The rewards of birding

9000 birds on his list!Tom Gullick hits 9000 species with Wallece's Fruit-Dove

How do you measure your success as a birder?  How do you get recognition of other birders and non-birders? Is there some sort of measurement to quantify the experience?

The easiest way, is to keep track of how many birds you had seen. The number allows you to compare yourself with other birders. This is known as competitive birding.

Even if there is no competition and you only compete with yourself, the listing game is the most prominent way how birding is practiced today. The number, of course, reveals nothing of the birder’s actual skills in identifying birds.

Tom Gullick (above) recently hit a landmark of 9000 species seen when he saw Wallace’s Fruit-Dove (top photo). This is truly amazing! 9000 species of the around 10,000 species that exist in the world.

But such numbers do  not impress non-birders, nor do they attract more people to the hobby. What is the point with putting a mark in front of the name of the bird in the field guide or on a birdlist indicating that you have seen it? What is it good for? Why would anyone else care? Why would a non-birder even pretend to listen or pay attention when the birder brags about his new life-birds?

Having said this, there are of course birders, who are well recognized for their birding skills. They are bird guides and authors of bird books. But most people who throw themselves into the hobby need some sort of measurement – and that is when the listing game starts

The digi-birders

Maybe we need a new term. I have been bashed for labeling those who start taking photos of birds birders. Let’s introduce a new word. Digi-birders – who get hooked by taking digital photos of birds.
The new digi-birding boom has put things in a new perspective. Just as mentioned in an earlier post of with a kid getting into birding via a digital point and shoot camera, the same is true if we talk about recruiting new birders among adults.  Taking interesting photographs of birds becomes far more interesting than counting numbers of birds seen. Sharing the photos on the internet where everyone can see them even your non-birding friends. You gain recognition by sharing your bird photos. The more shares and likes you get for a photo on Facebook, the greater your satisfaction and the recognition of your peers.

Frankly, which of the two models do you think works better for recruiting your non-birding friends to take interest? Are you sure they want to hear about your last lifebird you added to your list? Or do you think they’d be more interested in seeing the great photo of a bird you took yesterday. They certainly would not share your Facebook update of a new birder milestone of species seen, but they may just share your great bird photo – of say a Wallece’s Fruit-Dove.

Internet and especially Facebook has made it easier for bird photos to gain recognition and it is this mechanism which will make interest in birds massive.

Digi-birders could adopt birding ethics.

Can you see how powerful this change is? Don’t you agree in this light there could be millions of new birders in the coming years – if including also bird photographers into the birder label? At least labeling the bird photographer as potential birder – or at least digi-birder.

What is important is that there will be a lot of people who will care about birds. That will be more people interested in conservation. It is up to us, the traditional birders to be there for the new digi-birders to teach them birding and identification skills and to introduce them to the ethics of birding. The impact on the birds and the environment by our presence needs to be looked after. Birders in general have good ethics and practice a code of conduct and can/should transmit this to other users of the natural areas.

Top photo: Wallece’s Fruit-Dove by Mehd Halaouate. Swedish readers will find Mehd’s wife’s blog about living in Indonesia interesting.

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This was the seventh pre intro-post in the birdwatching from the beginning series. There are one more intro chapter to go.  In the next post, I will make an outline of the coming posts. I hope to get a lot of guest bloggers to treat different topics. Please make sure you tell your friends of this series so they can be with us from the start.  You are allowed to share the posts via email, or on Facebook, Google plus and Twitter. Check the sharing options below.
If you liked this post, you may want to  subscribe to this blog.  The launch is on January 1, 2013.  A good way to start the new year.

Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com

More and more people get interested in nature.

It is easy to see that it is digital photography which is the engine of the new trend. It is likely that people who get into birds via digital photography, also start getting into plants and bugs, because it is easy to take photos and no one need to spend money on film anymore.  The nature watchers of the future should  become much broader and more knowledgeable than traditional birders.  Similar photographic challenges with dragonflies or butterflies, are getting very popular. It is the digital photography which has made this possible.

It is also interesting to see that in countries which lack a traditional birdwatching  movement,  such as Brazil, Thailand, China, Costa Rica,  nature watching through digital photography has become massive in recent years. The national parks and nature reserves of these countries are full of local people with massive cameras and blinds – all intending to take superb pictures of birds.

How do we get new and young members to our bird club?

Meanwhile, in the traditional stronghold countries such as US, UK, Netherlands and Scandinavia, there are often complaints that there is little regeneration of young birders. In fact every so often one hears the birders saying that the hobby is dying, as membership figures of bird clubs dwindle and the average age among the members is way over 60.

But if the birdclubs instead concentrated on recruiting new birders with a focus on bird photography and sharing photos on social media there is enormous potential for growth.  As the potential is so large, it will also save the “old school” birding which considers good birding is about nurturing field identification skills.  There will always be people who shine if enough people get into the “game”, but if we – the birders – close the doors and continue to promote birding the old way, the risk is that we shall not be competitive enough in the digital age. The kids will continue to play video games and be stuck behind the computers and the TV sets instead of discovering nature.
Bird photography in contrast is cool!

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This was the sixth pre intro-post in the birdwatching from the beginning series. There are two more intro chapters to go.  Please make sure you tell your friends of this series so they can be with us from the start.  Share the posts via email, or on Facebook, Google plus and Twitter. Check the sharing options below.
If you liked this post, you may want to  subscribe to this blog.  Soon the real chapters will begin.

Gunnar  Engblom
Connect with Gunnar on Facebook or Twitter or kolibriexp@gmail.com