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Trekkin and Birdin 12 years, 9 months ago.
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I read a blog entry today bemoaning the use of modern technology to easily find birds, as opposed to slogging through the woods and using years of acquired knowledge. One of the comments expanded on this, remarking that with smart phones, apps and the use of bird calls, people can build their lists in much less time, but what do they really get from that? He went on to say…
Those of us who built our state bird lists over decades of hard “analog” field work are clearly different from so many of today’s birders with Smart Phones, Apps, digital playback, and little or no fieldcraft. They seem to reach certain listing thresholds in much less time than it used to take. But I have to wonder why they enjoy it – why not take up geocaching or scavenger hunts and use inanimate objects as the goal of their competition?
We laughed, because in our opinion, the same arguments can be made regarding geocaching! It took us a couple years to get to 1000 cache finds. People who go at it starting now can get there in a matter of months….if they wish. Another example of quality of experience over quantity. All play differently, whether they’re looking for birds or geocaches.
Are these same people getting to the woods on horseback? I’m guessing they’re using one of them new fangled auto-mobiles.
There is a very small contingent of people who try to do what is called a BGBY…big green birding year. Walk or bike to a few locations close to home.
That’s been me since the broken arm, but otherwise…..yeah, I have one of those new fangled thingies, too. I think my original post just shows how it really doesn’t matter what the searching game might be, there are many points of view and more similarities than differences between them.
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