How do big listers bird? (3 Viewers)

[melisande]

I’m wondering how big listers go for those elusive species. I am assuming they don’t just sign up for standard bird tours, but instead hire private guides. Or maybe they just go completely on their own? But if they do hire guides, do they just ask around until they find someone who has a good reputation and has experience with the species they are looking for? Or maybe by the time someone has 8,000 or 9,000 species on their life list, they already have a lot of connections in the birding world.

Anyone know about this?

 

[Steve Lister]

At just over 5,000 I don't count as a big lister (though I am rather big and my name is Lister) but I have been on a few trips with 'big listers'. A very successful trip to western Mexico involved providing a top local guide with a target list of species that the main guy needed and letting the guide plan a suitable itinerary. At times it was a bit tick and run but we ended up with almost 500 species and virtually all of his targets.
In general I think a top local guide is paramount. Without one finding the sort of birds that big listers want to see can be a long job.

 

[pbjosh]

I'm not a "big lister" per se but have seen a few birds and hope to see more. A couple friends are young-ish really driven birders with already pretty large lists that are ever growing. We do a lot of trips together - they're just a bit more driven than I am. We mostly bird independently but are happy to use guides where necessary / where it's the right way to do things or where the logistics are so painful that you are happy to have a guide help you sort things out. But mostly, world birding is the same everywhere: Read TR's and talk to friends, get as much GPS as you can not just for birds but for driving directions, trailheads, homestays / park offices / etc, get local contacts, figure out access to sites, learn birdsong, get a local SIM in your phone and go see some birds. Some people use guides more, some less, and there's nothing wrong with any way you want to go about it as long as you're not flagrantly breaking rules / laws everywhere you go.

Personally, I've seen a fairly high percentage of the birds in the neotropics and southern cone by now, and I've only once hired a proper "bird guide" in the W Hemisphere - on my very first trip. Since then I've just had a few days here and there with local trail guides / park rangers as chaperones / boatmen who know where to look for birds / etc, and have probably spent 98% of my days in the new world alone or with my partner or with 1-2 friends. On the flip side, I've seen relatively few birds in Asia, but have hired guides there a few times already, ranging from a straight up bird guide for one or multiple days to many times hiring local guides / fixers who can help sort out access and can take you to territories or areas that you might not be able to find on your own. As in, I can find most birds in the new world on my own bar a few that are in tiny reserves that you have to access with local biologists / rangers / etc. But there was no way in hell I was going to find my own Bulwer's Pheasant so I was happy to pay Calvin Ng in Sabah to drive me up to Trus Madi and take me to his hide. Money well spent!

 

[melisande]

Thanks for your responses! Interesting! One of my ambitions is to use guides less and go more on my own. Well, I do this already in my home country, the US, but I mean in Central and South America. It just seems like it would be more of a challenge and a learning opportunity. I am trying to convince my partner to get on board with this, but baby steps

 

[Mysticete]

Thanks for your responses! Interesting! One of my ambitions is to use guides less and go more on my own. Well, I do this already in my home country, the US, but I mean in Central and South America. It just seems like it would be more of a challenge and a learning opportunity. I am trying to convince my partner to get on board with this, but baby steps

It really comes down to what you are looking for with birding. If you want to maximize your list and you would prefer not to revisit countries/regions, than a personal guide followed by a tour are your best options. If numbers don't really matter that much to you, or you want the thrill of discovery and enjoy the research/travel adventure components, than self-guiding is probably a good strategy.

 

[Larry Sweetland]

As others have said it's as simple as that. If you want a big list you need the best local guide and the money to cover the logistics. They will find you the birds and you can tick them off. You'll probably learn a lot from them too. Stuff it would take you many years of being in that country to learn. But you won't get the buzz and experience of having to find and identify those birds yourself. People are different, and I know what I enjoy best

 

[melisande]

Thanks for the last two comments. I think I hijacked my own thread, lol. I really do want to know about how big listers get birds. Not really trying to say which is the best way to bird. Besides, my husband and I have always used local guides abroad and I am thinking that my desire to go it on my own might be a grass is always greener kind of illusion.

 

[Lerxst]

We generally use local guides in most tropical places, but a lot of that is because of the headaches that would be caused by having to drive around on our own. We just got back from Colombia, and there were levels of traffic and driving chaos in some of the mountain towns that would be absolutely debilitating to navigate for a non-native. When we travel to places where getting around is easy (e.g., Tokyo) we usually just bird on our own.

 

[Steve Lister]

Some big listers of course rely upon organised commercial bird tours, and Birdquest at least seem to cater well for them, sometimes offering trips that target more difficult species.
And some of them end up leading such trips, such as Peter Kaestner now leading for Rockjumper.

 

[Steve Babbs]

As others have said it's as simple as that. If you want a big list you need the best local guide and the money to cover the logistics. They will find you the birds and you can tick them off. You'll probably learn a lot from them too. Stuff it would take you many years of being in that country to learn. But you won't get the buzz and experience of having to find and identify those birds yourself. People are different, and I know what I enjoy best

I would agree with that but I actually think you learn more birding without a guide because of having to look more closely at the bird and the struggles of identifying difficult things. Personally I really am not a fan of birding with a guide because I find it much more satisfying finding my own stuff - although I will very occasionally hire one for stuff I really want to see and know I have no realistic chance of finding on my own e.g. green-breasted pitta - but I have not the slightest doubt that I would have a bigger list (if I kept one) if I did always hire one, although the cost would mean that I would have spent a lot less time abroad.

For the first time ever, and I have been doing independent tropical trips since the I was 19, I have bitten the bullet and I am going on fully guided trip but that is for night mammals in Sri Lanka where there is no real alternative if I want to have much success.

In the past quite a few big world 'listers' did do independent trips but I doubt many to now. Alan Lewis may be one of the few.

 

[jurek]

I’m wondering how big listers go for those elusive species. I am assuming they don’t just sign up for standard bird tours, but instead hire private guides. Or maybe they just go completely on their own? But if they do hire guides, do they just ask around until they find someone who has a good reputation and has experience with the species they are looking for? Or maybe by the time someone has 8,000 or 9,000 species on their life list, they already have a lot of connections in the birding world.

Anyone know about this?

Big listers mostly spend lots and lots of time world birding. And they generally are experienced, so they see more than average on a "communal" trip and can also successfully find birds by themselves. They learn calls, for example.

Those who I met, do both standard tours and do lots of long birding independently, where they occassionally take a local guide. They usually fill the common birding destinations, and then go for tours into less known places (e.g. weird islets of Indonesia).

I did not met anyone yet who had such a full list that he had to do a whole overseas tour for a single species.

 

[dantheman]

I would agree with that but I actually think you learn more birding without a guide because of having to look more closely at the bird and the struggles of identifying difficult things. Personally I really am not a fan of birding with a guide because I find it much more satisfying finding my own stuff - although I will very occasionally hire one for stuff I really want to see and know I have no realistic chance of finding on my own e.g. green-breasted pitta - but I have not the slightest doubt that I would have a bigger list (if I kept one) if I did always hire one, although the cost would mean that I would have spent a lot less time abroad.

For the first time ever, and I have been doing independent tropical trips since the I was 19, I have bitten the bullet and I am going on fully guided trip but that is for night mammals in Sri Lanka where there is no real alternative if I want to have much success.

In the past quite a few big world 'listers' did do independent trips but I doubt many to now. Alan Lewis may be one of the few.

Interesting ... maybe impossible to work out (but may have a general idea) - would you have seen more by not having any guides? You may have been infering this - if you (or someone else) took say 6 unguided birding trips abroad for the same cost as eg 2 fully guided trips (bird holidays) would you have a greater total world list ... would this still hold after say, 12 trips etc ...

Time and money ...

 

[jurek]

Interesting ... maybe impossible to work out (but may have a general idea) - would you have seen more by not having any guides? You may have been infering this - if you (or someone else) took say 6 unguided birding trips abroad for the same cost as eg 2 fully guided trips (bird holidays) would you have a greater total world list ... would this still hold after say, 12 trips etc ...

Time and money ...

For a small attempt, I did twice the same birding circuit in a rainforest: one day with a guide, another one without a guide. It was in New Guinea and in Costa Rica. To my surprise, day total was exactly the same. But I take care to find birds on my own (although I am not a big lister by any means).

Granted, some low-density species are easily findable only by knowing an exact territory. But these species are surprisingly low percentage of the total, and spending time in the field you are likely to pop up on them by chance. Besides, a GPS or ebird can substitute for a guide.

 

[opisska]

I would personally like there to be two "categories" for competition in listing - for people who do and who do not take guides (or better a list of birds seen "in any way" and another one for those seen without guides). I have nothing against people using guides if they enjoy that, but for the purpose of a competition it seems a bit silly to have a competition in who can pay the most people to show them the most birds, doesn't it? But nobody really seems to do so. I would have quite the respect for a person with the fattest "non-guided" list, but I have no idea how to find who that is. (I have a basically non-guided list - yes we took the odd "compulsory guide" here and there and a few boatmen to ferry us around where we had no boat of our own, but none of those people were ever actually helpful for seeing any birds and I could cross the few species obtained this way if needed - but it wouldn't change the fact that the list is too small anyway )

 

[Farnboro John]

If you look at the biggest listers most of them are guides themselves some/all of the time..... there is no future in subdividing competitive listing. All that matters to any onlooker is the biggest list. How you get it may make a readable book if the lister can write or it may be a dull litany of species.

John

 

[jurek]

Bird guides often string species to satisfy a customer (and their boss), so a person relying on a guide would have an inflated list.

The problem is that many places on the world are realistically reachable only on an organized tour, or with a compulsory guide. Organized tours are taken most often for sorting logistics.

Good world birders I met were very capable of finding birds independently of the guide, and often found a bird before the guide and pointed it to others.

In fact, an organized tour is worse for watching birds than an independent one, if you can do it. Trying to see a skulking rainforest bird in a group of 6 or 8 is a nightmare.

 

[Mysticete]

I would personally like there to be two "categories" for competition in listing - for people who do and who do not take guides (or better a list of birds seen "in any way" and another one for those seen without guides). I have nothing against people using guides if they enjoy that, but for the purpose of a competition it seems a bit silly to have a competition in who can pay the most people to show them the most birds, doesn't it? But nobody really seems to do so. I would have quite the respect for a person with the fattest "non-guided" list, but I have no idea how to find who that is. (I have a basically non-guided list - yes we took the odd "compulsory guide" here and there and a few boatmen to ferry us around where we had no boat of our own, but none of those people were ever actually helpful for seeing any birds and I could cross the few species obtained this way if needed - but it wouldn't change the fact that the list is too small anyway )

Competitive birding, even without guides, comes down to money and time anyway. And people with the most time often have that time because of money.

I live comfortably and can afford to take birding trips far from home. But last I checked, just flying round trip to someplace like Malaysia would eat up the majority of my birding money before I was even on the ground. Someone in a higher paid job or otherwise with more financial support can easily do several trips a year to places outside my budget.

 

[Lerxst]

In fact, an organized tour is worse for watching birds than an independent one, if you can do it. Trying to see a skulking rainforest bird in a group of 6 or 8 is a nightmare.

Exactly. Which is why we never do organized tours. I always just find local guides so there are at most three of us. We once did a big group tour sort of by chance in Tobago (a group of a dozen or so had space on the bus and we had no other options) and it was the one of the worst birding experiences we ever had.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Exactly. Which is why we never do organized tours. I always just find local guides so there are at most three of us. We once did a big group tour sort of by chance in Tobago (a group of a dozen or so had space on the bus and we had no other options) and it was the one of the worst birding experiences we ever had.

I am sure that it was frustrating but a bird tour of Tobago is unlikely to make one of my worst birding experiences..... Your phrase immediately triggererd recollections of some of my worst experiences including soaking birdless seawatches, wading through a swamp & getting a nail in my foot, etc. Yep. Pretty confident. (I prefer to avoid tours as well. )

All the best

Paul

 

[Lerxst]

Another reason for a guide (sort of specific to my own peculiar case) is that I need another pair of good eyes (besides those of my wife) to help get me on difficult-to-see birds. I especially appreciate guides that can pick out forest or canopy birds and get them in the scope, because otherwise I'm probably not going to find them.

No question that a high life bird count is usually correlated to how much money you can spend on it. In our case we were able to attack this problem because I spent years getting myself into the correct organization in my company so as to get occasional remote work assignments in Asia. We used that to get in our Eastern Hemisphere birding without spending a fortune. But it basically meant doing work in manufacturing, something that was not interesting or fulfilling to me at all. It certainly was not what I spent 10 years in college for... I always felt that I prostituted my services so as to get birds. Or sold my soul. But it was worth it.