On Thu, 5 Jan 1995, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> But David, how do you then explain the presence of more women than men on
> birding trips? I know many of them are retired older women, some of whom
> have lost a husband and find this a wonderful recreational activity. But
> then why aren't a lot of older women taking up golf or other obsessive
> recreational activities? Lots of older men also do birding; it's the
> younger women who are relatively scarce.
>
> And there are at least as many female as male grad students in zoology (but
> not on zoology faculties, yet).

I think you missed the point. The older women you mentioned on field
trips are not 'obsessed' as David mentioned, neither are female grad
students in zoology. A more useful measure might be to tally all the
birders who travelled more than 100 miles to see the Ross' Gull, and then
make some age/sex breakdown. I think David's ideas would come off
correctly then. Going on a field trip or being a zoology student
doesn't make one a birder/lister/twitcher (whatever you want to call it),
driving 10 hours round trip for 3 hours of birding is a little
different. The same is true for those who don't twitch, how many little
old ladies will look through a roosting flock of 5000 calidrines for a
juvenile stint?

____________________________
Mike Smith
Univ. of Washington, Seattle
whimbrel at u.washington.edu