I've been birding for going on 37 years now. I can remember a time when there was no internet, no digi-scoping, and only 2 quasi-decent field guides. To find out what others had seen, we had to dial (that's right, DIAL) the hotline number and listen to what we'd missed over the last week. We had to WAIT 2 weeks for the pictures we took to be developed. We had to WAIT until the monthly birder's night meeting to get ID help.
This probably puts me in the category of cranky old coot.
Back in the day, because I knew that I wasn't going to see those pictures for 2 weeks, and because I knew they might not turn out; because I knew that on birder's night I would have to defend my observations with or without the photos, the picture was the last part of the observation process. I watched the bird. I sketched the bird. I wrote stuff down about the bird. I experienced the bird. I spent time. That is what attracted me to the avocation in the first place all those years ago. That is what keeps me at it today.
Technology is changing the way we bird. Information gets exchanged more quickly. I can call someone on my cell phone while still looking at some rare or unusual species. They can post it on the internet. Everyone who cares to know can know within minutes of a Rare Bird Alert
I can take 144 pictures with my digital camera without reloading. I can instantaneously review my shots and toss the bad ones away without consequence. I can post my pictures on the internet within minutes of getting home. I can enlarge them. I can sharpen them. I can fix the exposure.
But speed in birding is not necessarily all good. Whatever expertise I have did not come quickly. It came from taking time and this is where the cranky old coot in me pops out....
A digital camera is very freeing and I take a lot more pictures now than I did when I was still doing Kodachrome. But the photo is still the last part of the observation process for me. Sometimes I forget that I have a camera and there are days when the migrant fallouts at Coxcomb Hill are peaking that I say to myself that I really should be carrying my camera- these birds are so close, but I choose to leave it in the car because it just gets in the way.
Technology can get in the way. I always marvel at the guy who gets out of his RV at the South Jetty of the Columbia River, eye firmly fixed to his video camera. Everything gets recorded, but the guy never actually looks at anything. The only memory he'll have of his visit will be what was framed on the TV screen when he plays the tape on his VCR. It seems like there are a growing number of neo-birders who have the same relationship to the birds they see. I'm seeing more and more folks who don't appear to be spending time figuring out what they're seeing in the field. Instead, they're taking a picture, posting it somewhere and asking me what it is? Many of these requests are for ID's that, too me, seem straight forward. One could get to them with a good field guide.
This may be the future of birding and I'm trying really hard not to be judgmental and dismiss these folks as lazy or clueless. The internet provides a mechanism for mentoring that wasn't available to me. Is there really a difference between asking the guy next to you to look through your spotting scope and tell you what something is and taking a picture through a spotting scope and sending it to somebody to tell you what it is?
Maybe it's just me, but I do see a difference... connectivity, interaction, context. A photograph is an isolated instant in time, separated from the real event. And my reply (assuming I reply) is a faceless email. Experience comes from connecting all those instants into a continuum. Experience comes from dynamic interaction with nature and with experienced people. It's hard for me to imagine how genuine connectivity can come from looking at a computer screen - no matter how many pictures you take or how good they are or how thorough the online responses are. It's the difference between visiting the Redwoods and watching a travelogue about the Redwoods on the Travel Channel. It's the difference between getting to know a thing and simply knowing about it.
Maybe I'm getting too old. Maybe there's nothing here to worry about. Maybe I'm missing the connectivity part because I wasn't with the person who took the picture. Maybe they tried really hard to ID what's in the photo. Maybe they took the time. Maybe the disconnect is between me and the photographer, not the photographer and his subject.
Then again, maybe we should take our counsel from Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (2005) by Richard Louv. This book also examines the growing disconnect between people and nature (focusing mostly on children) brought on by the information age and technology.
So, maybe I'm not just a lone old coot muttering to himself about this modern generation and their new-fangled contraptions...
Posted by mbalame at September 22, 2007 7:47 PM