Does anyone not keep a life list? (1 Viewer)

[YuShan]

Just wanna see what it feels like when I get rid of all potentially competitive things out of bird watching,

I do keep a life list, but for me it is not a competitive thing at all. It is just for myself and I don't share it with anybody. It is simply nice to have some kind of goal when making wonderful trips. It also gives me great satisfaction when I go through my lists in Scythebill (locally stored on my PC) and recall all the wonderful adventures I undertook in order to see these birds. There are so many beautiful memories attached to it!

Until 2015 when I met a few American birders, I didn't even know that competitive birding was a thing! I thought birders were just people who loved nature. It felt so counterintuitive, because aren't you going into nature to escape from it all?

So instead of not keeping a list, you can also just keep your list private, so you are not "competing" with anybody. But it still gives gives you the satisfaction of adding new birds to your list, just for yourself. I see it as a form of collecting, in the same way as people used to collect post stamps and were happy when they were able to add some rare post stamp to their collection, and had to make some effort to get it.

The nice thing with birding is that you are not collecting physical things but memories, and that the process to collect them involves wonderful trips, exotic destinations, lots of walking, and spending a lot of time outside. It's healthy too, both physically and mentally. Plus it satisfies our hard-wired hunting instinct, but without harming any living creature.

I'm hoping it means I pick places to visit based on how fun I think they'll be, and also lower my expectations and result in some fun surprises!

Yes, it is all about having a wonderful time! The list itself is not the goal. If it was all about the list itself and competing, I would simply go on an expensive birding tour and get a guide and tick off hundreds of species in 10 days that my guide finds for me. But where is the fun in that? Instead, I like to spend more time enjoying nature and finding the birds by myself, even though I'll end up with a shorter list and miss out on many of the rarities. But it is all self found and identified instead of a pre-packaged guaranteed thing. Something I can feel satisfied with, but would fall short if comparing myself with others who were solely focused on the list

 

[Mono]

There isn't a "right way" to do birding. It is a hobby we do for our own enjoyment, although sometimes this is type 2 enjoyment. If it gets people to appreciate and value nature then it is a good thing.

 

[Paul Chapman]

There isn't a "right way" to do birding. It is a hobby we do for our own enjoyment, although sometimes this is type 2 enjoyment. If it gets people to appreciate and value nature then it is a good thing.

Are you sure? I do X. Other people do Y. I could do Y but I don't and let's face it, people who do Y aren't as good and do not really care about wildlife and birds in the same way as people who do X...... [Insert any personal activities as appropriate.]

More seriously, I think that future progress is really holistic wildlife recording and indeed encouraging wildlife charities to engage in that for the better preservation of the maximum number of species on land they manage. Birding and bird recording is really a bit high in the foodchain to provide the most valuable input for management of land and 'listing' can actually be quite valuable in wildlife recording overall in providing that holistic picture to improve management decisions:-

: Watercress Farm Life List | BUBO Listing

View all the species on any list for any lister, and check out their top targets and blockers!

bubo.org

All the best

Paul

 

[spoonily]

I'm really sorry if it feels like my replies make others feel judged for doing things the way that they enjoy doing thing, that wasn't my intention. I tried to be very careful with my wording to make sure it's clear that these were my feelings about how I experience bird watching, not how others experience it, but it seems I missed the mark. 😞

I never wanted to make it sound like I thought listers don't care about wildlife or conservation, in fact I always encourage anyone to just do whatever makes you happy in any hobby (as long as you're not hurting yourselves or others). The friend who got me into bird watching is a big lister, and the "collecting" aspect of it is what really drew me into the hobby in the first place! It's just that recently I've found that for me, the collecting part of it was shaping how I approach bird watching because I'm unable to shake off my competitiveness.

I posed this question because I wanted to hear from others about how they enjoy bird watching with or without lists, and never intended for this to be about "us vs. them". I encourage anyone to enjoy their hobbies in whatever way they enjoy it, and I'm really sorry if it felt like I was suggesting otherwise.

 

[Farnboro John]

I'm really sorry if it feels like my replies make others feel judged for doing things the way that they enjoy doing thing, that wasn't my intention. I tried to be very careful with my wording to make sure it's clear that these were my feelings about how I experience bird watching, not how others experience it, but it seems I missed the mark. 😞

I never wanted to make it sound like I thought listers don't care about wildlife or conservation, in fact I always encourage anyone to just do whatever makes you happy in any hobby (as long as you're not hurting yourselves or others). The friend who got me into bird watching is a big lister, and the "collecting" aspect of it is what really drew me into the hobby in the first place! It's just that recently I've found that for me, the collecting part of it was shaping how I approach bird watching because I'm unable to shake off my competitiveness.

I posed this question because I wanted to hear from others about how they enjoy bird watching with or without lists, and never intended for this to be about "us vs. them". I encourage anyone to enjoy their hobbies in whatever way they enjoy it, and I'm really sorry if it felt like I was suggesting otherwise.

Honestly don't worry about it. We only join the debate because its interesting to us. Anyway, Darwin made it clear that all life is competition whether or not those involved realise it, so it's only a question of the degree of self-awareness.

Cheers

John

 

[JWN Andrewes]

Yeah, it's not American politics, no right or wrong here.