Why should I want to know your life/UK/patch list? (1 Viewer)

[Sancho]

Another pointless observation...one could extend the argument "why should I be interested in your lists" to "why should I be interested in your gallery/your opinions/your activities or anything else about you", and look on a forum as merely a means of getting responses to one´s requests for specific information. But surely all of us BF members are better than that .

 

[MSA]

I have a life list of 192 birds. I've got 156 this year. Who do you reckon I'm competing with?

Possibly my dog, who has a life list marginally ahead of yours - unfortunately she doesn't keep a year list, having no real concept of time...

 

[ColinD]

Another pointless observation...one could extend the argument "why should I be interested in your lists" to "why should I be interested in your gallery/your opinions/your activities or anything else about you", and look on a forum as merely a means of getting responses to one´s requests for specific information. But surely all of us BF members are better than that .

:clap:
Sancho, that's exactly the point I've been trying to get over from the start. Thank you for putting it so much better than I can.

Live and let live I say.....

 

[colonelboris]

Possibly my dog, who has a life list marginally ahead of yours - unfortunately she doesn't keep a year list, having no real concept of time...

Damn! it must be harder for a dog to keep a year list as they age seven times faster than us, so have to bird seven times harder to keep up...

 

[deborah4]

Damn! it must be harder for a dog to keep a year list as they age seven times faster than us, so have to bird seven times harder to keep up...

So start a 7 year list instead of annually and of course, there's always woodlice to make your lists more interesting

(now what was it I need to day? ... aah... Brillo Pads!)

 

[DunnoKev]

Another pointless observation...one could extend the argument "why should I be interested in your lists" to "why should I be interested in your gallery/your opinions/your activities or anything else about you", and look on a forum as merely a means of getting responses to one´s requests for specific information. But surely all of us BF members are better than that .

Well, yes we are better than that, and that's why we've got all the different forums, so we can look at what we want to - choice. I don't think I've ever looked in the Galleries, and for sure I''ve never bothered to delve into 'Lists and Members' Yearly Lists' because it isn't my cup of tea. That's why we have different forums, for the like-minded to get together - so go knock yourselves out in there people and enjoy yourself - just rappreciate some people ain't convinced, and remember Sherlock Holmes always thought your signature said an awful lot about you...

kEvvnin
Wot I have seen today I have seen a goose and a swan and a sheep and a cow and... ;-)

 

[ColinD]

Well, yes we are better than that, and that's why we've got all the different forums, so we can look at what we want to - choice. I don't think I've ever looked in the Galleries, and for sure I''ve never bothered to delve into 'Lists and Members' Yearly Lists' because it isn't my cup of tea. That's why we have different forums, for the like-minded to get together - so go knock yourselves out in there people and enjoy yourself - just rappreciate some people ain't convinced, and remember Sherlock Holmes always thought your signature said an awful lot about you...

This forum is called Birds and Birding. It's a general forum for people who go birding. I do a lot of birding, that's why I'm here. Perhaps it would have been better if a topic such as this had been raised in Ruffled feathers? It would have been much better suited to that because it was bound to cause controversy. I agree that the thread originator was only asking a question (which I tried to answer), but it was always likely to get hijacked. Just like you don't want to see lists, I don't want to see rants on the general birding forum.

 

[MSA]

Damn! it must be harder for a dog to keep a year list as they age seven times faster than us, so have to bird seven times harder to keep up...

Quite! Holding a pencil was also causing problems, so I do the ticks, she just barks at the appropriate point on the list. Hope she never finds an RBC bird, her notes are atrocious!

 

[gw4aurora]

Damn! it must be harder for a dog to keep a year list as they age seven times faster than us, so have to bird seven times harder to keep up...

No, it's easier for a dog because they are better at flushing birds than us.

Chris

 

[Barred Wobbler]

I started my list by accident.

Over 30 years ago I got a copy of Heinzel, Fitter and Parslow's "The Birds of Britain and Europe with North Africa and the Middle East" (Collins) to help me out with identification and also because I liked to look at the pictures. I didn't even own a pair of binoculars until some years later.

I'd had an interest in wildlife in general since I was a boy, and also photography and painting/drawing.

One night I was thumbing through the book and I realised that I'd seen quite a few of the species on offer and I wondered how many I'd seen, so I set to work with a pencil and put a tick next to the relevant birds. I see from my notes at the back that by July 1977 I'd seen 130 species out of the 240 on the maps at the back. This rose slowly because I wasn't what we would call a birder and I tended to wait for the birds to come and see me, rather than me go hunting for them. 150 wasn't reached until October 1982, when I came across a memorable bird. I was going home for lunch (I worked very close to home) and just as I climbed over the fence into my garden (we lived in the country) a great grey shrike flew across the bottom of our garden and landed in an ash tree nearby. I think this bird woke me up to what was out there.

The aquisition of a pair of binoculars some years later saw a jump in the number of species on my "list" (although it wasn't a list at the time and I didn't even know that such things were kept) and also a jump in the rate of increase. Later still a telescope caused another acceleration, as did trips abroad.

It wasn't until many years after I'd started putting ticks in my book when I was talking to someone at work who was a keen birder (as well as a geologist) that I realised that other people kept lists of their own and I eventually was introduced to the concept of listing. It was later still when I found out about county lists and stuff like that.

I've seen a lot more than 130 now, but I'm not about to bore you with the details.

Just an anecdote about how I came to list without even knowing the concept existed at the time.

 

[Xenospiza]

Just an anecdote about how I came to list without even knowing the concept existed at the time.

Very recognisable!

 

[ColinD]

...Just an anecdote about how I came to list without even knowing the concept existed at the time.

Thanks for that Alan. Very interesting, and incredibley similar to how I started, ticking off maps in the back of the same book when I was a boy.

I also saw a memorable bird in 1982 which changed by birding career, Green Heron on Humberside, though I admit I didn't find that for myself.

Ok, I'm going to move out of childish mode and get rid of my lists from my signature. I now realise that it's too dangerous to go against the flow on Bird Forums, and will now conform to the norm (oops, there I go into childish mode again....)

 

[Sancho]

Ok, I'm going to move out of childish mode and get rid of my lists from my signature.

Hey, don't do that, Coigach! I was just about to start compiling and posting my list and redesigning my signature!

 

[Tero]

I too think a 'self found' list matginally more interesting. Once worked out what that was too - can't remember it either!

good thing these are personal lists
nobody will believe my Prairie Falcon, looking for a second one every time I go West

 

[Squonk]

Well I enjoy reading people's list totals, and their latest additions to those lists, in their signatures. It adds something else that is interesting to the post. It tells me a bit about the person, what type of birder they are, maybe even where they've been recently. It's sometimes also intriguing as I wonder: where did they see that? If for any reason I don't want to read the signature I just skip over it.

So I hope this thread has not caused some members who had their lists in their signatures to remove them - I suspect it already has though. In that case what contribution has this thread made to BirdForum? (My answer would be: a slightly negative one.)

 

[michaelmacey]

Im a little surprised at the Thread. Does it matter what people put in their 'signiture box'? And surely we're not going to fall out over it. Lists which are included do, as some have said, offer a short insight into the birding knowledge of that person. Im on a rather low 118, which proves im a bit of a novice to many of the more experianced birders out there. And i dont feel at all inadaquate when i read someone else has 119, or 219, or 319. Size isnt everything you know. I have a quote which i like from an Issak Walton book, which i may put in the box instead, providing it isnt going to upset anyone.

As i said though, im a little surprised the thread started, as i know john to be a very decent chap. We have talked via pm and i suspect he's having a bad day. Maybe its the weather.

 

[Sancho]

I have a quote which i like from an Issak Walton book, which i may put in the box instead, providing it isnt going to upset anyone.

As i said though, im a little surprised the thread started, as i know john to be a very decent chap.

John is indeed a very decent chap, and his disclaimer at the beginning of the first post demonstrates this...he didn´t set out to upset anyone, he was just asking a polite question. It led to interesting and civil debate among friends. (Not like all that Ivory-Billed Woodpecker stuff!!! ). It also helped many of us clarify our own thoughts. Thank you, John!

Your quote from Isaak Walton, Michael, is superb. I´m committing it to memory. Thank you!!!:t:

 

[Larry Sweetland]

the last three posts are brilliant

 

[John Cantelo]

STOP IT! I'm blushing!

Yes, it was a bit of a bad day at the chalkface and I admit I knew I was being a bit provocative. However, I meant what I said in the disclaimer - I really don't understand why people should post such detailed info about their list or why they'd think it of much interest. Clearly others are of a different opinion. What does come out as negative is the way in which some people use this information to make judgements about the poster .... which is exactly why I'm surprised that people make themselves vulnerable in this way,


John

 

[whomes]

OK I'm obviously a minority of one here. I still can't quite see why anyone else should want to know or why anyone should think they would, but I can live with that. As for Andrew's posting I'll admit I found it rather cryptic as my dictionary doesn't have 'ravid' in it and I've not the faintest idea who Larry David is!

John

Ravid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravid

Larry David - is of 'Curb your enthuisiasm' fame

In answer to the previous wood louse reference book question - 'Of Lice and Men' would probably fit the bill.