Tam sent this confused, seemingly pointless Slate article about "the ominous rise of amateur ornithology."
It's a surprising compendium of erroneous and/or unsupported assertions, such as:
Interest in birdwatching is "renascent" (i.e., reborn) or "re-emerging." I know of no actual evidence suggesting that interest in birds in general or watching birds in particular was high at one point, then low, and is now high again. (Indeed, I have previously smacked down some bad interpretation of data that suggested an increase in birding's popularity, but even those guys didn't misconstrue the data to posit that this is a re-emerging popularity.) It's particularly odd given that the author later dates the birth of birdwatching to the 20th century.
"To the uninitiated, a bird-watcher's motives can seem puzzling, if not downright suspect." Really? How many people, other than the author of this article, would actually find themselves puzzled or suspicious of this activity? A lot of people would be like, I don't have any interest in getting up early and looking at birds, but I doubt they would find it unimaginable that some other people would want to do so.
"Birding is a steam valve for anxiety about nuclear-age strength and habits." Umm...right. (Back slowly away from the speaker.)
"...the birding community, these days, has moved on to gather, check, and share sightings across great distances using the fruits of technological industry." Exactly! This particular group of people has begun to incorporate technology into their daily lives and let it change somewhat how they undertake and communicate about their activities. Unlike, well... the Amish?
"A birder is a person who enjoys privileged aloneness." Nice spurious use of the adjective "privileged" - but how is this person's "aloneness" more privileged than anyone else's who isn't, you know, in a prison isolation unit? It's also odd that this statement is followed up by a description of the two birders who are taking him on a bird walk at a popular birding location in NYC.
"Some keep life lists (birds they want to see before they die)." Actually, a life list is a list of all birds that a person has seen in her lifetime, not a birding bucket list.
Overall, I think my favorite unsupported assertions relate to the motivations behind birding - that it is a) puzzling or suspect to the normal person, but b) relates to anxious concerns about living in a nuclear age, etc.
This article is a truly outstanding instantiation of the idea, discussed in lecture this week by the professor of the undergraduate research methods class I TA for, that psychological research is not journalism.
I guess I could go all Slate-y here and note that this list of 530 ideas for creating a bucket list includes one entry about birds - "Go bird watching in Costa Rica" - and 3 about golfing, 2 about sailing, 6 about running, 6 about martial arts, and 10 about dancing. And don't overlook the significance of "Dancing with the Stars" and other dance-related reality TV shows (of which there are none related to birding, as far as I know.) Oh my god. Let us all be concerned about the ominous rise of amateur dancing!
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"the first birders—as opposed to hunters or scientists—appeared in the late 19th century...partly as a reaction against the new effects of manufacturing. "
Or, rather, partly as a reaction TO the new effects of manufacturing. "Birding" as we know it wasn't possible before the advent of reasonable-cost precisely engineered lenses in...the late 19th century. The shotgun was used prior to then because you couldn't actually ID birds through telescopes or binoculars before good lenses were available.
It was truly bizarre - the whole way he wrote the article was as if he were describing some kind of strange sexual fetish.
I think most people who enjoy nature at all understand the appeal of looking at birds, even if they're not interested enough to actually go birding specifically.
It was also weird how, after spending the entire time describing how strange, ominous, and linked-to-fears-about-modernity birding is, the author concluded that we should let birders show us the way to the bright new future. Or something.
The thing that comes to my mind is the ominous rise of amateur journalism... and the irony of getting it so wrong in the so-called information age. Based on your summary only, of course - I trust you to have read the article for me and extracted the interesting bits ;)
Rvman, that's another great screw-up by the writer.
Tam, yeah, that last sentence came out of nowhere.
Jen, hah! Of course, with "professional" journalism this bad, it's not hard for us amateurs to meet the standard. :)
And here I thought I just like birds. Huh, didn't realize I need to be afraid of the nuclear age. I must say that anxiety and fear of the nuclear age was much clearer back in the 50's and 60's with drills where we hid under our desks at school and the building of bomb shelters in back yards.
Mom, good point - I definitely associate "fear of the nuclear bomb" with the 60s. Perhaps the writer should have linked birdwatching to the rise of terrorism instead.
I was afraid of nuclear bombs in the 80s, along with sharks and cancer. My appreciation for birds seems to have increased as my fear of nuclear bombs has diminished. Coincidence...or something more?
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