BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="GrizGrouse" data-source="post: 3496020" data-attributes="member: 140448">I've gotta say that I find this to be total nonsense. Birders are motivated and excited by many things; visual distinctiveness, rarity, song, behavior, or conservation concern. To say that there is some 'agreement' as to which species are sufficiently distinctive while implying that others are somehow superfluous seems incorrect to me. You're certainly entitled to your own opinion on what makes birds and birding fun for you, but let's not pretend there is some sort of consensus. I for one will happily fly a flag for the group that enjoys nuances that separate similar species. I would love to see some examples of un-credentialed (whatever that means) folks getting taxonomic papers published which then lead to splits. Never seen it myself and I spend quite a bit of time mired in the bird systematics literature.   Cheers,Andy</blockquote>