Equipped only with a pair of binoculars and ready to spend long hours waiting in all weathers for a precious glance of a rare bullfinch. Britain’s birdwatchers had long been supposed to be lovers of a minority sport. But new figures show birdwatching is fast becoming a popular pastime, with almost three million of us absorbed in our fluttering feathered friends.
仅凭一副双筒望远镜，做好任何天气下长时间等待的准备，只为了看一眼罕见的红腹灰雀，英国的观鸟者早就被认为是这项冷门运动的爱好者。但新的数据显示，观鸟正迅速成为一种流行的消遣，我们中的近300万人都沉浸这些长着羽毛的朋友身上。
Devoted birdwatchers, those prepared to travel thousands of miles for a sighting of a rare Siberian bird are fast being joined by a new breed of follower whose interest is satiated by watching a few finches on a Sunday walk or putting up a bird-box in the back garden.
忠实的观鸟者，那些准备远行数千英里去看一只罕见的西伯利亚鸟的人，很快就会加入一个新品种的追随者，他们的兴趣可以通过周日散步看几只雀科鸣鸟或在后花园里放一个鸟窝来满足。
“Almost three million UK birdwatchers is certainly possible if you include everyone with only a casual interest.” Stephen Moss said in his newly published book－A Bird in the Bush: a Social History of Birdwatching－which records the pursuit from the rich Victorian Englishman’s love of shooting rare birds to the less offensive observational tendencies of birdwatchers today.
斯蒂芬·莫斯在其最新出版的《灌木丛中的一只鸟：观鸟的社会历史》（A Bird in the Bush a Social History of Birdwatching）一书中表示：“如果你把每个人都只是一个偶然的兴趣，那么近300万英国观鸟者肯定是有可能的。”这本书记录了从富有的维多利亚时代英国人喜欢拍摄稀有鸟类到如今观鸟者文明的观鸟倾向的趋势。
Television wildlife programmes have helped to fuel the new trend . Last summer ,BBC 2’s Britain Goes Wild was a surprise success. It pulled in three million viewers and led to bird-houses selling out across the UK as 45,000 people promised to put up a box.
电视野生动物节目助长了这一新趋势。去年夏天，BBC二台的《英国野生动物》（Britain Goes Wild）取得了惊人的成功。它吸引了300万观众，并导致英国各地的鸟窝售罄，45000人承诺要搭建鸟窝。
Birdwatchers’ networking system first came to the attention of the nation in 1989, when a birdwatcher caught sight of the first Vermivora chrysoptera-a golden –winged songbird from North America－to be seen in Britain. He put a message our on the network service Birdline, and the next day 3,000 birdwatchers proved the full pull of a truly rare bird as they visited the Tesco car park in Kent, where it had settled. Today, birdwatchers can log on to www.birdline.co.uk or have news of the latest sightings texted to their phones.
1989年，观鸟者的网络系统首次引起了全国的注意，当时一名观鸟者在英国看到了第一只北美金翅鸣禽——金翅翼龙。他在网络服务Birdline上给我们发了一条信息，第二天，3000名观鸟者到访肯特郡的乐购停车场，发现了这只真正稀有的鸟。今天，观鸟者可以登录www.birdline.co.uk，或在手机上获取最新的观鸟信息。
“Multimillion-pound spending on, binoculars, bird food and boxes point to the increasing numbers of birdwatchers,” said David Cromack, the editor of Bird Watching magazine “The number of people involved is so big that they have great potential to influence government decisions affecting the environment.”
《观鸟》杂志的编辑大卫·克罗马克说：“在望远镜、鸟食和鸟窝上花费数百万英镑，表明观鸟者的数量在不断增加。”
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