In Ted’s post (go read it now), he discussed the beginning of his big year that began in June (not January!), and not even on June 1^st but on June 8^th. He also discussed the overall arbitrariness of our calendars beginning on January 1^st, which is clearly an odd thing, but I won’t discuss further.

Why are big years begun at the beginning of the calendar year; why not begin whenever you want? It’s odd that everyone’s birding big years, all of them as far as I know, until Ted, begin on January 1^st. Which date the big year begins shouldn’t make any difference in the final result, except no matter when you begin, you are likely to be more worn out at the end than at the beginning. Being worn out on a snowy dark, cold December day is much different than being worn out on a beautiful, uplifting spring day.  If there are aren’t many likely new year-birds around in December it doesn’t much matter if there is little energy left. But could a weary big year birder at the end of a big year in May do the needed nonstop birding to have a chance of finding a large number of new year-birds? It would be like beginning a career at the end of life, a bigger challenge I think than beginning it in the “prime” of life. But many people do find the energy to make career changes later in life, and I expect one could find sufficient energy to go birding at the end of a big year no matter when it ended. It’s all in the motivation.

A big year birder not only makes an arbitrary choice on when and where to do the big year, but also faces other arbitrariness imposed by others. Normally (with the exception at least of Ted), big year birders try to follow the ABA rules on which birds are “countable” (i.e., wild birds) and how the species are defined. If you really want to consider arbitrariness in a birder’s world, think about speciation. Birds just don’t fit neatly in any type of species definition. Just consider all the back-and-forths of lumping and splitting species – e.g., Northern Oriole, Traill’s Flycatcher, Northern Flicker, etc. that have occurred, and continue to occur.

This lumping and splitting of bird species is not just a plot to get us to buy new bird books – there are real reasons for the uncertainty on where the lines should be drawn. If one were going to start from scratch to delineate bird species, one could easily double or triple the number of species that were defined by using color variations or geographic separation or song differences or…. Alternatively, you could halve or reduce even further the number of species by lumping together anything that has ever interbred. We’d probably have just a couple of gull species in the U.S., which would certainly make life easier for us non-larophiles. When a big year birder arbitrarily chooses a year in which to do the big year, if the birder follows the rules on how the species are defined, the number of possible species for the big year will depend on which year the big year is done, and in particular, on whether any bird species have lately been lumped or split.

The bottom line for all of this is that you’ve got to start somewhere if you are going to do more than just admire the beauty of birds, if you are going to write down birds seen at all. You’ve got to call them something. It’s helpful to be able to discuss these birds with someone, so some type of generally accepted classification system comes in very handy for this. But it’s still very arbitrary.

And if you are going to try to see as many birds as possible in a given time period (i.e., do a big year or big day or big hour…), the time period has to start at some specific time on some specific date, and the area (a county, a state, the ABA area, etc.) needs to be defined in which the big whatever will be done. (I’ve arbitrarily decided not to discuss further the clear arbitrariness of county, state and country borders and the definition of the “ABA area”.) January 1^st is as good as anything as a beginning point for a big year, but, as Ted said, it’s definitely not the only possibility. I really do like his idea of starting on a different date than January 1^st. I also can’t stop thinking about the idea of doing overlapping big years that his post brought to my mind. It’s hard to wrap my brain around what it would be like. For example, what would it be like to be in May of a particular year and have a House Sparrow, an American Robin and a Cliff Swallow be a new year birds for a big year that had begun May 1^st, with only the Cliff Swallow being new for the overlapping big year than had begun four months earlier on January 1^st? And then imagine doing more than two overlapping years at the same time. I have been imagining it, but I’m not sure that even I am a gung-ho enough big-year birder to attempt it. We shall see.

photos by Luke DeCicco

The bird was found near the DEW line site northeast of town (map here). There are signs that this is a restricted area, but DeCicco reports that a person on site said it was OK to bird this area, though they were cautioned to be careful about contanimants. At this time, it's unclear if others should check in before birding this area or if blanket permission was obtained.

To get to this site, drive northeast on Stevenson St. (the road that parallels the Chukchi Sea shoreline) to Dewline Rd. Turn right and continue to its end. The Dark-sided Flycatcher was found at the west end of the two long buildings.

Previous ABA Area records have come from Alaska's islands in the Bering Sea region. There is also a record from Bermuda.

The bird indeed was trying unsuccessfully to fly and pushing its head into the ground. It was unable to stand and lurched around in a circle. I’ve volunteered for a couple of bird hospitals and know enough to when a bird is in serious trouble. I picked it up and felt around for broken bones and all felt intact. I blew on the waxwing’s breast, spreading the feathers apart to look at its transparent skin and get an idea of its physical state. The bird was robust with healthy muscle tissue, it was not starving and surviving well enough to find plenty to eat during our cold wet spring.

The oystercatcher situation on the west coast is fraught with inter-specific intrigue. Steve Tucker (aka Seagull Steve) of Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds tries to get to the bottom of it:

On much of the continent, ID of oystercatchers is a carefree and stressless task. You either have Black or American, or none at all. Simple. Enter Southern California, which has moderate numbers of Black Oystercatchers, and occasionally American Oystercatchers, which allegedly occur so often that they aren't even a review species anymore. The two species hybridize frequently, primarily in Baja California, but those birds regularly move north into California...giving us Black, American and hybrid oystercatchers to find. This is complicated enough, right?

 J. Drew Lanham, of Wild and in Color, has decided that instead of solely identifying birds, he's going to work on identifying with birds:

Having the pleasure of being at the Biggest Week in American Birding again this year, I got to talk about “seeing beyond the bins” in a keynote address to urge birders to think about the birds they see as feathered marvels with stories to tell.  Kim and Kenn Kaufmann  press the conservation issue hard and so I felt at home. As an official  out of the closet “Angry Black Birder” I challenged us as a community of watchers to do more—to not just watch but to get outside of the “birdy box” and think about conservation and how both birds, people and other creatures all fit into the equation.

Ken Schneider, of Rosy Finch Ramblings, discovers a nest of the ABA's Bird of the Year, the Common Nighthawk, and watches the fledgling grow:

The Common Nighthawk is the American Birding Association's 2013 Bird of the Year. In April they migrate through our South Florida neighborhood and some stay to breed here each year.  Our daughter visited the newly reopened Hall of Birds at the Field Museum in Chicago and took this cell phone photo of one of my nighthawk images that was used in their new interactive bird exhibit.

Birders, by virtue of their time in the outdoors, often find themselves in situations that the general public never sees. Jeff Bilsky, writing at Utah Birders, describes one such encounter:

After getting home from work today, I opted to head up to a spot I haven't hiked since last fall. It's a location I found east of Little Dell Reservoir and below Big Mountain Pass. It is a seemingly seldom used trail that winds up the mountain north of the main road and then heads east towards Big Mountain and back down past some beaver dams. From here, you can bush-whack your way through 100 yards or so of trees and reach a more used trail. The whole route can't be more than a mile - if that - and has in the past produced Dusky Grouse and an assortment of other common mountain species to view - as well as Deer, Moose, and Beavers. Today, as I was hiking along towards a portion that transitions from open mountainside to aspen grove I heard what sounded like a bark.

photo by nebirdsplus via flickr

That study Beetham elaborates on was one authored by Sheila Scoville and Oksana Lane and published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology concerning the analysis of the tissues of a young Saltmarsh Sparrow, particularly the bird's brain, which suggested disturbing things about the omnipresence of mercury in many ecosystems.

From John's post:

Based on feather samples taken from adult birds at the study site, it can be inferred that this fledgling's mother had high exposure to mercury at the time that she laid her eggs. This is analogous to in utero exposure in humans. In humans, in utero exposure can lead to brain abnormalities like Minamata Disease. This fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow showed abnormalities in its cerebellum that would have similar effects on motor control and coordination. Birds with these sorts of defects would have trouble recognizing and escaping danger, thus making them more susceptible to predation and accidental deaths.

While this fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow is only one data point, the findings have disturbing implications. Since mercury levels among adult birds were so high, many other young Saltmarsh Sparrows are presumably exposed to mercury at the time of egg formation. We cannot know how many of them have brain abnormalities like the one documented in this study, but it seems safe to assume that the problem is widespread.

It's hard to know precisely what to do about this issue. Chief among contributing factors are coal-burning power plants, which are the single greatest source of methylmercury in the environment. In addition to climate concerns, it seems critical that we shift away from coal as an energy source to reduce the amount of mercury entering these ecosystems for the sake of those birds, and other wildlife, that are clearly feeling the stress.

The full paper is available here.

If you missed the stickers in the Jan/Feb issue of Birding that featured the Common Nighthawk Bird of the Year cover, and we know that some of you did, we want to make sure you get them. There's no better way to make yourself known as an ABA member out in the field.

So if you're missing the BOY nighthawk sticker please drop an email to Liz Gordon at lgordon AT aba.org and she will get you set up.

Also in ABA related paraphernalia, we have some new items in the ABA Shop that may interest members or future members (please join!). ABA patches are now on sale, with the new circular logo that we debuted in sticker form earlier this year. Also you can get ABA logo'd luggage tags for the traveling birder.

Of course, the ABA shop is your place for ABA apparel, jewelry, pins, binocular straps, and various other doo-dads that any birder would want. Come check it out!

Before we jump into that parade of rarities, there is one possible first record to note. A McCown's Longspur, a putative Washington first, was report from the Seattle area this week. The initial report was not corroborated as of yet, and while I don't feel super comfortable saying that the streak of firsts definitively goes on based on this record, it's certainly intriguing. Perhaps we can retroactively apply it if it is found to be conclusive. 

But back to Alaska. Those bird guides tucked in at the Last Frontier's last frontier have been finding some ridiculous birds. The list from Attu includes Far Eastern Curlew (ABA Code 4) Gray-streaked Flycatcher (4) (at left by Isaac Helmericks) Dark-sided Flycatcher (4) Common Cuckoo (3) Siberian Rubythroat (3) Brambling (3) Smew (3) Wood Sandpiper, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, and Gray Wagtail (4). Eyebrowed Thrush (4) was both on St. Paul in the Pribilofs and on Kiska in the Aleutians. And at Gambell, a Eurasian Hawfinch (4) and a couple Olive-backed Pipits (3) were impressive.

A repositioning ship in British Columbia waters off Vancouver Island, had a single Least Auklet as well as a Manx Shearwater. 

A Least Flycatcher in Logan, Utah, is one of only a few accepted records for that state. 

A completely remarkable record for Colorado was a Magnificent Frigatebird in the skies above Jackson. 

In New Mexico, a Greater Pewee was seen and heard in Socorro. 

Only the third and fourth ever for South Carolina, a pair of Fea's Petrel (3) in waters off Charleston is a phenomenal record and nearly overshadowed by the reports of 212(!) Black-capped Petrels. 

In North Carolina, a Brown Booby (3) off Dare was seen in the wake of Tropical Strom Andrea, and a small flock of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks were seen in Henderson. 

That storm almost certainly had something to do with the Magnficent Frigatebird seen around Assateague, Marlyland, too. 

The latest of several this spring, a Western Grebe was notable for Rondeau, Ontario. 

Over in Quebec a White-winged Dove was seen near Sept-Îles. 

And always good on east coast, a Franklin's Gull was found near Avon, Newfoundland. 

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Omissions and errors are not intended, but if you find any please message blog AT aba.org and I'll try to fix them as soon as possible. This post is meant to be an account of the most recently reported birds. Continuing birds not mentioned are likely included in previous editions listed here. Place names written in italics refer to counties/parishes. 

Readers should note that none of these reports has yet been vetted by a records committee. All birders are urged to submit documentation of rare sightings to the appropriate state or provincial committees. For full analysis of these and other bird observations, subscribe to North American Birds <aba.org/nab>, the richly illustrated journal of ornithological record published by the ABA

Heading out into birdy territory by kayak.  Probability of splashes coming on board:  HIGH

The thing about kayaking is that lots of splashes come on board from the alternating paddle strokes.  The little cups on the paddle shaft help to keep much of the water outboard, but even on a sunny day there's going to be water droplets sprinkling down into the boat.  Putting your camera in a dry box (such as a pelican case) or in a dry bag will keep it snug but deployment will be slow if a bird suddenly appears.  As a compromise, I put a boat cushion down on the keel in front of me to rest my camera rig on (this pads the camera and keeps it up out of any water pooling up on the bottom of the boat.)  Then I drape a dry bag over my camera to shed any droplets coming aboard.  If a photo opp presents itself I can just pull off the dry bag & grab my camera.  Also, if things get dicey (like heavy rain, waves splashing into the boat, etc.) my dry bag is immediately available to slip my camera into for a more secure storage situation.

My fairly compact Nikon 80-400mm rig is in reach between my feet, resting on a boat cushion and draped with a dry bag.

Incidental splashes are kept off the camera by the dry bag.  If conditions worsen, the dry bag is immediately available to properly seal in my camera rig.

My camera is immediately ready for action by just pulling the dry bag aside.

Bird photo opps appear quickly, so having your camera at the ready can pay off.  Trumpeter Swans, Crex Meadows Wildlife Area, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2013.

As I said before, mixing camera gear with watercraft amplifies the risk factor significantly.  When deploying a camera in a kayak or other small boat you are always one mistake or accident away from unrepairable disaster so get real familiar with your boat and check your rig on dry land before attempting!  Oh, and have fun!!

Annie Dillard, in her magisterial Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, conducts a thought experiment:

“I wonder how long it would take you to notice the regular recurrence of the seasons if you were the first man on earth. What would it be like to live in open-ended time broken only by days and nights? You could say, ‘it’s cold again; it was cold before,’ but you couldn’t make the key connection and say, ‘it was cold this time last year,’ because the notion of ‘year’ is precisely the one you lack.”

For all of us in the higher latitudes, the four seasons are one of the most obvious and intuitive aspects of life on Earth. Not a one of us can remember a time when we didn’t know the endless cycling of spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Yet not a one of us figured it out on our own. The four seasons are abstract and, when you think about it, arbitrary. Why not two seasons, or five? The four seasons are received wisdom, a human construct.

So it is with so much of what we know. Think for a moment about such phenomena as gravity, evolution, the round earth, and the heliocentric solar system. None of us discovered any of that. We learned it—from books, teachers, parents, and other sources. And let’s be honest: The vast majority of us never really learned it. We were told it. We believe.

The idea of seasonality depends, as Dillard notes, on another idea: the idea of the year. We all know how long a year is: the amount of time—about 365¼ days—for the Earth to get around the Sun.

That’s easy for us to say.

Pretend again that you are Dillard’s first man on Earth. You haven’t yet noticed the seasons. One thing you do start to notice, though, is the position of the sun: It gets higher in the sky for a while, then lower, then higher again, then lower, and so forth. Finally, after hundreds or thousands of years of accumulated human thought, some brilliant thinker achieves the key breakthrough: Each solar cycle is almost exactly the same amount of time. Call it a year.

Alright, we’ve finally discovered what a year is, and how long it is. (Do you know, by the way, how long a year is? Did you know that the amount of time from one summer solstice to the next is not fixed? And I’m not talking about the very slow effect of precession of the equinoxes. I’m talking about non-trivial anomalies from one year, er, “year,” to the next.) Now we need to agree when to start each year.

I know!

January 1st, at the stroke of midnight. With a stroke of inarguable tautology, we declare January 1st to be New Year’s Day, and that, as they say, is that.

Like many birders, I keep a year list. Check that: I keep year lists, plural. I’ve been doing it since I was thirteen years old. I can’t help myself.

After three-plus decades in the business, I’m an old pro at this. Oh, each year is a variation on a theme, but it’s the overall theme, the overall sameness of it all, that I’m struck by. The following is oversimplified, but I think it’s basically right: For birders in the higher latitudes of North America, there’s a steady build-up in excitement for the first five months of the year, and then a long—and frankly demoralizing—slowdown for the rest of the year. Don’t take my word for it; talk to Big Year guru Lynn Barber about it.

Why? Why does it have to be that way? Why does a Big Year have to start on January 1st? We all know the answer, of course: Because that’s the rule. Fine. But that’s missing my point.

I’ll cut to the chase. I just started a Big Year. Two of ’em, actually: a Colorado Big Year, and a Boulder County Big Year. My two Big Years started simultaneously at 20:23:09 GMT (2:24 p.m. local time) on Saturday, June 8th. I’ll continue for approximately one sidereal year, i.e., until around 8:11 p.m. local time on Sunday, June 8, 2014.

Already, the experience is shaping up to be wonderfully different from any other Big Year I’ve ever embarked on. My first year bird was a Red-eyed Vireo, singing its head off. How many of you have started an ABA Area Big Year with a Red-eyed Vireo?
(Left: Photo by © Bill Schmoker.) 

My birding pals in Boulder County, Colorado, are engaged in a friendly competition for the biggest bird list in the Julian year that began at midnight on January 1, 2013. Good for them. I wish them well.

But I’m glad I’m doing it my way. With no effort at all, I’ll be over 150 species by the end of the first month of the “year.” I’ll still be adding stuff at a brisk pace in July and August. Come September and October, I’ll be getting all sorts of “FOY” (first-of-year) birds. November–March will be leisurely—and productive. Then the end of the “year”: more year birds in April, then a bunch more in May, then a final rarity or three, I suspect, in the first week of June. I’ll wrap up my Big Year at the absolute zenith of avian activity in Colorado.

My objective—and this may sound weird—is not to see as many species as possible. Instead, I’m in it for the experience, for the novelty. I’m going for quality, not quantity. So rest easy, Colorado listers: I pose no threat to you.

Or maybe I do. White-winged Juncos, Yellow-shafted Flickers, and Myrtle Warblers count for me. So do Indian Peafowl, Mandarin Ducks, and Front Range Chukars. And if the Rufous-collared Sparrow comes back to Clear Creek County, I’m definitely counting it. There’s more: All the great birds around Cheyenne, Laramie County, Wyoming, count for my Colorado list. If I see a bird in a mist net, that’s fine by me; if I identify a bird after the fact by sound spectrogram, I’m counting it; and—oh, yes—dead birds count.

O tempora! O mores!

Hang on a second.

Yes, I’m breaking all the rules. Are you sure, though, that you’re as compliant as you think you are? As Ken Hollinga, Michael Retter, the late Craig Roberts, and others have pointed out to me, the “rules” aren’t necessarily what we think they are.

Then again, I’m not really breaking the rules, er, “rules,” so much as I’m cheerfully ignoring them. I’m not in this for the game, or sport, or competition. Um, that’s okay. I’m in this to learn about birds, and the world they—and we—inhabit. The rules don’t serve that purpose, not for me anyhow.

In my world, Boulder County pheasants and Chukars are equally countable. For me, a White-winged Junco is as distinctive—as “countable”—as a Cassin’s Vireo or Thayer’s Gull. As far as I’m concerned, birds in nets and even dead birds are interesting, worthwhile, and properly ticked. And—what the heck—Cheyenne is close enough, and good enough, for me.

Here’s the bottom line: Two days into my two new Big Years, I’m having more fun than ever before. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

At the Mic: Brooke McDonald

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Most birders are women. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2007 report, “Birding in the United States: A Demographic and Economic Analysis,” 54% of birders are women. At the Space Coast Birding Festival in 2011, 69% of attendees were women; at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in 2010, 60-65% of attendees were women; and at The Biggest Week in American Birding, around 60% of attendees have been women. Tropical Birding estimates that two-thirds of their American clients are women, VENT estimates that 60% of their clients are women, and another leading tour company said that 54.6% of their clients booked for upcoming trips are women.

However, by any measure, women are poorly represented in the upper ranks of birding. 

    This disparity was explored in a paper by Caren Cooper and Jennifer Smith titled “Gender Patterns in Bird-related Recreation in the USA and UK” published in 2010 in Ecology and Society. Cooper and Smith classified birding into four categories of increasing difficulty: Supportive, Participatory, Competitive, and Authoritative. They found that women’s participation decreased at each successive level. For example, membership in the National Audubon Society, a Supportive activity, was 63% female; Project FeederWatch and the Christmas Bird Count, Participatory activities, were, respectively, 66% and 37% female; inclusion in the ABA Big Day and ABA List Report, a Competitive activity, was 20% female; and service as an eBird state editor, an Authoritative activity, was 7% female.

    Unlike the challenge of bringing people of different races and ethnicities into the birding community, this is not an issue that can be resolved by simply introducing more women to birding. Women are already here, but they are not attaining high status in the community.  

    Authority in the birding community is a function not only of one’s skills but of confidence in one’s skills. According to Cooper and Smith, men are more likely to be overconfident in rating their own birding skills while women are more likely to be under confident. But what factors are responsible for this difference in confidence levels? 

“A lot of women tell me that they’re glad to see a woman taking the lead in the birding world.” — Debi Shearwater 

Most of the women I spoke with said that some male birders either ignore women entirely or are crushingly dismissive, patronizing, or condescending towards them. 

    “A lot of men just won't take a woman seriously,” said Susan Myers. “I get it all the time—people walk right past me. I'm the only one carrying a scope and I'm standing out front calling the birds and I’m magically invisible.”

    One woman who wished to remain anonymous told me about a female friend of hers who had rediscovered a bird that had been presumed extinct. A meeting was held to discuss the status and conservation of the bird, and during this meeting, the woman in question was totally ignored—until one of the men asked her to make coffee.

    Sheri Williamson said that some men have displayed outright incredulity at the fact that she wrote a field guide. She went on to say, “It's hard to get into a position of influence if you're not accorded the respect you deserve.” 

“It’s so much harder when you’re dating a birder to get taken seriously.” — Catherine Hamilton / photo from The Central Park Effect

Many women in the birding community are treated as the lesser half of a couple, coasting on their partner’s superior ability and only faintly reflecting their partner’s superior skills. Even women who were serious birders before they met their partners are often treated as if any birding ability they have was gained just by exposure to the rarefied air surrounding their partners. Women who actually were introduced to birding by their partners are treated as though this somehow cheapens and invalidates their interest in birds. If a younger woman is single, she’s often treated as a groupie and a follower, and not a serious birder in her own right.

    For example, the new film A Birder’s Guide to Everything is about three young birders who take off birding for the weekend… and a girl who goes along for the ride. As Next Magazine put it, “the group sets out for Connecticut with Ellen, a fetching photography lover from school, in tow,” while Variety said, “Pretty young shutterbug Ellen tags along to record their finds.” 

    Donna Dittmann said that when she was 19 or 20, a top ABA-area lister told her that she had a large California list only because she “hung with the big boys,” an accusation that never would have been leveled at a young man with her skills and experience.

    Sheridan Coffey said, “If we are together, most people will talk to my partner first, asking him questions and ignoring me.” She went on to say, “I am sometimes treated like his secretary, getting emails asking me to ask him if he will lead a group, or go to a festival, while not inviting me.”

    Catherine Hamilton, in a blog entry in 2011, wrote that she was called a harlot at an AOU meeting just for having the audacity to date another birder. “I stand here, with a small army of presumed Hester Prynnes behind me, wearing their binoculars in lieu of a letter, and I call you out, in the names of sexism, chauvinism, and tawdry pettiness. You know who you are. You know it is not just about one comment, one reputation. Is there really any question why there are so few young and youngish women in the birding world?” 

“If you play down your own knowledge and skills consistently enough, you can't blame people for buying into it.” — Sheri Williamson / photo by Laura Kammermeier

Women are often afraid to bird in some areas, but strong field skills are developed in part by birding in a variety of places. Debi Shearwater brought up the fact that women venturing into secluded areas do face real threats. Phoebe Snetsinger was gang-raped in Papua New Guinea, and many excellent birding spots have a reputation for being unsafe. These fears can keep women from birding alone, and bolster the stereotype that women view birding primarily as a social activity.

    Women are less likely to assert themselves in the field, more likely to admit mistakes, more likely to take their cues from other birders, more likely to use a querying tone when “calling” a bird, and more likely to discuss birds after they have been identified, all of which may be interpreted as evidence of poor birding effort and weak field skills. Women are less likely to report suspected rarities and are more likely to qualify their sightings, probably for fear of being publicly eviscerated by other birders, but bird reports that don’t sound confident are unlikely to be accepted.

    One of the women that I spoke with even qualified her own excellent birding skills, weakly stating, “I feel like I know my stuff.” As Susan Myers observed, “We are taught right from the start to qualify everything.” Julie Zickefoose said, “I think that as women we are trained from an early age to always defer to men. I'm trying to turn that ship around in my own mind.” Lynn Barber said, “I think many new women birders are hesitant to ask questions, especially of males, and may have difficulty in getting a mentor.” 

“It is hard for men to mentor women.” — Shawneen Finnegan / photo by Dave Irons

Lack of mentorship is a serious problem that holds female birders back. Birding with elite birders is how most people develop elite skills themselves, and men may simply have access to a larger pool of potential mentors. Mentors also introduce people to birding culture, teach field etiquette, and prevent new birders from making blunders that undermine their credibility. Women are major community builders and organizers in the birding world, but as far as field experience goes, Jennifer Rycenga said, “Women don't get a lot of mentoring, but give a lot of it.”

   “I enjoy helping others learn,” Julie Zickefoose said. “In fact, I'd rather go birding with a newcomer, because it's fun to be able to impart information and watch someone grow in confidence and ability.”

    “Mentorship is an area where I think women have an edge,” Sheri Williamson said. “We just need to connect more young female birders with female mentors. Giving special encouragement to young women in birding can only help birding, birds, and society at large.”

    If there were more women in mentorship roles in the birding community, women’s confidence in their own field skills would be improved and there would be more women inspired to ascend to the upper ranks. As it stands, however, most of the strong mentors in the birding community are men, and there are social factors that keep men and women apart, especially men and women of differing ages and relationship status. Some men who would otherwise be mentors can thoughtlessly destroy the confidence of less skilled birders.

    “Being a phenomenal birder doesn’t give you the right to be a complete asshole,” Catherine Hamilton said. 

“Generational links between women are missing.” — Jennifer Rycenga / photo by Bob Droege

The age structure of the birding community may also partially explain the absence of high-profile women. Older women are often dismissed as “kitchen window” birders. Shawneen Finnegan said that while becoming a top-notch birder is far easier when one begins watching birds at a young age, many women begin birding later in life. Jen Brumfield observed that men were the default leaders in previous generations, and Jennifer Rycenga pointed out that girls have historically been discouraged from cultivating interests in a single-minded manner, pursuing the sciences, and playing outside.

    Will a change in generational attitudes naturally result in more women gaining leadership roles in the community? Another hobby that is nerdy, intense, and male-dominated—but young—is video gaming, and gamers have had a great deal of productive discussion recently about how some men not only insist that women demonstrate extensive gaming credentials before they’re grudgingly accepted as fellow gamers, but also see some women as “imposters” who are only feigning interest in gaming. Within the last few weeks, I observed an exchange on Facebook where several young male leaders in the birding community made harassing comments in response to a picture of a young woman wearing binoculars, indicating that even though more overt forms of sexism may vanish, there are still ongoing subtle forms that need to be addressed.

    “I doubt any of us are totally innocent, having grown up in a culture where women are still struggling to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts in virtually all aspects of life,” Sheri Williamson said.

“I think anyone, male or female, is capable of developing extreme field skills.” — Julie Zickefoose / photo by Nina Harfman

Birding can be a fraternity in the best or the worst sense of the word. One woman I spoke with seemed to accept as the natural order of things that there’s a “pecking order” in birding that men suffer under too, but most of the women I talked to maintained that women birders get the worst of it. There is a lot of cliquishness in birding, and while men who get into birding are often quickly accepted into the group, many women are treated as outsiders even after years of birding.

    There may be excellent women birders out there who have become so frustrated with the hazing and casual sexism that they have rejected the birding community entirely, and there may be many women who are overlooked in a birding culture that considers the size of one’s list as an important measure of one’s worth.

    “Some of the top listers are not necessarily the most skilled birders in the state,” Jen Brumfield said. Shawneen Finnegan concurred, saying, “A big list doesn't equal a high level of birding expertise.” 

 

“I think a lot of birding is a boys’ club and women may feel excluded.” — Susan Myers / photo from Oriental Bird Images

While several women that I spoke with alleged that women just aren’t as motivated as men are to make a name for themselves in the birding world, this comes uncomfortably close to the specious argument that there are few women CEOs and corporate managers because women just aren’t interested in corporate advancement. That said, men and women may well seek different things from birding, although whether those differences are innate or a product of culture is impossible to determine.

    Gender Patterns in Bird-related Recreation in the USA and UK qualified it thus: “…Our results suggest that males are more likely to be achievement-oriented in their motivation, seeking to meet some standard of performance, whereas females might be more likely to be appreciation-motivated, participating to reduce stress or gain a sense of connection with nature.” 

    “I probably have a pretty huge life list, because I seek new birds avidly wherever I go, and I go to a lot of cool places,” Julie Zickefoose said. “But what lights my fire is having a good close encounter with a bird—any bird—that teaches me something about how it lives, thinks, reproduces, feeds.”

    “I think it's the nature of women to have a more holistic approach to things,” Susan Myers said. “There is nothing less like hunting than keeping a list. A lot of these hardcore listers have no interest in the behavior of the birds. They want to see it, tick it and get the hell out of there. It's the women who behave more like hunters. They want to understand the birds, know the behavior, know the environment.”

    Ultimately, women in the birding world need to have more confidence in themselves.

    “We should learn to trust ourselves and not always go running off to find an ‘expert’ to confirm what we probably already have figured out for ourselves,” Julie Zickefoose concluded. “If female birders frustrate me, it's because so many of them never allow themselves to arrive.”

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References:

http://www.cawatchablewildlife.org/pdfs/2011%20Space%20Coast%20Festival%20Economic%20Report.pdf

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art4/

http://digitalmedia.fws.gov/cdm/ref/collection/document/id/176

http://jezebel.com/5922961/the-fight-against-misogynism-in-gaming-enlists-some-big-names

http://mydogoscar.com/birdspot/2011/08/09/h-is-for-harlot/

http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/film-review-a-birders-guide-to-everything-1200442639/

https://www.nextmagazine.com/content/tribeca-film-festival-birder%E2%80%99s-guide-everything

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Thanks:

(Special thanks go to Lynn Barber, Jen Brumfield, Sheridan Coffey, Donna Dittmann, Shawneen Finnegan, Catherine Hamilton, Laura Kammermeier, Susan Myers, Jennifer Rycenga, Debi Love Shearwater, Sharon Stiteler, Sheri Williamson, and Julie Zickefoose. I had additional discussions with Jennifer Schramm Cutillo, Liz Deluna Gordon, Noah Gaines, Jeff Gordon, Clay Kempf, and Clayton Tschudy. Some numbers and details were provided by Iain Campbell, Victor Emanuel, Marci Madsen Fuller, Kenn Kaufman, and Kim Kaufman. Finally, Dave Irons, Dave Moseley, and Rick Wright provided feedback on various iterations of this piece.)

We are pleased to announce the first-ever ABA South Africa Safari. The ABA is partnering with Rockjumper Worldwide Birding Adventures and BirdLife South Africa to host a safari with visits to both Cape Town and Kruger National Park.

 On safari in Kruger National Park (Photo © Leon Fouche)

At the extreme south end of the vast expanse that is Africa lies the country of South Africa, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. At the south end of South Africa is Cape Town with the Cape of Good Hope just below it. The southerly most of the three capital cities, Cape Town’s “City Bowl” is surrounded by both mountains and ocean. The pleasant climate and varied topography make for great birding. Two endemic bird families are found here, in the sugarbirds and the rockjumpers. The unique and biodiverse Fynbos shrubland is home to a showy group of sunbird species, among other birds. Coastal areas host African Penguins, several cormorant species, with albatrosses and Cape Petrels lurking just offshore.

The Cape Rockjumper is one of two species in the rockjumper family. The family is endemic to South Africa. (Photo © Adam Riley)

Resting at the northwest corner of South Africa is famed Kruger National Park. One of the largest and most spectacular parks on the continent, Kruger is a mixture of forest, grassland, and Acacia, and it abuts national park land in Mozambique and Zimbabwe to create an immense area (nearly 22,000 square miles) protected for the benefit of wildlife. It is home to the Big 5 (lion, leopard, Cape buffalo, African elephant, and rhinoceros) and also giraffes, wild dogs, and a bevy of antelope species. Yes, there are birds too! Lots of them. An interesting array of larks are to be found here as are striking species such as Saddle-billed Stork, Lappet-faced Vulture, Kori Bustard, Southern Ground Hornbill, and the furtive Pel’s Fishing Owl.

Leopard (Photo © Adam Riley)

This is an utterly unique ABA offering, that will be of great value, and for a great cause too. The ABA South Africa Safari will coincide with BirdLife South Africa’s Save Our Seabirds Festival in Cape Town to raise money for endangered seabirds.

African Penguins (Photo © Adam Riley)

Join your fellow ABA Members and our in-country hosts for a most memorable visit to one of the world’s richest regions for birds and wildlife. Register your interest today by contacting Nancy Hawley (at nhawley@aba.org, or call her at (800) 850-2473, X234).

St. Helena Bay is a good place for dolphin and whale-watching. (Photo © Markus Lilje)