My own personal experience is that it is incredibly difficult to be a
birder/naturalist at a young age, it is ctually a strugle to keep going.
First of all, it isn't cool. Big deal you say, well it was a huge deal when
I was 15. Your coolness has direct impact on you social status and your
overall happiness when you are a teenager. I remember me and a couple of
friends going out birding and hiding our binoculars when anyone approached,
a friend of mine ran home several kilometers rather than step onto a bus where
he had a chance of running into schoolmates after a birding trip (binos
plainly visible).
Another problem is that young people have no money. No cash for magazines,
birdtrips, books, better equipment etc. I was lucky enough to be friends with
Toronto birder Hugh Currie who lent me his copies of Birding and American
Birds. He also invited all of us teen birders out on twitches, so we got to
see lots of the birds we had only dreamed of before. The young birder that
doesn't get a chance to go out with someone with a car probably will get bored
with the local chickadees, sparrows. Young people get bored easily.
For a young person, older people are really weird. They dress weirdly, their
interests and conversations are dull, they don't like the same music that you
do, and they can behave in ways that are just not logical to a teenager.
The competition between older birders can be intense and sometimes we (the
young guys) got caught up in it and frankly the older guys really forgot that
we were only kids. I remember being in Hamilton, Ontario in the fall looking
at shorebirds at around age 14. A local birder was there and he was keen to
point out a Lesser Golden Plover out to me and my friend Karl. After staring
at it for a while, I was convinced that the bird was a Black-bellied Plover.
I mentioned this to Karl, who agreed. So I sheepishly pointed out that there
were a few features that were inconsistent with a goldie, but indicative of
a Black-bellied. Well I remember seeing this man almost explode in anger, it
was like Krakatoa all over again. He went on about how long he had been birding,
how dare we...... bla bla bla. Eventually the bird took off and showed beautifulblack wing pits, the birder stomped off and didn't say a word to us. Well,
it isn't easy to get yelled at by an adult when you are 14, it ruined my week.
It was almost enough to make me wonder why I bothered, it was supposed to be
fun,wasn't it? Now that is just an extreme example, but it was very common
for older birders to disregard any of our opinions, etc. At that age you are
desperate to build up you self esteem, so being ignored was a drag. Mind you
when you did get some benefits from the hobby, like finding a rare bird that
others got to see, the self esteem jumped quite a few notches.
I could go on, but the basic fact is that at least during the teen years
it is a bit of a challenge for a young person to maintain their interest in
birds/nature. There are too many other things going on in a teens life to
have birds be a major part of their lives. The positive side of all of this
is that once you have grown up a bit and you start university you become quite
open to things, including birding. I think that the real effort should be to
interest university age people in the hobby, this may be one of the most
receptive periods in one's life other than once one is much older. Perhaps the
ABA should start trying to recruit people at college in some creative and
attractive manner.

Al Jaramillo
jaramill at sfu.ca
Vancouver, B.C.