Scott et al,

I noticed your reference to Audubon members in the state. As a past
membership chair of East Lake WA Audubon, I can say that less than 200 of
our approximately 1200 members are active on a local level. Most of our
members are merely Audubon magazine subscribers that happen to live in our
zip code territory.

Lou Ann Harris
Bellevue, WA

on 1/27/05 3:15 PM, Scott Downes at downess at charter.net wrote:

> Tweets,
>
> I know the serious birder topic was covered fairly well some time ago, but
> I'd like to put my two cents in. I agree with Joe that we need to rethink
> what is referred to as a serious birder or even a birder. If my
> understanding of the original survey was correct, the intent was to
> determine how many people are interested enough in birds that they travel at
> least a mile to look at birds. These numbers represent how many people are
> spending dollars, time and interest in observing birds vs. other activities.
> While I personally list on a rather serious basis, does this make me a more
> serious birder than somebody who chooses not to but does spend just as much
> time observing birds? Along the same lines, I'd consider most if not all
> bird biologists (of which I am one) birders, and few would consider
> themselves to be listers or rarity chasers.
> I also personally know a lot of friends that will look at birds on a hike
> and try to identify them, with varying results. They are spending money for
> the purpose of seeing birds and probably a lot of these less "serious"
> birders are trying to protect habitat and species as much as many of us more
> "serious" birders.
> As a good example, think of how many people in the state probably belong to
> one of the Audubon chapters. Now think of how many of those people traveled
> to see the Redwing. I'd personally bet it's less than 10%. Does it really
> matter if you have spent over a 1000.00 on optics, travel 3-4000 miles a
> year birding in the state or know the exact count of your various lists by
> heart? I'd be willing many of the non "serious" birders we are debating
> about here on whether they should be counted or not care just as much as
> many of the listers on what really counts in the end, protecting and
> preserving those species so that kids 50 years from now can still decide
> what side of the listing fence they want to fall on.
>
> May we all enjoying those observations, list or no list.
>
> Scott Downes
> downess at charter.net
> Yakima WA
>
>
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