Al Jaramillo gives us quite an eloquent account of why its
sometimes pretty hard to be a young (male) birder. Female birders too can
relate to a lot of his points about the teenage years: no car, no books,
no *good* binoculars, plus the whole sport is pretty dorky, right? As to
why there are so few female birders, I think there's an age factor here
that extends well beyond the teen years. I didn't take to birding till
well after 40 and most of the serious female birders I know didn't
either. Hard to figure out why that is, but Al's story about the adult
birder who couldn't stand contradiction brings a speculation to mind. I'm
now quite used to meeting male birders (including youthful ones) whose
condescension, competitiveness and intolerance of female contradiction is
enough to sour an otherwise very useful birding excursion. Perhaps it is
only after women reach middle age that they are able to shrug that sort
of thing off. Mind you, I meet a lot of great guys out there too. Still.




Another thing I've noticed with the unitiated women that I drag
along on birding expeditions is how easily their attention diffuses onto
all the other aspects of nature - the plant life, the beauty, the locally
plentiful mammal species, etc. - and away from the birds. I've left
behind a stream of converts to nature walks, but not that many converts
to birding. There's some key to becoming single-minded about those
feathers that seems to be missing. Who knows!

Harriet Whitehead
Washington State U.
whitehea at wsuaix.csc.wsu.edu