Well, for me the way out of these annoyances was simple - I stopped chasing rarities. My father was a stamp collector, and I remember how strange and compulsive that 'hobby' became for him. When I began to develop that same weird behavior, I decided it was time for me to cultivate mental health.
The reason I loved to walk and bike, and to be out in nature since I was a child was that it allowed me to be alone and to have quiet. Personally, I never liked sports or competition in any form, and I'm probably one of the few native born Americans who has no understanding of baseball or football, nor do I care to learn. Organized birding always struck me as incredibly strange, the way it forces the sports mentality into an essentially gentle activity. Also, I am extremely chauvinistic. The Northeast is my home, and I always thought that the natural direction of heaven would be north. I travelled out west, and south to Florida once, and found those trips tiresome. I know I'll never repeat them. The idea of traveling to Asia or Africa, or South America is absurd to my way of thinking. Originally, I started birding to learn our local species, so it never interested me to gawk at birds from parts of the world I had no interest in seeing. I could just as easily turn on a National Geographic special. I tend to agree with Scotty. The majority of birders are not scientists, naturalists, or professional photographers. It's a hobby, nothing more. I would love for someone to run the numbers for how much fuel is wasted on these treks to find rarities. For people who claim to love nature, they should be ashamed. The amount of money spent on photographic equipment is staggering also - all to make technically perfect photos of the same birds over and over again. And almost all of these photographs lacking in artistic and scientific merit. All taken just to have taken them yourselves. Well, to each his own - I suppose. My apologies to the list owners for lacking self-control and adding my nonsense to this. Phil, go with your instinct. Pull this, I wouldn't fault you. Michael S. Zablocky Brooklyn, NY "I'm going off the rails on a crazy train." - Ozzy Osbourne -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
