Okay, I'm hooked. It's time to hold an official intervention.

I've been casually bird watching for most of my life, since I was a kid.
Over the past few years, I'd mused periodically about actually recording
my sightings in some kind of "official" record, along with a list of which
birds I'd photographed.

This year, I decided to get "serious" about it, and start keeping a log of
official sightings in an Excel spreadsheet. I've been recording all the
relevant information I can think of, as well as extra comments, or
whatnot.

I'm addicted. I need help. ;-]

Now I notice myself going out on hour-long hikes during my lunch break,
instead of eating. I "bird" from my office window and the car windows
(which is problematic when I'm driving). I can't help it, despite my
better judgment. I keep a pair of binoculars in my car, and take them
into work with me.

The worst part about it is seeing a bird I know is not yet on my list, yet
not being able to positively identify it (bad light, I'm driving and can't
stop). I can't tell you how frustrated I was last week when a FALCON flew
over my building, and I got a glimpse of it out my office window. I know
it was a falcon, yet I couldn't ID the species. Thus, no sighting. Damn.

I know it's paranoid and ludicrous, but since I've been keeping my eyes
open and really trying to "bag" them, the birds have been more elusive
than I've ever seen (or not, as it were). I am either only able to get a
bare glimpse of them before they take off, or no glimpse at all. When I
wasn't listing them, they seemed to be everywhere.

What's most frustrating to me is the HUGE number of birds I have already
seen in the wild in my past, yet cannot "count" them because I do not have
specific dates and/or locations associated with those sightings.

I am now avian-obsessed. I can't wait for my next birding trip. I was
two hours late getting to Canada yesterday because I had an irrepressible
urge to check out the happenings on the Skagit mud flats. It's
remarkable. I've never been an addictive sort before...

Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon, once they started an actual
life list?

-Jacki Bricker
Woodinville, Washington