Thanks for your thoughtful posting, Greg.  And yes, my husband and I
feel very much as you describe:
". . .the personal reward of discovery is much more gratifying than
pulling up to a pre-destined location and looking at a bird someone
else found."  In that way, we especially have enjoyed participating in
the winter bird and breeding bird atlases in recent years, because it
enhanced our knowledge both of the areas in our locale that birds use
and provided surprises in birds that we didn't expect to see that
day.  I've also learned a lot when we've birded a particular site over
and over in the course of a season or year--surprises abound.

It has led us to a deeper understanding of the links between birds and
their niches.  For instance, we've been amazed at the numbers of cedar
waxwings we've watched for a few weeks now eating cherries and hawking
for insects at a local undeveloped park, or the number of sparrows
using the large weedy patch during migration.

And yes, we would withhold a good siting if we think the area couldn't
withstand the onslaught of birders.  Too many times we've witnessed
birders going beyond the requested bounds to get that picture or
sighting.  If we were guaranteed to see the birds we hoped to see,
birding would lose much of its fun!

Helen Ostermiller

On Sep 30, 2010, at 9:46 AM, Greg Links wrote:

> I'm not judging anyone for chasing or listing; I sometimes wonder -
> do others feel as I do, that the personal reward of discovery is
> much more gratifying than pulling up to a pre-destined location and
> looking at a bird someone else found?  Like Bill says, nothing wrong
> with following - but understanding habitat preference, seasonality,
> behavior and tendencies of species is information that is readily
> available and goes a long way to being able to enjoy discovery of
> your "own" birds.

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]