Abstract
Observing wild birds has been an attractive recreational interest for more than a century. Today, millions worldwide enjoy this activity. With the help of a widespread net of amateurs, professional ornithology provides an understanding of birds’ life cycles, interrelationships with the wider environment, and much more. An historic alliance between players and professionals has contributed to growth of strong organizations, and gradually pulled individual birdwatchers into wider scientific and political engagements. In later decades, major ornithological organizations have given themselves a broadened mandate, penetrated by concerns for wildlife and biodiversity more widely, and thereby increasingly politicized birders’ territory. New technology, combined with the widespread use of small digital appliances, apps, and interactive databases make the activity more popular, and augment new scenarios for citizen science.
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Notes
- 1.
The title of this chapter quotes an interview with novelist Margaret Atwood, an avid amateur ornithologist from childhood years in the Canadian wilderness where her father was an entomologist (Sethi 2016).
- 2.
Currently, some participants prefer birding to birdwatching and perceive this term to speak of more dedication and skill. At times, the phrases ‘committed birdwatching’ and ‘casual birdwatching’ are treated as synonyms for birding and birdwatching. For simplicity and variation, I use the terms interchangeably.
- 3.
The Christmas Bird Count is a census of birds, originally proposed by the American Frank Chapman, founder of Bird-Lore/Audubon magazine. Since December 1900, counts have been held during a specified period every winter, with participation open to all. The results of over 100 years of counting are available on the net (http://Audubon.org/Christmas-bird-count-bibliography). National birding organizations in several countries encourage similar efforts.
- 4.
The first BioBlitz was held in 1996 at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, Washington, D.C. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioBlitz#cite).
- 5.
The most hotly contested small list in the US is the lifetime tally for The North American Region, a clearly delimited geographical area (Koeppel 2006, p. 192). Similar official geographical delimitations exist for other regions, recognized through criteria published by the American Birding Association and affiliated organizations.
- 6.
Twenty-four men and only two women have each seen 7000 or more species. According to Wikipedia’s list of big listers, 22.06.2017, Peter Kaestner is number 10 and Richard Koeppel (the author’s father) is number 26 in the world.
- 7.
The controversial 1992 revision allowed birds to be identified through auditory signals alone. Summed up after Koeppel (2006), the guidelines read as follows: (1) The bird must be within the prescribed area and time-period when encountered. (2) The taxonomic status of a bird as a full species follows the standard for the list on which the bird is to be counted. (Different lists use different standards for different areas.) A reintroduced bird is not countable until it has become an autonomous, successful breeding population. (3) The bird must be alive, wild, and unrestrained when encountered. (4) Diagnostic field marks, sufficient to identify the species, must be seen and/or heard, and/or documented by the recorder at the time of the encounter. (5) Birders should obey the previous four regulations.
- 8.
The competitive category compiles events or organizations indicating listing. The authoritative category contains those who train others and/or organize information. The supportive category consists of members in bird conservation organizations, and the participatory category implies enrollment in schemes that involve submitting observations to databases for use by scientists.
- 9.
According to Cooper and Smith , the varied gender patterns reported in a variety of other studies can be reconciled by looking at the amount of competitiveness in the type of activity each study has evaluated.
- 10.
The association of new species with damage to agriculture, technical infrastructure, and the like often leads to their demonization as ‘vermin’ or ‘monsters’. Conversely, exotic species have occasionally been welcomed and supported; an example is the English sparrow in the late nineteenth-century North America which was seen as instrumental in combating pest, according to Lachmund (2015).
- 11.
The US National Audubon Society flags conservation broadly and commemorates the scientist by selecting outstanding women from any relevant field to receive its Rachel Carson Award.
- 12.
Horseshoe crab is an arthropod, most closely related to the extinct trilobites. Closest living relatives are spiders and scorpions. This ‘living fossil’ exists primarily in the shallow coastal waters of the North Atlantic, less than 30 meters deep. The largest population occurs in Delaware Bay, although they are in other locations too, including Cape Cod Bay (Odell et al. 2005, p. 736).
- 13.
Collins (1913, p. 33) connects the codes to the Bestiaries, the natural history books of the Middle Ages. The peacock cries out in fear when it awakes because it dreams that it has lost its beauty. Likewise, the Christian must fear to lose the good qualities with which God has endowed his soul. Thus, it teaches the congregation a lesson in humility.
- 14.
Until 300 BC, only patricians in ancient Rome could become augurs. Plebeian assemblies on the other hand, had little influence as to whether a certain law, festival, election or war should occur (Guillaumont 1984). There were coexisting sign-systems. Ex caelo (from the sky) which involved observation of thunder and lightning, and ex avibus (from birds), involving two classes of birds. Oscines (ravens, crows, owls, and hens who gave favorable or unfavorable auspices via their singing), and alites (eagle, vulture, and others who gave auspices via their flight). The meaning of sounds and movements varied according to circumstances and time of year. Ex tripudiis (from the dance of birds feeding, often chicken) was mainly a military method of investigating if the gods approved of some planned action.
- 15.
Created in 1932, the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission and Conservation Fund started to sell federal duck stamps as a required license for hunting migratory waterfowl, a source of income, which has contributed to protection of large wetlands and habitat for the U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System (Rubio-Cisneros et al. 2014, p. 2). Birdwatchers on the other hand were asked to contribute voluntarily, which they continue to do in this and numerous other ways.
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Kjølsrød, L. (2019). ‘You can really start birdwatching in your backyard, and from there the sky’s the limit’. In: Leisure as Source of Knowledge, Social Resilience and Public Commitment. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46287-9_7
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