I just had to jump in and respond to issue at hand. My husband, Arden and I
have been birding basically since September 1, 1979 when we received our
first Golden Guide to Birds of North American from my mother for an
Anniversary gift. We took vacations with our children as they grew up and
added bird spieces to our life list as we saw them. As time went by, and the
kids outgrew the the interest in our vacations, we eventually started taking
birding vacations around the country with "touristy things" as a sideline. I
don't see where this is any different then taking vacations for the sake of
taking a vacation which many people do. We fortunately live in an area (the
Pacific NW) where many rarites occur within a few hours of our home. We do
not fly cross country for the sake of chasing a rare bird per say. We have
many rare birds in parts of the country that were included in our vacation
for that year. We were so close to getting 700 ABA species and decided to
make an effort to reach that goal by September 1, 2009 which was for us 30
years of birding. We did so last spring when we took a vacation to Colorado
in April to see the Gunnison Sage-Grouse and the Lesser Prairie-Chicken. Our
birding vacations have taken us to parts of the country and world that we
may never have gone on our own. We've seen some pretty spectacular sites. We
would have taken vacations anyway had we not been into birding. The birding
has made us aware of the environmental duty each of us have to this earth. I
would say that we contribute more to save our environment by being birders
than your every day vacationer. We are greatly involved in our local Audubon
chapter by teaching classes, taking on board duties, producing the
newsletter & website, doing programs for the club, leading field trips, fund
raising, etc. We are also supporters of the Nature Conservancy, fully
believing in their cause to purchase land to save wildlife. We've tried to
give back rather than just be "takers".

Having reached 700 species, people ask us if we are going after 800. We tell
them we really doubt it, we do not have the resources to "chase" the now
hard to get species. We will definitely add to our list as the situation
presents itself but we won't be flying off every time a rarity occurs across
the country just to do so. We may reach 750 but it will be a challenge and
birding in the rest of the world is fun too and much more "bang for the
buck". People say we should write a book about our experiences. We have some
wild stories to tell over 30 years of birding.


Sherry Hagen
Vancouver, WA
littlebirder at pacifier.com