Do you even bird, Bro?
Birders, or more commonly known to the “unknowing” public as “bird-watchers”, are an interesting lot.
Know that what I am about to say comes from being a birder and having interacted many times over the years with birders and non-birders alike.
Being a birder is a passionate pursuit that requires years of learning bird behavior, identification, sounds, and patterns. There are many early mornings, late nights, and long days involved in the pursuit. It’s taken me years of work to get to where I can go out and know most birds that I see without leafing thru a field guide or calling a friend.
GBH - early morning misty sunrise
Watching the morning light break, with a symphony of birds and fantastic beauty, is a way that everyone should start their day. Mornings like that are almost meditative to me, and allow me to forget all about work, life’s issues, and all the rest of the things I should be doing. It’s one of my favorite things to do in life, and I am very protective of keeping that way. More on that later.
An AI rendition of the infamous Red Headed Eagle
I’ve noticed that birders, including myself, are often guilty of being somewhat condescending to the general public when interacting with them about birds. I don’t mean to be, but sometimes it just happens. I remember a few years ago when I was at Englewood MetroPark and an older couple approached me while I was photographing some Great Egrets. The man told me that they had seen a Red-Headed Eagle just a few minutes before and I should go a little further South in the park to see it. I politely (well, I thought I was being polite) explained to them that they probably saw a Turkey Vulture, and that there was no such thing as Red-Headed Eagles, at least not around here that I knew of. That didn’t sit well with him, and he told me that “I saw what I saw” and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I started to try to explain the difference between the two species in an effort to “educate” them, but I just dug the hole deeper and probably to this day they still talk about the jerk with the huge camera that called them liars. I did no such thing, of course, but when people see something, and they think they are certain what they saw, they get angry when someone tries to tell them that they are wrong.
Ivory-Billed on a hood - an image I generated in Photoshop AI
Last year there were several supposed “sightings” of a rare Ivory Billed Woodpecker in the greater Dayton area, and the local Facebook pages were filled with people talking about their potential sightings. As you may or may not know, the Ivory Billed has been considered to be extinct for many years and, also, its habitat was nowhere near here originally. When someone on one of those pages said they saw one sitting on a car at night while they were driving, I politely told them that they were incorrect. I went on to state that even as a trained birder, even I have problems ID’ing birds at speed from a car at night, and that the best practice in identification is to consider the most likely bird —the Pileated Woodpecker. This rational thought and communication won me no prizes, and in fact the mob of people with pitchforks who were indignant about my comments became too great for me to deal with. So I just deleted my comment.
So, obviously our problem as birders is our communication with the non-birding public, correct? Well, no. We are equally bad at talking to each other. Maybe even worse.
A few weeks ago I was spending an early morning at one of my favorite spots when another birder arrived at the location and eventually approached me. I could tell that he was more of a hardcore birder than myself - the fishing vest and binoculars were the give-away. No camera.
Here’s how the conversation went.
HIM: What have you seen today? (note - no hello, greeting, or niceties like normal people)
ME: Good morning! Well I saw a Summer Tanager and ………. (I said a lot of other bird names as well, but that’s not important).
HIM: Well its a little early for a Summer Tanager, maybe you got the ID wrong? Are you certain its not a male Northern Cardinal? They can be bright this time of year. Can I see your image?
ME: (starting to get annoyed already while I am scrolling thru the images on the back of the camera) - Here it is.
HIM: Huh, OK, where is the exact spot you saw him. I don’t have one yet this year.
ME: (by this time I just want to get away to photograph more birds) - Over there near where that Redbud tree.
HIM: Thanks. I’m Bob Smith (name changed to protect the guilty).
ME: You’re welcome. I’m Jeremy Mudd.
HIM: (turns head while he is looking confused at me) - Hmmmm. Are you new to birding? I haven’t seen your name on eBird for this location or any others in the area.
ME: I don’t use eBird.
HIM: Don’t use eBird?!!!!???? How do you let other birders know what you’ve seen in a hotspot? How do you record your numbers and types of birds you see at each location? How do you compare yourself to other birders?
Summer Tanager (male)
By this point I was fully annoyed and politely excused myself out of the discussion with something about I was running late and had to get home to the wife. During the half hour drive home I contemplated what had occurred.
First, let me say that eBird is a valuable tool for birders and citizen science. It’s a great way to keep track of the birds seen in a certain area and enables data to be collected that may help with conservation. That said, to me, it is a lot of work. Entering data for every bird seen at every location takes a lot of time. For those who are keeping track of what they’ve seen in every location, county, day, month, year, etc - it’s great. But for me - someone who loves photographing birds and seeing new species, its not for me. I’ve entered counts on eBird for citizen science projects like the Crane Count and Backyard Bird Count, but I’m just not doing it every day. I keep a logbook of the species that I’ve seen, but I don’t count and don’t keep any sort of other record. If its a new bird for me, it goes in the book, and I move on.
An image of “Bob” that I generated with Photoshop AI
Making something into a chore is a sure-fire way of making me stop liking to do it. I enjoy the Spring and Fall migrations, but the rest of the year I am photographing other subjects. I love birding when I do it - and don’t want to spoil that. And, more importantly I’m a grown man that’s not in competition with other birders. There’s no quest for me to be on top of any count-list on eBird. And I’m perfectly happy with that.
The next time I run into another “Bob” while out in the field, I’ll try to politely explain that to him.
Thanks for reading,
Jeremy
