Is Birding a Sport?

The Birding OlympicsWednesday 8th June 2011

Went shopping with Jan yesterday to Fosse Park, Leicester. What I mean is I drove the car to some shops at Fosse Park, which as far as I'm concerned is only memorable for the fact that it was the starting point for a dash to Nottingham for the Little Swift twitch in May 2001. I well remember dragging Jan and her shopping bags out of Next. Calming her with such phrases as 'they have shops in Nottingham too' and 'but its a Mega'. No such excitment yesterday. As part of my M&S avoidance strategy I had a browse round W.H.Smiths. I looked for the Birding Mags. Could I find them? - could I 'eck. Home and gardens - not likely. Health and Beauty- no chance. Sport nah. What about Hobbies and pastimes next to Trainspotters monthly - no sign. I went round again.I had a closer look at Sport having heard a rumour that Birding was being considered as an exhibition sport at the 2016 Games in Brazil, along with Rock climbing and underwater Volleyball. I must admit I hadn't taken the rumour seriously. Probably started by some Blogger trying to get a cheap laugh when he or she had run out of things to talk about. Anyway, it got me thinking about the feasibility of such an event. Certainly Brazil would be an outstanding venue for the event. Birding is certainly International and can be extremely competitive. Maybe, just maybe there's a grain of truth in the rumour. Of course the purists would reject the idea straight away and the BOURC would take until well after 2016 to make their minds up and then have to revisit the issue. There would be other problems to resolve: the format of the competition, would it be run on the popular Bird Race idea? Verification of species seen would be tricky but I'm sure LGRE could sort out any adjudication that needed to be done. Eqiupment would have to be standardised and the amateur status of competitors checked. Yes, there would be problems but it could work. Certainly worth thinking about?