A study published by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 2003 Birding in the United States: a demographic and economic analysis claimed that there were 46 million birders in the US. This works out to something near 20% of the population which by anyone's calculus is a lot of birdwatchers. There was a surprising reaction from a subset of the American birding population which was: No there isn't.
A flat-out, unapologetic denial.
Why? you might ask.
Well, it turns out that this group does not agree with the USFWS definition of what a "birder" is which was "...an individual [who has] either taken a trip a mile or more from home for the primary purpose of observing birds and/or closely observed or tried to identify bird around the home." This is a very broad definition, to say the least, but it's not necessarily a bad definition.
The basic problem bubbles up regularly in birder chat groups usually in disguise. Most recently the topic popped up on ID-frontiers, a newgroup usually devoted to discussions of thorny ID questions (usually revolving around larids), under the subject heading "Birding Skills" and eventually degenerated into a slug-fest as people impuned each others ability in the attempt to define what a birder is.
"Birders" parted company with "bird-watchers" back in the late-60's and early-70's. Mostly this new breed was looking to disassociate themselves from the oft-stereotyped, tweedy eccentrics and little old ladies most people associated with the hobby of bird-watching. Birders were serious students of bird identification who traveled the world looking for birds. Nuance was valued. Skill was measured by depth of knowledge of arcane plumage variations, feather details and structural subtlties. But most birders weren't ornithologists in the academic sense. The goal was to identify birds, not necessarily to understand them. Special focus was placed on rarities, vagrants and the hopelessly lost species that accidently turn up. From an academic point of view there's not much value in a vagrant out of its ecological context. From a birder's perspective a vagrant is one more tick for the lifelist (state list, county list , yard list, etc) and especially cool if others don't have it. Birding was meant to be competetive.
Beginning in the 1980's, folks began watching birds (often coming to the hobby later in life) for reasons less focused on rigorous ID based traditional birding. Lists were still kept, but not with the same kind of rabid furvor. Many of these new folk were perfectly content to have others do the identifying for them on field trips. They were interested in being outside, hanging out with others whoo appreciated open spaces. Environmentalists began showing up at local Audubon and Natural History Society meeting calling themselves birders and occasionally suggesting that other birders were too often environmentally insensitive when pursuing those ticks. Even the American Birding Association made a big swing toward the birders-as-conservationists demographic in the mid-90's. It made perfect business sense, but there was a hew and cry, much gnashing of teeth, many cancelled memberships.
To a rabid, ID-focused few, opening up the definition of what a birder is has diluted the very essence of birding. It's difficult to compare one's prowess with others if one can't tell the difference between the folks who "earned" their list through hard work and those who bought all their ticks by going on birding tours and having someone point stuff out.
So, there's the truth of it. Some birders are elitist snobs. Is anybody really surprised?
Maybe it's time to invent a new name for this elite core of birders, because they aren't going to be able to take "birder" back and it's time to get over it. I started out in the early 1970's. I am ID-focused. I have a respectible lifelist. I can hold my own in a pissing contest. But I'm also a big tent kind of guy. Sure, I get frustrated by folks who can't tell House Finches from Purple Finches or insist they saw a flock of 20 Yellow-billed Loons in a place where one bird would require rare bird documentation (and then refuse to write any kind of documentation). There is strength in numbers. If calling 20% of the American population birders creates the kind of leverage that helps to ensure that there will still be places for me to bird with my daughter in 20 years, then I guess I'm a birder-conservationist. And I can live with the heaping piles of abuse I will no doubt have to take from all the other elitist snobs.
Posted by mbalame at January 6, 2006 7:56 PM