Oh dear. There it goes again sending before I have finished and checked the
spelling. As I was saying:

Tweets,
Since I am an avid birder, I have known a lot of them. Contrary to what my
good friend Gene Kridler has said on a number of occasions, I think that
most of them make a contribution to knowledge and to preservation of birds
and habitat. Some of them do tremendous things. One comes to mind who was a
tenured professor who gave that up to take a position of a part time
instructor at a university and spend most of his time going to rain forest
countries and working with their universities and raising money to support
ecological studies from those universities and graduate students from those
countries out of his pocket -- and out of his wife's salary. All because he
feels that preservation of rain forest will only happen when there is an
informed voice in those countries demanding they be saved. He will rush off
to see a bird that he has never seen, one new to his US list, one new to
the state list. If he is between foreign forays, he will go out on a
general birding expedition and be the best of company. I admire him deeply
and I also admire the contribution that Gene has made over the years.
Few birders make this much of a contribution but most are members of
consevation organizations with expensive dues and frequent appeals for more
money. Many also contribute to the running of those organizations by being
foot soldiers in the organization.
Many of the persons doing the bulk of the conservation work being done in
the local Audubon Chapters that I have known are indifferent birders or not
birders at all. There is no close correlation at all.
But even if birders made no contribution at all, what is wrong with that?
It is much less harmful to the enviroment and humanity than spending the
day at a bar, coming home and beating up your wife. I say if people want to
knock little white balls around a lawn -- let them. It is better than
having the land
all in fifth of an acre housing developments. In other words, if it does
not harm anyone including the enviroment I am all for what people find
enjoyable.


Bob Norton
Joyce (near Port Angeles), WA
norton36 at olypen.com