tick Challenge

["Philip Veerman" <>]

That is something that everyone finds after being at this for many years. (I have been a member of bird groups since 1970). I am no longer interested in spending a lot of time, money and effort in taking photos. The effort it takes can detract from other things and there are plenty of other people who are good at it. There are two other remedies, travel to new and distant places which costs a lot or take an interest in the birds as living things and not diminishing your interest by relating it just to ticking off lists. Of course I like to see new species and list ticking was important to me many years ago but hardly rates at all with me now. For example and it may come as a bit of a surprise from someone who spent so many years looking at numbers for COG's GBS but I have no idea what is the number of bird species I have seen, in total or in any particular place or any time period. Some people regard these numbers (their own, not mine) as very important. I guess the reason is that the data in the GBS work leads to information about what the population trends for the birds have been and that is the interesting part, also that the work and the publication was clearly done for COG's benefit, not my own.

 

Philip