life listing
May. 23rd, 2016 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenluaIn college, I spent a week in Panama, where I had the birding adventure of a lifetime, running around from dawn to dusk with a gaggle of ornithology students and frantically writing down the names of everything in a little moleskine notebook.
At the time, however, I was not a super-scrupulous note-taker, so while all my bird notes since then have been entered into eBird, the little moleskine's been sitting untouched.
Since eBird automatically keeps count of your "life list"—the number of species you've seen total—my life list count on eBird has thus been super-inaccurate, because I saw an absurd number of species in Panama that eBird knew nothing about.
For the past four years or so, I've had the vague-yet-serious goal of having 1,000 species on my life list, and yesterday, I decided it was time to figure out my Real Actual Life List Number, so I dug up the moleskine and started copying notes from it onto eBird. Halfway through the process I came to an interesting realization: I actually don't care that much about the life list number anymore.
My time in Panama was lovely and I don't regret it a bit, to be clear, but going over the notes, I realized that the whirlwind trip made the birds themselves a whirlwind. Some of these sightings, I remember very well (no one could forget their first quetzal sighting, and motmots were so delightful that I was doodling them in the margins of my notebooks for months afterwards), but a lot of these I have only the vaguest recollection of—either because I didn't take very good notes, or because I was seeing so many of them so quickly that it would be impossible to remember them all. If I'd studied up on Panamanian birds in advance, that probably would've helped some (I certainly spent more time than I should've pawing through my guide book, utterly befuddled), but in general, this is going to be a problem with any short-term birding vacation where you're trying to see As Many Birds As Possible.
Whereas, I look at notes for my more recent trips, and they're much easier to smile over. I'm more excited about the red-tailed hawk I saw kiting a few weekends back (a super-common bird, but a behavior I'd never seen before, and he was super-majestic to watch) than I am about adding the name of some tanager I barely remember to my life list. I'm more excited to get a long look at the nesting owls in Magnunson Park than a quick look at some bird that someone else had to identify for me.
There's also the uncomfortable pay-to-win aspect of listing—you can tell by looking at the prices on birding vacations that this is totally a hobby for rich retirees, and it's true that "exotic international vacation" is the quickest way to boost your life list count. My life list for just the continental U.S. is in the 200s, but if you count the birds I saw in Puerto Rico/Japan/Panama, it shoots up to the 400s and I'm not even done adding all the Panama birds yet. Whenever I get around to visiting Africa or Europe or Australia, basically everything I see will be a life bird. (This is how I can be pretty confident I'll hit the thousand mark within some reasonable time frame; two vacations abroad plus some more vigorous North American birding should get me there.)
The professor & TAs for my ornithology class were amazing birders, and had extensive life lists, which is maybe where some of my earlier life list envy came from—but of course they had extensive life lists; they were researchers with grants that sent them all over the globe. It's impossible to get to a thousand birds if you only ever bird in the lower 48, but now I've met a ton of birders who've scarcely left the west coast who are way better than I am.
Also, there's just way more skill required when you're birding with just yourself, or a handful of people, and having to make all the ID calls yourself, rather than having one of your super-excellent TAs identify everything. I have a note in the margin of my Panama notes that says, "I think I saw a black hawk-eagle, maybe pale morph crested eagle, or harpy eagle," and I'm like AAAAUUUUGH PAST-LUA THOSE ARE ALL EXTREMELY DIFFERENT BIRDS WHY WERE YOU SUCH SHIT AT ID'ING ACCIPITERS WHO LET YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE. In a way it's satisfying to see this! because it means I've gotten way better. But it also makes me less interested in the count, because clearly past-Lua was kind of fumbling and clueless and my current birding is much better.
I still want to see my thousand birds, because birds themselves are wonders that need no context; it is satisfying just to see a marvelous new one. Also, a thousand is a nice neat round number.
But the stuff I really care about these days in birding—being able to identify things independently and quickly and with confidence, having a good knowledge of the types of habitats and places you can expect birds to appear, and so on—can't be measured that way.
(Tangentially related: this weekend I saw my first yellow-breasted chat and he was a marvel and a delight and just listen to this goofy fucking bird ok)
At the time, however, I was not a super-scrupulous note-taker, so while all my bird notes since then have been entered into eBird, the little moleskine's been sitting untouched.
Since eBird automatically keeps count of your "life list"—the number of species you've seen total—my life list count on eBird has thus been super-inaccurate, because I saw an absurd number of species in Panama that eBird knew nothing about.
For the past four years or so, I've had the vague-yet-serious goal of having 1,000 species on my life list, and yesterday, I decided it was time to figure out my Real Actual Life List Number, so I dug up the moleskine and started copying notes from it onto eBird. Halfway through the process I came to an interesting realization: I actually don't care that much about the life list number anymore.
My time in Panama was lovely and I don't regret it a bit, to be clear, but going over the notes, I realized that the whirlwind trip made the birds themselves a whirlwind. Some of these sightings, I remember very well (no one could forget their first quetzal sighting, and motmots were so delightful that I was doodling them in the margins of my notebooks for months afterwards), but a lot of these I have only the vaguest recollection of—either because I didn't take very good notes, or because I was seeing so many of them so quickly that it would be impossible to remember them all. If I'd studied up on Panamanian birds in advance, that probably would've helped some (I certainly spent more time than I should've pawing through my guide book, utterly befuddled), but in general, this is going to be a problem with any short-term birding vacation where you're trying to see As Many Birds As Possible.
Whereas, I look at notes for my more recent trips, and they're much easier to smile over. I'm more excited about the red-tailed hawk I saw kiting a few weekends back (a super-common bird, but a behavior I'd never seen before, and he was super-majestic to watch) than I am about adding the name of some tanager I barely remember to my life list. I'm more excited to get a long look at the nesting owls in Magnunson Park than a quick look at some bird that someone else had to identify for me.
There's also the uncomfortable pay-to-win aspect of listing—you can tell by looking at the prices on birding vacations that this is totally a hobby for rich retirees, and it's true that "exotic international vacation" is the quickest way to boost your life list count. My life list for just the continental U.S. is in the 200s, but if you count the birds I saw in Puerto Rico/Japan/Panama, it shoots up to the 400s and I'm not even done adding all the Panama birds yet. Whenever I get around to visiting Africa or Europe or Australia, basically everything I see will be a life bird. (This is how I can be pretty confident I'll hit the thousand mark within some reasonable time frame; two vacations abroad plus some more vigorous North American birding should get me there.)
The professor & TAs for my ornithology class were amazing birders, and had extensive life lists, which is maybe where some of my earlier life list envy came from—but of course they had extensive life lists; they were researchers with grants that sent them all over the globe. It's impossible to get to a thousand birds if you only ever bird in the lower 48, but now I've met a ton of birders who've scarcely left the west coast who are way better than I am.
Also, there's just way more skill required when you're birding with just yourself, or a handful of people, and having to make all the ID calls yourself, rather than having one of your super-excellent TAs identify everything. I have a note in the margin of my Panama notes that says, "I think I saw a black hawk-eagle, maybe pale morph crested eagle, or harpy eagle," and I'm like AAAAUUUUGH PAST-LUA THOSE ARE ALL EXTREMELY DIFFERENT BIRDS WHY WERE YOU SUCH SHIT AT ID'ING ACCIPITERS WHO LET YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE. In a way it's satisfying to see this! because it means I've gotten way better. But it also makes me less interested in the count, because clearly past-Lua was kind of fumbling and clueless and my current birding is much better.
I still want to see my thousand birds, because birds themselves are wonders that need no context; it is satisfying just to see a marvelous new one. Also, a thousand is a nice neat round number.
But the stuff I really care about these days in birding—being able to identify things independently and quickly and with confidence, having a good knowledge of the types of habitats and places you can expect birds to appear, and so on—can't be measured that way.
(Tangentially related: this weekend I saw my first yellow-breasted chat and he was a marvel and a delight and just listen to this goofy fucking bird ok)
no subject
Date: 2016-05-23 11:44 pm (UTC)Yeah, this is how I approach astronomy. I could work through celestial catalogues, or track variable stars, or maybe discover a comet or asteroid using a computerized telescope. I do not care about that (asteroid would be cool tho 'cause you can name them). I care about being one of the people on the field who REALLY knows their way around the sky without a computer. I care about the three seasons, spanning five different viewing sites and as many telescopes, it took me to see the Bubble Nebula. It's the hunt and the skill set and the overall experience in different conditions and with different pieces of equipment, not to mention different people on the observing field, and setting up a computerized observatory up at the cottage that records stuff while I sleep, or punching the entire NCG catalogue into a Go-To scope just to know that I saw it, is totally not satisfying.
I get envious of the birding trips you go on and then I remember I saw a California Condor and that relating this to my friend the caracara researcher made him transcend his polite and soft-spoken self with a visceral "fuck you" and it gives me warm fuzzies.