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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sclateria" data-source="post: 1797734" data-attributes="member: 18066">I'm a bit shocked at reading some of the discourse here. I didn't realize that museum scientists and traditional taxonomic methods had become the subjects of such vilification.Regarding the quoted question, I suspect it'd be much more useful to examine the stomach contents to determine the diet of a bird, given the difficulties involved in following say, a barbet, for twelve hours daily to see what it eats. A Capito barbet, being frugivorous, would then in turn be quite a bit easier than a canopy insectivore along the lines of a Terenura antwren. Observer quality and familiarity with local food sources would be extremely variable. There would be no way to repeat the study to verify its accuracy. If you wanted to study the diet of a given species, you'd be best off examining the stomach contents of a series of specimens. It isn't a question of easy or hard, you'll simply get a great deal more trustworthy data this way. Bradley Davis</blockquote>