Hi,
Here is the reply from Mike Patterson.

Ruth Sullivan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Patterson" <celata at pacifier.com>
To: "Obol" <obol at lists.orst.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 10:04 AM
Subject: [obol] Why I always listen to Paul Sullivan


> Paul wrote
> > OK. I'm hanging up my binoluclars.
> >
> > I can't tell an adult peep from a juvenile, I just never got into the
aging
> > sandpipers thing..... So I can't report Western or Semipalmated
> > Sandpipers. Yes, I know enough to not rely on the bill length. I'd
never
> > make that my criterion.
>
> Those who follow the newsgroup sci.skeptic will recognize this as a troll.
> Paul may not have known what to call it, but that's different than saying
> Paul didn't know what he was doing. I suspect Paul's relationship with
> sandpipers is much the same. He's way too experienced (and dare I say too
> good) not to be able to recognize adult basic, adult alternate and juvenal
> plumages. But for whatever reason, he chooses not to call them that.
>
> No, Paul's real question is (and it is a very good question) why do I have
> to bird the way Dave or Dave or Mike or Greg or Craig or Jeff or Tom
> or whoever say I do? Who are these guys to tell me how to bird?
>
> The short answer is: you don't.
>
> The long answer is: We (and Paul is as much a member of this collective
> We as anyone) are what our mentors were to us, a combination of wisedom
> and
> stodginess. There are things we know that are almost certainly true,
> things that are probably true, things that might be true, and things which
> will almost certainly be shown to be untrue. We don't always know which
> of these things are which and we are often just as likely to defend the
> things which are untrue as the things that are.
>
> We are the people we learned from as "young turks" and, sadly, sometimes
> laughed at when they couldn't keep up. We've become our parents.
>
> If you were to go out and spend the day watching shorebirds with Paul,
> you'd probably learn a lot about shorebird identification. You'd learn
> that it is useful to have an understanding of the range of variations
> possible in Western Sandpiper plumage in order to recognize the odd ones
> and you'd learn it without the jargon.
>
> If you were to go out with one or both of the Daves, you'd probably hear
> about rufous fringes and cheverons, shapes of feather center patterns,
> molt sequence, phenology and that these can be used to recognize the odd
> ones. You'd learn about shorebirds and the slew of technical words most
> commonly used to describe them.
>
> Some people want to know; some people want to be.
>
> Students of cognitive theory may choose to call this right brain vs.
> left brain. I call it teaching style.
>
> The bottom line, I think sorting to age class is important, because I
> think it's important. If you don't, spend the day with Paul. If you
> think I spend too much time trying to identify the annelid the plover
> is eating and not enough time on the range of variation in the
> ratio of the tarsus to the culmen or if the feather centers are supposed
> to reach to the finge or not.... well I'm sure there's a stodgy, but
> wise old fart out there for you, too.
>
> And isn't it nice to have choices?
>
> --
> Mike Patterson
> Astoria, OR
> celata at pacifier.com
>
> I do not know which to prefer,
> The beauty of inflections
> Or the beauty of innuendoes,
> The blackbird whistling
> Or just after.
>
> - Wallace Stevens
>
> http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html
>
>