>This is not a flame just a suggestion:
>Please do not call $10 per person bus trips ridiculously cheap! that
>adds up to $20 for two and with many trips during the week it adds up to
>quite a bit of money for those on fixed incomes. If it was any more
>expensive I would not have gone to Harlingen last year! "Inexpensive" or
>"reasonable" might be better otherwise birding festivals might get the
>idea that they should charge $15 to $20 per person to ride on the bus.
>Incidentally there is a nice write-up on Father Tom in the July/August
>1996 issue of Birdwatchers Digest pp.112 Hans
>IT'S BETTER TO BE A WING-NUT THAN A DEAD-BOLT

Dear Hans, Of course you're right that cheap is a relative
concept, and ridiculous even more so. Nevertheless, I stand
by my original description, though I will qualify it
(and should have done so from the start) as my own
perception.

Here's why I used that phrase in the first place:
The bus ride was not just a short jaunt on a bus. It took
us two hours of Texas-style high-speed driving to get
to the first site--God knows how many miles that translates
into, but it was over 100. Once there, we spent
two hours on private lands scouting birds, along with the
constant and expert help of two guides.

Then we got back on the bus and continued
our sojourn for another two hours, stopping at various
places on the way to Falcon. The bus driver was highly
skilled (a 30-year veteran) and got us in to places I
would never go even with a four-wheel-drive Jeep. Even
he got stuck once, in the Salineno Dump, where we were
trying to get a good view of Crested Caracaras. We did
see the caracaras, but the driver had to BACK out
of the dump, along hairpin turns in thick mud with sheer
drops and no guardrails.

Altogether, the trip lasted 8 hours.

According to Harlingen festival organizers, they don't want
to make money on the festival itself. Instead, they
want to attract as many birders as possible to the area.
Once there, they expect us birders to spend money on
hotels, meals, car rentals, souvenirs, gasoline and
other travel opportunities. The appeal to the community
at large is just that: that birders will travel to
see wonderful birds and they will spend money in the
communities once they arrive. It is this influx of
money into the general economy that allows the local
birders to advocate for habitat and species preservation.

I think the Harlingen birders will always keep the
festival workshops and bus trips at a price that covers
their own costs but doesn't make a profit per se. I suspect
that if overall costs go up, the first people they will
target for price increases will be booth operators, who
pay to stage exhibits to showcase their wares.

Considering that it costs $7 these days to see a movie,
$12 for a pizza, $25 for a tank of gas, and $50 for a
handyperson to come out and look at my toilet only to
inform me that I need a new one...yes, I consider $10
for my Falcon trip "ridiculously cheap."