It's interesting the way this news has been received on this forum. Why
can't we just be happy for them and supportive of their quest rather than
lambasting their carbon usage? I am in awe and will be eagerly following
their postings as I did for Sean Dooley's Big Year. If I had the money I
can't think of a better way of spending 12 months, though it would probably
be more enjoyable to do it at a less frantic pace.
Good on them!
Cheers
Alastair
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Keith Weekes
Sent: Wednesday, 2 January 2008 8:30 AM
Cc: BIRDING-AUS
Subject: The Biggest Twitch
Impressive isn't quite the word that I would use for it. If they succeed in
their attempt they will have achieved nothing more than spent a lot of money
and burnt a lot of fuel, while contributing virtually nothing to the
scientific body of knowledge, since most birds will be from tip offs from
someone else.
On 02/01/2008, Dave Torr <> wrote:
>
> Certainly an impressive attempt! Most taxonomies have the number of
> species
> just under the 10,000 mark so as a %age it is slightly lower than your
> estimate Laurie. Guess they will collect a lot of frequent flyer points?
> (and probably fly on some pretty dubious airlines as well!)
>
> On 01/01/2008, L&L Knight <> wrote:
> >
> > The challenge would seem to be a case of moving on so that you see an
> > average of 11 new birds per day. It's a similar challenge to
> > rogaining where you are trying to choose a route that will maximise
> > the number of points you can collect within the allocated time.
> >
> > It is very much a case of collecting the "low hanging fruit" so that
> > you can whip through an area and catch the readily seeable birds.
> > From memory, I think that there are 9000 species of birds in the
> > world, so 4000 birds would be ~ 45% of the total . In Australia's
> > case, 45% is about 330 species [need to exclude OS migratory birds to
> > eliminate double-counting], which an organised twitcher could probably
> > get in a couple of weeks. Other parts of the world may be harder
> > work, so perhaps the twitchers could try to rack up 450 in Australia
> > in a month to generate a bit of slack.
> >
> > Ultimately, it is a case of $$$ as well as stamina, birding expertise
> > and intelligent decision-making [based on the acquisition of many
> > "where to find the birds of _______" books].
> >
> > Regards, Laurie.
> >
> >
> > On 01/01/2008, at 9:29 PM, Rosemary Royle wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Birding Aussers,
> > >
> > > You may be interested to know that two birders from Wales - Alan
> > > Davies and Ruth Miller - have just started an attempt to see the
> > > most birds in a year. The current record is 3662 and their project
> > > is called, not surprisingly, "The Biggest Twitch".
> > >
> > > They have a good website and their progress will be logged on a
> > > regular basis. See
> > > http://www.thebiggesttwitch.com/
> > >
> > > Happy New Year
> > >
> > > Rosemary Royle
> > > Wales, UK
> >
> > ===============================
> > www.birding-aus.org
> > birding-aus.blogspot.com
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> > send the message:
> > unsubscribe
> > (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> > to:
> > ===============================
> >
> ===============================
> www.birding-aus.org
> birding-aus.blogspot.com
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
> send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to:
> ===============================
>
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
