Subject: Re: female birders (fwd)
Date: Jan 5 22:55:39 1995
From: William Hatheway - billha at u.washington.edu



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 95 17:04:07 -0800
From: Dennis Paulson <dpaulson at ups.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: female birders

In response to Mike Smith's posting:

You're right, Mike, about the obsessed part of it being a male
characteristic. But by the way, when I went to see the Ross' Gull, there
were as many women as men there (not a large sample, admittedly). I didn't
know many of them, so I don't know their status in the birding community or
whether some of the women were merely accompanying men (or, of course, vice
versa). The two women I met there who I do know are just about as likely
to head out after a rare bird as any of my male acquaintances (not as
fanatic as a *few* of the men I know, but more fanatic than I am).

Merilyn, what's the sex ratio of the people who came to look at your
Black-throated Blue Warbler?

Dennis,
The ratio of males vs. females who have visited here and observed the
Black-throated Blue is just about dead even. Although some 275 people
have seen the bird, I could only positively identify 250 (some people
only wrote their first initials or handwriting was difficult to read).
At any rate, I counted 128 males/121 females, about 50/50.
Interesting? Competitive? I doubt it. I think that more birders only
compete against themselves, either by numerous listing
(year/state/ABA/foreign/or what-have-you.
Enough! Merilyn