I've been sitting here wondering why this tweeter thread on "Young
birders/Female birders" has caught on and why I also find it so intriguing.
Perhaps, for my own part, it's because I often find the human aspects of
birding and biology to be as interesting, if not more so, than the
activities themselves. It has long been my feeling that there is a strong
spiritual component to these activities. Birders sometimes approach such an
acknowledgment -- though I haven't seen it mentioned in the current
discussion -- and for the most part the biologists of my aquaintance seem
to disregard spiritual aspects of life in general (despite what I suspect
is the real reason they got into biology in the first place).

My husband offers the suggestion that the apparent difference in the
numbers of male and female birders could lie in the Jungian concept that
women tend to find their spirituality in the home, while men find it in the
cathedral forest. I may be corrupting the original idea, but this does seem
to make sense to me and jives with my own observations. Never mind that
*this* woman spends more time scoping for oldsquaws than dusting the
furniture ;)

And all the talk about how to get more youngsters involved has sparked
guilt pangs. It has been many years since I taught classes at OMSI and
watched fourth grade girls from Portland gape at me as I sloshed around in
a tidepool, pointing out seaweeds and slimy creatures. Hats off to Mike
Patterson and all the others who spend time exposing children to nature. As
Dennis suggested, we all need them to care about the world around us.

Janet Hardin
Port Townsend, WA
wings at olympus.net