Bird News - Part 6: Filthy Lucre

Let's get one thing straight: the bird news industry was inevitable. Even before they had to pay for it, birders were already prepared to jump through at least modest hoops to get the latest gen. For example, the grapevine demanded communication skills. So the timid overcame shyness and talked to complete strangers; the naturally taciturn made an effort to be friendly with others; the selfish learned the need to reciprocate, and so on. If socially awkward birders were prepared to get out of their comfort zone for bird news, well yes, obviously there was money in it.

How much money?

Who knows? I certainly don't. I suppose I could reference the January 1993 Independent newspaper article mentioned in THIS post, which reports that Lee Evans was earning about £30k a year from Birdline (roughly £65k today) but I suspect this is the tip of an iceberg. In 2021 certainly, quite a few incomes must be funded by the bird news market.

In a sense I suppose the founders of Birdline invented that market. Once a group of individuals took it upon themselves effectively to centralise bird news and require payment for supplying it, that was that - bird news was now a commodity. There was absolutely no going back. And what a fascinating business model...

As Richard Millington wrote in A Twitcher's Diary:

Twitchers cannot exist without the goodwill of the birdwatchers who are the lucky finders of the more exciting birds. It is these generous and unselfish birdwatchers who start the telephone 'grapevine' working...

With the inception of Birdline a few years later, I doubt that much changed here. Most birders are 'generous and unselfish' when it comes to sharing their finds, and I am sure that such 'goodwill' continued. Though I am mildly curious to know if anyone ever phoned the Bird Information Service hotline and enquired how much their newly-discovered Desert Wheatear might be worth...

I imagine the answer was 'not much'. One way or another, the well-connected Birdline staff would soon get to hear about it anyway - for nothing I expect - and then sell it to anyone willing to dial 0898 700222.

Extreme rarities must have been especially welcome. And long stayers. And birds with long names. And those which entailed an elaborate set of directions. In fact, anything which induced you to ring the dreaded number in the first place, and then kept you on the phone! I came to despise the sound of that voice, and its almost cynically slow delivery.

As with any other market, once established, there were plenty of players wanting in. Two or three examples...

In 1988 I moved to Rickmansworth, Herts. At that time my birding zeal was minimal, yet I was still approached by one of the three founders of a new 'regional' bird news phone-line type service to check that I would give them first dibs on any news I had. Shortly afterwards I learned that this new service was now...er...'unable' to proceed in a fully independent fashion, and instead would become one of several regional birdlines in the Bird Information Service stable. Hmmm. No doubt there's an interesting story here.

A well-known twitcher who suddenly and unexpectedly found himself with a great deal of thinking time discovered that telecomms supplier Mercury offered a cheaper premium rate phone service than BT. Game on! For a while in the early 1990s my go-to birdline number was a little easier on the wallet. And the voice of Franko Maroevic made a nice change.

By 1990 loads of birders were basically skint. Bank loans for the third kitchen refurb in as many years were becoming harder to get. Birdline was simply a bottomless pit, into which bird news addicts poured money faster than they could earn it. Something had to be done. A delegation was dispatched to Norwich. Soft-hearted philanthropist Dick Filby was moved to tears by the plight of these hapless folk, and immediately founded Rare Bird Alert, a subscription-based pager service. Finally! A bird news service which you could budget for.

Anyway, a lot has happened in the intervening 30 years, and many players have have come and gone. In 2021 it seems perfectly normal to pay for bird news. Long gone are the dark days of Birdline, with its potentially addictive grip and limitless spend. And let's be honest, modern technology is simply amazing. If you discovered a drake Harlequin Duck tomorrow morning, within minutes your photos could be on Twitter, where they would be picked up by the ever-vigilant bods at RBA and BirdGuides, and the joyous news of your good fortune punted out to their vast army of subscribers. Great. Happy subscribers = money in the bank. You, meanwhile, will earn nothing. Well, no, not true actually. You will earn kudos. And that warm glow which rewards the 'generous and unselfish' spirit.

If, in any of the above, you have detected a hint of irony (or - heaven forbid - sarcasm) possibly that is because I am getting old. Old people have this tendency to look back at the days of yore through rose-tinted spectacles, and to have a Bah! Humbug! attitude to anything modern, slick and efficient. Well, there is little doubt that the modern bird news industry is slick and efficient. And yes, there is a rosy tint to my view of the grapevine days when bird news was free. But in truth, the rarity-obsessed numbers game which epitomises birding back then is just as prevalent today, if not more so. It might have seemed relatively innocent forty years ago, but it is exactly what spawned the whole bird news industry in the first place. And in a time when our understanding of what is happening to this planet tells us we ought to be throttling back massively, a number of individuals - friends and acquaintances of many of us - make their living from an industry which encourages us to do the opposite. Many today feel that the birding ethos which held sway back then - and still does now - needs to change. However, I cannot help thinking that when bird news became a commodity, the chances of instituting such a change dwindled away. A huge genie escaped the confines of its lamp, and I cannot see it climbing back in of its own accord.