As we approach CBC season again, I think it's important to take a collective
look at ourselves and ask just what we are doing in these winter adventures.
Dennis Paulson once wrote a wonderful essay about this on Tweeters, and I
saved it but can't find it now. Maybe Dennis would like to send it again.
Since I haven't read Dennis's essay recently, I won't want to pretend to be
reflecting his views; this is just from me.

My concern arises when one of our fellow Tweets writes, "Please plan to join
us [on a local CBC], as we try to build on our 104 species count last year."
Let me emphasize that I don't know the writer and that this isn't a personal
issue. I chose to respond to that sentence because it reflects a disturbing
attitude--that CBCs are just another variety of Birdathon or Big Day or some
other birding event where the purpose is competition, both competition with
previous counts and with other CBCs. But CBCs are supposed to a kind of
research event--granted, rather informal and even somewhat sloppy research,
but research nevertheless. Their functions are to provide information about
migration, wintering patterns, perhaps patterns of eruption of northern
species, and also the condition of the local environment. The same message
I'm quoting here went on to say, "Our counts are not only about birds, but
networking with kindred spirits and monitoring the condition of our
environment and bird habitat over time." And I applaud that. That's
exactly right:
"monitoring the condition of our environment and bird habitat over time."
But if people organize CBCs with the primary thought that "we've got to beat
our old record" or "we've got to beat the guys in the neighboring area," the
event gets subtly corrupted. That's the attitude that makes people go out
for days before the event to find and stake out unusual species so they can
be counted on the official day. It makes people spend their time trying to
pick up particularly "good" birds in special areas rather than trying to get
a broad count of the more ordinary birds, so someone can eventually compile
results, calculate individuals per person-mile, and draw some conclusions
about the behavior of the birds. Please remember that it's the behavior of
the _birds_ we're interested in, not the behavior of the _birders._ A
Christmas count ought to be done in the same way every year, to track
changes in populations, and not to locate the few unusual species that will
simply raise the count.

Burt Guttman guttmanb at evergreen.edu
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 360-456-8447
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S.E., Olympia 98503

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