AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

Posted: 06.04.25 in Articles category

Another article in our series written by Christian friends who enjoy watching birds and relate their faith to that interest. This month's is by Dr Christine Bates who has joined us on retreat on Holy Island, Alnmouth and Kilmalieu.

AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

I came relatively late to bird watching. Growing up in suburban London in the 60s and 70s I do remember seeing birds like robins, blackbirds and thrushes in our garden and seagulls when we went on holiday to the south-coast however, we rarely took any interest in them. My family were keen gardeners but, as was common at that time, wildlife was not really on the agenda where the garden was concerned, being very manicured and lots of chemicals used to control ‘unruly nature’. Birds and wildlife in general were not discussed at school, or with friends, nor within my church community and this continued to be the case when I moved north to university, and subsequently to work, in Sheffield.

A chance question in 2003 began an unexpected journey. I had recently moved into a new build house on the edge of Sheffield bordering the Peak District national park. The garden comprised of a lawn and little else but I could not fail to notice a whole range of birds, presumable attracted by the surrounding moorland, woodland and established gardens. I began to make plans for what to do with the outside space and started much along the lines of my parents’ garden. A friend asked me whether I was going to get a cat or dog, now I had some outside space (up until then I had lived in small terraced houses with communal outside yards). My off the cuff reply was that, due to full time working, pets were not something I was considering but I would probably make my garden bird friendly instead, as birds would be much less of a commitment. Little did I know where this would lead.

Once I started looking into how to attract birds to my garden, I realised this would mean providing shelter and food and a manicured, chemically controlled garden would not be particularly attractive to them. So the garden design was completely changed and chemicals abandoned and I determined that organic gardening was the way forwards. This all seemed a bit radical at the time and not particularly related to my Christian faith. However, as the months went by, I began to consider why, if I was providing a wildlife friendly, chemical free environment and food supply for the birds that visited my garden, what was I eating myself. At the time the LOAF  (local, organic, animal-friendly, fairly-traded) principle was in its infancy within my circle of friends and church community and I viewed this with some suspicion as being rather ‘hippy’. However, once I started thinking about how the food I purchased actually ended up on my table, this led down the road of considering the effect of this on the environment, wildlife and animals involved, plus the farmers, fishermen etc. whose living relied on food production. In addition, the carbon footprint of all the elements involved in the chain from ‘farm/sea to fork’ needed to be considered as did sustainability and dealing with waste. These issue are of course complex and are now more ‘main-stream’ but, at the time 20 years ago, they were new to me. The journey for me included how God viewed these issues and, after several months of reading the Bible and information from Christian and secular groups, praying, discussing these things with church family and friends I began a journey of changing my lifestyle, choices and goals. This has been a gradual and continuing process and is something I continue, with some trepidation, to ask God to challenge me about on an on-going basis to see what the next step for me is.

Meanwhile, watching birds has become a continual pleasure whether this be the birds in my garden, or those seen during trips around the UK or abroad. Seeing Sardinian warblers and Black Kites swooping over our villa on a family holiday to Corsica being a recent highlight. When I look back, I am amazed at how much my life has changed over the past two decades, a process for me that started because I wanted to see a few more birds in my back garden.

Christine Bates