On 24 Mar 00, at 15:27, Jacki Bricker wrote:

> 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.

> 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?
I keep binoculars in my car, and scan for birds and take two hour side trips -
I thought this was perfectly normal behavior.
We do have a more relaxed life list. Even though I didn't record it at the time,
If I remember that I saw a Violaceous Trogon about 20 years ago somewhere
in Belize, I ticked it off a life life I started about 10 years ago. it doesn't
matter to me what day or what ruin, or what sex it was.
Clarice Clark
Puyallup, WA. 98371
mailto:jbroadus at seanet.com