Dear All,
I have just read the latest issue of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's
magazine "Living Bird". Each edition has an opinion piece "The Catbird
Seat" by contributing editor Pete Dunne. This edition's piece contains
an interesting bit of crystal ball gazing by Pete on the way
technology as applied to birding is headed. An extract is as follows:
"Consider. There are imaging systems that can read a bar code on the
windshield of a car as it speeds past a tollbooth. There are programs
that allow passenger screeners at airports to identify individuals by
scanning their eyes.
How long do you think it will be before there will be bird-
identification programs, satellite-linked to your techno-bino, that
will capture the image of the bird you see and download the image to
your computer at home? Identify it. File it in your Day List, Year
List, County List, Life List…for your review. After you get home.
And 100 years of compounded and refined field-identification skills
become about as useful as knowing how to calculate a square root on a
slide rule or change a typewriter ribbon."
Pete continues as follows and I wholeheartedly agree with him, even
though it would place me in the category of "fuddy-duddy geek"
"So I have, accordingly and cheerfully, proclaimed myself a fuddy-
duddy. A stone-knives-and-binocular-toting birder, who is content to
identify—or misidentify— real birds in real time (and have a blast
doing it)."
The whole piece can be read at :
http://www.livingbird.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=2032
Happy New Year to All,
Carl Clifford==============================
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