4.
What might be the best title
for this passage?
A. 110-year-old
Tourist B.
Secret for Long and Healthy Life
C. Free Return Ticket D.
Sightseeing in London
说明文--自然科学 05
Equipped
only with a pair of binoculars (双筒望远镜) and
ready to spend long hours waiting in all weathers for a precious glance of a
rare bullfinch (红腹灰雀). Britain’s
birdwatchers had long been supposed to be lovers of a minority sport. But new
figures show birdwatching is fast becoming a popular pastime, with almost three
million of us absorbed in our fluttering feathered friends.
Devoted
birdwatchers, those prepared to travel thousands of miles for a sighting of a
rare Siberian bird, are fast being joined by a new breed of follower whose
interest is satiated by watching a few finches (雀科鸣鸟) on a Sunday walk or putting up a bird-box
in the back garden.
“Almost
three million UK birdwatchers is certainly possible if you include everyone
with only a casual interest,” Stephen Moss said in his newly published book-A Bird in the Bush: a Social History of
Birdwatching -which records the pursuit from the rich Victorian
Englishman’s love of shooting rare birds to the less offensive observational
tendencies of birdwatchers today.
Television
wildlife programs have helped to fuel the new trend. Last summer, BBC 2’s Britain
Goes Wild was a surprise success. It pulled in three million viewers and
led to bird-houses selling out across the UK as 45,000 people promised to put
up a box.
Birdwatchers’
networking system first came to the attention of the nation in 1989, when a
birdwatcher caught sight of the first Vermivora chrysoptera-a golden-winged
songbird from North America-to be seen in Britain. He put a message out on
the network service Birdline, and next day 3,000 birdwatchers proved the full
pull of a truly rare bird as they visited the Tesco car park in Kent,
where it had settled. Today, birdwatchers can log on to www.birdline.co.uk or
have news of the latest sightings texted to their phones.
“Multimillion-pound
spending on binoculars, bird food and boxes point to the increasing numbers of
birdwatchers,” said David Cromack, the editor of Bird Watching magazine, “The number of people involved is so big
that they have great potential to influence government decisions affecting the
environment.”