From: Byron K. Butler, Guilford, CT

Nick Barber, who I believe is 12 years old and soon to become the most
curious of all known species, the teenager :-), asked the seminal
question about rules governing acceptable birds on one's list.

Responses to Nick's query began with straight forward and correct
explanations for keeping a lists according to ABA rules for competitive
listing and also for keeping personal lists where one can create his or
her own rules. Then the listing thread turned to silly/idiotic lists,
dream lists, etc. All of these concepts of lists have in common the
notion that the list (whatever it may be, life, year, state, yard, poop,
etc.) is an end product of the birding experience. That is, there is an
assumption that the primary motive for going birding is to produce a
list, to maintain it, to further its development, and that once this is
done there is nothing further to do in the field.

Here I would like to offer an alternative view of why one should keep a
list. I should also reiterate up front that although I am not a supporter
of competitive listing and therefore do not refer to myself as a lister,
I do keep lists of all kinds and encourage others to do so also. In my
conception the list is not an end product, rather it is a necessary tool
for a good program of bird study.

An analogy is that a bird list is to an ornithologist (amateur or pro)
what a ratchet and socket set is to an auto mechanic. No one would expect
a mechanic to buy a socket set just to own it, they buy them to work on
engines which is their real goal. We all know that mechanics are darn
proud of their tools and often buy unnecessary ones just to build their
collection. Nevertheless, a mechanic with an impressive tool chest but
no engines on which to work is a rather pitiful sight. Being able to make
engines run the way they were designed to run is what being a mechanic is
all about. Being a mechanic is *not* about collecting tools.

A birder with an impressive life list but with no knowledge of bird lore
and no idea of how to use The List as a tool to acquire knowledge of
the life histories of birds is similar to the mechanic with a great
collection of tools but without an engine to work on. Ornithology is
about the study of birds, not about the maintenance of a list or a series
of lists. More importantly the entire field experience is enhanced by a
knowledge of birds and this makes bird study much more fun than listing.
In the past few years I've witnessed a large number of birders who have
driven hours to sites where a target bird occurs, to spend only the 10 to
20 minutes necessary to get that all important life tick. They focus just
on bird identification then leave without further observation of the
bird's behavior, the habitat, etc.

I've often wondered about this peculiar behavior of birders. Why spend
the time and money to identify a bird then leave before studying it
further? My conclusion is that once the bird has been identified birders
simply do not know what else to do with it. In order to study a bird
further one has to be prepared to ask the right questions and to know how
to make the proper observations. No one is born knowing how to do this,
it requires training, and most birders do not know where to go to get
this training. Another problem is that some work is required to develop
these skills and this is antithetical to the reason why many people take
up birding in the first place. Many birders are probably in the field for
purely recreational purposes and do not welcome the additional pressure
of having to work against an uphill grade in order to learn bird lore. An
additional complexity is that bird study is often considered too
"scientific" and we live in a very anti-science culture right now where
there are strong feelings that science is too hard to understand for the
average person.

I wish I could find the right words to explain than none of these
perceptions are correct. Bird study does require a little bit of work,
but this is minimal and it is not difficult. Mostly it just involves
reading non-technical descriptive studies of birds which are easy to
understand without any background in biology at all. Of course, one *can*
get very scientific about bird study, but this really isn't necessary for
the amateur birder.

Young people like Nick need role models to immulate. Unfortunately, in
ornithology we have only two really visible role models. One is the
professional scientist which, as we have seen in the recent threads on
collecting, is portrayed negatively by as either a wanton killer of
nature's beauty or as an arrogant SOB who has no respect for amateur
birders (neither portrayal is correct btw). The other is the competitive
lister to whom The List is an end product. How nice it would be if we had
a third alternative, the amateur to whom the list is a tool to advance
his/her study of life history, ecology, behavior, and biology of birds
without the requirement of advanced scientific studies. Actually this is
very easy to do.

So, for Nick, and others, I offer this alternative. Begin with careful
notes in a well kept field logbook. This doesn't have to be too detailed.
Each entry should have the date, time, location, weather conditions,
notes on other relevant conditions, a description of the habitat, and a
list of the bird species detected with the numbers of individuals per
species. Then you can add any other notes you wish, like observations of
behavior, descriptions of plumages, and even drawings. The lists you
keep, whether life, year, yard, etc. are merely extracts of information
from your field logbook and amount to nothing more than different ways of
organizing the information in the logbook. The lists become tools to
facilitate your further study of birds and do not become end products of
the birding effort.

How well these lists assist you in the study of birds depends the rules
you choose for keeping the lists. The more rigid the rules, the better
the list will serve as a tool. This will also allow you to learn about
birds more quickly. Regarding Nick's question about heard only
shorebirds in flocks. I strongly urge birders to stay away from this
practice. This is not what the heard only rule was established to
accomplish and using the heard only rule in this manner will only help
develop poor birders. Shorbirds in a flock can be identified by visual
cues and this is much more reliable for most bird species. Remember, we
call this avocation bird"watching." Your sense of vision is far more
reliable than your sense of hearing since it is the primary sensory
modality of humans.

The concept of the list as a tool rather than as an end product has other
advantages. Mike Smith offers three "silly" lists he maintains: 1) list
of bird species whose nests he's found, 2) list of species whose chicks he
has banded, and 3) list of species he has seen copulating. I agree that
if the list is viewed simply as an end product these three lists may be
rather silly. However, if the list is viewed as an extract of organized
information from a field logbook and is to be used to further bird study
then I think these three lists are great ideas. Most of biology is about
reproduction and all three lists deal with reproduction in birds in some
form. If careful notes have been kept describing nests, nestlings, chicks
and courtship behaviour, including copulation (which btw is very
important from the biological standpoint and is not a perversion at all),
then Mike probably has a decided advantage on most ornithologists, amateur
and pro. We really know very little about the reproductive biology of
most species of birds. Right now the study of avian mating systems is one
of the hottest areas of ornithological study.

So, Nick, this message is mostly for you. At your young age you can still
chose which paths in life you wish to go down. Starting as early as you
are, at 12 years of age, you can easily develop into a leader in the
ornithological community, either as a professional or as an advanced
amateur, if you so desire. Whether you do so depends on your choice of
a role model. In an indirect manner your question about keeping lists is
a question about choosing a role model, it is appropriate that you are
asking this question now. I hope I can influence you to stay away from
the competitive lister who maintains lists as end products of a game as
your role model and that I can steer you to keeping lists as tools for
the far more rewarding study of birds.

As a final comment, Christine ??? (I lost the last name) stated that
ABAers are listening to BirdChat. If so I have a message for the ABA:
I think this is a fine organization and I am a proud member. ABA is doing
many things right and it is doing them well. However, I have one wish for
a change in the ABA and that is for it to do more to promote the "beyond
identification" aspects to sport birding. The ABA appears to me to be
dominated by the listing only faction to such a point that for most
beginning birders the *only* role model they see for amateur birding is
the competitive lister. I would like to see the ABA develop amateur bird
study and to create a visible role model for bird study as an alternative
to competitive listing. There are many birders right now that would
flourish in an environment of bird study but are made to feel like second
class citizens by listers because they do not have impressive life lists.
Many of these people are "backyard" birdwatchers who closely monitor
small geographic areas. The label "birder" has become more prestigeous
than "birdwatcher," but the "birdwatcher" is actually the true amateur
ornithologist.

===========================

Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 08:37:56 -0800
From: Susan Collicott <susan at PMEL.NOAA.GOV>

From: Byron K. Butler, Guilford, CT

>Responses to Nick's query began with straight forward and correct
>explanations for keeping a lists according to ABA rules for competitive
>listing and also for keeping personal lists where one can create his or
>her own rules. Then the listing thread turned to silly/idiotic lists,
>dream lists, etc. All of these concepts of lists have in common the
>notion that the list (whatever it may be, life, year, state, yard, poop,
>etc.) is an end product of the birding experience. That is, there is an
>assumption that the primary motive for going birding is to produce a
>list, to maintain it, to further its development, and that once this is
>done there is nothing further to do in the field.

Actually, Byron, I must (cordially) disagree with you. I certainly don't
consider my list as the end product of my birding experience. As I said
when I posted regarding my dreaming of lists, I use it as a reminder as to
where I saw what bird, so that after my birding trip, I can go back and study
the bird (plumage, bill, feeding habits, breeding range, habits, etc etc etc).
I have a "diary", with a list in the back. I list the bird, then that evening
I go back and fill in all the details I couldn't fill in (either because the
other members of the group couldn't wait, or I didn't want to try writing in
the car [ugh - makes me car sick!], or it was raining and I didn't want my
book to become soaked) in the field. The end product of my birding experience
is to have a nice time. I don't care if I never see a screaming piha or any
other "rare" bird. (Well, ok, I think after 30 years I might get bored with
just widgeons and starlings, but you know what I mean.)

I know 2 of the people who posted regarding lists, and I've gone birding with
both of them. They definitely don't regard their list as the end result! In
fact, on one trip I was the only one doing any listing, and I was doing it
because we were seeing so many dang birds, that there was no way I was going
to be able to remember all the wonderful things I saw that day! Even now, I
still haven't made it back to look up all the birds we saw that day - the
raptors alone took me about 3 days to fully document and log. I haven't even
started on the two species of swans that we saw. But I wouldn't have been
able to learn so much about the birds, if I wasn't keeping a list of when and
where I saw each bird.

Just wanted to peep up and say "not me! not me!" when accusations of not
enjoying birding itself pop up. And besides - to each her own. Perhaps some
people just need that "competitive edge" in order to get them out into the
field. That's fine with me. I'm not competing with anyone except my boss,
who won't let me go birdwatching instead of working!

Susan Collicott susan at pmel.noaa.gov
Computer Services, NOAA PMEL http://www.pmel.noaa.gov
Seattle, WA (206) 526-6755

========================

From: Thomas Love <tlove at CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU>

Ted Parker and I were comparing notes on tour leading to South America one
time. He told me (and I don't think he'd have objected to repeating this
story) about a tour group he'd taken to Tambopata (SE Peru). They hiked
out to the oxbow lake at the end of the main trail (about 5 km. if I
remember right), then the usual program of getting into the leaky canoe
and him paddling the group around the edges looking for various rarities.
On this occasion the group was out a ways when suddenly a Harpy Eagle took
off from one edge of the lake, with a monkey (Spider, I think) in its
talons. It sat for at least several minutes perched on a tree on the edge
of the cocha. People sat in stunned silence; a few even started crying it
was so incredible. Then one guy pipes up with "OK, Ted, now that you got
us the Harpy, where's the Sungrebe?"

Tom Love 45N, 123W
Dept. Soc/Anth
Linfield College
McMinnville, OR 97128
tlove at linfield.edu