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| Birding - a route to staying fit and mentally active |
Accounts of such travels are invariably highly readable - and none more so than the recently-published Grey-haired Global Birding - Exploring The World's Birds in Later Life.
Disregard the somewhat clunky title! This is an absorbing account by Robert Oates, who is in his 60s, of five memorable expeditions - to Ethiopia, California, Colombia, Malaysia and the Scottish Coast.
Similar-themed books sometimes strike a triumphalist, 'showy-offy' note, but this one, though never less than lively and upbeat, is written in a more modest tone.
Amid his 'fun and excitement' at seeing new and exotic birds, there is a kind of wistful undercurrent.
The author is aware that, ultimately, time will run out not just on his own life but perhaps also on many of the planet's bird species as their habitats and food-supplies are relentlessly squeezed at an ever-quickening pace.
He writes: "My story is a race, one that we all face - the ageing process that will eventually takes all to the great bird reserve in the sky."
Because he is acutely aware of the impact of his carbon footprint, he has sought to compensate by devoting all the proceeds of this, his first book, to the Extinctions Prevention Programme run by the charity, Birdlife International.
Another notable aspect to the narrative is that the author is by no means a wealthy man.
After a career spent in relatively low-paid charity work, he has not retired with the cushion of a huge pension, a bulging bank account and a steady stream of equity dividends.
He can't just hop on a jet plane destined for some far off paradise at a moment's whim.
He has both to save up - and, just as important - get the green light from his patient wife.
As he wryly notes: "There is always the moral question of when it is fair to leave my wife alone for weeks in order to go off birding around the globe - though, in reality, this more of a dilemma for me as she always encourages my travels!"
Having cleared the decks, as it were, the author gets on with superbly evocative descriptions of the locations and the fabulous species he has encountered - bee-eaters, shrikes, flycatchers, plovers, eagles and many more.
Such is his literary skill that it is almost being out there with him in the field as his birding companion.
And that means, of course, that you have to take a bit of rough with the smooth - for instance, episodes of merciless, "brain-frying" heat, hotel showers with no water and sometimes unappetising food (with, in Ethiopia, a surfeit of spaghetti dishes and bananas).
As he reminds the reader: "Most birding destinations are not package holidays, sanitised culturally bare locations offering a hotter or colder version of home.
"They are places in the real world where we can better understand our fellow human beings and the forces that govern their lives on a planet that we all share."
It may seem odd for a British author to have included a chapter Scotland in a book with a global theme, but there is a good reason.
On this occasion, he was acting as a host and guide to a friend from Colombia who proved to be as mesmerised by some of our native species as he had been on his trip to his guest's homeland
The 425-page book also contains plenty of practical travelling advice, not least a reminder to be vaccinated against rabies, and some part-enchanting, part-angry philosophical diversions as in this particular passage:
" I followed the path back to my hut under the shine of a billion stars like diamonds thrown on to a black velvet coat - a biodiversity that we humans are fast driving to extinction, leaving lonely remnants trapped inside parks as precious reminders of the Eden we have trashed.
"I don't call that civilised - I call it a crime against non-humanity."
Importantly, the author also details how much the individual expeditions cost him.
Finally, amid all his wonderment at the sight of so many spectacular birds, the author cannot disguise his love of good coffee to which he regularly makes reference in an early chapter.
If the Ethiopian Coffee Marketing Board, needs a UK ambassador, Robert Oates is the man!
* Grey-haired Global Birding is available from outlets such as Amazon.
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