I don't really want to get too deeply into the esoterica of what
I think Charlie and Cameron are talking about, except to say that
we old fogies understand what you're talking about more than you
give us credit for.

Anyone who owns a 2nd edition Peterson can see that ID by general
shape and impression is neither new or innovative. The longer
one looks at birds the less time one has to spend looking at them
to figure out what they are. We learn to see birds on the right
side of our brains. We build up pattern recognition sets that are
akin to the wiring we use for recognizing faces. We see all the
pieces together and we can do so with what some might say is mystical
speed and accuracy.

There has been an effort over the last 10 or so years to deconstruct
this ability and communicate it to others. That's where all this
gulls by structure stuff comes from and in my opinion it over-simplifies
a complex problem. And by complex problem I don't mean gull ID. I
mean teaching to the right side of the brain. We learn on the right
side of our brains best by doing, not by being told how to do. Charlie
and Cameron are good at holistic birding because they do it all the
time and they started at a young age. It makes perfect sense if you
have the skills. It's frustrating and abstruse if you don't.

They told me all this stuff in teacher school, but I didn't figure out
how to use until I'd been teaching for 5 or 6 years. You start with
the fundamentals and build to the intuitive.

--
Mike Patterson
Astoria, OR
celata at pacifier.com

When bad photos happen to good birds
http://www.surfbirds.com/blogs/mbalame/archives/2008/03/photo20080313.html