Here's a forward from BIRDCHAT (beat you to it, Dan) by Peter Rauch, one of
our regular contributors. It's a wonderful essay on being a birder, stuff
I have been trying to express to the local birding community for years (but
not so well). I hope anyone who is moved by it will take the time to thank
Byron personally.
>- - - - - -
>Date: Mon, 23 Jan 1995 20:13:27 -0500
>From: "Byron Butler (GD 1995)" <bbutler at MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU>
>Subject: On lists and listing
>To: Multiple recipients of list BIRDCHAT
> <BIRDCHAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>
>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.
>
>

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416