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World's greatest birdwatcher sets a new record – then hangs up his binoculars (1 Viewer)

auchinbowie said:
I suspect that Rockfowl has a good sense of humour and was being ironic, trying to wind us up.
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It made me smile ;)

I do actually know Tom quite well and have personally guided him in Cameroon where he gained a good few hard to get lifers so I couldn't possibly comment on the 'World's Greatest' Tag. I also guided Phoebe Snetsinger who at the time, Tom was trying to catch and obviously later surpassed.
Both extremely interesting, focussed and driven characters, I certainly wouldn't call it a wasted life.
 
Valéry Schollaert said:
. A man that work in his village and manage to convince the council to make a nature reserve of a nice steppe full of bustards and larks against an industrial farming project is twitching less birds, but IMHO has done a much better choice; I respect his action much more than the one with 9000+ lifelist...
...
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Tom has put a lot of effort into conservation in Spain, not disimilar to your man in his village.

cheers, alan
 
auchinbowie said:
Perhaps Greatest Twitcher would be more appropriate.
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How about "Greatest World Lister"? Twitching is chasing sightings of rare birds. Someone who decides in advance to travel to where birds are regularly found (what international birders typically do) isn't responding to a report of a rare bird.

Best,
Jim
 
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auchinbowie said:
It seems to me to have been a pathetic waste of a life.
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What a ridiculous comment. If he's spent his life doing something he enjoys then that's not a waste of life at all.

Not something most of us could ever do, due to lack of funds and commitments, so you could say he's probably the world's "luckiest birdwatcher" rather than "greatest birdwatcher" (although I doubt you'd get to that without some pretty mean ID skills), but fair play to the bloke.
 
Tom has put a lot of effort into conservation in Spain, not disimilar to your man in his village.
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And he did some important discoveries and so on. But I wish he would be congratulated for that more than for the list... I hope everyone understand I'm NOT criticizing Tom's choices, I'm surprised about the comment regarding the length of its list...
 
The human animal is by nature competitive. I think this is a remarkable achievement, considering the vast knowledge and recogition skills required. Sure, you need money to get to all the places he has been to, but if you've got it, use it. You can't take it with you.
Carpe Diem and all that.
 
The human animal is by nature competitive.
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Human nature is creating such a mess of earth, that I would congratulate those who act different in a wider interest (people, nature, birds) instead of selfish as others.

I think this is a remarkable achievement, considering the vast knowledge and recogition skills required.
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Tom is quite good, but you don't need knowledge to have a long list.

Sure, you need money to get to all the places he has been to, but if you've got it, use it.
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Using it to create protected spaces, educating young to nature, respect, (etc) and avoid using it supporting bad-behaving transnational companies but instead local, organic economy... yes. In this case we can talk of achievement.
 
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