Bullying In Birding

The psychology involved in birding fascinates me, especially when it's on the aberrant side. 

These days much of the behaviour I see in birding could be classed as on the aberrant side, like a birding episode of criminal minds. 😉

Bullying in birding is a strange issue though. It obviously exists. Bullying exists across all walks of life, why would birding be any different?

I was interested in how prevalent it is, however, and ran a few polls to try and get a feel for things. 

When run openly on Twitter, the results from respondents indicate 36% have experienced bullying in birding, either directly or observed directed at others.

When run on Facebook, in an exclusively Irish context, 50% of respondents have experienced bullying in birding, either directly or observed directed at others.

It can't be concluded that Ireland has a higher incidence of bullying compared to a poll run at a more international level, though I can make the observation that a good many birders, who normally would vote in polls run in this birding group, shied away from this one. Call me cynical, but... I'm calling see no evil, hear no evil on that one. 😕

Of respondents who had experienced bullying of some form, 24% indicated it had occurred during their teens.

I can only imagine how that affects birders coming into the hobby in their formative years. I can't imagine it's positive. It's all too often the case that this behaviour is normalised and self perpetuating, so teens seeing this from the very outset? Not good.

It was experienced across all age groups, but cumulatively 59% experienced it before age 30. Again, I suspect this is indicative of both normalisation of bullying and it's ubiquitous nature in birding.

Of the respondents who had experienced bullying in birding, 63% experienced it online solely, and 11% in the field only.

26% had experienced it both in the field and online. Cumulatively, therefore, 89% have experienced online bullying and 37% have experienced it in the field. 

Obviously, that puts the online bullying in the serious category, but in the field bullying cannot be ignored.

What do we do about this? How do we address it?

I'm not sure. As indicated above, noting how many Irish birders steered clear of the issue, there's an unwillingness to acknowledge it.

Can we examine where this behaviour comes from?

Seeing this tweet online got me thinking about this, as I believe ego, particularly toxic egos in birding are responsible for much of this behaviour. There are so many facets to this, so many desperate to be big fish in a small pond that it's difficult to target everything, but there are those definitely try to boost their own profile and ego by dragging others down.

As I usually try to do, I imagine trying to explain this problem to the majority of humans on the planet, and not the tiny anorak microcosm that is birding, and I explain it thus:

"We watch little things with feathers, and if other people who watch little things with feathers don't identify them correctly or we don't want to believe what they've seen, we consider that a perfectly reasonable excuse to slag, insult, bully or even stalk that person online."

That's insane isn't it? Explaining that to another person who isn't a birder could be quite embarrassing. But you've seen it haven't you, if you're honest about it? You've maybe even engaged in it?

Maybe you didn't think about it, it's become so normalised.

Slagging off some birder behind their back at a twitch, or on a car journey?

Following some bully online? Liking and sharing their content, encouraging them?

Or just looking the other way when you see it happening? Keep the head down. Nothing to do with me, guv.

In the past, I've seen the mask slip, for many of those responsible for this behaviour in Ireland. 

I've seen people literally say online "Better to be inside the tent pissing out". When it is rarely acknowledged in this way, it's not exactly subtle. Everyone does know exactly what it is, but it often goes straight back to the pretence:

"Birding is a great pasttime with no negativity whatsoever, and anyone who says otherwise is a troublemaker. Be quiet. Stop bringing it up."

The "being inside the tent" thing is a big component. Peer pressure is real. And it can be seen as an easy track to being included and "acceptable" to join in attacks on others.

In birding, let's be honest, the main form of bullying comes in the form of attacking the sightings of others and labelling people stringers. Christ, we made up our own term to do it!

In my experience, in many instances, those who engage in this behaviour often display a case of "the lady doth protest too much", displaying poor competence themselves and so projecting, pointing the finger at others, providing cover for themselves. 

This can be highly effective for them. I am reminded of a certain Northern Irish blog. A blog which started as the official blog for a Northern Irish birding organisation. 

When used by the operator to engage in vendettas and bullying, the operator was booted from that organisation, only to then clone the blog content into a new blog, and begin a decade long vendetta against the organisation which ejected him, a decade long series of abuse against anyone that happened to provide bird news to that organisation, and a decade of abuse against any of his enemies.

All done behind cowardly pseudonyms both for the authors of this abuse and pseudonyms for the targets (or even their family members, my own brother was slagged off when he found Aquatic Warbler in Cork, having never had any dealings with this particularly cowardly bully).

Amazingly, this blog and it's author would routinely mis-identify swathes of birds, especially in its quality trip reports, with zero sense of irony (again, projection, the lady doth protest too much). When these mis-identifications were pointed out (by myself, surprise surprise), subsequent trip reports would publish photos without captions.

Bar from myself, I never once saw this bullying challenged by birders in Ireland. 

The inability to call this out is intrinsically linked to not sticking your head out of the trenches. 

Let's be clear. There's probably no one in birding who's any great shakes at this game if we're honest. However there is an unspoken collective agreement at times, that as long as the cliques that exist in birding just keep pointing the finger at certain targets, then they don't look to themselves.

In the absence of a collective agreement to root out this behaviour, I am not optimistic that this behaviour will ever go away, or even be reduced. 

As one family member put it to me:

"There's too much linkage to bird news. People worry that speaking up about this kind of thing might someday cost them a bird."

I think there's a lot of truth to that, but also the worry is that you become a target yourself after speaking out.

Some years ago, I was involuntarily involved in a thread by 3 British birders. These birders were publicly slagging off a female birder and had tagged me in the thread, assuming I would join in. I found it incredible that they had done so, as anyone who knows me knows I challenge that behaviour rather than engage in it. I pointed out that this woman's partner had very recently passed away and the last thing she probably needed was 3 arseh*les slagging her off on the internet.

Do you think they humbly apologized for their behaviour?

Or do you think, in cliché 80s teen movie style, they turned on the guy spoiling their fun?

Yep. I'm betting you guessed the latter. 

The reason why, when developing the Irish Rare And Scarce Birding group on Facebook, one of the primary rules in place is no abusive behaviour slagging off other birders sightings, was to specifically tackle this issue. 

Creating a space where good birding dialogue can take place without the bullying behaviour is important.

I've always said, if you don't particularly believe a certain sighting, there's a simple solution. You just don't start your car.

If you're going out of your way to abuse people for it, be it online or in the field, you've got issues.