Here's another post from Birding-Australia that seems worth passing
on. Like me, you don't know any of these people, so you can read it
for the philosophical content.

>David Geering wrote:
>
> > At this stage I haven't heard what the group saw after they left
>me at Burrendong but at the time when we parted company we had
>notched up something like 120 species. Not a huge tally but this
>was not a group of twitchers, probably more interested in spending
>time watching Red-rumped Parrots feeding than trying to find new
>birds.
>
>Hi all,
>
>I read David Geering's sign-off from his trip report from Dubbo with
>some interest, and would like to make a few comments for the public
>record.
>
>A few preparatory remarks are in order. First, I don't wish my
>comments to stir up the kind of personal rancour that periodically
>surfaces on birding-aus (thankfully all has been quiet on that front
>for some time; I just hope I don't speak too soon). Second, I
>appreciate that for many people on the list, the pros and cons of
>twitching is rather old hat: if so, look away now.
>
>Personally though, I think it's time for a considered reprise of
>some of these issues. While David's remarks in isolation are hardly
>offensive, the disdain for twitching and twitchers implied within
>them (and, it must be said, a series of earlier posts) deserve
>closer scrutiny.
>
>The obvious and shortest reply, of course, would be to say simply
>that twitchers may take as much delight in the feeding behaviour as
>a Red-rumped Parrot as any other birder. I understand why David and
>others would doubt that, and I would happily concede, were a
>Turquoise Parrot feeding right next to it, I would choose to watch
>the Turk over the Red-rump. The reality, though, is that I have yet
>to meet a birder who is in the game purely for the numbers. Lists
>are fun, but without exception, the birders I've met were drawn to
>birding by the beauty of birds.
>
>If twitching can be defined simply as the pursuit of rare birds (as
>Mark Cocker does in his excellent book Birders: Tales of a Tribe),
>then to a degree we are surely all twitchers. When David talks of
>visiting specific locations to visit Plum-headed Finches and Glossy
>Black-Cockatoos around Dubbo, isn't that a kind of twitching? I hate
>to generalise - my hatred of rank generalisations is what has
>prompted this post - but I'd wager this much at least is true: all
>birders like to see new birds.
>
>Of course, it's the degree to which different people are prepared to
>go to see new birds is what inspires passionate debate (and makes
>for some of the best birding stories - see Cocker again).
>
>David has had plenty of experience, of course, with the minority of
>birders - and it is a small minority - who, in their desperation to
>see Regent Honeyeaters, have made his job more difficult (and give
>other birders a bad name) by trespassing on private land. Others,
>notably Terry Pacey, have reported horror stories of thoughtless
>birders who trample through the nesting habitat of vulnerable
>species.
>
>David, Terry and others will, I am sure, call these people
>twitchers. I actually hesitate to even call them birders. While I
>can understand their anger in the face of such behaviour, it is
>unfair to project the failings of a few onto the many.
>
>What I find really annoying about the constant sniping at twitching,
>though, is the snob factor. This of course is by no means unique to
>David's postings, but I'll draw on the above for the sake of
>example: the innuendo that watching the feeding behaviour of a
>common species is somehow more morally virtuous than the pursuit of
>others. I don't see how this follows. To argue the point purely on
>David's terms for a moment, if I was surveying an area for the atlas
>over a set period, I would consciously try to cover as much ground
>(and thus see as many species as possible) in the alloted time. But
>just as importantly, I don't see why such a crude hierarchy between
>twitchers on one hand and supposedly "serious" birders on the other
>(as if twitchers can't be serious!) need exist at all.
>
>I offer as an example Australia's two highest-profile twitchers,
>Mike Carter and Tony Palliser, who for years occupied positions one
>and two on the list of Australian birders' totals. They have
>already seen all bar one of the resident species in Australia, and
>their chances of seeing new birds on home soil rests almost entirely
>on twitching (and finding) vagrants from foreign shores. (I say
>almost, because I have often joked what both will do should they
>ever see a Night Parrot.)
>
>Now, Mike and Tony may go on anywhere between zero and five trips a
>year twitching new arrivals to these shores, most recently the
>Isabelline Wheatear that turned up in north Queensland last
>December. Does that mean they can no longer be bothered going
>birding elsewhere in Australia? Of course not - I'm sure that, when
>time allows, they are as happy to go birding in their local patch as
>anyone, and they may even spare an idle moment to watch those
>feeding Red-rumped Parrots.
>
>What are they doing the rest of the time? Well, the expertise of
>both has been put to good use on the Birds Australia Rarities
>Committee, into which both pour an enormous amount of personal
>effort - as volunteers. Tony fits this in around his own full-time
>work schedule, as do others on the committee. Here lies another
>factor: some of us, believe it or not, have lives outside of
>birding, and we individually structure our down-time in a way that
>provides the most meaning and pleasure to our lives. And how people
>choose to spend their leisure time is entirely their business.
>
>Mike and Tony hardly need defending from me, and this argument is of
>course in no way about them personally. They merely have the biggest
>(Australian) lists. But they are also good illustrations of the
>shallowness of the twitching stereotype, and they are far from alone.
>
>This has become a long post, and it's time I wrapped up. In closing,
>and for what it's worth, I admire David's personal and professional
>devotion to birds; he is a fine field observer and a tremendously
>hard worker. But I can't resist quoting from Cocker one more time:
>"My hope is that there will come a day when the birding tribe is not
>divided up into little sub-clans, least of all by ourselves. Nor
>should we hunker down in narrow little shells, peering disdainfully
>at the neighbours for small differences of approach. Birders should
>be seen, and should view themselves, as heterogeneous, pluralist and
>multi-faceted. In my book we should all be fair game for Roger Tory
>Peterson's famous Oystercatcher at Hilbre - a beast that eats most
>any kind of mollusc."
>
>Over and out
>
>Cheers
>
>Andrew Stafford
>editor, Twitcher's Corner
>Wingspan