Plane, Train and Bird Spotting

Why do people love plane, train and bird spotting?

Novice aviation geek Alys Harte enters the worlds of twitchers, birders, watchers and spotters.

She meets Noel Marsh-Giddings, who has flown on the shortest and longest flights on the planet - just for the sake of flying; she goes ‘birding’ on the east coast of England with Ashley Saunders where they have a close encounter with a sparrow hawk (and a photobombing mallard!) and speaks to Prof. Kiyohito Utsunomiya, transport economist and railway fan about the subcultures within subcultures that make up Japanese ‘tetsu’ train spotters.

Photo: Man in a field with binoculars. Credit: Getty Creative Images. ISO3000