The manner of the birding

I've quoted Luke Jennings before, from his excellent book 'Blood Knots', but it's worth doing so again:

"The late Bernard Venables, author of the classic Mr Crabtree fishing books, used to say that there are three stages to the angler's evolution. To begin with, as a child, you just want to catch fish - any fish. Then you move to the stage where you want to catch big fish. And finally, with nothing left to prove, you reach a place where it's the manner of the catch that counts, the rigour and challenge of it, at which point the whole thing takes on an intellectual and perhaps even a philosophical cast."

With apologies to Bernard Venables, I think we could amend this quote to the following:
"There are three stages to the birder's evolution. To begin with, as a child, you just want to watch birds - any birds. Then you move to the stage where you want to see rare birds. And finally, with nothing left to prove, you reach a place where it's the manner of the birding that counts, the rigour and challenge of it, at which point the whole thing takes on an intellectual and perhaps even a philosophical cast."

Does that ring true with any of you lot out there? It does with me...

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