Dennis the Knowledgable sez:

>From my observations, statistically speaking there are no young birders,

Hmmm. What qualifies as "young" in the above statement?

Several years ago, at Portland Audubon, we began noticing that we
weren't getting many younger (i.e. college-aged and early twenties)
volunteers and like many volunteer organizations were wondering if
this trend would become permanently established. After all, the
eighties were being touted as the "me" generation, despite assurances
in the Reagon years that reduction in federal support for various
"good causes" would be picked up by volunteers and charitable
giving.

But during the 90's we've seen an encouraging increase in the numbers
of young volunteers. Of course, we're not speaking "birding" in
the strict sense as PAS is partly an education organization, partly
a conservation organization, rehab organization, birding organization,
and just general all-around good-folks kind of group!

And I hang out with a lot of birders in their twenties, despite being
well...older. Meet most of them banding hawks so it is sort of a
self-selecting group that is certainly too biased to form any valid
sample fo that age group!

But, we have tweeters here with about 300 people, I guess. How about
an age poll? How many old farts are we vs. younger farts?

We could organize that data in wierd ways, too, if we're bored:
"Began birding in the days of Duck Hawks"
"Began birding in the days of Red-shafted Flickers"
"Began birding in the days of Cordilleran Flycatchers"

Humor aside, it might be an interesting poll.

-Don Baccus-