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