My first real birding experience was the Cottage Grove CBC in the
southern Willamette Valley, 1971. I was 13 years old. I have been
pretty much a birder of the Pacific Northwest all that time and have
noticed the change to competitive birding over the years.
I think it is in part a question of demographics.
Almost every bird I knew when I was young was a science teacher or
college professor or professional biologist of some sort. They have
a distinctly different mindset than the doctors, lawyers and computer
specialists that I find myself birding with now (I am as many of probably
already know, a science teacher).
I took many of the same classes that the premed folks at Oregon State
University. They are very competitive people. I hear tell law school
is very much the same way. Now I don't want anybody to get me wrong.
Some of my best friends are lawyers and doctors. But many of them
approach fieldwork very differently than I. Most of them see what they do
as a hobby not an avocation and all too often they see no science in
what they do. I can still watch a robin as it works the lawn. They've
seen it this year and want to go looking for eastern vagrants.
As the mindset of our ornithological leaders changed, the goals of
why we birded seemed to change. This new competitiveness is, I think,
one of the reasons the environmental movement has been as successful as
it has been, but I also think the data we now collect is more biased
and sloppy.
Biased, sloppy data will come back to haunt us...

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* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * Oh, joy... rapture
* mpatters at ednet1.osl.or.gov * I've got a brain.
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