BIRDWATCHING AND PRAYER

Posted: 17.04.11 in Articles category

 Birdwatching and prayer may not seem obvious activities to combine, but for me, as a Christian who enjoys watching birds, there are special occasions when they do and I am left with memories of moments when I felt in awe of God and especially thankful of his love.

 I should say from the outset that I find prayer extremely difficult. I have tried various formulae of prayer, for example using the ACTS approach of adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication, or amplifying the Lord’s Prayer. Whatever technique I adopt, however, my prayer seems contrived, the words ring hollow and I soon become discouraged at yet another ‘failed attempt’ to pray. The twin problems of insufficient time and distraction persist. I feel guilty that I don’t more often make the time to pray, and when I do, my mind seems beset by  the ‘noise’  of trivial thoughts and a tendency to dwell on daily concerns. I doubt that I am alone with such frustrations, but that awareness does not help at the time. How can I draw close to God when I don’t pray?

 Ironically, a similar frustration affects my birdwatching. I don’t seem to have enough time to do it. Of course, in both prayer and birdwatching there are issues of balance, coping with the typical pressures of modern life like the day job, family commitments and even church-related duties. I try to guard against this frustration when I birdwatch by the way I approach it. Curiously, birdwatching can present temptations which for me are echoes of those I experience in prayer - notably the tendency to rush. Readers have probably heard of ‘twitching’ and may think the activity is synonymous with birdwatching. It isn’t. Twitching represents one potentially extreme kind of birdwatching, involving the pursuit of rare birds that others have found and publicised. Most birdwatchers ‘twitch’ and for some it becomes an obsession as they travel to any corner of Britain when the news breaks of a rarity from Siberia or America that has turned up thousands of miles from its natural home. The chase is on… You get in the car hoping that the bird has not yet flown away, anxiety mounts as you arrive at the site, and then you feel either relief on seeing the bird or disappointment on discovering it has gone. Yes, I admit to twitching, but these days I try to keep it local. I confess though that is significantly easier in a county like Northumberland, where continental rarities can turn up on the coast in the spring and autumn after easterly winds. Yet the joy of birdwatching for me lies in the mental absorption as I concentrate on observing a bird and its behaviour. I look at it through binoculars, telescope and the naked eye as I note its plumage, listen to its song and watch it feed, fly and interact with other birds. On occasion I can be mesmerised and lose track of time as I simply enjoy watching and being in the presence of a particular bird. All other thoughts are cast aside as I focus on watching and enjoy being with the bird. The ‘being’ is very important. There is no thought of the next task or a concern that I must move on to do something else. In a sense I am ‘lost’ in the experience and it takes some effort eventually to walk away. On one such memorable occasion I spent an afternoon in the Scottish highlands with an unusually aggressive male Capercaillie, a time that culminated for me in eating a picnic while this magnificent bird lost interest in chasing me and reverted instead to grazing among the heather and bilberries only a short distance away.

  On these occasions, birdwatching becomes prayer for me when words of thanks pass my lips. Often as I walk away I simply say ‘Thank you Lord’ and feel a sense of gratitude to God for creating such a wonderful creature. At that moment I marvel at the beauty and vitality of the bird I have just seen and spontaneously give thanks. Sometimes I recall the words of Jesus, who taught that individual sparrows are loved by God, and I remember his lesson that God loves each of us uniquely, much more than we can know or understand. The sayings of Agur in Proverbs marvel at ‘the way of an eagle in the sky’ (30.19). I too have marvelled at eagles, as well as many other kinds of birds. Owls are among my favourites and I am lucky to live in a village with four species of owl breeding close by. Yet many rural people across the world dislike owls and have a superstitious fear of them, associating them with destruction and death. People in ancient Israel shared these fears and there are references throughout the Old Testament to owls living among the ruins of destroyed communities, for example in Psalm 102. Yet even these ‘unclean’ and feared birds honour God because he provides for them, as the prophet Isaiah notes in chapter 43.

 This biblical image of a bird detested by human beings but loved by God as part of his creation is one of the reasons why a Short Eared Owl features on the poster publicizing the ‘Enjoying birds as God’s creation’ weekends that I organise in Northumberland. These weekends are a unique kind of retreat that combines prayer, meditation and Christian teaching with guided birdwatching in beautiful places across Northumberland like Holy Island, the Farnes and the woodlands of the Tyne Valley. Details of these weekends can be found in the advertisement on page 000.  The owl also features on the poster precisely because it is one of the birds we often see on our weekends. The sight of it invariably causes a flutter of excitement among the group as we stop and watch it fly to and fro only a few feet above the ground on a hunt for voles. The sight is always a highlight of the weekend, a ‘wow’ moment that prompts me to marvel. Thank God for Short Eared Owls!

Mark Winter