Ohio birding community,

I enjoy the well-considered sort of April Fool's prank described by Haans,
below. I recall a few gems! I don't need to look very far to find more of
them. Not long ago, Ohio Birds Listserv pranksters could rest assured that
listserv contributors were mostly part of the in-crowd; older, savvy,
technically equipped, mostly male, long invested and significantly committed
to birding and so-on. Importantly, these guys were mostly acquainted at some
level, at least through long involvement in Ohio birding. This sort of
audience invites pranks because they are inoculated (through previous
controlled exposure) against costly consequences. The community has changed.

March 31, Kenn Kaufman, undoubtedly the most personally generous birder I
know, posted a cautionary note in order to inoculate our changing community
against costly consequences of April Fool's Day pranks. Thank you, Kenn.
Kenn has achieved a global vantage point few others enjoy. I haven't talked
with him in a while, but I know that Kenn sees the "writing on the wall"
that many others overlook. Birders are baby-boomers. Baby-boomers will soon
decline rapidly. We must do everything we can to engage younger birders and
more diverse participation in birding. Birders are important contributors
and voters due to their impact on habitat protections.

Kenn makes his living writing and selling excellent natural history guides
(and giving away Spanish language versions, and more!) and through natural
history guiding through top global services. Recent snide remarks about
profiting from birding suggest systemic failure to embrace the importance of
economic churn to birding and conservation, not to mention the obvious value
of rare talent and skill. Economics, like it or not, will determine the
future of birding and conservation. More than anything else, birding needs
measured and reported economic impacts. Go start a birding business!

Ohio's birding community has long manifest abundant generosity through
no-cost services we provide and take for granted. The real value of the
self-governed integrated bird reporting and filtering systems in Ohio is
immeasurable. Ohio is blessed to host a legion of generous birders always at
the ready to help others at their own expense. We need that generosity along
with economic churn to impact the future. Thank you all for your
contributions.

The birding community is changing and that's a good thing. Out listserv must
serve and appeal to a broad audience. I infrequently, grudgingly participate
in Facebook, guess I'm dating myself, that's the point. I need the listserv,
others need Facebook and its ilk. New forums are a boon for birding and
conservation, that's a good thing. These forums must be inviting and
considerate of diverse viewpoints and diverse experience levels.

Find eye-opening stats about birding here:
http://pcjv.org/docs/2011%20Birding%20Report--FINAL.pdf

Tom Bain
Ohio's Clayey Till Plain
Delaware County


-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio birds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Haans
Petruschke
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 5:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [Ohio-birds] Fwd: April fools posting

Thanks Joe, I agree

A few of points beyond curmudgeonly behavior on the part of some.

1. A good April 1 post requires planning.  It cannot be done spur of the
moment or else it ends up being something like reporting an Ivory-billed
Peckerwood. Lame.

2.  The person doing the post must have a high level of visibility and
credibility in the community.  I don't really qualify anymore because I only
post a handful of times a year.

3. It must border on being believable, but, be a bit beyond.  What this is
varies, but the idea is to just suck people in.  Make it just plausible
enough that even experts will question it even though it is really a 1 in a
billion chance of being real.

4. It really helps if you have cooperation or collaboration.  A classic was
when I posted a Boat-billed Heron at Shipman Pond and Joe Hammod
photoshopped a picture which he posted as a confirmation of the sighting,
having charted a helicopter to travel several hundred miles in 90 minutes
after my report. Fun!

While I don't post much I do still read the list serve posts daily.  I think
another reason for the lack of fun is the community has changed.  The Ohio
Birds List Serve rarely has any interesting discussion as it did a decade
ago, and if you do post a non sighting you get plenty of hate mail.
 Also the Ohio birding community has become quite divided or fictionalized
in the past 4 years or so.  When it was a private entity run by VWF III,
discussion and having fun was encouraged.  Now birding has become, for some,
an economic interest and so nothing which might discourage interest is in
any way received without protest.

Finally a whole lot of the bird related discussion had migrated to Facebook.
We have some excellent groups here in Ohio and our state is on the leading
edge of this.  I was hoping to see something there.  I would have done
something myself but did not have time because I'm in the middle of
transferring computers.

Haans


On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 5:17 PM, Joe Faulkner <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Fellow birders with and without a sense of humor,
>
>      It appears that a reasonably harmless tradition on this list
> serve has been stomped to death like a wounded pigeon on a New York
> side walk.  I speak, of course, of the bazaar sightings and events
> often posted on April 1st by some of the veteran  birders on this list
> serve.  I personally thought they were fun, and for the most part,
> quite harmless.  If a few beginning and apparently gullible birders
> got fooled and chased something that wasn't there, then too bad.  That's
what April Fools Day is all about.
>  I fooled several of you and my good friend Rick Taylor into believing
> that my dog was eaten by a Great Horned Owl.  He stayed up all night
> trying to figure out how to keep me from killing the owl, and called
> me a very bad name when he found out the truth.  I got many sympathy
> emails about that dog.  Rick and I are still friends, and the dog is fine.
>      Please note that the well regarded NPR does a April Fools day
> story every year, that fools a lot of people, including me.  Two of my
> birding colleagues have already told me that they looked for April
> fools posts today, and were disappointed when they didn't find any.
>      As I recall the composition of this group, we are all mature
> (mostly)
> adults(mostly) who can take a joke (mostly).  So, I am personally
> hoping that next April 1, there will be a few more bazaar sightings
> and bazaar events that fool a few gullible people.  If they are
> beginning birders, they would still have access to calendars , and
> would know, just like the rest of us, that it is April Fools Day.
>
> Joe in the woods
> Somerset, Ohio
> Perry County
>
>   By the way, I found a NESTING SNOWY OWL at the Perry County Wilds, but
> chose not to post it.   Didn't want anyone driving down here and
disturbing
> the nesting owl.
>
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______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.


You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
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Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]