Personally I am very disappointed to see such a post on this list. Every
hobby/pursuit/passion has a wide range of "practitioners", who can afford
varying ranges of equipment, be it in this case camera gear or
binoculars/scopes. By the way, if memory serves there are a fair number of
binoculars/scopes that easily match your $2,000 figure.

What I find most offensive are small minded people like this who would make such
a comment on this list, as those are the folks who really do a huge disservice
to the community, be it the "pure" birders, the hybrids or even the simple
casual observer who marvels at even the distant site of a Bald Eagle.

While some may find this a "humorous" start to the day, I find it just another
example of "rude and crude".

Quoting Ryan Shaw <rtshaw80 at hotmail.com>:

>
> A few issues I have with this post, though it is very funny:
>
>
> From: Jile Hulme-deborchgro <jilehulmedeborchgro AT yahoo.com>
> Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 23:03:01 -0800 (PST)
> Am I the only one who wants to puke whenever a brigade of "birders" show up
> with
>
> a bunch of $2000 cameras with big honkin'-ass lenses?
>
> Aren't we birdWATCHERS first and foremost? Shouldn't we leave the picturing
> to
> the the likes of National Geographic? I just want to chase down a rare bird
> for
>
> once and find people with BINOCULARS ONLY.