Watching birds

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

“I began keeping a bird list in January, using a notebook small enough to fit in my coat. My usual route follows the canal for two kilometres, past a bridge and a row of warehouses. On the first morning I identified four species, including a robin on a broken fence. I was disappointed that nothing rare appeared. A week later I realised I could remember the list more clearly than the birds themselves.

The notebook had become a scoreboard, and the towpath a corridor between possible points. I put it away for one walk. Without the hurry to name and count, I watched a gull repeatedly drop a hard scrap onto the concrete, retrieve it and try again. The ordinary bird became particular. I still keep records, because patterns over time can be useful, but I no longer regard an unrecorded minute as a wasted one. Looking closely is not the same as collecting evidence that I have looked. Sometimes the best result of a walk is being less certain that I already know the place.”

Source B: an original nineteenth-century-style letter or account, written for practice; this is not an archival document.

“A gentleman recently asked how many different birds I had observed beside our river. I could not give him a satisfactory number, and he appeared to conclude that my mornings had been poorly employed. He carries a pocket-book in which each species receives a mark, and speaks of an unusual visitor with the pleasure another man might reserve for a valuable coin. I do not doubt the usefulness of his records; I doubt only whether the record contains the whole pleasure.

The common wren, which adds nothing new to his page, may occupy my attention for half an hour. Its passage through the hedge, its furious small voice and the precision with which it enters a gap are not exhausted by writing its name. To know a place is partly to return until its familiar inhabitants cease to be merely familiar. Let the observer keep his list, but let him sometimes close the book. Nature is not diminished because she has declined to furnish a novelty for his morning.”

Refer to both sources. Infer the differences in the birds and places the writers observe. Write a summary supported by details from both sources.