Fence climbing for the elderly
It's a given that, when advancing in years, your eyesight and hearing will reduce in its effectiveness. I can certainly vouch for both - the increasing difficulty in following a small bird in flight as it travels over (or through) vegetation - or the ability to pick up certain bird calls, in my case Tree Pipits. I am just grateful that crest calls and Grasshopper Warblers still register in my hearing range. What I have had to accept recently is that I am not the sprightly chap that I once was. Let's take climbing fences for example... OK, maybe climbing a fence shouldn't be something that a birder does anyway, as the said fence has been erected to keep them out, down to maintaining the land owner's privacy or to keep livestock in place (and so there is likely to be animals on other side of the fence). But sometimes these fences are there because 'they're just there'. It seems to be a modern disease this erection of fencing all over the place. But I digre...