of diversity in the UK nature community, and it is not talked about enough. “As a black birder, you have to be prepared to be the only one who looks like you when out birding.”   Sorrel Lyall (© Stephen Magee) Whilst I do not experience the same issues as black birders, as an ethnic minority birder this quote from  #BlackBirdersWeek  is all too relatable. I will always remember how different and ‘looked at’ I felt when walking into a conference room as the only young, female, non-white birder. This lack of diversity has always been clear to me, but maybe I was naïve in thinking that this was evident to everyone else too. Birding in the UK is characterised by the old, white, middle-class male. This is an intimidating image and deters many from getting involved. I decided to write about this lack of representation in a  Twitter thread , speaking from my own experiences, and hoping to start a conversation and hear the opinions of oth...

By Mark Pitt For all the hardships that the last four months have brought, there is a bittersweet feeling now that the country has started to recover. For roads are busy, bars are open and the countryside is filled with the smiling faces of tourists. The slow path to normality has finally begun, yet with it, I feel as though there is a part of me begrudgingly being pulled along with the tide. Nature has been a source of solace for many of us, and the peace it brought is slowly fading.  When the country closed in March, my university year was halted. The prospect of having almost six months off with no education, no volunteering and no fieldwork was daunting, to say the least. To keep myself busy for that long seemed like an impossible task, and, to some extent, it was. Although reading books and streaming television series have kept me busy, the real source of entertainment for me, and many others, this quarantine has come from nature and the ability to see life continue a...