I guess I've always felt that birders as a group were just a little bit better than non-birders. But, that's as far as my own light brand of bigotry goes. Personally, I've always been pleased to learn that a birder I ran into while birding had a different background than my own. Notably, I've run into several truckers while birding, all of whom impressed me as kindred spirits when it came to their appreciation of nature and birds. I met one truck driver in the Cascades who said he frequently took back roads in order to stop and bird and rejuvenate his spirit. I knew just what he meant. His educational background was entirely unimportant to me. While in Brownsville, Texas a met woman who called herself "The Bird Lady of Brownsville", after the title of an article that was written about her in a local newspaper. She is a Puerto Rican hispoblanda, who was trying to effect some changes for the protection of birds in the city of Brownsville. Her English was halting, her understanding of environmental regulations rudimentary, but getting better, and her battle decidedly uphill, but she had a heart as big as Texas, and her excitement was infectious. She was precisely the kind of person I would want to have on my Audubon committee, if I weren't too lazy to volunteer for such a committee myself. The Bird Lady of Brownsville emailed me a "Happy New Year" card the other day and mysteriously mentioned that there were some new positive developments in her efforts. That made me smile, as it likely would any one of you, because you are also birders, and therefore, in my mind, just a little better than non-birders.